Fatah postpones Palestinian unity meeting with Hamas in China, no new date set
With the factions deeply divided, analysts had held out little hope of talks achieving a breakthrough toward a reconciliation deal
Reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah due to be held in China this month have been delayed and no new date has been set, officials of the Palestinian factions told Reuters on Monday.
After hosting a meeting of Palestinian factions in April, China said Fatah — which is led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas — and Hamas had expressed the will to seek reconciliation through unity talks in Beijing. Fatah and Hamas officials had previously said the meeting would take place in mid-June.
With the factions deeply divided, analysts had held out little hope of the talks achieving a breakthrough toward a reconciliation deal that could create a unified Palestinian administration for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Senior Hamas official Basem Naim, who had attended the previous meeting, told Reuters the meeting was postponed and no new date had been set for another meeting, blaming Fatah, which, he said, had requested the delay.
Three Fatah officials confirmed the postponement, speaking on condition of anonymity and saying the movement was going to issue a statement on the issue.
Islamic terror group Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from Fatah, which administers the West Bank, in a 2007 coup. International effforts since then have failed to reconcile the two factions.
In March, Russia hosted the two groups, along with other Palestinian factions, to discuss the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and governance plans for an eventual postwar period.
That same month, Fatah accused Hamas of returning the “Israeli occupation” to Gaza through its “October 7 adventure,” calling this a worse catastrophe than that caused by the establishment of Israel in 1948.
War erupted in Gaza after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which saw terrorists burst across the border into Israel, murdering some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 37,500 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and terrorists. Israel says it has killed some 15,000 combatants in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.
