Hamas’s political leader abroad, Khaled Meshaal, has rejected calls to disarm Palestinian factions in Gaza, arguing that stripping weapons from an occupied people would turn them into “an easy victim to be eliminated”.

Speaking on the second day of the Al Jazeera Forum in Doha on Sunday, Meshaal described the discussion around Hamas handing over its weapons as a continuation of a century-long effort to neutralise Palestinian armed resistance.

“The problem is not that Hamas and the resistance forces in Gaza provide guarantees; the problem is Israel, which wants to take the Palestinian weapons … and put them in the hands of militias to create chaos,” he said.