Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Saturday rejected international calls for the group to disarm and renounce violence to prevent cuts to international aid for the Palestinian Authority. "This aid can not be a sword over the heads of the Palestinian people and will not be material to blackmail our people, to blackmail Hamas and the resistance. It is rejected," Haniyeh told Reuters in an interview in the Gaza Strip. He added that Hamas was committed to keeping its arms and resisting Israeli occupation.