Hamas and Fatah sign agreement in Beijing ‘ending’ their division, Chinese state media says

Palestinian factions including rivals Hamas and Fatah have signed an agreement on “ending division and strengthening Palestinian unity,” Chinese broadcaster CCTV said Tuesday, following a deal brokered by China.

The announcement followed reconciliation talks involving 14 Palestinian factions in Beijing starting Sunday, according to state media, which come as Israel wages war against militant group Hamas in Gaza and as China has sought to take up a role as a 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.”

It was unclear from Wang’s comments what role Hamas, which is not part of the PLO, would play, or what the immediate impact of any agreement would be. The talks were held as the future governance of Palestinian territories remains in question as Israel’s current leadership have vowed to eradicate Hamas, following the group’s October 7 terrorist attack.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is a coalition of parties that signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1993, and formed a new government in the Palestinian Authority (PA).

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 does not recognize Israel.

There is a long history of bitter enmity between Hamas in Gaza 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.

At a press 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 terrorist 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.”

The agreement comes as Beijing – which has sought to increase 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 Gaza and calling for Palestinian statehood.

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

Chinese leader Xi Jinping in May decried “tremendous sufferings” in the Middle East and called for an international peace conference as leaders from Arab nations visit Beijing, even as observers have questioned the extent of Beijing’s geopolitical clout in a region where the US has long been a dominant power.

The agreement was also inked as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the United States for a highly anticipated visit in which he will meet top US officials and address Congress.

Israel launched its military operations in Gaza following Hamas’ October 7 attack that killed more than 1,100 people and saw roughly 250 others kidnapped. Around 39,000 Palestinians have died in Israel’s war in Gaza that has triggered a mass humanitarian crisis and widespread destruction.

Hamas and Fatah signed a reconciliation agreement in Cairo in October 2017 under pressure from the Arab states, led by Egypt. Under the deal, a new unity government was supposed to take administrative control of Gaza two months later, ending a decade of rivalry that began when Hamas violently evicted the Palestinian Authority from Gaza in 2007.

But the deal’s lofty aspirations quickly collapsed. When Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah visited Gaza in March 2018, he was the target of an assassination attempt when a bomb detonated near his convoy. Hamdallah’s Fatah party immediately blamed Hamas for the attack.

This is a developing story and will be updated.