The Islamist group says the Palestinian Authority president does not justify canceling the meeting. Fatah says it will work to achieve “the right climate for the success of Chinese mediation.”
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The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which de facto governs the Gaza Strip, accused the president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Mahmoud Abbas, of having prevented a reconciliation meeting that was to be held this Monday in China.
The Hamas movement has responded very positively and with great responsibility to China’s efforts to achieve Palestinian national unity, but recently President Mahmoud Abbas refused to participate in the broad faction meeting scheduled for today, which led to its cancellation. ”said one of the group members. Hussam Badran, in a statement.
Badran stressed that Abbas did not present any reason to cancel participation in the meeting, which was agreed upon after a bilateral meeting in Beijing in April and encouraged by Chinese officials, who advocate the creation of a Palestinian state as a solution to the conflict with Israel.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Fatah (Abbas’s party), which governs parts of the occupied West Bank, is committed to dialogue and “is working to complete all preparations to provide the right climate for the success of Chinese mediation”.
The two Palestinian factions have been at odds since 2007, when Hamas expelled Fatah forces from the Gaza Strip, dissolved the joint executive and seized power by force, after winning legislative elections a year earlier.
Several mediators, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Russia, attempted to intervene to end the division that has continued since then.
One of the most recent attempts was in 2017, when Fatah and Hamas announced, with Egypt as mediator, an agreement according to which the Palestinian Authority would regain control of Gaza and legislative and presidential elections would be called, postponed “sine die.”
Last March, Abbas carried out a change in the PA government, as part of efforts to reform it with a technocratic executive that could take control of the Gaza Strip once the ongoing war between Israel and Israel ends. Hamas, triggered by an unprecedented attack by the Islamist group. on Israeli soil in October 2023, causing a serious humanitarian crisis and more than 37,000 deaths in the small enclave.
This structural reform was one of the main demands of the United States so that the Palestinian Authority could govern the Gaza Strip, although it is not part of the plans of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who rejects such a scenario.
Source: Observadora
