Welcome to Hard Talk from the BBC World Service with me, Sarah Montague.

My guest in an interview recorded on Tuesday the 28th of January is Basem Naim, a senior political figure in Hamas.

It carried out the October the 7th attacks in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

That led to the Israeli onslaught on Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians

and flattened much of the territory.

A fragile ceasefire is in place in Gaza.

Assuming it holds, the next step should be talking about the future and how to make it permanent.

Prescribed as a terrorist organisation by the West

and running out of allies in the Middle East,

is Hamas ready to negotiate its own demise?

Bassam Naim joins me now on the line from Doha.

Welcome to Hard Talk.

You've been involved since the beginning of the ceasefire talks.

How confident are you that they will now lead to a permanent ceasefire?

This is our hopes, and we are committed to the ceasefire deal,

and we will do our maximum to give this deal a chance to succeed,

because from day one after the aggression on our people after October 7th, our main goal was how to stop this aggression, how to

end this slaughter on our people. Therefore, we are ready to facilitate and to overcome any obstacles or

challenges which might be faced during the implementation. But at the same time, we are

expecting that Netanyahu and his government, as usual, they might use and execuses to

penetrate or to violate or to sabotage this deal. But hopefully this deal will lead, in the

second phase at least, to a permanent ceasefire and total withdrawal of the Israeli forces

...