Chinese foreign ministry says both Palestinian factions, ending their division, have agreed interim national reconciliation government.  Israel swiftly dismisses Beijing declaration.  There can’t be a role for Hamas: US.

Beijing /HONG KONG  -  Rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah have signed a declaration agreeing to form an interim “national reconciliation government” for the occupied West Bank and Gaza after the war with Israel, in a meeting brokered by China, China’s foreign minister and Hamas officials said Tuesday.

Representatives from the groups, along with 12 other Palestinian factions, pledged to work for unity after three days of talks in Beijing.

It is the latest of several reconciliation deals Hamas and Fatah have agreed on in their long fractured relationship, none of which have yet led to the end of the schism.

Israel has also ruled out a role for Hamas or Fatah in governing Gaza after the end of hostilities there.

The deep split began in 2007 when Hamas became the sole ruler in Gaza after violently ejecting Fatah from the territory. This came after Palestinian President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the Hamas-led unity government formed when Hamas won national elections the year before.

Since then, the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority has been left in charge of only parts of the West Bank. Hamas has lost control in Gaza since the war with Israel began on 7 October with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel, in which it killed about 1,200 people and took 251 others back to Gaza as hostages. More than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza as a result of the Israeli offensive, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

In a statement posted on Telegram, Hamas spokesman Hossam Badran said the declaration was an “additional positive step on the path to achieving Palestinian national unity”.

He said the groups were in agreement on “Palestinian demands relating to ending the war... which are: a ceasefire, complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, relief and reconstruction.”

He said “the most important” part of what was agreed was to form a Palestinian national consensus government “that would manage the affairs of our people in Gaza and the West Bank, supervise reconstruction, and prepare the conditions for elections”.

The declaration is in effect an expression of intent as there are major obstacles to making such an agreement work. Fatah has yet to comment on it, though its representative Mahmoud al-Aloul thanked China for its support of the Palestinian cause following the announcement.

Israel, which has vowed to destroy Hamas before it will end the war, swiftly dismissed the Beijing declaration. “Instead of rejecting terrorism, Mahmoud Abbas embraces the murderers and rapists of Hamas, revealing his true face,” Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on X.

“In reality, this won’t happen because Hamas’s rule will be crushed, and Abbas will be watching Gaza from afar. Israel’s security will remain solely in Israel’s hands.”

The announcement followed reconciliation talks hosted by China involving 14 Palestinian factions starting Sunday, according to China’s Foreign Ministry, which come as Israel wages war against Hamas in Gaza and as Beijing has sought to present itself as a potential peace broker in the conflict.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the agreement was “dedicated to the great reconciliation and unity of all 14 factions.” “The core outcome is that the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) is the sole legitimate representative of all Palestinian people,” Wang said, adding that “an agreement has been reached on post-Gaza war governance and the establishment of a provisional national reconciliation government.”

Fatah dominates both the PLO and the PA, the interim Palestinian government that was established in the Israeli-occupied West Bank after the 1993 agreement known as the Oslo Accords was signed. Hamas was not party to the accords and does not recognize Israel.

Mustafa Barghouti, president of the Palestinian National Initiative, who was at the Beijing talks, said “all the parties” have agreed that they should join the PLO, and that the organization is the only legitimate representative of the Palestinians.

There is a long history of bitter enmity between Hamas and Fatah. The two sides have tried – and failed – multiple times to reach an agreement to unite the two separate Palestinian territories under one governance structure, with a 2017 agreement quickly folding in violence.

The PA held administrative control over Gaza until 2007, after Hamas won the 2006 legislative elections in the occupied territories and expelled it from the strip. Since then, Hamas has ruled Gaza and the PA governs parts of the West Bank.

Barghouti said the latest attempt at reconciling the Palestinian factions “went much further” than previous efforts and included “specific steps” towards the formation of a consensus government. The war in Gaza, he told CNN, has prodded the factions to unite as a common front against Israel’s occupation.

“There was a very clear feeling that what Israel is doing is really threatening everybody,” he said. “And so, in that sense, the feeling of unity (to) confront the Israeli side is very clear here.”

A new government would ensure the unity of the occupied West Bank and Gaza, ruling both territories after the war and effectively “blocking Israeli efforts” to maintain its occupation of Gaza, he said.

At a news conference Tuesday in Beijing, Hamas delegation representative Mousa Abu Marzook said they had reached an agreement to complete a “course of reconciliation,” while also using the platform in Beijing to defend the group’s October 7 attack on Israel. “We’re at a historic junction. Our people are rising up in their efforts to struggle,” Abu Marzook said, according to a translation provided by China’s Foreign Ministry, adding that the October 7 operation had “changed a lot, both in international and regional landscape.”

Beijing has not explicitly condemned Hamas for its October 7 attack on Israel.

China’s role

Tuesday’s agreement follows an earlier round of talks between Hamas and Fatah hosted by Beijing in April.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, China – which has looked to bolster its influence and ties in the Middle East in recent years – has presented itself as a leading voice for countries across the Global South decrying Israel’s war in the enclave and calling for Palestinian statehood.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping in May called for an international peace conference during meetings with leaders from Arab nations and has also dispatched a special envoy to the Middle East to meet with diplomats and officials.

The US State Department said that while it had not reviewed the text of the Beijing agreement, it did not support Hamas having a role in the postwar governance of Gaza. “When it comes to governance of Gaza at the end of the conflict, there can’t be a role for a terrorist organization,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told a press briefing, referring to Hamas specifically.

Miller said he did not believe the deal would “in any way have an impact on the ongoing discussions to reach a ceasefire.” Miller also said the US wants to see the Palestinian Authority governing “a unified Gaza and the West Bank” after the war.