An elder Hamas an official 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 News week in the wake of the former president Donald Trumpelectoral victory.

“The election of Trump as the 47th president of the United States is a private matter for Americans,” said Hamas Politburo member and spokesperson Basem Naim. News week“but the Palestinians look forward to an immediate cessation of aggression against our people, particularly in Gaza, and await assistance in realizing their legitimate rights to freedom, independence and the establishment of their state independent and autonomous with Jerusalem as its capital. “.

“The blind support for the Zionist entity “Israel” and its fascist government, to the detriment of the future of our people and the security and stability of the region, must end immediately,” he added. .

While in office, Trump formed a close relationship with the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahuwhich is now engaged in a multi-front war against the Iran-aligned Axis of Resistance, which began with a large-scale Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023. However, Trump also expressed criticized Netanyahu’s wartime leadership and called for an end to the conflict as soon as possible.

Contacted for comment, an Israeli official said News week that “maintaining and expanding the special relationship between the United States and Israel has been a bipartisan feature of American policy since the founding of the Jewish state.”

“We are confident that this will continue to be the case,” the Israeli official said. “Going forward, we hope to maintain a strong working relationship with his administration to achieve a more peaceful, secure and prosperous Middle East.”

With persistent signs of disagreement between the president Joe Biden and Netanyahu throughout the war, despite significant American military aid, the Israeli prime minister was the first to congratulate Trump for what was described as “the greatest comeback in history“.

“Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America,” Netanyahu said in his statement Wednesday.

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

News week contacted Hezbollah and the Iranian permanent mission to the The United Nations for comment.

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

While Biden has continued to provide military assistance to Israel and call for greater safeguards to mitigate harm to civilians, he has been accused by Israel’s supporters of not doing enough to help the US ally and by the pro-Palestinian factions for not having sufficiently restrained Netanyahu. .

vice-president Kamala HarrisThe campaign largely echoed the Biden administration’s position, calling for peace and expressing sympathy for the plight of civilians caught in the conflict, while rejecting any calls to suspend arms sales to Israel.

In a statement released Wednesday, Hamas also asked an end to the Israeli 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 American president-elect is obliged to listen to the voices that have been raised within American society itself for more than a year regarding the Zionist aggression against the Gaza Strip,” the statement said, “rejecting the “occupation and genocide and opposing support and prejudice 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 highlighted “the commitment of our people to seek freedom, self-determination and statehood, in accordance with the international law,” according to a press release published by the newspaper. Palestinian News and Information Agency (WAFA).

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

Hamas and Abbas had frequently condemned Trump’s moves in the Middle East while in power, including his 2018 decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the contested city of Jerusalem and his 2020 plan aimed at ending the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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

In one of its most ambitious steps, the proposal also called for the creation of a tunnel connecting the West Bank and Gaza.

Although the plan failed to gain momentum in the Arab world, Trump successfully oversaw the Abraham Accords later that year, which brought the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco to establish 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 assassination of the head of the Guardian Corps’ Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution, Major General Qassem Soleimani, in Iraq in 2020.

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

“We want a strong, powerful military and, ideally, we don’t need to use it,” Trump said during his victory speech on election night. “You know, we didn’t have any wars for four years. We didn’t have any wars. Except we won ISISwe defeated ISIS in record time.”

“They said, ‘He’s going to start a war.’ I’m not going to start a war,” Trump said Wednesday. “I will stop the wars.”