At the end of a three-day conference in China, the Palestinian factions, including Hamas, have agreed on reconciliation, Channel 12 website N12 reports. The parties agreed on strengthening "Palestinian unity", in a joint communiqué. Chinese state channel CCTV rushed to report the declaration, with the aim of demonstrating China’s influence on the Middle East and on Palestinian affairs.
Altogether, fourteen factions, including senior people from Fatah and Hamas, met at the conference hosted by Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, the CGTN agency reported. This was a continuation of a meeting of Fatah and Hamas representatives in China in April, with the aim of ending the split dating from the violent takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas in 2007. The fourteen factions have now agreed on "national unity", the joint declaration states.
Wang Yi welcomed the "unity government" of the Palestinian Authority. Fatah was represented by Mahmoud al-Aloul, deputy to Palestinian Authority chairperson Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) , while the Hamas delegation was led by Mousa Abu Marzook. So far, however, the subject of a Palestinian unity government has been mentioned only by Chinese reports, and not by any senior representatives of Fatah or Hamas. Moreover, similar events in the past did not in fact change the poor state of relations between the two movements.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara have met the families of Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip and also representatives of the hostages in the US, in the course of the prime minister’s diplomatic visit to Washington DC. "We are determined to bring them all back," Netanyahu said. "The conditions have matured, for the simple reason that we are applying very strong pressure on Hamas. We are seeing the enemy’s spirit starting to break."
Netanyahu is due to address the US Congress tomorrow (Wednesday). An aide to the Democratic Party’s probable presidential candidate in the election in November, Vice President Kamala Harris, told N12 that she would hold a meeting with Netanyahu in the White House, separately from his meeting with President Joe Biden. Because of a prearranged trip, however, the vice president will not be present at Netanyahu’s speech in Congress. The aide also said that Harris had been committed to the security of Israel throughout her career, and that that remained the case.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on July 23, 2024.
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