Palestinian resistance group Hamas would lay down its weapons and convert into a political party if an independent Palestinian state is established along pre-1967 borders, a top political official for the group has said.

The comments by Khalil al-Hayya in an interview Wednesday came amid a stalemate in months of talks for a cease-fire in Gaza. The suggestion that Hamas would disarm appeared to be a significant concession by the group that does not recognize the state of Israel.

It's unlikely, however, that Israel would consider such a scenario. It has vowed to crush Hamas following the Oct. 7 incursion that triggered the current conflict.

Its current leadership is also adamantly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state on lands Israel captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

Al-Hayya, a high-ranking Hamas official, who has represented the Palestinian militants in negotiations for a cease-fire and hostage exchange, struck a sometimes defiant and other times conciliatory tone.

Speaking to the AP in Istanbul, al-Hayya said Hamas wants to join the Palestine Liberation Organization, headed by the rival Fatah faction, to form a unified government for Gaza and the West Bank.

He said Hamas would accept "a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the return of Palestinian refugees in accordance with the international resolutions," along Israel’s pre-1967 borders.

If that happens, he said, the group's military wing would dissolve.

"All the experiences of people who fought against occupiers, when they became independent and obtained their rights and their state, what have these forces done? They have turned into political parties and their defending fighting forces have turned into the national army," he said.

Over the years, Hamas has sometimes moderated its public position for the possibility of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. But its political program still officially "rejects any alternative to the full liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea" – referring to the area reaching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, which includes lands that now make up Israel.

Al-Hayya did not say whether his apparent embrace of a two-state solution would amount to an end to the Palestinian conflict with Israel or an interim step toward the group’s stated goal of destroying Israel.

There was no immediate reaction from Israel or the Palestinian Authority, the internationally recognized self-ruled government that Hamas drove out when it seized Gaza in 2007, a year after winning Palestinian parliamentary elections. After the Hamas takeover of Gaza, the Palestinian Authority was left with administering semi-autonomous pockets of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Authority hopes to establish an independent state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza – areas captured by Israel in the 1967 war. While the international community overwhelmingly supports such a two-state solution, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line government rejects it.

The war in Gaza has dragged on for nearly seven months and cease-fire negotiations have stalled. The war was triggered by the Oct. 7 incursion that caused the death of around 1,200 people, while 250 people were taken as hostages into the enclave.

The ensuing Israeli bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to local health authorities, and displaced some 80% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million.

Israel is now preparing for an offensive in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians have fled to.

Israel claims it has dismantled most of Hamas establishments since the start of the war, but argues that a Rafah offensive is necessary to achieve total victory.

Al-Hayya said such an offensive would not succeed in destroying Hamas. He said contacts between the political leadership outside and military leadership inside Gaza are "uninterrupted" by the war and "contacts, decisions and directions are made in consultation" between the two groups.

Israeli forces "have not destroyed more than 20% of (Hamas’) capabilities, neither human nor in the field," he said. "If they can’t finish (Hamas) off, what is the solution? The solution is to go to consensus."

He added that Israeli attempts to eradicate Hamas would ultimately fail to prevent future Palestinian armed uprisings.

"Let’s say that they have destroyed Hamas. Are the Palestinian people gone?" he asked.