China announced on Tuesday that rival Palestinian organizations Fatah and Hamas had “in-depth and candid talks on promoting intra-Palestinian reconciliation” recently in Beijing.
“Representatives of the Palestine National Liberation Movement and the Islamic Resistance Movement recently came to Beijing,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said, referring to the groups by their formal names.
“The two sides fully expressed their political will to achieve reconciliation through dialogue and consultation, discussed many specific issues and made positive progress,” he added, without specifying when the sides had met.
Islamist movement After fierce battles with Fatah, which retains some administrative power in the Israeli-occupied West Bank through the Palestinian Authority, Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2007.
China has long supported a two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and shown sympathy for the Palestinian cause.
Since the beginning of the current Israel-Hamas war in October of last year, when the militant group’s strikes claimed the lives of roughly 1,170 people in Israel, largely civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli official numbers, Beijing has been urging for an immediate truce.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,535 people in the Gaza Strip, mostly women and children, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said on Tuesday.
Beijing said on Tuesday the two factions had “agreed to continue this process of dialogue with a view to achieving Palestinian unity at an early date”.
“The two sides highly appreciated China’s firm support for the just cause of the Palestinian people to restore their legitimate national rights,” Lin said.
He did not name the Hamas and Fatah delegates that convened in Beijing.
To end the violence, “international peace conference” has been convened by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi forewarned the diplomats from Arab and Muslim-majority countries that a “humanitarian disaster” was taking place in Gaza during the delegation’s November visit to Beijing.
