Ismail Haniyeh, the late Hamas leader, turned down a deal offering billions of dollars and the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza, according to his son, Abd Al-Salam Haniyeh.

The offer, part of the "Deal of the Century" brokered by former Trump adviser Jared Kushner, was refused due to demands to disarm Hamas, according to Haniyeh’s son, who also reflected on the transformation and development of Gaza in recent years.

In an interview posted on YouTube in August and translated by Memri TV, the son of the former head of Hamas’s political bureau said his father had been offered a deal by Kushner, then senior adviser to President Donald Trump.

“He said that Kushner (told) a mediator that he wanted to come over and reach an agreement about the Deal of the Century and the establishment of a (Palestinian) state in Gaza, and then billions would be spent on Gaza, and they would hand over the weapons of the resistance”.

Haniyeh recollected that his father “famously said ‘may our hands be paralysed if we sign an agreement that will separate Gaza from Palestine’.”

In the interview with SamaQuds network on YouTube, Haniyeh’s son talked about how much Gaza had improved in recent years, with the opening up of more aid channels and global attention on the Strip.

“After the 2008-2009 (war) the world opened up (to Gaza). For the first time, a huge thing happened.

Although “There were 1,200 martyrs and there was destruction,” Haniyeh remarked that the attention of “The world, Al-Jazeera TV, the media,” improved things for the territory.

“There was an Arab summit, and people were sympathising.

“The convoys started. The tunnels began to be active, and whatever,” he went on, referring to the mass expansion of Hamas’s tunnel network and the increasing aid convoys into Gaza.

“Then there was the Arab Spring and then, in 2013... it was a time of progress, and (in 2012), the Emir of Qatar came, and laid the cornerstone for the reconstruction. All this has turned into Gaza.”

“People who came to Gaza in 2020-2021 could not believe this was Gaza because it was so beautiful. With buildings, the Doha Promenade, the Egypt Promenade, restaurants, and so on and so forth.

“Who would have thought that this was besieged Gaza which had been through wars? The kind of beauty that was there could not be found in many Arab countries,” Haniyeh went on.

Haniyeh added: “If (my father) really cared about himself, he could have signed an agreement and a red carpet would have been rolled out for him.”

Asked by the interviewer if his father was “offered such a thing”, he responded: “He was offered many things.”

“He talked about what was offered to him as part of the Deal of the Century.”