(Dec. 7, 2025 / JNS)

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on Saturday repeated his call for Israel’s destruction, rejecting U.S.- and U.N.-backed demands to disarm the Iranian-supported terrorist group and demilitarize the Gaza Strip.

“The time has come for the ummah [the Islamic nation] to commit to the liberation of Jerusalem as the banner and symbol of freeing Palestine; to cleansing the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque; and to reclaiming Islamic and Christian holy sites,” the top terrorist said, speaking by video link at a pro-Palestinian conference hosted in the Turkish city of Istanbul.

The global anti-Israel sentiment that has emerged since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre has created opportunities “to remove this entity [Israel] from our homeland and exclude it from the international stage,” Mashaal told attendees.

The terrorist leader denounced the demand that Hamas give up its weapons under U.S. President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan for the Gaza Strip, telling the conference that “protecting the resistance project and its weapons is the right of our people to defend themselves.”

“The resistance and its weapons are the ummah’s honor and pride,” he continued. “A thousand statements are not worth a single projectile of iron.”

Mashaal in his speech also dismissed “all forms of guardianship, mandate and re-occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and all of Palestine,” rejecting another key part of the U.S. peace plan, which received backing from the United NationsSecurity Council on Nov. 17.

The resolution implemented a mandate for Washington and partners to launch an International Stabilization Force and a Board of Peace, which will serve as the transitional government authority for the Gaza Strip.

However, Mashaal said “the Palestinian is the one who governs himself and decides for himself.” He added: “Attempts to place our causes, our national principles and rights into misleading frameworks are rejected,” he said.

“This is our land, our homeland, this is our destiny and we are a people who do not break,” Mashaal continued. “Two years of war have passed, and all the weapons that came to the Zionist entity from all corners of the world have failed to impose their will on our people. This is Gaza and this is the great Palestine—the one that drives out invaders.”

The terrorist leader in his speech also outlined Hamas’s other priorities following the war, including preventing the “Judaization” of Judea and Samaria; freeing imprisoned terrorists from Israeli jails; building Arab unity against the Jewish state; “pursuing” Israeli leaders globally; and promoting anti-Israel sentiment on campus, in media and politics.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday said Hamas was “making a mockery of President Trump’s peace plan,” and that Mashaal’s remarks were in “direct contradiction of the core terms of the peace plan itself.”

Under the U.S.-brokered ceasefire and hostage-release deal that went into effect last month, Hamas committed to returning for burial all 28 bodies it was holding captive on Oct. 13.

However, the terror group slow-walked their return, delaying its disarmament, which is set to take place in the second phase of the deal with a deployment of international forces.

Trump’s plan states that Hamas and other terrorists “agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form,” and that “all military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt.”

According to the Nov. 17 Security Council resolution, the International Stabilization Force will be responsible for the process of demilitarizing the Strip, including “the destruction and prevention of rebuilding of the military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, as well as the permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups.”

The Israel Defense Forces announced Sunday that a Palestinian terrorist had crossed the ceasefire-instituted Yellow Line in the southern Gaza Strip, in what the military said was a violation of the truce agreement.

The terrorist “approached the forces in a manner that posed an immediate threat to them,” the military stated. “Following the identification, the troops eliminated the terrorist.”

Troops of the IDF’s Southern Command remain “deployed in the area in accordance with the agreement and will continue to operate to remove any immediate threat” to soldiers or civilians, the statement added.

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