Hamas announced Tuesday it had signed an agreement in Beijing with other Palestinian organisations including rivals Fatah to work together for ‘national unity’, with China describing it as a deal to rule Gaza together once the war ends.Â
Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, who hosted senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk, Fatah envoy Mahmud al-Aloul and emissaries from 12 other Palestinian groups, said they had agreed to set up 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 the other envoys.
The announcement comes more than nine months into a war with Israel who killed more than 39,000 Palestinians.
China has sought to play a mediator role in the conflict, which has been rendered even more complex due to the intense rivalry between Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and Fatah, which partially governs the occupied West Bank.
While it is unclear whether the deal announced in Beijing on Tuesday can hold, it does indicate that the only world power that can engineer a rapprochement between the Palestinian rivals is China.
As Tuesday’s meeting wrapped up in Beijing, Wang said the groups had committed to ‘reconciliation’.
‘The most prominent highlight is the agreement to form an interim national reconciliation government around the governance of post-war Gaza,’ Wang said after the factions signed the ‘Beijing declaration’ in the Chinese capital.
‘Reconciliation is an internal matter for 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 ‘unending support’ for the Palestinian cause.
‘To China, you have our love, you have all our friendship, from all the Palestinian people,’ he said.
Also present at Tuesday’s meeting were envoys from Egypt, Algeria and Russia, according to Wang.
Egypt, which neighbours Israel and Gaza, is a key mediator in the conflict.Â
Algeria is a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, and has drafted resolutions on the war.
China, Wang said, was keen to ‘play a constructive role in safeguarding peace and stability in the Middle East’.
He also called for a ‘comprehensive, lasting and sustainable ceasefire’, as well as efforts to promote Palestinian self-governance and full recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN.
Hamas and Fatah have been bitter rivals since Hamas fighters ejected Fatah from the Gaza Strip after deadly clashes that followed Hamas’s resounding victory in a 2006 election.
Fatah controls the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
China has historically been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and supportive of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
China has positioned itself as a more neutral actor on the Israel-Palestinian conflict than its rival the United States, advocating for a two-state solution while also maintaining good ties with Israel.
In Gaza, an Israeli operation in the main southern city of Khan Yunis killed 70 people and wounded more than 200, after Israel warned its forces would ‘forcefully operate’ in the area.
Thousands of Palestinians fled southern areas of the territory following the Israeli army’s temporary evacuation order for parts of Khan Yunis, including the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone.
The latest incident comes days after the health ministry said that 92 people were killed in a strike on Al-Mawasi, when Israel said that it was targeting a Hamas commander.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said that at least 12 people were killed on Monday in Gaza City, with four others killed in the Jabalia refugee camp.
Meanwhile, Israeli troops killed five Palestinians, including two women, in a pre-dawn raid on a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday.
The deaths came when Israeli forces raided the Tulkarem camp in the northern West Bank, the head of its popular committee, Faisal Salamah, told AFP. An activist at the camp confirmed the outcry.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said it had treated a 30-year-old man for bullet wounds to the abdomen, thigh and hand, and three women for shrapnel wounds, one of them to the eye.
Palestinian official news agency Wafa said more than 25 military vehicles, including bulldozers, stormed the camp, scooping up rubble to block off its narrow alleys.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under pressure to reach a truce and hostage-release deal, arrived in Washington on Monday to address the US Congress.
Netanyahu on Thursday will meet US President Joe Biden, who has pushed him to agree to a ceasefire, more than nine months into the Gaza war.
‘Due to the Israeli occupation’s attacks and massacres in Khan Yunis governorate from the early hours of this morning until now, 70 people have been martyred and more than 200 wounded,’ the Gaza health ministry said.
Facing yet another displacement, Palestinians filled the dusty streets of Khan Yunis with cars, motorbikes, donkey-drawn carts, and on foot, carrying what belongings they could.
Biden on Monday vowed to continue working to find a solution during his final months in office, a day after announcing his withdrawal from the US presidential race.
‘I’ll be working very closely with the Israelis and with the Palestinians’ to end the war, achieve peace in the Middle East and return the hostages, he said in a public call into his campaign headquarters.
Washington fears a voter backlash over the mounting civilian war toll in Gaza, while protests by anti-government demonstrators and families of hostages in Israel are pressuring Netanyahu at home.
An Israeli delegation will travel to Doha on Thursday to discuss new demands for a Gaza truce and hostage-prisoner exchange, a source with knowledge of the talks said.
Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been working to secure a deal between Israel and Hamas.
