Senior representatives of the rival Palestinian organizations Fatah and Hamas, which are at war with Israel, have decided to meet in Beijing this month in an effort to restart talks for reconciliation, authorities announced on Monday.
Ismail Haniyeh, the political chief of Hamas, will lead the mission from Qatar, while Mahmud Alul, the deputy head of Fatah, will lead the Hamas delegation, according to sources within the organization.
Hamas did not respond right away.
Since Hamas fighters drove Fatah out of the Gaza Strip following fatal hostilities that followed Hamas’s overwhelming victory in an election in 2006, the two organizations have been fierce enemies.
The Islamist Hamas movement took over Gaza in 2007 and has remained in power ever since.
The Palestinian Authority, which has some administrative authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, is governed by the secularist Fatah movement.
Though appeals for reconciliation have escalated since Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel sparked the Gaza conflict and violence has increased in the West Bank, where Fatah is located, several attempts at reconciliation have failed.
Although a June meeting was originally arranged, Fatah and Hamas were in China in April.
The delegations and Chinese officials are scheduled to meet in Beijing on July 20 and 21, according to Sabrin Saidam, the deputy secretary general of Fatah’s central committee.
Additionally, he said that the two sides might get together in advance.
Saidam stated that the objective “is to end the state of division with a commitment to past agreements and agreeing on a relationship between the Palestinian groups in the next stage.”
A joint Fatah-Hamas meeting could take place in Beijing prior to the start of the formal agenda, according to another executive member of Fatah.
China, which maintains cordial relations with Israel, has positioned itself as a more impartial player in the Israel-Palestine problem than its adversary, the United States, by supporting a two-state solution.
