Hamas officials said they would neither recognize Israel nor abide by earlier agreements. “We will never recognize Israel,” Nizar Rayyan, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza, told Reuters last Friday after Hamas and Fatah leaders reached a national unity government agreement to end weeks of violence. “There is nothing called Israel, neither in reality nor in the imagination.” Another spokesman confirmed this view: “The recognition is not an option at all, is not discussable,” Ismail Rudwan told Reuters and AFP. According to the agreement, Hamas will “respect” earlier agreements that recognize Israel, but Rayyan said even this was questionable. “We in the Hamas movement will not abide by anything,” he said.
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