Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad proposed three pillars he said were necessary to achieve Palestinian consensus: rebuilding the Palestine Liberation Organisation, formulating a national political programme based on struggle, and establishing genuine national unity. His call came during a discussion on the continuing crisis in the Gaza Strip a year after the ceasefire took effect, the future of the Palestinian cause and ways to unite the internal ranks.
Hamad sets out pillars for Palestinian consensus
Hamad said these pillars, in his view, charted the path towards liberating Palestinian land. He identified the first pillar as rebuilding the Palestine Liberation Organisation as the Palestinians’ national and political framework, stressing that the process should not be carried out through appointments, political rivalry or methods he described as unlawful and undemocratic.
He added that the second pillar was adopting a national political programme based on struggle to place the Palestinians on a clear path, while the third was achieving genuine national unity. He called on the factions to agree on a shared vision combining reform of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and a programme of struggle in confronting Israeli forces and policies and achieving internal unity.
Gaza discussion and ceasefire implementation
Hamad made his remarks during an episode titled “Gaza... the war continues”, which was also attended by Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative. The episode discussed conditions in the Strip a year after the ceasefire began in October 2025, the extent to which US President Donald Trump’s plan had been implemented, the future of the Palestinian cause and prospects for ending the division.
Hamad said Palestinians were tired of dialogues limited to sessions and meetings that produced no results. He called on Palestinian forces to adopt a clear and specific position and not to keep moving between calls for elections, national dialogue and reconciliation, only to return to proposing elections without reaching an implementable agreement.
He said Hamas had spent years negotiating with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah without achieving a result, in his words, and recalled the cancellation of the Palestinian elections scheduled for 2021. He expressed hope that Abbas’s position would be serious this time, but said he had serious doubts that this would happen.
Barghouti calls for unified leadership and elections
Barghouti, for his part, said the Palestinian people could not achieve victory without unified leadership, considering that such leadership did not yet exist. He said elections could establish national unity from the grassroots, define the leadership and political line, and prevent the Gaza Strip from being separated from the West Bank.
Asked whether elections could be organised amid the destruction and under Israeli control, Barghouti said they remained possible if Palestinian forces came together in sincere national dialogue and treated them as a civil resistance struggle. He added that Israel should not be given veto power over Palestinian democratic practice.
Barghouti said he believed the majority of Palestinians supported a national strategy based on struggle, but accused political forces and official leaders of failing to implement it. He outlined the strategy as residents’ steadfastness and remaining in Gaza and the West Bank, supporting the rebuilding of homes through Palestinian efforts, revitalising the boycott movement and working to impose sanctions on Israel.
He also warned Palestinian forces against repeating what he described as the trap of the Oslo Accords and against relying on US mediation or on the ability of other mediators to change Washington’s position. Barghouti linked unifying the leadership and political line to the ability to confront attempts to separate Gaza from the West Bank and preserve the unity of the Palestinian cause.
Ceasefire figures and violations in Gaza
The discussion examined the durability of the ceasefire that began on 10 October 2025 under a 20-point US plan. Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), described the truce as “a ceasefire in name only”, while The National newspaper described the situation as “a low-intensity war”.
The agreement followed a war that, according to figures cited in the episode’s report, killed more than 67,000 people and damaged about 81% of the Gaza Strip’s infrastructure. The US plan begins with halting military operations, redeploying Israeli forces, exchanging prisoners and increasing aid, followed by stages for withdrawal and reconstruction.
The episode gave differing estimates of the toll, referring elsewhere to more than 1,400 deaths, while Barghouti put the figure at about 1,500, including more than 300 children. Regarding the field deployment of Israeli forces, what became known as the “Yellow Line” left those forces in control of about 53% of the Strip when the truce began.
Three days later, the “Orange Line” appeared in populated areas, adding 36 square kilometres to areas under Israeli control. By June 2026, 64.9% of Gaza’s area was subject to what the United Nations describes as intensified and direct Israeli control, while about 2.1 million people were concentrated in less than half of the Strip.
An analysis of satellite images taken in December 2025 showed at least 40 buildings destroyed around the line’s new position in the Tuffah neighbourhood. On the humanitarian front, the volume of aid brought in by the United Nations and its partners fell by 37% when the first three months of the truce were compared with the following three months.
At the beginning of September, 251 of 881 commercial lorries were carrying non-essential goods, representing more than a quarter of imports. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned that the flow of non-essential goods was crowding out vital supplies needed by residents.
Ross Smith, the World Food Programme’s emergency director, attributed the worsening funding crisis for humanitarian operations in Gaza to declining donor interest and a widespread perception that the ceasefire was effectively in place. An analysis by Fair covering 248 US media outlets showed Gaza’s presence in coverage falling from about 4.5% of published material around the announcement of the agreement to 1.5% during the following three months.
Analyst Hassan Abdo said Israel’s Foreign Ministry and agencies including Unit 8200 had worked to establish an international perception that the truce was genuine and that Israel was abiding by it. The episode featured testimonies from residents of the Strip, including Amna, who said she returned after the truce to her area in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza for the sake of her children.
She added that she had lost her sons Salah and Abboud on 22 April 2026, when they were targeted in a bombardment while sitting, and ended her testimony by saying: “That’s enough now.” Mahmoud, meanwhile, said he and his two sons rebuilt a tent in the Zeitoun neighbourhood over 52 days before he was forced to flee under shelling when tanks approached the Yellow Line.
He later moved to a school in an isolated, poorly serviced area near Netzarim, south of Gaza City, while being forced to carry his 14-year-old daughter because she has a disability that prevents her from walking. He said: “All our dreams have been destroyed.” A student who had received a scholarship said the ceasefire was “a big lie” to her, explaining that she was still unable to travel despite having completed her paperwork.
The testimonies reflected continuing displacement, travel disruptions and difficulty accessing services, alongside field violations and restrictions on aid entering the Strip. Hamad described the picture presented of conditions in Gaza as beyond doubt, and accused Israel of not wanting peace or stability and of rejecting the agreement, Trump’s initiative and European and international positions.
He said Hamas had made major efforts with mediators in Qatar, Türkiye and Egypt, as well as with the US administration, and had made “major concessions” in agreement with the Palestinian forces, describing the international position as “shameful”. Hamad said the US administration was the party capable of compelling Israel to implement the agreement, but was content merely to monitor the situation, according to him.
He criticised calls to await the outcome of the Israeli elections, saying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to achieve electoral gains at the expense of Palestinian blood. He called on Arab, Muslim and European countries to adopt serious positions, including imposing sanctions on Israel rather than limiting them to settlers.
Regarding the Peace Council and the structures arising from it—the Executive Council, the Gaza Administration Committee and the International Stabilisation Force—Hamad said the council had taken no practical step, even on aid. He added that what entered the Strip was about 30% less than required, that 98% of schools had been destroyed and that about 85% of the population depended on aid.
Commenting on Netanyahu’s threats to continue assassinations and on the programme presenter’s mention of an attempt to assassinate the movement’s leader in Gaza, Hamad said this was unsurprising from a government he described as extremist. He added that the Palestinian people would remain and that Hamas, in his words, stood on the right side of history.
Barghouti, for his part, said the decline in Western media coverage made what he described as the aims of the aggression easier to pursue, and held the United States and the Peace Council partly responsible. He questioned whether Washington had halted arms exports or support for Israel, citing a statement by US Ambassador Mike Huckabee in which he considered describing what was happening in Gaza as genocide “unacceptable” and said it did not apply to the Strip.
Barghouti accused the US administration of acting on Israel’s behalf and said Israel had carried out nine operations constituting violations of the agreement. He added that it had not allowed the administrative committee or peacekeeping forces to enter, and that the volume of aid entering was less than 30% of the agreed amount.
He also said the Israeli authorities had prevented the entry of equipment, medical supplies and oils needed for operation, while 18,000 patients remained unable to leave Gaza. He said Washington was not an impartial mediator and accused Israel of using siege, starvation and killing to achieve what he described as “ethnic cleansing” and drive residents to leave.
Barghouti linked this course to Israeli policies in the West Bank, saying the Israeli government openly stated its goal of annexing land and expelling its residents. Programme presenter Fairouz Ziani said Israel was seeking to apply the West Bank model in Gaza by suggesting there was a state project and a new Green Line based on the Yellow and Orange lines.
