[News] How Hamas Sees the Current Moment: An Exclusive Interview With Osama Hamdan
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Mon May 5 20:23:21 EDT 2025
In a wide-ranging interview with Drop Site, the senior Hamas leader
discusses negotiation strategy, why disarmament is a red line, his
direct talks with U.S. officials, and more.
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How Hamas Sees the Current Moment: An Exclusive Interview With Osama
Hamdan
<https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=2510348&post_id=162906434&utm_source=post-email-title&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=lvppb&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjozNjc1MTU4MywicG9zdF9pZCI6MTYyOTA2NDM0LCJpYXQiOjE3NDY0NzM3MjMsImV4cCI6MTc0OTA2NTcyMywiaXNzIjoicHViLTI1MTAzNDgiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.xPI5lZN-nAmUyAHfKP6Yi-hO6PAg2mfaoGXjoO8iGkg>
In a wide-ranging interview with Drop Site, the senior Hamas
leader discusses negotiation strategy, why disarmament is a red
line, his direct talks with U.S. officials, and more.
Jeremy Scahill <https://substack.com/@jeremyscahill>
May 5, 2025
<https://substack.com/@jeremyscahill>
<https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=2510348&post_id=162906434&utm_source=substack&isFreemail=true&submitLike=true&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjozNjc1MTU4MywicG9zdF9pZCI6MTYyOTA2NDM0LCJyZWFjdGlvbiI6IuKdpCIsImlhdCI6MTc0NjQ3MzcyMywiZXhwIjoxNzQ5MDY1NzIzLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjUxMDM0OCIsInN1YiI6InJlYWN0aW9uIn0.uzGyW4878msD8w6dUMPXkT0msL9mJJ7fd-Acy_iK9KY&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email-reaction&r=lvppb>
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READ IN APP
<https://open.substack.com/pub/dropsitenews/p/osama-hamdan-hamas-gaza-israel-trump?utm_source=email&redirect=app-store&utm_campaign=email-read-in-app>
<https://substack.com/redirect/bcf4a7a4-2679-491b-ad97-c396b8267c35?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM>Senior
Hamas official Osama Hamdan in his office in the southern suburb of
Dahiyeh in Beirut, Lebanon. January 18, 2024. (Photo by Oliver
Marsden/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
In an exclusive interview
<https://substack.com/redirect/d824b55b-3f41-4774-87e7-2684d5c2fe3a?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM>with
Drop Site News, a senior Hamas official said that the movement will not
capitulate to any demands from Israel or the U.S. to lay down its
weapons and vowed that Hamas will reject any temporary ceasefire deal
that does not include a clear path to a total Israeli withdrawal from
Gaza and an end to the genocide.
“No need for a short-term ceasefire,” said Osama Hamdan, one of the
longest serving senior officials within Hamas. “What the Israelis are
offering is: We will give you a ceasefire for a short while and then we
will come back to kill you again. So what's the idea of giving you food
for 12, 40 days, two weeks or three weeks, and then coming back to kill
you? It means that you endorse the genocide and you accept that for your
own people.”
It has been two months since the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal,
signed in January between Hamas and Israel, came to an end and Israel
imposed a full spectrum blockade—the longest in recent history. Since
March 2, Israel has prevented all food, water, medicine, fuel, and other
supplies from reaching the besieged enclave, plunging Gaza into the
worst humanitarian crisis of the 19-month war, according to the UN. On
March 18, Israel resumed its scorched earth bombing, killing more than
2,400 Palestinians, mostly women and children. During this period,
regional mediators Qatar and Egypt have failed to convince Israel to
return to the original three-phase framework, which stipulated a
complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the declaration of a
permanent ceasefire.
Instead, Israel has issued a series of sweeping new demands as a
condition for any halt to its genocidal operations. Central among these
are the total demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, the exiling of Hamas
leaders, and the removal of Hamas as the governing authority in Gaza.
“I believe the Israelis don’t believe in any solution with the
Palestinians. When they talk about disarming the Palestinians, it's
their idea of killing the hope of the Palestinians to be liberated. And
then if they want to push them out, the Palestinians will have no way to
defend themselves," Hamdan said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu’s stated plan for a “final stage” to the genocide
that includes forcibly removing the population from Gaza. “When they
talk about disarming the Palestinians—not only Hamas, the
Palestinians—it means that they want the Palestinians to surrender. And
when you surrender, you have to accept the will of the occupier.”
Hamdan said that Hamas was surprised to witness Egyptian mediators
present an Israeli plan that included terms about total demilitarization
of Gaza. “Why were we astonished to see them talking about this issue?
Because it's an Israeli issue, and as a mediator, you are not supposed
just to admit any suggestion from the Israeli side. You have to deal
with that. You have to talk directly to the Israelis [and say], ‘This
will not work,’” Hamdan said. “If Hamas said we want Netanyahu to hand
[over] power and to give up Tel Aviv for the Palestinians, for example,
they will directly answer, ‘This will not happen.’ Why [are they] not
talking to the Israelis in the same way?”
Hamdan said that Palestinians have both a moral obligation and a legal
mandate under international law to employ armed resistance to fight an
Israeli occupation that has been repeatedly ruled illegal in
international courts and is condemned as a system of apartheid by the
world’s leading human rights organizations. “You can't talk about
de-weaponizing the nation who is under occupation, while they are
occupied by the most powerful army in the region,” he said. “Hamas did
not invent the resistance for Palestine. In fact, the Palestinians
resisted the British occupation and, since then, the Israeli occupation
for decades. Talking about de-weaponizing the Palestinians, it will not
solve the problem. The new generation will fight because you are
oppressing the nation all the time. So there is no option for the
Palestinians to get rid of this occupation without the resistance, no
other option.”
Hamas has repeatedly proposed arrangements to end the occupation since
the early 1990s, and Israel has rejected them all. Last week, it
dismissed Hamas’s most recent offer, which would have seen all Israeli
captives in Gaza returned to Israel as part of a multi-year deal. “They
have rejected it and they may reject it another time, but this is also
an answer for the international community when they keep asking the
Palestinians, ‘OK, how can we solve the problem?’” Hamdan explained.
“You can't solve the problem by talking about the security of Israel.
You have to solve the problem by talking about the rights of the
Palestinians who are giving you the option which can fit exactly within
international law, with the international resolutions, which can solve
the problem and give the Palestinian people their rights.”
In the interview with Drop Site, Hamdan also outlined Hamas’s rationale
for offering a five to seven year truce with Israel, known as a
/hudna/in Arabic. “The main goal for this long term /hudna /is that each
side has to believe that he will not be attacked by the other side,
which can at least generate a kind of security. And it's a chance to
build trust that there may be a chance for a kind of stability and
security,” he said. “That was the experience, for example, in South
Africa; it was the experience in Vietnam; it was the experience with
every situation of occupation—not only the Palestinian situation. So we
are still committed to a very serious political idea, which is the
long-term ceasefire.”
*Israel Does Not Want the U.S. Talking to Hamas*
<https://substack.com/redirect/917cb814-f16e-47ef-8980-cc5f15b7c023?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM>
Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan in a Hamas regional office against a
backdrop of occupied Jerusalem. May 2025. (Photo by Jeremy Scahill)
Osama Hamdan joined Hamas in 1992, a few years after the group’s
founding, and has served as its representative in Iran and Lebanon as
well as its chief of international relations. He was one of the top
advisers to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated by Israel
last summer in Tehran. After October 7, 2023, Hamdan became a regular
fixture on Arabic language media, conducting regular press briefings
from Lebanon.
In the wide-ranging interview, Hamdan said that Hamas believes the
January ceasefire agreement would have been unlikely had Donald Trump
not won the U.S. election. “I think it helped. If Kamala Harris won the
elections, I think it would be the same policy of the Biden
administration policy, which supported the Israelis totally… they [made]
themselves as a part of the war and the fight against the Palestinians,”
he said. “We know that the Trump people, they have done a good job in
order to make [the January ceasefire] happen. But it's not enough. We
have to be honest and serious, it's not enough.”
Hamdan rejected what he called an Israeli propaganda term to describe
what should happen in Gaza after the war ends. “The Israelis, they have
used this ‘the day after’ term in order to convince everyone that what
will happen in Gaza [is] that they will take over the situation within a
few weeks and they will get rid of the resistance and there will be an
issue of some people who are living on the land of Gaza,” he said.
“There is a day after the genocide stopped. And this day is supposed to
be a Palestinian day, a Palestinian national day, because we have
stopped the genocide and we have to decide by ourselves as Palestinians
what we are supposed to do.”
Hamdan said once a political solution is reached to end the genocide,
Hamas would be willing to relinquish governance of Gaza to an
independent body of Palestinians or a technocratic committee. “There was
a suggestion from the Egyptian side to have a committee of leaders,
independent leaders, from Gaza, to take control in Gaza for a while and
then we can go to general elections. We've said yes, because if they
were nationalist and they are working for Gaza’s benefit and the
people’s, why not have them?,” Hamdan said. He added that Hamas and
other Palestinian political parties had put forward 40-45 names to the
Palestinian Authority as nominees for a 15-member body to assume control
of Gaza once Hamas formally steps down. They have not received any answer.
“We are ready to handle the things to [assist] this committee, knowing
that if that was one of the options which can help the Palestinians to
get through this massacre and this genocide, it's part of our duty to do
that,” Hamdan said, adding that Hamas supports holding democratic
elections, not just in Gaza but across all the territories of historic
Palestine.
Hamdan was one of two Hamas officials who led direct talks with Donald
Trump’s special envoy on hostages in late February. “When the meetings
with Adam Boehler took place, there was a real possibility [for a long
term deal]. This is why the Israelis were furious and they were angry,”
Hamdan said. “We've talked about politics, not only about the prisoner
exchange issue. And I believe he heard something he didn't expect to
hear from Hamas.”
Hamdan and another senior Hamas official who participated in the direct
talks with Boehler described the meetings as productive and diplomatic.
They said Boehler seemed genuinely interested in understanding Hamas’s
position, both historically and related to the ongoing negotiations.
Since those meetings, however, and the launch of an Israeli smear
campaign to portray Boehler as having been duped by Hamas, there have
been no further direct talks.
“I believe one of the reasons why the Israelis have assassinated some of
the Palestinian leaders was because they have the chance to talk
directly to the United States,” Hamdan contended. “They want to prevent
any kind of contact between the Palestinian resistance and the United
States administration because they have a narrative that those are
terrorists.” He said that the direct talks with Boehler and other U.S.
officials for the first time circumvented Israeli control of the
narrative about Hamas. “The administration discovered that they are
freedom fighters and they have a political narrative and they have a
political stand, and they are seeking to have a political solution,”
Hamdan said. “This is what the Israelis are trying to prevent.”
In the talks, Bohler also raised the issue of Eden Alexander, the dual
U.S.-Israeli citizen who enlisted in the Israeli military and was taken
captive by Palestinian fighters at the Israeli military base where he
was stationed on October 7, 2023. "He's an American citizen, but he was
a soldier in the Israeli army," Hamdan said. "Why is he allowed to be a
fighter or a soldier in another army, not any other army, an army who
occupies the Palestinian lands, who was killing the Palestinian people?"
Hamdan added, “You want to guarantee that no Americans will be held as
prisoners because they were soldiers in the Israeli army. So, let's
prevent the Israeli army from killing the Palestinians. And that opened
the door for a political talk. And I respect that [Boehler] has the
courage to talk about this, to listen. He listened carefully.”
Last month, the spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida, said
they had lost contact with the group holding Alexander after Israeli
airstrikes targeted the area where he was being held. Hamdan and another
senior Hamas official told Drop Site that they have not received any
updates on Alexander's fate since contact was lost.
Hamdan and the other Hamas official told Drop Site that the meetings
with Boehler were meant to lead to direct talks with Steve Witkoff,
Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East and the administration’s lead
negotiator. Hamas believes Israel succeeded in derailing those meetings.
“We expect more from Trump’s administration, not just to keep the
security of Israel, not just to listen to the Israeli side. All the
world, mainly the United States administration, has to listen to the
Palestinians. You have to listen to their side of the story,” he said.
“You can't solve it just by listening to Netanyahu who is lying to his
own people, not only lying to the Americans or lying to the Arabs, he's
lying [to] his own people.”
*LISTEN: Drop Site’s Full Interview With Senior Hamas Official Osama
Hamdan
<https://substack.com/redirect/d824b55b-3f41-4774-87e7-2684d5c2fe3a?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM>*
Hamdan also had sharp words for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud
Abbas. In a televised April 23 speech before the Palestinian National
Council, the 89-year old leader called Hamas “sons of dogs,” and
demanded the movement surrender its weapons and release the Israeli
captives. Hamdan said that for the past 19 months Abbas has been
reserved in his denunciations of Israel’s genocidal war while attacking
and denouncing the Palestinian resistance. “I believe he lost his
credibility as a Palestinian leader and he is not anymore respected by
the Palestinians,” Hamdan said. “He's just destroying his reputation and
his image. I don't know how his sons and grandsons will walk among the
Palestinian people after his death.”
Hamdan addressed the Palestinian Authority’s collaboration with Israel
in its ongoing assault on the occupied West Bank. He cited the example
of the Jenin refugee camp, where Palestinian Authority security forces
imposed a siege for 40 days, dismantled resistance cells and seized
weapons, clearing the way for an Israeli invasion that lead to the
destruction of over 600 homes. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been
forced from their homes in the West Bank since January, the largest
displacement there since 1967. “I think the Israelis, their main goal is
to take over all the West Bank,” he said. “I believe they will be
mistaken if they felt for a while that the Palestinian Authority will
keep controlling the situation. The people will resist.” Hamdan
characterized Abbas’s forces as akin to “security guards” for the
occupation, keeping watch over Palestinians “who are supposed to live as
slaves,” saying, “No one in the Palestinian Authority is trying to say
‘enough is enough.’ They don't want to resist.”
Hamdan also blasted the recent appointment of Hussein Al-Sheikh, a
longtime member of Abbas's ruling Fatah Party known for his close ties
to Israel, as vice president of the Palestine Liberation Organization,
saying it was evidence of Israeli influence. Since 2007, Sheikh has
served as the head of the General Authority of Civil Affairs—the main
body coordinating with Israeli forces operating in the occupied West
Bank. “If you heard him talking in a closed room, you'd feel that you
are talking to an Israeli soldier,” said Hamdan. “That is not my words.
It's the words of some significant leaders of Fatah.” The Israelis
pushed for Sheikh’s appointment as Abbas’s deputy and likely successor,
Hamdan alleged, because “they know that he is willing by himself to
handle this dirty job on their own behalf.”
Hamas’s official position since 2017 is that it would accept what is
commonly referred to as a “two state solution” by Western leaders. The
movement has said that if the Palestinian people voted for a state along
the lines of the borders as they existed prior to the June 1967 war and
with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital, Hamas would not oppose it.
“I think the Israelis have shown that they are not willing to have even
the two state solution, and they are talking about what they have called
the final solution to get rid of the Palestinians. According to those
circumstances, everyone expects this will not happen,” Hamdan said,
though he added: “I still think that there is a real possibility for
that, if the international community wants to keep the order. Otherwise,
I think we will face a complete failure for the international order and
this will lead to more complicated consequences, not [only] on the
Palestinian situation, but all over the world.”
Hamdan said that if the world refuses to hold Israel accountable for the
Gaza genocide, it will have far reaching implications. “If they have
immunity, it means that others can do the same thing in several places
in the world. What if that happened? Some other superpowers, growing
superpowers in the world, have given this right to small countries
supported by those superpowers,” he said. “I think we will turn the
world to a kind of, not a jungle, maybe worse than a jungle, because
even in the jungle, the animals, they kill to eat but they don't kill
more than this. But when you commit a genocide, it's really a disaster
which cannot be explained by words or by saying, ‘Sorry, I have done
this and I will not do it again.’”
*If a Political Solution Fails, the Resistance Will Continue*
Hamdan rejected the characterization that Hamas is waging a war against
Israel because it is a Jewish state and said this portrayal was aimed at
undermining the legitimate cause of liberation and self determination.
“We've said clearly, we are a people under occupation. We are not
fighting just because we like to fight or it's a good idea to fight
others. We are not fighting the Israelis because, for example, they are
Jewish people. We don't have a problem with the Jewish people,” he said.
“Even if a Muslim came to occupy my land, I will fight him. It is not
related to the religion. It is related to being an occupier or not an
occupier.”
Despite reports in Israeli and some Arab media outlets that Hamas
indicated it would consider temporarily storing its weapons in Gaza or
handing them over to a neutral third party, Hamdan said there have been
no formal talks about such a proposal. “What about the Israeli weapons?
Are they going to store their weapons, too? What is the meaning of
storing the weapons?” he said. “Such an experience happened in Northern
Ireland. But there was a real political arrangement, which was accepted
by both sides.” Short of that, he said, Hamas will not surrender its
weapons until Palestinians achieve full statehood. “If there was a
Palestinian state, those weapons would be handed to the Palestinian
government,” he said. “Even the [resistance] fighters, they will turn to
be part of the army or the police of this government.”
Over the weekend, Netanyahu vowed to intensify Israeli attacks in the
coming weeks and to expand the army’s ground operations inside Gaza. On
Monday, Israel’s cabinet approved a plan to seize large areas of the
Gaza Strip where Israeli forces would remain entrenched indefinitely.
Code-named Gideon's Chariots, the operations would also reportedly
include forcibly displacing Palestinians into small areas of southern
Gaza. An Israeli security official told YNet
<https://substack.com/redirect/435fd517-8ce0-494d-a2b0-045b74c12a96?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM>the
details of the plan were revealed as a pressure campaign to force Hamas
to accept a short term truce agreement that would result in the release
of large numbers of Israeli captives without agreeing to end the war.
These leaked proposals are directly linked to Donald Trump’s scheduled
visit to the Middle East slated to begin May 13. Trump will join a
series of summits with Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the
United Arab Emirates. There are indications the U.S. is pushing Israel
to enter into a short-term truce with Hamas to serve as a backdrop for
Trump’s trip and Israeli officials said their threats to seize “all
conquered areas” of Gaza were aimed at forcing Hamas into a deal before
Trump’s trip.
In the interview with Drop Site, conducted before the Israeli plans were
leaked, Hamdan was emphatic that Hamas will not enter into any temporary
agreements that do not include a path to a permanent ceasefire and an
Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. “Is the United States administration and
President Trump seeking to have just a short-term ceasefire or is he
willing to have a permanent ceasefire which may lead to a political
solution?” Hamdan said. “[Trump] has to make the choice, whether to make
the Israelis accept the long-term ceasefire and to go to the political
solution which leads to a Palestinian independent, sovereign state.”
The alternative, Hamdan said, is indefinite war that will continue to
destabilize the region and impact the rest of Trump’s Middle East
agenda. “We are fighting to be liberated from the occupation. If that
can happen in a political way, this is good. We will accept that, if it
[happens] in a peaceful way. We don't want to be killed. We don't like
to kill others. But if it doesn't happen in this way, we will fight,”
Hamdan said. “Let's talk about liberating the Palestinians from the
occupation. Let's talk about the Israeli withdrawal from the occupied
Palestinian lands,” he added. “This will be the start of creating
confidence and stability after that. If this happened, it will be a very
good idea. If it doesn't happen, no one can give up his weapons while
he's being killed, tortured, jailed.”
If Trump actually wanted to achieve the release of all Israeli captives
and a swift end to the war, Hamdan said, he could utilize the extensive
levers of U.S. influence over Netanyahu as Israel’s largest financial
benefactor and arms supplier. “It's not sufficient pressure. They know
that they can do that,” he asserted. “If they said, ‘OK, we are not
providing you with the new weapons,’ I think just saying that, it will
show the Israelis that the administration is serious and they have to go
to the ceasefire.”
Hamdan said that the ultimate responsibility for confronting Israel's
apartheid, occupation and war of annihilation against the Palestinian
people rests on the international community. And how it handles the fate
of Palestine will reverberate for generations to come. "The will of the
Palestinians to be liberated is still reserved after 70 years of
occupation and it will be until the Palestinians can get rid of the
occupation," Hamdan said. "It will be an important turn, not in the
Palestinian history, but I think in international history, because it
will express a kind of balanced justice in the world. Otherwise, I think
it will be a sign of the end of this international order and who knows
what that will lead to."
<https://substack.com/redirect/24d54a1d-0c40-4af8-9132-17ef5b5a971a?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM>
Drop Site News journalist Jeremy Scahill interviewing senior Hamas
official Osama Hamdan in a Hamas regional office. May 2025. (Photo
courtesy of Jeremy Scahill)
/Drop Site News Middle East Research Fellow Jawa Ahmad contributed to
this story./
<https://substack.com/redirect/d824b55b-3f41-4774-87e7-2684d5c2fe3a?j=eyJ1IjoibHZwcGIifQ.9RIwWbE6EVIB7Jy8lfazxZKfps8R18neRGMKwOiqnRM>
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