ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Hamas said on Saturday that the movement will not relinquish their arms unless a sovereign Palestinian state is established with Jerusalem as its capital.

In a statement addressing remarks by US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff in which he claimed Hamas has said they are prepared to be demilitarized, the movement said that their weapons “cannot be relinquished except by fully restoring our national rights, foremost among which is the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with full sovereignty and its capital as Jerusalem.”

“We reaffirm that the resistance and its weapons are a national and legal entitlement as long as the occupation exists, and they have been affirmed by charters and international norms,” said the Palestinian resistance group.

During a meeting with the families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, Witkoff said that “part of an end to this war involves Hamas demilitarizing and Hamas has said that they are prepared to be demilitarized, but we need to hold them above that,” according to the Israeli media outlet Haaretz.

“Multiple Arab governments are now demanding Hamas demilitarize, so we are very, very close to a solution to end this war,” the outlet quoted Witkoff as saying during the visit.

The special envoy's comments came after the Arab League on Tuesday endorsed a declaration at a UN conference that said that "Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority."

France in July announced that they will recognize the State of Palestine in an upcoming UN General Assembly in September. The UK and Canada both announced similar plans after France’s Emmanuel Macron made the announcement, in a bid to pressure Israel into opening conventional routes of humanitarian corridors.

Israel's increasingly extensive military campaign on Palestinian territories and the tightening of humanitarian corridors into Gaza has ignited ample uproar, with European powers changing the tone of their narratives more and more in criticism of Israel.

In a joint statement on Monday, the foreign ministers of 30 countries, including France, called for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and condemned “the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children.”

The Israeli campaign has claimed the lives of over 60,000 Palestinians since October 7, 2023, and wounded nearly 150,000 more, according to the latest toll by Gaza’s health ministry.