Adam Rasgon & Vivian Wang
The New York Times / July 15, 2024
A rapprochement between the rival Palestinian factions could make postwar governance of Gaza more feasible.
China will host senior officials from Hamas and Fatah for a meeting next week in an effort to bridge gaps between the rival Palestinian factions that have long competed for power in Gaza and the West Bank, according to officials in both parties.
With Israel and Hamas seemingly making progress on a cease-fire deal in the Gaza Strip, discussions of plans for the enclave’s future have taken on greater urgency. Having Hamas and Fatah open to working together is seen by many experts as crucial to rebuilding Gaza after the war.
Previous attempts to mediate between the two groups — including a meeting in Beijing in April — have failed to produce tangible results. Plans for the meeting next week, however, signaled that China was not giving up on its longstanding attempts to present itself as a peace broker.
Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, will lead the group’s delegation to Beijing, according to Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official. Fatah will dispatch three officials, including Mahmoud al-Aloul, the deputy chairman of the party, to the Chinese capital, according to Azzam al-Ahmad, a member of the Fatah Central Committee.
He said that China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, would meet with the Palestinian factions on July 21 and again on July 23 — though the two groups will meet on their own in between. China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“We’re always optimistic, but we say that with caution,” Mr. Ahmad said in a phone call.
Hamas and Fatah have a fraught history and have been at loggerheads for years, each trying to present itself as the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people and wary that the other will undermine its power.
Those differences were on display over the weekend after Israel launched an airstrike on southern Gaza that targeted Muhammad Deif, the leader of Hamas’s military wing, and killed dozens of people.
The office of Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, said Israel and the United States bore full responsibility for “the terrible massacre,” but suggested that Hamas militants had provided Israel with a pretext to attack Palestinian civilians by embedding among them. Hamas later responded by accusing Mr. Abbas’s office of “exempting” Israel from responsibility for its actions.
U.S. officials have suggested that the Palestinian Authority should play a central role in governing a postwar Gaza — though that would most likely require approval from Hamas. And a growing number of Palestinians have argued that Fatah and Hamas need to find common ground in order to advance the reconstruction of Gaza when the current war ends — even though many are pessimistic about the prospect.
“There’s still a major divide between Hamas and Fatah, but there’s an absolute necessity that they achieve a national consensus for the administration of Gaza,” said Ibrahim Dalalsha, director of the Horizon Center, a Palestinian political research group. “In the absence of that, there will be a huge tragedy.”
Hamas officials have expressed willingness to give up civilian control of Gaza, handing responsibility for rebuilding the enclave to a government of independents — although it has ruled out dismantling its military wing.
United Nations officials have estimated that rebuilding Gaza will cost tens of billions of dollars. Many countries have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization, restricting their ability to work with any institutions linked to the group in Gaza. The establishment of an independent government in Gaza without formal ties to Hamas could make it easier for the United States, European nations and international organizations to participate in rebuilding the territory.
For China, hosting the meeting between Hamas and Fatah will serve as yet another opportunity to cast itself as a mediator on the global stage.
China has worked to expand its ties and influence in the Middle East in recent years, most notably helping to broker the diplomatic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran last year. It has also deepened its investments in the region, and pledged to expand cooperation with countries there in areas such as artificial intelligence, where the United States has sought to isolate China.
On Israeli and Palestinian affairs, in particular, Beijing has tried to portray itself as a peace broker, albeit more in rhetoric than in reality.
China has long had friendly ties with Palestinian leaders. Mr. Abbas has visited China five times during his nearly two decades as president of the authority, most recently last June, before Hamas’s surprise Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Chinese state media was especially vocal then about Beijing’s potential role as a mediator, highlighting a proposal for a two-state solution by Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader.
For Hamas, the coming meeting could serve as another chance to deepen relations with a country that has been far less critical of its actions than Western nations have.
“China is a powerful country and we want to strengthen our ties with it,” Mr. Abu Marzouk said in an interview in Doha. “We’re a people under occupation and we strive for relations with everyone.”
Adam Rasgon is a reporter for The Times in Jerusalem, covering Israeli and Palestinian affairs
Vivian Wang is a China correspondent based in Beijing, where she writes about how the country’s global rise and ambitions are shaping the daily lives of its people
