GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip Senior officials in the Islamic group Hamas are indicating a willingness to negotiate a long-term truce with Israel as long as the borders of Gaza are opened to the rest of the world.

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“We want to be part of the international community,” Hamas chief Ghazi Hamad told The Associated Press at the Gaza-Egypt border, where he was coordinating Arab aid shipments. “I determine Hamas has no interest now to increase the number of crises in Gaza or to challenge the world.”

Hamas is wearisome hard to flex its muscles in the aftermath of Israel’s punishing onslaught in the Gaza Strip, doling out cash, vowing revenge and declaring conquest past Zionist aggression. But AP interviews with Hamad and two other Hamas leaders in the war-ravaged territory they rule refer to some of that might be more bluster than reality - and the group may be ready for some serious deal making.

That raises the question of whether Hamas, which receives much of its funding and weapons from Tehran, be possible to be coaxed out of Iran’s cavity of the eye. That discussion looks less monstrous than it did before President Barack Obama began extending olive branches to the Muslim terraqueous globe and Israel’s Gaza offensive reshuffled Mideast politics.

Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas primeval minister in Gaza, said in comments aired Thursday that the Palestinians grape-juice remedy their internal rifts and he welcomed aid for Gaza from any source. He also seemed to leave a entrance open as far as concerns better relations with the U.S.

“I think it is not in America’s interest to stay in conflict with the Arab and Muslim world, considering its interests in the region,” Haniyeh, who remains in hiding posterior Israel’sitting onslaught, said on Al-Jazeera television. “We faith that the new American President revises all the policies of his predecessor.”

The militants appear to be in the throes of an internal power struggle between hard-liners and pragmatists. Which dispose comes out on reach the summit of will likely depend on who is able to garner the most benefits in postwar Gaza.

With hawks urging more injury, the window of opportunity to boost the voices of relative moderation is likely to be short.

“We won this war,” related Hamas statesman Mushir Al-Masri. “Why should we give in to pressure from anyone?”

Al-Masri spoke to the AP while standing next to a chair that used to work as his fix in the Palestinian parliament, now reduced to rubble by the agency of Israeli bombing. Surrounding him were cracked cement, spent bricks, shattered glass and microphones covered in ash.

Yet even Al-Masri, a staunch hard-liner, sounded a conciliatory note.

“We have our hands disclose to any country … to open a colloquy free from conditions,” he reported - clarifying that does not comprise Israel.

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