Palestinian factions including rivals Hamas and Fatah have signed an agreement on "ending division and strengthening Palestinian unity" in Beijing, China said Tuesday. The announcement followed reconciliation talks hosted by China involving 14 Palestinian factions starting Sunday, according to China's Foreign Ministry, which comes as Israel wages war against Hamas in Gaza and as Beijing has sought to present itself as a potential 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 in such an arrangement, or what the immediate impact of any deal would be. The talks were held as the future governance of Palestinian territories remains in question following Israel's repeated vow to eradicate Hamas in response to the group's October 7 terrorist attack on its territory. The 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 was expelled 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 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 the international and regional landscape." Beijing has not explicitly condemned Hamas for its October 7 attack on Israel. Tuesday's agreement follows an earlier round of talks between Hamas and Fatah hosted by Beijing in April. Since the start of the war in Gaza, China – which has looked to bolster 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 the enclave and calling for Palestinian statehood. Chinese leader Xi Jinping in May called for an international peace conference during meetings with leaders from Arab nations and has also dispatched a special envoy to the Middle East to meet with diplomats and officials. Observers have questioned the extent of Beijing's geopolitical clout in a region where the US has long been a dominant power, but China surprised many last March when it played a role in brokering a rapprochement between longtime rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran. Those efforts have been broadly seen as part of Beijing's push to position itself as a geopolitical heavyweight with a different vision for the world from the United States. Tuesday's agreement was also inked as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the US 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 the conflict, which 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. — CNN
