Hamas announced on Tuesday it had signed an agreement in Beijing with other Palestinian groups, including rival Fatah, to work together for “national unity”. China described it as a pact to govern Gaza together after the war ends.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who hosted senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk, Fatah envoy Mahmoud al-Aloul and envoys from 12 other Palestinian groups, said they had agreed to establish an “interim national reconciliation government” to govern post-war Gaza.
“Today we sign an agreement for national unity and we say that the path to completing this journey is national unity. We are committed to national unity and we call for it,” Abu Marzuk said after meeting Wang and other ambassadors.
The announcement comes more than nine months after a war triggered by Hamas’ October attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli data.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza, 44 of whom the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 39,000 people, the vast majority of them civilians, according to data from the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.
The ongoing fighting has pushed Gaza into a severe humanitarian crisis.
China has attempted to play a mediator role in the conflict, which is complicated by intense rivalry between Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and Fatah, which partly governs the occupied West Bank.
Israel has vowed to continue fighting until Hamas is destroyed, and world powers, including key Israel-backed United States, have begun to imagine scenarios for the governance of Gaza once the war ends.
Neither Israel nor the United States will approve any post-war plan that involves Hamas, which has been declared a terrorist organization by Washington.
Although it is unclear whether the agreement announced in Beijing on Tuesday will stand, it signals that the only world power that can broker reconciliation between the Palestinian rivals is China.
At the conclusion of the meeting in Beijing on Tuesday, Wang said the two groups had committed to “reconciliation.”
“The most important thing is that we have reached an agreement to form an interim national reconciliation government to govern Gaza in the post-war period,” Wang said after the factions signed the “Beijing Declaration” in the Chinese capital.
“Reconciliation is an internal affair of the Palestinian factions, but at the same time, it cannot be achieved without the support of the international community,” Wang said.
Fatah official Mahmoud al-Aloul thanked China for its “endless support” for the Palestinian cause.
“Our love for China is our friendship on behalf of all the Palestinian people,” he said.
Significantly, he did not say whether any agreement had been reached with Hamas and other groups.
According to Wang, envoys from Egypt, Algeria and Russia were also present at Tuesday’s meeting.
Egypt, Israel and Gaza’s neighbor, is the main mediator in this conflict.
Algeria is a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council and has drafted a resolution on the war.
While Western powers are trying to isolate Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, China has maintained its strategic partnership with Moscow.
‘Peace and stability’
Wang said China is “willing to play a constructive role in safeguarding peace and stability in the Middle East.”
He also called for a “comprehensive, permanent and sustainable ceasefire”, as well as efforts to promote Palestinian self-rule and full recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations.
Hamas and Fatah have been bitter rivals since Hamas fighters drove Fatah out of the Gaza Strip following deadly clashes that followed Hamas’s landslide victory in 2006 elections.
Fatah controls the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control over the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Several reconciliation attempts have failed, but calls for reconciliation have grown since a Hamas attack in October and a nine-month war in Gaza, as well as escalation of violence in the West Bank, where Fatah has a base.
China hosted Fatah and Hamas in April but the meeting scheduled for June was postponed.
China has historically been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and a supporter of a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
China has positioned itself as a more neutral actor in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict than its rival the United States, and maintains good relations with Israel while advocating a two-state solution.
In recent years it has sought to play a bigger role in the Middle East, helping to facilitate a historic reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran last year.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)