China brokers Palestinian unity deal, but doubts persist

By Laurie Chen and Nidal al-Mughrabi

BEIJING/CAIRO (Reuters) – Palestinian rivals including Hamas and Fatah agreed to form a unity government at talks hosted by China, Beijing said on Tuesday, a deal meant to deliver a post-war Gaza administration but quickly rejected by Israel as it seeks to crush Hamas.

Analysts said the agreement would prove hard to implement, with complications including the deep enmity between Palestinian factions and Western opposition to Hamas having any role in governance. No timetable was declared for implementation.

The Beijing Declaration was signed at the closing ceremony of a reconciliation dialogue among 14 Palestinian factions held in China’s capital from July 21-23, according to the readout.

The meeting marked the latest attempt to heal the Palestinian national schism that has defied all attempts at mediation since 2007, when the Islamist group Hamas seized the Gaza Strip in a brief civil war with Fatah.

The meeting was held amid attempts by mediators to reach a ceasefire deal after nine months of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. One of the sticking points is the “day-after” plan – how the Hamas-run enclave will be governed once the war, which began on Oct. 7, ends.

Hamas welcomed the declaration, saying it created a “barrier against all regional and international interventions that seek to impose realities against our people’s interests”.

But there was no immediate comment from the Fatah movement led by President Mahmoud Abbas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. In March, Abbas appointed a new Palestinian Authority (PA) government led by one of his allies, Mohammad Mustafa.

Israel signalled its objection, with Foreign Minister Israel Katz saying on X that Abbas had embraced “the murderers and rapists of Hamas” instead of “rejecting terrorism”.

“In reality, this won’t happen because Hamas’ rule will be crushed, and Abbas will be watching Gaza from afar. Israel’s security will remain solely in Israel’s hands,” Katz said.

Shunned by the West as a terrorist group even before Oct. 7, Hamas has previously said it might be willing to play no role in Gaza’s post-war governance and has sought agreement with Fatah on a post-war, technocratic PA government.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his goal is to destroy the militant, Iran-backed Hamas and opposes it having any part in a post-war Gaza administration.

Netanyahu’s right-wing government, which rejects Palestinians’ quest for an independent state, has also objected to a revamped PA returning to govern Gaza – an idea supported by the United States and its Arab allies.

The most prominent highlight in the deal was a plan to form an interim national reconciliation government around the post-war governance of Gaza as well as of the West Bank, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.

Senior Hamas official Hussam Badran said the unity government would also oversee reconstruction and prepare conditions for elections.

Ashraf Abouelhoul, a specialist on Palestinian affairs and managing editor of the Egyptian state-owned paper Al-Ahram, said previous similar declarations had not been implemented and nothing would happen without U.S. approval.

“Forming a unity government with Hamas is rejected by the United States, Israel, and Britain. There is a consensus among those countries to exclude Hamas from any role in the day after the war,” Abouelhoul said.

Dismissing the China meeting as “a celebratory event”, he said it was “impossible to resolve the problems between Palestinian factions in just three days”.

Nonetheless, the agreement further demonstrates Beijing’s growing influence in the Middle East, after it brokered a breakthrough peace deal between longstanding regional foes Saudi Arabia and Iran last year.

Chinese officials have ramped up advocacy for the Palestinians in international forums in recent months, calling for a larger-scale Israeli-Palestinian peace conference and a specific timetable to implement a two-state solution.