Hamas says it will not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established as Israeli fire kills 18 in Gaza
The militant group said it was issuing a statement "in response to media reports quoting US envoy Steve Witkoff, claiming [Hamas] has shown willingness to disarm".
It continued: "We reaffirm that resistance and its arms are a legitimate national and legal right as long as the occupation continues.
"This right is recognised by international laws and norms, and it cannot be relinquished except through the full restoration of our national rights - first and foremost, the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital."
Hamas also condemned Mr Witkoff's visit to an aid distribution centre in on Friday as "nothing more than a premeditated staged show".
Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Mr Witkoff and Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to , visited a centre run by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Hamas said the trip was "designed to mislead public opinion, polish the image of the occupation, and provide it with political cover for its starvation campaign and continued systematic killing of defenceless children and civilians in the Gaza Strip".
Mr Witkoff said he spent "over five hours in Gaza". In a post on X on Friday, he said: "The purpose of the visit was to give [President Trump] a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza."
Read more:'Little confidence' in US officials seeing full picture
Gaza health officials have said 18 people, including eight who were trying to access food, were killed by Israeli fire on Saturday.
Witness Yahia Youssef told Reuters news agency he helped carry three people wounded by gunshots and saw others lying on the ground near a food distribution centre.
In response to questions about several eyewitness accounts of violence at one of its facilities, GHF said "nothing [happened] at or near our sites".
The US- and Israel-backed GHF has been marred by controversy and fatal shootings ever since it was set up earlier this year.
According to the United Nations' human rights office, at least 859 people have been killed "in the vicinity" of GHF aid sites since late May.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in an attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and abducted 251 others. Of those, they still hold around 50, with 20 believed to be alive, after most of the others were released in ceasefires or other deals.
Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between militants and civilians in its count.
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Hunger crisis in Gaza deepens criticisms of Israel on Capitol Hill
The winds are shifting in congressional attitudes towards Israel. Traditional bipartisan support is eroding on Capitol Hill as Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza has dragged on and the Palestinian casualties have soared. The pushback is surfacing in different forms and varying degrees of formality. There have been votes to block U.S. weapons sales and proposals to recognize a Palestinian state. Many lawmakers have issued statements of public condemnation. Others have gone a long step further with accusations of genocide. And unlike debates of the past, some of the harshest rebukes are coming from conservative Republicans who have traditionally been stalwart defenders of Israel's military exploits. It remains unclear if the blowback signals a hardened (and therefore durable) philosophical shift in thinking towards U.S.-Israel policy, or if it's merely a temporary protest of a specific episode that will dissipate when the fighting in Gaza subsides. But this much is clear: Something is changing on Capitol Hill, and it's influencing lawmakers in both parties. Some said Congress is simply reflecting shifting sentiments back in their districts. 'There's been an attitudinal change on Capitol Hill because the Israeli government's approval ratings by the people of the United States of America have been sinking. And they continue to sink, not just among Democratic voters but among Republican voters, as well,' Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) said Friday by phone. 'The problem for the Israeli government is that the American people know genocide when they see it.' Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), one of Israel's most vocal congressional defenders, said there's always been a natural 'ebb and flow' in U.S.-Israel relations — a vacillation occurring when 'the politics of the United States intersects with the reality of what's going on in Israel,' he said. 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And the tensions have only grown since Netanyahu formed the most far-right coalition government in Israeli history, which is opposed to the two-state blueprint Democrats deem the only workable way to achieve a lasting peace in the region. 'The worst thing for Israel, and the U.S.-Israel relationship, is for that relationship to become a partisan issue. And we're finding it becoming a partisan issue,' Schneider said. 'In no small part, a lot of the blame rests on the shoulders of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the actions he's taken across many years.' The Democratic critics are all quick to emphasize their support for the state of Israel and its right to self-defense, particularly in the wake of Hamas's attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, which led to the death of roughly 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 250. 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Fox News
an hour ago
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The revelations about the U.N.'s faulty aid system also come amid worldwide condemnation of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a new U.S. and Israel-backed aid distribution mechanism, devised, in part, to prevent aid from falling into Hamas' hands. The U.N. has refused to cooperate with the GHF. The aid group announced on Sunday that it had delivered nearly 105 million meals to Gazans since it started operations in May. It also comes in sharp contrast to reports by some media outlets who chose to ignore evidence of Hamas stealing and reselling aid in order to fund its ongoing war – seemingly as a way to suggest that Israel is using starvation as a tactic of war or committing "genocide." Israel has emphatically denied both claims. A recent article in the New York Times even went as far as reporting that there was "no proof" that Hamas had stolen U.N. aid, despite countless documented accounts, including from freed Israeli hostages who reported seeing stockpiles of U.N.-branded products inside Hamas tunnels. Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said that not only did human rights organizations and many media outlets base their faulty reports on information published by Gaza's Ministry of Health, which is run by Hamas, they also did not "take the nature of Hamas seriously." "Hamas is not the most reliable source in the world," he said, adding that "the international media and other sources do not consider the interests of Hamas, or its strategy, and they do not seem to acknowledge that Hamas wants a chaotic situation in the Gaza Strip. Hamas wants there to be many casualties among Palestinian civilians, because it serves their interests." "Just to listen to what Hamas leaders have been saying since October 7," Michael continued. "They have promised to repeat October 7 again and again, they have called on the Arab world to join the armed resistance against Israel and on the Arab public to pressure their regimes. "They have also said publicly, and loudly, that they have no problem sacrificing another 100,000 Palestinian civilians for the sake of the victory," he said. Yet the GHF has faced scrutiny and blame for the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Gaza amid daily reports by Hamas-backed bodies of civilian deaths at or near their aid distribution points and following chaotic images of people fighting over the food packages or sheltering from gunfire. The new agency has hit back, saying that Hamas, the U.N. and other international aid agencies, are just hoping the initiative fails so they can control all aid operations in Gaza. On Friday, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, together with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, visited southern Gaza to inspect one of GHF's aid distribution sites. "Went into Gaza today & observed humanitarian food program by U.S. launched GHF. Hamas hates GHF b/c it gets food to ppl w/o it being looted by Hamas. Over 100 MILLION meals served in 2 months," Huckabee wrote in a post on X. David Makovsky, director of the Koret Project on Arab-Israel Relations at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said blame for the crisis should not be placed on one party but that "by bringing the U.N.'s own records to bear we can level-set the conversation. "There is a whole debate about GHF, which will not be settled today," he noted. "Yet, in a humanitarian emergency crisis, feeding people should take absolute top priority and I think it is incumbent for the U.N. and GHF to work together to feed people. "I hope that by bringing in lots of food into Gaza you can help innocent suffering people and also dramatically bring down black market rates exploited by Hamas which they use to control their people," said Makovsky.
