Khalid Meshal: “Hamas will not agree to disarmament”

“We will never agree with the criminalization of the resistance, its weapons and those who use these weapons. As long as there is occupation, there will be resistance. Resistance is the legitimate right of those who are under occupation. It is a source of pride for peoples,” he said.

Let us remind you: the disarmament of Hamas is one of the main points of US President Donald Trump’s plan to resolve the situation in Gaza. The parties that signed the agreement: Egypt, Türkiye and Qatar acted as guarantors of disarmament. However, at the moment no one is ready to achieve this goal.

Khalid Mashal. Brief information

Khalid Meshal was born in 1956 in the village of Silwad (a suburb of Ramallah, Samaria). In 1967, he and his family were deported to Jordan, from where the family soon moved to Kuwait, where Khalid lived until 1990.

In Kuwait, Khalid graduated from high school and university, and is a physics teacher by training. While still at the university, Mashal headed the student “Islamic Bloc”; in 1987, he was one of the founders of the Palestinian student group, which was soon transformed into the Hamas organization, which aims to create an “Islamic state of Palestine” throughout Israel.

In 1990, he moved to Jordan, where he organized a series of terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens. In 1996, he was elected chairman of the Politburo of the terrorist organization Hamas.

In 1997, Israeli intelligence services attempted to destroy him, Meshaal was poisoned, but Jordanian intelligence services detained the “liquidators”, in exchange for their lives, Israel released Sheikh Ahmad Yassin from prison and transferred the antidote for Meshaal to Amman.

In 1999, the Jordanian authorities, at the request of Israel, denied him asylum; Meshaal moved to Damascus (Syria), where until recently his headquarters was located. In 2012, amid the civil war in Syria, and due to possible persecution by the Assad regime, Meshaal moved to Qatar.

Khalid Meshal is on the list of the most dangerous terrorists wanted by Israeli intelligence services. However, in December 2012, shortly after Operation Pillar of Cloud, the Israeli authorities did not interfere with his visit to Gaza and did not attempt to destroy him.

At the beginning of May 2017, it was announced that Ismail Haniyya had been elected as the new head of the Hamas Politburo. At the same time, Mashal formally ceased to hold any position in the organization, leaving the Politburo.

In April 2021, he was elected head of Hamas in the Diaspora. On July 31, 2024, after the liquidation of Haniyya in Tehran, it was reported that Mashaal temporarily headed the Hamas Politburo. However, it was soon announced that Yahya Sinouar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, became the temporary head of the Hamas Politburo (until new elections).

After the liquidation of Sinouar, which was officially announced on October 17, 2024, Meshaal was declared the interim head of the Hamas politburo. However, this was not subsequently confirmed.