Top PLO, Fatah Officials: Hamas Should Join Us, No Need to Disarm

The Palestinian Authority (PA) appears eager to hijack the Board of Peace’s UN Security Council-approved administration of Gaza and unite with Hamas to control the Strip themselves, according to comments made by a top PLO official in a new interview documented by Palestinian Media Watch.

According to Egyptian reports, PLO Executive Committee Secretary Azzam Al-Ahmad has been in Cairo meeting with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad:

Two informed Palestinian sources said Azzam Al-Ahmad, the secretary-general of the PLO Executive Committee, held talks in Cairo with faction leaders including Hamas and Islamic Jihad about the two movements joining the PLO.

[Manassa.news (Egypt), Feb. 22, 2026]

Officials from the governing PA and its parent political body the Palestine Liberation Organization have been making repeated overtures to Hamas to join the PLO.

In November 2025, Fatah Central Committee Secretary Jibril Rajoub called on Egyptian help to “bridge the gaps” between Fatah and Hamas so they can unite against Israel.

The previous month, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash declared “our hands are extended, and our hearts are open to rapprochement with Hamas.”

The implicit hope behind the unity push is that move might satisfy international demands for Hamas to relinquish control of Gaza. Back in October, Al-Habbash said that Hamas needed to disarm, but clearly the PA position has since softened. As a sweetener for Hamas to agree to join the PLO, the PLO says it is now ready to appease the terror group by allowing it to keep its weapons and remain an armed force on the ground.

The PA and PLO are aware that to legitimize absorbing Hamas into the PLO, Hamas – the perpetrators of the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust – must also be laundered of the stigma of being defined as a terror organization.

During al-Ahmad’s visit, he was interviewed by an Egyptian newspaper, tacitly confirming his mission:

They [US President Donald Trump and the Board of Peace] do not want Hamas to play any role in the Gaza Strip, and we reject this completely, because Hamas is part of the Palestinian national activity. It is true that it has not yet joined the PLO, but we are in a constant national dialogue with them to complete what is required for their entry into the PLO. Therefore, all talk about disarming Hamas and it being a terror organization is unacceptable to us, because Hamas is not a terror organization. [emphasis added]

[Shorouk News (Egyptian paper), Feb. 23, 2026]

The immediate follow-up question in the interview was seen as so important by Al-Ahmad that he made it into a post for his Facebook page:

Shorouk News’ Mohammed Khayal: “You mean clearly that you in the PLO do not view Hamas as a terror organization?”

Azzam Al-Ahmad: “We have never viewed it as a terror organization, and we always oppose when a decision is made by any international institution or any government classifying them as a terror organization, because they are part of the Palestinian national fabric.”

[Azzam Al-Ahmed’s Facebook page, Feb. 23, 2026]

Lest anyone thought that Al-Ahmad had misspoken, his strong statement was soon backed by Rajoub:

“Fatah Central Committee [Secretary and] member Jibril Rajoub emphasized that [PLO Executive Committee member] Azzam Al-Ahmad did not err in defending the weapons of the Hamas Movement and stating that it is part of the Palestinian national fabric.”

[Shahed, independent Palestinian news website, Feb. 24, 2026]

Meanwhile, without referencing Al-Ahmad directly, Fatah Movement Central Committee member Abbas Zaki doubled down on the renewed push for unity with the Islamist terror groups.

“Fatah Movement Central Committee member Abbas Zaki emphasized that national dialogue among Palestinian factions, foremost among them Hamas and Islamic Jihad, constitutes a ‘necessary path and an urgent national need… The real enemy of this unity is the Israeli occupation, and those who stand behind it politically and militarily, foremost among them the US, which is working to rearrange the region in a way that will serve Israel’s sovereignty at the expense of the Arab and Islamic rights.'”

[Sanad News, independent Palestinian news agency, Feb. 26, 2026]

Statements like these are nothing new for PA or PLO officials, who have been making overtures to Hamas for years. Yet the timing and stridency of this particular effort is everything, as it seeks to directly undermine the Trump-brokered ceasefire agreement and Gaza reconstruction plan based on the establishment of a technocratic government.

A technocratic government, to be known as the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), was chosen as the most effective way to begin to restore services to Gazans, and that makes sense. It provides the administrative structure to deliver essential services while at the same time depriving oxygen to any resumption of warfare against Israel from the territory – at least the parts of Gaza that Hamas no longer controls.

While the PA has decided to go along with the plan, a recent letter from PA Vice Chairman Hussein Al-Sheikh welcoming a PA liaison office with the NCAG stressed the PA’s expectation that this was all just a “transitional” prelude to PA control.

“These constitute practical transitional steps that contribute to alleviating the suffering of our people and providing administrative and security services, without creating administrative, legal, or security duality among our people in Gaza and the West Bank, and while reinforcing the principle of one system, one law, and one legitimate authority over arms.”

[WAFA, official PA news agency, English edition, Feb. 21, 2026]

In the PA’s mindset, whatever moves can hasten the end of this transition, the better, as the notion of suspending conflict with Israel in any Palestinian-populated area even temporarily is anathema to the PLO and Hamas alike.

As evidenced by Al-Ahmad’s latest remarks and others, the PA and PLO have no problem whatsoever with Hamas’ zeal for terrorism – but only appear to differ with the Islamist terror group on who gets to decide when and how it is used.

The author is a contributor to Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.