JERUSALEM — A Hamas leader said Thursday that if his militant group came to power in a future Palestinian state, it would not abide by any previous Palestinian peace deals with Israel.

Moussa Abu Marzouk, the Islamic militant group’s number two figure, said any potential deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, even if ratified in a Palestinian referendum, would be considered only as a temporary truce.

“We will not recognize Israel as a state,” he told the Jewish Daily Forward, a Jewish-American newspaper in an interview published Thursday. It was the first such interview by a senior Hamas leader to a Jewish publication. Israeli newspapers reported it on Friday.

Hamas has ruled Gaza since expelling rival Fatah forces in 2007. The Palestinian Authority, headed by Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas, rules parts of the West Bank.

Abu Marzouk’s remarks emphasized the doctrinaire position of the Islamic militant group’s exiled leadership, ruling out accommodation with Israel. Some local Hamas figures have hinted they would accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza as a first stage toward the eventual elimination of Israel.