“We deal separately with the prisoner swap issue, the ceasefire and Gaza reconstruction and siege, and we have told all the parties and mediators that these files cannot be interconnected,” Hayya said in remarks to al-Jazeera satellite channel on Monday.

He warned that there would be another round of confrontation with the occupation state if any harm came to the Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Jarrah or the hunger-striking prisoners.

The Hamas official also denied that his Movement had received a proposal about a long-term truce in Gaza, affirming that “the resistance option is the only type of relation with the occupation state as long as it exists on the Palestinian land.”

“We are lovers of freedom and liberation and not warmongers. We seek to liberate our land from the occupation in order to establish our state,” he said.

“In order for the ceasefire to continue, the occupation state must stop its aggression against Jerusalem, the Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Jarrah and the prisoners, and end its settlement activities and its siege on Gaza,” he added. (ILKHA)