Hamas calls for ‘immediate’ end to war after Trump’s election victory

A senior Hamas official has called for an immediate end to Israel’s war against the group in the Gaza Strip and a plan to achieve Palestinian statehood in remarks shared with Newsweek in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s election victory.

“The election of Trump as the 47th president of the United States is a private matter for Americans,” said Hamas Political Bureau member and spokesman Basem Naim. Newsweek“but the Palestinians are looking forward to an immediate end to the aggression against our people, especially in Gaza, and are looking for help to achieve their legitimate rights to freedom, independence and the establishment of their independent self-sovereign state with Jerusalem as its capital.”

“The blind support for the Zionist entity ‘Israel’ and its fascist government, at the expense of the future of our people and the security and stability of the region, must stop immediately,” he added.

When Trump was previously in office, he forged a close relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who today is engaged in a multi-front war against the Iran-aligned axis of resistance, beginning with a large-scale Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023. Trump however, has also expressed criticism of Netanyahu’s wartime leadership and has called for a timely end to the conflict.

Reached for comment, an Israeli official said Newsweek that “maintaining and building on the special relationship between the United States and Israel has been a two-pronged feature of American policy since the founding of the Jewish state.”

“We have no doubt that this will continue to be the case,” the Israeli official said. “Going forward, we look forward to working strongly with his administration to create a more peaceful, secure and prosperous Middle East.”

With continued signs of rift between President Joe Biden and Netanyahu over the course of the war despite significant US military aid, the Israeli prime minister was the first to congratulate Trump on what was described as “the greatest comeback in history”.

“Their historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a strong commitment to the great alliance between Israel and America,” Netanyahu said in his statement on Wednesday.

Netanyahu later spoke with Trump. The conversation was described by the Israeli side as a “warm and cordial” exchange in which the two “agreed to work together for Israel’s security and also discussed the Iranian threat.”

Newsweek has contacted Hezbollah and the Iranian Permanent Mission to the United Nations for comment.

The Israel-Hamas war, which has since expanded to include an Israeli air and ground offensive against the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, attacks by other Axis resistance factions in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, and even direct exchanges of attacks between Israel and Iran, has proven a polarizing foreign policy issue in the United States

While Biden has both continued to provide military aid to Israel and calls for greater security measures to mitigate civilian casualties, he has been accused by Israeli supporters of not doing enough to help the US ally and by pro-Palestinian factions of not to have sufficiently reined in Netanyahu. .

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign largely echoed the Biden administration’s stance, calling for peace and expressing sympathy for the civilians caught up in the conflict, while rejecting calls to withhold arms sales to Israel.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Hamas also called for an end to Israel’s campaign in Lebanon and for the United States to “stop providing military support and political cover to the Zionist entity and recognize the legitimate rights of our people.”

“The US president-elect is committed to listening to the voices that have been raised by the American community itself for more than a year regarding the Zionist aggression in the Gaza Strip,” the statement said, “rejecting the occupation and genocide and protesting support and bias towards the Zionist entity.”

Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads the West Bank-based government that rivals Gaza-based Hamas, also congratulated Trump on his election victory on Wednesday.

Abbas expressed “his aspiration to work with President Trump for peace and security in the region” and stressed “the commitment of our people to seek freedom, self-determination and statehood in accordance with international law,” according to a statement published by the US Palestine News and Information Agency (WAFA).

“We will remain steadfast in our commitment to peace,” Abbas was quoted as saying, “and we are confident that under your leadership the United States will support the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people.”

Both Hamas and Abbas had frequently condemned Trump’s Middle East measures while in office, including his decision in 2018 to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the disputed city of Jerusalem and his 2020 plan to end the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict conflict.

The proposal, widely labeled a “deal of the century,” would have given Israel control over internationally unrecognized Jewish settlements in the West Bank and occupied territories along the Jordanian border. Hamas and other Palestinian factions would be disarmed, Palestinians would recognize Israel as a Jewish state, refrain from participating in international organizations without Israeli consent, and receive some desert territory along the Israel-Egypt border, as well as access to international investment.

In one of the most ambitious steps, the proposal also outlined the establishment of a tunnel connecting the West Bank and Gaza.

While the plan did not gain momentum in the Arab world, Trump successfully oversaw the Abraham Accords later that year that led to the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco establishing diplomatic relations with Israel.

Trump also oversaw a sharp rise in tensions between Washington and Tehran, particularly with the US withdrawal from a multilateral nuclear deal in 2018 and the US killing of Quds Force commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Major General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq in 2020.

The Republican leader has since accused Biden and Harris of being too soft on Iran, and he has repeatedly claimed that the war in Hamas would not have happened under his presidency. At the same time, Trump has accused his Democratic rivals of trying to trigger a major war in the Middle East, something he has vowed to avoid.

“We want a strong and powerful military, and ideally we don’t have to use it,” Trump said during his election night victory speech. “You know, we had no wars for four years. We had no wars. Other than defeating ISIS, we defeated ISIS in record time.”

“They said, ‘He’s going to start a war.’ I don’t want to start a war,” Trump said early Wednesday. “I want to stop wars.”