Hamas official says group would lay down its arms if an independent Palestinian state is established.

 Hamas official says group would lay down its arms if an independent Palestinian state is established

If that happens, he said, the group’s military wing would dissolve.

“All the experiences of people who fought against occupiers, when they became independent and obtained their rights and their state, what have these forces done? They have turned into political parties and their defending fighting forces have turned into the national army,” he said.Over the years, Hamas has sometimes moderated its public position with respect to the possibility of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

 But its political program still officially “rejects any alternative to the full liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea” — referring to the area reaching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, which includes lands that now make up Israel.

Al-Hayya did not say whether his apparent embrace of a two-state solution would amount to an end to the Palestinian conflict with Israel or an interim step toward the group’s stated goal of destroying Israel.

Ophir Falk, a foreign policy adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, declined to comment on Al-Hayya’s comments, dismissing him as a “high-ranking terrorist.” But he said Hamas had broken a previous truce with its Oct.

 7 attack on southern Israel in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Militants dragged some 250 hostages into the enclave.

Israel’s ensuing bombardment and ground offensive have killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to local health authorities, and displaced some 80% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million.

Hamas official says group would lay down its arms if an independent Palestinian state is established.