CAIRO — Mousa Abu Marzouk, chief of international relations for Hamas, was busy. He moved from a meeting with his fellow Hamas officials, to another with Palestinian officials from other groups, and a third with Egyptian officials focusing on the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel which paused the war in Gaza.
Since the three-phase ceasefire took effect on Jan. 19, one question has been dominating the region: Will Israel resume the war after the first phase under the pressure of the far right and Benjamin Netanyahu’s electoral goals?
Abu Marzouk addressed this question in a rare interview with Al Manassa earlier this week when he was in Cairo along with a high-ranking Hamas delegation. The delegation held talks with Egyptian officials on the resumption of negotiations between the Palestinian group and Israel on the implementation of the second phase of the ceasefire. The negotiations are scheduled to start on Monday.
Marzouk, who is a longtime member of Hamas’ political bureau, said Netanyahu found himself “fighting meaninglessly without a strategy,” so he signed the deal which was on the table since March 2024.
“He realizes that this is his only way out of this battle after he failed to achieve the goals he set for the war,” he said of the Israeli prime minister during the interview.
He listed war goals that Netanyahu failed to achieve during the 15-month fighting: failure to implement any arrangements for post-war Gaza; failure to eliminate Hamas and its military arm, the Qassam Brigades. Ultimately, Israel also failed to occupy and run Gaza.
Despite his past declarations that Israel wouldn’t leave Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors, the buffer zones around the enclave, Netanyahu was forced to withdraw from them, the Hamas official said.
The Israeli prime minister has lost any justification for returning to war, Abu Marzouk said.
Towards Palestinian unity
Several scenarios have been proposed over the past 15 months to run post-war Gaza. But on the ground, none of these scenarios were relevant after the ceasefire went into effect. There was one fact, Abu Marzouk says: Hamas, its police, its executive apparatus, all were on the ground running Gaza’ affairs and providing whatever services to the population.
There are many questions about the future of the strip, and its management and the impact of this on the orientations of international donors, and then on the reconstruction process. Abu Marzouk viewed Hamas’ management of Gaza after the ceasefire as a self-evident reality.
Hamas wants national consensus, non-factional government that satisfies all the Palestinian people
.“We cannot leave our people like this without anyone serving them or looking after their interests and solving their problems,” he said. “This cannot be considered Hamas’s desire.”
He said Hamas wants the establishment of a national consensus, non-factional government that satisfies all the Palestinian people and is accepted by the international community, including Israel, so it can rebuild Gaza.
But until an alternative is found, Hamas “will manage the strip to avoid chaos and vacuum,” he said.
There is a current deadlock over the proposal that management of the territory as an Egyptian initiative, to establish a bureaucratic body to run Gaza civilian affairs. Hamas accepted the initiative and the establishment of that body, that is known as the Community Support Committee. But the western-backed Palestinian Authority and its President Mahmoud Abbas rejected it.
“It appears that there is a veto on Palestinian unity, and pressure on (Abbas) not to achieve an agreement with Hamas,” Abu Marzouk said without elaborating which parties were behind the pressure.
He said Egypt has rallied Arab, Islamic, European and American support to the committee, and even Israel backed the Egyptian initiative. But after both Fatah and Hamas appeared to reach an agreement in principle, Fatah then rejected it.
“Hamas agreed to all the conditions set by Fatah, and the European Union, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and 17 other countries agreed to form the committee, and even Israel agreed to it,” he said.
Fate of Marwan Barghouti
Abu Marzouk also said that Hamas was working to ensure the release of Palestinian symbols in Israeli prisons, including Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti and Ahmed Saadat, Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Israel has long rejected the release of them, particularly Barghouthi who is accused by Israel of being the mastermind of the second Intifada, or Uprising, in 2002. Both Barghouthi and Saadat are Palestinian leaders who are viewed as being able to achieve a Palestinian reconciliation.
“There is insistence on the part of Hamas to release Marwan, Saadat and all their brothers in prison,” Abu Marzouk said. “The criteria we adopted in the prisoner exchange are all national and have nothing to do with partisanship or factionalism.”
However, he said the negotiations on their release are highly likely to be difficult. “One cannot get everything he wants, but we will do our best to empty the prisons,” he said.
Philadelphi corridor And Rafah crossing
A day before the ceasefire agreement went into effect, Netanyahu said in a televised speech that Israel would retain full control of the Philadelphi Corridor, the thin strip of land that extends 14 kilometers from the Kerem Shalom crossing to the Mediterranean coast.
Netanyahu’s comment stirred up controversy. But Abu Marzouk said it was misleading, and that the Israeli prime minister “was playing with words.”
According to the deal, Israel will gradually withdraw from the corridor during the 42-day first phase of the ceasefire, and completely withdraw on day 56 of the cease-fire, Abu Marzouk said.
He said there will be only 4 fixed Israeli points on the corridor, which will be dismantled within two weeks after the end of the first phase.
“Netanyahu said that the withdrawal will not take place after the first phase, and his words are correct, because the first phase is 42 days and the (full) withdrawal will take place after the 56th day,” Abu Marzouk said.
The operation of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing was one of the most contentious points in the negotiations.
The community support committee was supposed to run the crossing, but Abu Mazen rejected it. And Netanyahu rejected a proposal to have the Palestinian authority running it.
But mediators reached a compromise. Israel will run the security part of the process; a European mission will monitor the operation while the Palestinian Crossing authority, which is affiliated with the PA, will issue and stamp the Palestinian travel documents, according to Abu Marzouk.
He said Hamas agreed on the arrangement to deprive Netanyahu from a pretext to fail the deal.
Trump’s test balloon
Abu Marzouq downplayed President Donald Trump‘s statements about the transfer of Gaza people to Egypt and Jordan.
He said Trump’s comments were “just a test balloon, rather than a decision taken by the US administration, which works to please the Israeli right on the one hand, and to explore the position of influential Arab powers and the residents of Gaza on the other hand.”
Trump’s plan is “completely rejected,” and that it is “not applicable for several reasons, the first of which is the categorical Egyptian and Jordanian rejection, and the second is the presence of influential international parties such as Germany and France, and regional parties such as Saudi Arabia, which also reject this proposal,” Abu Marzouk said.
He said the US president contradicted himself: “How can you refuse to allow people to immigrate to your country and then want to displace other people from their country?”
The Hamas leader believes that the fate of Trump’s plan will fail, just like the American plan in 1954, which aimed to displace half of the Gaza population to the Egyptian city of Al-Arish – a plan that was firmly rejected by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser at the time.
