Hamas leaders shared different views on negotiations with Israel, with those in the Gaza Strip taking Wednesday more hard-line stance towards the peace talks, Xinhua reported.
"Hamas doesn't believe in the way of negotiations," said Salah al-Bardaweel, a Hamas official in Gaza, describing the talks as " useless plays that caused Palestinian rights to erode over the past 20 years."
Al-Bardaweel said his remarks came to explain statements by Khaled Mashaal, the Damascus-based chief, who said that Hamas will give the Palestinian National Authority one more year to try to reach a peaceful solution with Israel.
Mashaal's statements were made in Cairo when Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party were signing a reconciliation agreement earlier this month.
On Tuesday, Mahmoud Zahar, another Gaza-based leader, said that the statements of Mashaal, the head of Hamas' politburo, did not express the movement's official position.
The negotiations stopped last year, when Israel resumed the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.