By Christian Shepherd, Steve Hendrix, Niha Masih and Sarah Dadouch July 23, 2024
Leaders of Palestinian factions, including Fatah and Hamas, signed a joint statement Tuesday in Beijing aimed at ending divisions between the bitter rivals, a deal bolstering China’s claim to being a global mediator but unlikely to heal the deep rift between the Palestinian political groups.
The statement calls for the formation of a Palestinian unity government overseeing the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip and eventually holding elections, for which the leaders of the factions would meet and draw up a road map. The Israeli government has rejected any proposal that gives a governing role to Hamas or the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority.
Chinese media hailed the “Beijing declaration” as a breakthrough and a sign of the country’s emerging role as a peace broker in faraway conflicts. In a speech after the talks ended, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called it a “historic moment for the cause of Palestine’s liberation” and highlighted the “consensus around establishing an interim national reconciliation government to manage Gaza after the war.”
Wang restated China’s support for a “comprehensive, lasting and sustainable cease-fire” and for the convening of a large “international peace conference” to work toward a two-state solution.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, center, during the signing of the Beijing declaration Tuesday. (Pedro Pardo/Pool/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
The joint statement may be a clear diplomatic win for Beijing, but analysts were immediately skeptical about the prospects for this agreement. They noted that it is only the latest in a long series of similar reconciliation deals brokered — then broken — between the two factions since a power struggle that ended in 2007 with Hamas taking control of the Gaza Strip from Fatah officials.
Palestinian political experts generally dismissed the agreement as a rehash of several previous statements of reconciliation, including a 2022 accord signed by 14 Palestinian factions in Algeria. To date, none of those efforts has produced any lasting changes in the Hamas-Fatah rift.
The Chinese initiative comes at a time of peak tensions between the two factions. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recently accused Hamas of prolonging the Gaza war. Hamas leaders in turn accused Abbas of siding with Israel.
Diana Buttu, a Palestinian human rights lawyer and onetime adviser to Abbas, said that the risk now was that the 88-year-old Abbas would sideline the reconciliation efforts as he has done in the past, either under pressure from Israel and the United States to marginalize Hamas or from his own desire to stay in power.
“The reason he hasn’t agreed to this in the past is because he’s afraid he’ll be cast aside,” Buttu said.
People walk past sewage and a garbage dump on a street in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Tuesday. The World Health Organization said there is a high risk of the polio virus spreading because of the sanitation conditions. (Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images)
Gazans, meanwhile, said the diplomacy was a universe away from the devastation and deprivation of their lives for the last nine months.
“Come here to Earth and look at the hospitals in which there is not a single drop of blood that can save people’s lives,” said Kary Thabit, 40, who has been displaced 10 times in the war and called the factions “a joke.”
“Look at the people in the northern Gaza Strip who are dying of hunger,” she told The Washington Post by phone. “Look at how Israeli tanks are frolicking in the land of Gaza. These people do not represent me. They are just failed actors.”
In Israel, Foreign Minister Israel Katz dismissed the agreement as Palestinian leader Abbas embracing “the murderers and rapists” of Hamas, and predicted that it would come to nothing. “Hamas’s rule will be crushed, and Abbas will be watching Gaza from afar. Israel’s security will remain solely in Israel’s hands,” Katz said.
After decades of preferring to leave contentious diplomacy in the Middle East to the United States, China in recent years has actively cast itself as a viable peacemaker in some of the world’s most intractable hot spots. Beijing brokered a détente last year between Iran and Saudi Arabia, forcing Washington into the awkward position of applauding a major Middle East accord secured by its main geopolitical rival.
“China’s Middle East policy is obviously different from that of the West,” said Tang Zhichao, an analyst at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. “There is an urgent need to reverse a lack of mediation by the international community,” brought about in part by the Western world’s geopolitical marginalization of the Palestinian issue, Tang said.
The final statement was peppered with language thanking China for its mediation and the need for more countries to be involved in resolving the Middle East crisis instead of just a “biased” United States.
China has also tried to present itself as a broker in Russia’s war in Ukraine, promoting a 12-point proposal for ending it.
A girl and boy eat biscuits on a street as thousands of Palestinians arrive in another area of the southern Gaza Strip city on Tuesday after Israeli evacuation orders. (Bashar Taleb/AFP/Getty Images)
Here’s what else to know:
President Biden will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington on Thursday, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House. Netanyahu will also meet with Vice President Harris on Thursday, and with former president Donald Trump on Friday, according to the prime minister’s office. He is slated to address a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday, at 2 p.m. Eastern.
The World Health Organization said Tuesday that there is a high risk of the infectious polio virus spreading in and beyond the Gaza Strip, citing the devastating sanitation conditions there, according to Reuters. WHO and UNICEF teams will arrive in Gaza on Thursday to collect human stool samples, said Ayadil Saparbekov, the team lead for health emergencies at WHO in Gaza and the West Bank, after vaccine-derived polio virus type 2 was detected in sewage samples from Gaza.
Two “clearly marked UNICEF vehicles” were hit with live ammunition while en route to reunite five children with their father, said Adele Khodr, the organization’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa. No injuries occurred, and the team safely delivered the children, Khodr continued. But the attack was the second targeting of UNICEF cars while on humanitarian duty in the past 12 weeks, she said. “On both occasions, the humanitarian consequences could have been severe, for both our teams and the children they serve,” Khodr said on X.
Israeli schools in the evacuated northern border communities will not open Sept. 1 at the start of the new school year, Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch told local authorities Tuesday. Local official Haim Bibas said in a tweet that the government must make “tough decisions” to restore security in the area bordering Lebanon through “force or diplomacy.”
At least 39,090 people have been killed and 90,147 injured in Gaza since the war started, said the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants bu says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and it says 326 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operations in Gaza.
Hajar Harb, Hazem Balousha, Suzan Haidamous, Vic Chiang and Kate Brady contributed to this report.
BiHiSellLo
17 minutes ago
….and Ukraine’s foreign minister is in Beijing “seeking 'common ground' with China in talks on ending war”
““I am convinced that a just peace in Ukraine is in China’s strategic interests, and China’s role as a global force for peace is important,” Kuleba said in opening remarks.”
from ABC News 7/24/24
….helping to find common ground both in the MiddleEast and in Ukraine
Thanks for trying and wish them success
NatsDude
7 hours ago
I used to work these issues in this region. What happens is China bribes the leaders of each Palestinian faction to agree to something incredibly useless in order to make it seem like it is a player in the region. This will have zero impact and only serves to highlight the vast difference between the corrupt Palestinian leadership and the average Palestinian just looking to live a life of dignity and hope.
JohnQuick11 hours ago
Can’t help but notice that Hamas’s chief negotiator is the guy who said that Hamas will repeat 10/7 “over and over again”
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-770918
Vinnie1113 hours ago
Kudos to China for making the effort. Palestine will only be restored by an agreement mediated by parties not involved in the slaughter and persecution. It is a neutral party.
The US and UK set up Israel on Palestinian lands essentially because they wanted to, and had much colonial ruling experience [still ongoing]. Palestinians were not fully engaged in the 1948 process. This means that the US and UK (and the other suppliers of weapons to Israel or Hamas) cannot be a party to mediation toward a solution.
China has been unengaged until now, so is an ideal state to begin (or even complete) mediation. The world should welcome this, support it, and build on it. And let's get peace and equality begun.
comment5513 hours ago
Wow, some real news, where did this come from? Slipped in between the coronation of Harris and more BS about Bibi.
Robert Krakaur
14 hours ago
I like chinas approach and I hope they get more involved in saving and creating Palestine. I think a lot of people agree, we’re tired of seeing the us tell other countries what to do. My goodness what a disaster we are domestically and globally
MDIndependent4
14 hours ago
As we dwell on divisions in our own country, our standing as a world leader is being diminished. WaPo, please elevate the importance of this story in my (and others) feed.We need to understand the potential consequences of our inability to find common ground.
rpw0
15 hours ago
The Hamas/Israeli war was a gift to China, Russia and Russia's surrogate Iran; and they are making the most of it. China has no humanitarian interest in Palestinians; any more than the Uighurs or Tibetians!
Boomer who resists
14 hours ago
China kills and imprisons the Uighurs and Tibetans. Check!
The US, directly or via its Saudi and Israeli allies, kills and imprisons the Yemenis, the Iraqis; Syrians, Lebanese and Palestinians on a massive scale.
Maybe if the US were to take trade sanctions to defend the Uighurs and Tibetans, the Chinese would have to take note and maybe (someday) change their behavior.
In return, maybe if the Chinese intervened more forcefully to help the people of the Middle East, the latter would benefit, even if the US pouts and cries.
All this is called provided more competition and diversity on the world's political stage.
laobaixing0719 hours ago
Oh, the irony of the CPC in Beijing calling for “Palestine’s liberation” and future elections there!! Hopefully, next it will focus on liberation of their Chinese people, who, in their long history, have never been free, and have never had the chance to vote in free and fair elections! … and why isn’t Beijing urging Hamas to free its Israeli hostages? Because the CPC thinks it’s quite ok to hold innocent foreigners as hostages, as they have done.
Boomer who resists
14 hours ago
Very astute observation, Scholarman. I guess that's what the Soviet dictatorship crushed Nazi Germany and liberated far more concentration camps than the US.
It was because Russia is a dictatorship.
Oh wait ...
Censorship is wrong 20 hours ago
Israel has entered a new era where resistance groups across the region do not hoist the white flag after a few weeks of fighting. They fight back.
Israelis should abandon Netanyahu's sinking ship. He's lost
David Hearst
22 July 2024
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-abandon-netanyahu-sinking-ship-hes-lost
Ada Lovelace
20 hours ago
That's because the US has left a vacuum of leadership because of Biden the Zionist's failed policy or rather lack of a policy - essentially kowtowing to the mass murderer, Netanyahu, and his fascist junta
rpw0
15 hours ago
That's because trump told Netanyahu to do whatever he wanted and. What Netanyahu wanted was more settlements! Now both are running to stay out of jail
Boomer who resists 15 hours ago
I agree with you, Ada, but it is not just Biden, it is the entire US congress, all US presidents and office holders all the way down on the ballot.
Check out with former President Carter said about AIPAC and its enormous influence below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv0ROgv0kTk&t=26s
Wiseman 20 hours ago
Why did China bring a fork to the trade meeting with the US? Because they’re eating the US lunch every day!
Boomer who resists 14 hours ago
The Chinese have been eating our lunch for a long time, but why and how is that?
Look, I am one of those leftists who got hired in an auto factory in the early 1970s in the hope of recruiting workers to our cause. What I found was high wages and pretty darned good working conditions. But the attitude of workers was horrible. We're talking 95% white male workers.
Car quality, which was displayed on huge electronic billboards in each GM, was low at our factory by high at the factories producing Cadillacs (most black workers, btw). I concluded that the problem was poor-to-average engineering at our plant and excellent engineering at the Cadillac plants combined with a poor work ethnic.
America could've saved a good number of those industrial jobs that went to China but neither management nor workers were willing to make the sacrifice to do so.
Actually, let me take back the last part about management. I mean top management, selected by the investor class, which has no mutha ducking country, no matter how much they claim they are the only true patriots.
These folks sold out American jobs and technology so that they could rack up gains on the stock market.
Maybe Americans need to look at the true cause of our woes, before blaming everything on other countries.
Censorship is wrong 20 hours ago
House Rep Rashida Tlaib called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's upcoming speech to Congress "a celebration of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians".
Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American member of Congress, said that "Netanyahu is a war criminal committing genocide against the Palestinian people. It is utterly disgraceful that leaders from both parties have invited him to address Congress. He should be arrested and sent to the International Criminal Court."
She further remarked, "Make no mistake: this event is a celebration of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. It is a sad day for our democracy when my colleagues will smile for a photo op with a man who is actively committing genocide. It is hypocritical to claim concern about the massive death toll of innocent civilians, then turn around and welcome the person responsible for these war crimes to our Capitol. Their silence is betrayal, and history will remember them accordingly. Our government must stop supporting and funding this genocide now."
Tlaib Statement on War Criminal Netanyahu’s Address to Congress
https://tlaib.house.gov/posts/tlaib-statement-on-war-criminal-netanyahus-address-to-congress
Boomer who resists 14 hours ago
No, there is no dialogue with Netanyahu who, in his previous two speches before congress, attacked US Middle Eastern policy with barely veiled attacks on a sitting president.
We can dialogue with Israeli leaders and, above all, with Israel's core supporters in the US (excluding doped up evangelicals), but inviting Netanyahu was a gift to his political fortunes in Israel and a crass political attack by Israel's amen corner in the US.
Human987 19 hours ago
She is 100% right. I've never been more ashamed to be American than now.
haggis 1945 21 hours ago
America had its chance as an "honest broker" in the Israel-Palestine dispute for 76 years but blew it. It is too pro-Israel to take on that task. Time for another country to take the lead in order to make some real progress. If China can achieve it, then kudos to them!
trblmkr1 21 hours ago
China just wants the rebuilding contract. They’ll send thousands of their own idle workers to Gaza.
EAZea1 21 hours ago
And China will let the Palestinians know what's expected of them in exchange in short order.
Jphubba 21 hours ago
Why fuss about the differences among the Palestinians when neither Israel or the United States is willing to negotiate with any Palestinian group much less a United Palestinian Front?
Araucaria20 hours ago
Maybe China will start sending "aid" to Palestine, just like the US does to Israel.
Cmanwallofsounds21 hours ago
Hey maybe the Chinese will have better luck reigning in the Israeli Death Force, IDF, for sure they can’t be any more ineffectual than the USA, Canada, the uk and Europe.
Jacqueline von Hettlingen22 hours ago
It remains to be seen whether Beijing would succeed in helping the Palestinian rivals, like Hamas and Fatah, agree to form an interim government regarding the post-war governance of Gaza and the West Bank. While hosting the meeting is one thing, implementing the agreement is another. 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 US approval.
The deal is meant to put in place a form of post-war administration in Gaza and the West Bank, but Israel has immediately rejected it, as it is still bent on crushing Hamas. In the face of various complications, Beijing’s efforts may prove futile. First the two Palestinian factions need to overcome their deep mutual enmity to reconcile and forge unity. There is also opposition from the US, Israel and Britain to having Hamas play any role in the post-war Gaza.
The Beijing Declaration between Hamas and Fatah is seen as a letter of intent, signed at the closing ceremony of a reconciliation dialogue among 14 Palestinian factions hosted by China between July 21-23. But there is no timetable for implementing the agreement, because there is no way to resolve the problems between Palestinian factions in just three days.
Imdump2 23 hours ago
Presumably, China will ask for ‘a favor’ at some point in the near future. Diplomacy is not altruistic.
jcbmatua 23 hours ago
Let's face it. The USA Americans' influence over the Palestinians is far in-large a big pile of poopoo. And the world knows it.
Thus... The alternative. With power, might, and it's own influences.
aub 23 hours ago
What China is doing is a card trick intended to make the west look away from Taiwan. Don't buy it for a second.
Atllaw 23 hours ago
Has China earned trust from Israel to mediate?Joanne_H 1 day ago
What China is doing in this case is at least more constructive than what the Biden administration is doing – – sending Israel billions of dollars worth of bombs with which to slaughter Palestinians and destroy Gaza!
Joanne_H22 hours ago
I blame Hamas for what they did. And now I blame Israel for what they are doing – – which is far far worse!https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/06/hamas-genocide-against-israel/
SouthLand Sojourner
1 day ago
I don't care - China is welcome to try as everything has failed so far... so I don't care who tries and in my mind it has nothing to do with "great power rivalries"-- China will get more credit and due if it drops this counter productive line as it does it no credit and actually undermines its influence in the world.
Since a child watched this saga all my life - now in my 80th yr - utterly sick of it - and I know the thousands of years of history behind all this ... just read the book Joshua in the Bible and study it and you get the history - which starts with the command "take the land and wipe out all inhabitants" and ends with two cultures living side by side in the aftermath. Netanyahu is stuck in the mode "take the land and wipe out all inhabitants" - conveniently forgets the ending as does not suit his grab for power and remaining in power over the 40,000 bodies of women, children and babies - hence the war crimes charges he faces and that will never go away.
jcbmatua
23 hours ago
LOLOLOLOLOL. And what does that say about your beliefs? A book, allegedly written thousands of years ago, as you quote, "Take the land", and they're still trying to take the land. What does that say about your deciphering BS?
LOLOLOLOLOL.
SouthLand Sojourner
21 hours ago
Please I am talking about a book the Israelies read to get their history and beliefs --- is there any other they rely on to support their stance today? Muslims also read this book as do Christians ... History ... I did not say I believe what they believe in determing their faiths.
What are you relying on in trying to figure out the 'whys' and 'wherefors' of your understanding on these issues?
Sciathan
1 day ago
Huh. China putting in work. This is an encouraging sign, simply for the fact that it is a new mediator with both the military power to back up it's statements and a lack of a reputation for being in the bag for one side.
iudicium
1 day ago
As meaningless as Western nations still speaking of two state solutions that will never happen given that the One State solution has already been implemented by Israelis.
Human987
1 day ago
it's all illegal based on the last ICC ruling. There is a comprehensive writeup in the Guardian:
That occupation brings into force the fourth geneva convention of 1949 on military occupation, which Israel has ratified. Article 49 renders it illegal – a war crime – for an occupying power to transfer its population to occupied territory, as the court found that Israel has done with its settlements.
Did Palestinian leaders waive these rights with the Oslo accords, which recognized certain Israeli powers in the occupied territory as negotiations were supposed to proceed toward a Palestinian state? No, said the court, citing article 47 of the fourth Geneva convention, which says negotiations between occupier and occupied cannot deprive people of rights under the convention – a wise precaution given inherent power imbalances.
SouthLand Sojourner
1 day ago
Totally correct - thank you
OldLedger
1 day ago
Let China take credit for some of the perpetual failure in the Middle East.
Luther Mahoney
1 day ago
These actions, whether they succeed or fail, are the kind of steps the US should be taking instead of using the George W Bush approach. Palestine is a major stain on Biden and Trumps record with Biden’s arms burning babies alive and Trump’s provocative diplomacy inflaming tensions.
Abnormally Distributed
1 day ago
Where's my buddy Qin Gang?
Rogelio in San Diego
1 day ago
It could have been the USA playing 'global mediator' if we didn't ignore Israeli aggression and apartheid tendencies and instead only focused on the evils of Hamas like we have.
Human987
1 day ago
The only global mediation the US was able to do is through firepower.
Mark1234
1 day ago
This China-brokered deal is very similar to the one Biden proposed several weeks ago. And it has the same problem that Biden's did. If you don't get ISRAEL to sign on, no deal is going to matter!
But I do give China credit for putting in the work and acting as a mediator. This is a good thing. Now we just have to get them to sit at the table with everyone else instead of trying re-invent the wheel on their own.
Dog Mom in Seattle
1 day ago
What are you talking about? Israel does not need to sign onto a unity deal between the different Palestinian factions. This is not about a ceasefire.
Luther Mahoney
1 day ago
God help your reading comprehension skills.
Canuck09
1 day ago
Can CHina stop the arabs from firing rockets and missiles at innocent people in Israel ??
.
Mark1234
1 day ago
No.
Dog Mom in Seattle
1 day ago
Can you stop referring to Palestinians as "Arabs", erasing their identity?
IronFistedPoet
1 day ago
It would be nearly impossible for China to do a worse job of bringing peace to Israel/Palestine than the US has done.
Human987
1 day ago
Israel doesn't want peace because it means they need to give up the settlements, east Jerusalem and leave Gaza alone. Peace and greed are mutually exclusive when it comes to Israel. They think if we kill the Palestinians then voila, problem is solved.
DavidToronto
1 day ago
Neither Israel or Hamas distinguish between civilian and military casualties. I understand that Hamas killed 1139 people on October 7 including "about" 300 soldiers. According to Israel, the IDF has killed about 14,000 Hamas soldiers of the 39,000 deceased. Why aren't these figures cited? Accurate figures do not diminish the horror.
Kakospirit
1 day ago
China the great mediator with Hamas which is an Islamofacist terrorists organization I find this quite ironic because of the way China treats its Muslim population Hamas would be destroyed in a blink of an eye in China.
Luther Mahoney
1 day ago
(Edited)
You would, even though your logic makes zero sense and barely hides your China-baiting.
Sciathan
1 day ago
Maybe. But that is that and this is this, as they say.
Andy Weissman
1 day ago
China should step in and end the war in Ukraine since they have connections with Russia. Fat chance.
Diesel_and_Dust
1 day ago
China's mistake is treating a terrorist actor (Hamas) like a legitimate state, thereby rendering everything a moot point.
OldUncleTom
1 day ago
China's advantage, however, is being unburdened by thousands of years of mindless superstitions about the so-called "Holy Land", which afflicts nearly every western player attempting to "solve" the problems.
Diesel_and_Dust
1 day ago
It could indeed be, the U.S. doesn't have a monopoly on brokering talks. But at this point, Hamas is Hamas.
