Netanyahu trashes Hamas' new roadmap

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday symbolically tossed into a bin a Hamas policy paper published last week that set out a new roadmap for Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In a document issued last Monday, Hamas redefines itself as a national liberation group, disavowing itself from the Muslim Brotherhood, distancing itself from aims of destroying Israel and accepting the 1967 borders of the Palestinian state without referring to Israel's legitimate statehood.

The Israeli government has said the document aimed to deceive the world that Hamas was becoming more moderate.

PM Netanyahu, in a 97-second video clip aired on social media on Sunday, said that news outlets had been taken in by "fake news". Sitting behind his desk with tense music playing in the background, he said that in its "hateful document", Hamas "lies to the world". He then pulled up a waste paper bin, crumpled the document into a ball and tossed it away.

"The new Hamas document says that Israel has no right to exist, it says every inch of our land belongs to the Palestinians, it says there is no acceptable solution other than to remove Israel... they want to use their state to destroy our state," Netanyahu said.

Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2007, after securing an overwhelming victory in legislative elections the previous year and ending 40 years of political domination by its rival Fatah party. Hamas captured the coastal strip by violently overthrowing forces loyal to the Fatah movement, led by Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Israel, along with Egypt, has been enforcing a crippling border blockade against them since then.

Outgoing Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said Hamas's fight was not against Judaism as a religion but against what he called "aggressor Zionists". Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas's leader in the Gaza Strip, was named on Saturday to succeed Meshaal.