Hamas’ political chief Khaled Mashaal said the Gaza-based terror group will never agree to disarm.

“We reject the cycle of cease-fire and negotiations,” Mashaal said at a July 23 press conference in Qatar. “We rejected it today, and we will reject it in the future.”

Demanding that Israel reopen border crossings and lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip, Mashaal threatened, “You blockade our air space, we will blockade your air space.”

Mashaal said Hamas was the victim in the conflict and stressed that it will never agree to demilitarization as part of negotiations. The only two conditions by which Hamas would give up its weapons, he said, would be “the end of the occupation and … the disarming of Israel from its weapons.”

The Hamas leader also disputed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that the terror group was responsible for last month’s kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers, saying, “No one knows, even now, who planned the kidnapping.” — ynetnews.com