CAIRO, December 14. /TASS/. Hamas senior official Mousa Abu Marzouk has said that his remarks about relations with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which has recognized Israel, in his interview with Al Monitor were taken out of context.

"I would like to confirm that some of the expressions and phrases that were mentioned in my interview with Al Monitor were distorted and do not reflect my position and the movement’s [Hamas] position," he wrote on his X (formerly known as Twitter) page.

He stressed that there is no change in his and Hamas’ position on this matter.

Marzouk said in an interview with Al Monitor that Hamas "wants to be part" of the Palestine Liberation Organization and respects its obligations. "You should stick to the official position. And the official position is that the PLO has recognized the State of Israel," Al Monitor quoted him as saying.

The PLO and Israel recognized each other after the Oslo talks in the 1990s. Under the documents they signed, self-government was established in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian National Authority was set up as a supreme power body and the Palestinian Legislative Council was mandated as the entity’s parliament. However, a conflict broke out among Palestinian organizations in 2007 after Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip and has been ruling it until now. The West Bank is governed by the PLO, with Fatah being its biggest group. Its leader is Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 200 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to Israeli authorities’ aggressive actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria, as well as a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Clashes are also reported in the West Bank.

On November 22, Hamas announced an agreement with Israel, which was brokered by Egypt and Qatar, on a four-day humanitarian truce in the Gaza Strip, which took effect on November 24. The deal stipulated the release of Israeli women and children being held hostage in Gaza in exchange for the release of Palestinian women and children from Israeli prisons.

The sides extended the ceasefire several times but on the morning of December 1 the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that Hamas had violated the truce in Gaza and opened fire on Israeli territory, thus prompting the IDF to resume combat operations in the Gaza Strip.