Hamas politburo calls for an end to the war

Differences in management

2023 December 20 . 11:30 AM

2 min read

Husam Badran, member of the Hamas politburo, has made explosive statements in an interview..aussiedlerbote.de

Hamas politburo calls for an end to the war

A conflict is brewing within Hamas. While the militant Islamists continue to engage in fierce battles with Israel, their political arm is talking about an end to the war and with Palestinian rivals about the time afterwards.

According to a media report, after more than two months of war in the Gaza Strip, differences are increasingly emerging within the leadership of the Islamist Hamas over the future course of action. While the military arm of Hamas, led by Jihia Sinwar, continues to fight with Israel's army, representatives of the political arm of Hamas spoke about an end to the war and with Palestinian rivals about the time afterwards, according to a report in the "Wall Street Journal".

"We want the war to end," Husam Badran, a member of Hamas' political bureau, told the newspaper in Doha. "We are not just fighting because we want to fight. We are not supporters of a zero-sum game," Badran told the newspaper on the outskirts of the Qatari capital. While the political leadership of Hamas based there is now holding talks with its Palestinian rivals about how the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank should be governed after the end of the war, the militant arm under Sinwar continues to wage war in Gaza. Such negotiations threatened to turn into a conflict with Sinwar's militant wing, it was said. "We want to establish a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jerusalem," Badran told the newspaper.

The Hamas leader's remarks marked a clear turnaround from October 7, when the militant wing led a massacre in Israel. More than 1200 people were killed on the Israeli side. Israel responded with massive air strikes and a ground offensive. According to the Hamas-controlled health authority, the number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip has risen to almost 20,000 since the start of the war. The USA is counting on a revitalized and reshaped Palestinian Authority (PA) led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for the period after the Gaza war. The USA wants the PA, which governs the West Bank, to take back control of the Gaza Strip.

Israel rejects this and accuses it of supporting terror. Hamas forcibly expelled the PA from the coastal strip in 2007. Abbas heads the PA as well as the secular Fatah faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization. Fatah and Hamas are the two largest Palestinian organizations - and bitter rivals. Some representatives of the Fatah party had expressed understanding for Hamas' terrorist attacks in Israel. There have been reconciliation talks between the two groups for several years. The most recent talks between the political leadership of Hamas and Fatah had led to tensions with Sinwar, it was said. Sinwar did not want Hamas to continue to rule Gaza, but believed that the war was not yet lost. It was too early for a compromise.