Beijing – Hamas announced Tuesday it had signed an agreement in Beijing with other Palestinian organisations including rivals Fatah to work together for “national unity”, with China describing it as a deal to rule Gaza together once the war ends.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who hosted senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk, Fatah envoy Mahmud al-Aloul and emissaries from 12 other Palestinian groups, said they had agreed to set up an “interim national reconciliation government” to govern post-war Gaza.
“Today we sign an agreement for national unity and we say that the path to completing this journey is national unity. We are committed to national unity and we call for it,” Abu Marzuk said after meeting Wang and the other envoys.
The announcement comes more than nine months into a war sparked by Hamas’s October attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza, including 44 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 39,000 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Meanwhile, in the Palestinian Territories, The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said an Israeli operation in the main southern city of Khan Yunis killed 70 people and wounded more than 200, after Israel warned its forces would “forcefully operate” in the area.
Thousands of Palestinians fled southern areas of the territory following the Israeli army’s temporary evacuation order for parts of Khan Yunis, including the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone.
Israel’s military said it would act to curb rocket fire in the area, which saw heavy fighting earlier this year.
The latest incident comes days after the health ministry said 92 people were killed in a strike on Al-Mawasi, when Israel said it was targeting a Hamas commander.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said at least 12 people were killed on Monday in Gaza City, with four others killed in the Jabalia refugee camp.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas and has launched intense military operations in areas of Gaza that it previously had declared free of the militants.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under pressure to reach a truce and hostage-release deal, arrived in Washington on Monday to address the US Congress.
Netanyahu on Thursday (Friday Manila time) will meet US President Joe Biden, who has pushed him to agree to a ceasefire, more than nine months into the Gaza war ignited by the Palestinian militant group’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.
In late June, Netanyahu said the war “in its intense phase” was about to end.
The evacuation order for the Al-Mawasi area came just two months after the military directed Palestinians there for their own safety.
“Due to the Israeli occupation’s attacks and massacres in Khan Yunis governorate from the early hours of this morning until now, 70 people have been martyred and more than 200 wounded,” the Gaza health ministry said.
The Israeli military did not offer comment on the toll when asked by AFP.
But in a statement, the military said its fighter jets and tanks “struck and eliminated terrorists in the area”.
It said forces targeted more than “30 terror infrastructure” sites in Khan Yunis. Israeli warplanes also hit a weapons storage facility, observation posts, tunnel shafts and structures used by Hamas militants, it added.
Facing yet another displacement, Palestinians filled the dusty streets of Khan Yunis with cars, motorbikes, donkey-drawn carts, and on foot, carrying what belongings they could.
Hassan Qudayh said his family fled in “panic”.
“We were happily making breakfast for our children, as we had been safe for a month, only to be stunned by shells, warning leaflets and martyrs in the streets,” he told AFPTV.
The relentless fighting has plunged Gaza into a severe humanitarian crisis.
China has sought to play a mediator role in the conflict, which has been rendered even more complex due to the intense rivalry between Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and Fatah, which partially governs the occupied West Bank.
Israel has vowed to keep fighting until it destroys Hamas, and world powers including key Israeli backer the United States have scrambled to imagine scenarios for the governance of Gaza once the war ends.
As Tuesday’s meeting wrapped up in Beijing, Wang said the groups had committed to “reconciliation”.
“The most prominent highlight is the agreement to form an interim national reconciliation government around the governance of post-war Gaza,” Wang said following the signing of the “Beijing declaration” by the factions in the Chinese capital.
“Reconciliation is an internal matter for the Palestinian factions, but at the same time, it cannot be achieved without the support of the international community,” Wang said.
China, he added, was keen to “play a constructive role in safeguarding peace and stability in the Middle East”.
Beijing, Wang said, called for a “comprehensive, lasting and sustainable ceasefire”, as well as efforts to promote Palestinian self-governance and full recognition of a Palestinian state at the UN.
Hamas and Fatah have been bitter rivals since Hamas fighters ejected Fatah from the Gaza Strip after deadly clashes that followed Hamas’s resounding victory in a 2006 election.
Fatah controls the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Several reconciliation bids have failed, but calls have grown since the Hamas October attack and nine-month war in Gaza, with violence also soaring in the West Bank where Fatah is based.
China hosted Fatah and Hamas in April but a meeting scheduled for June was postponed.
China has historically been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and supportive of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. AFP
