Report: Hamas and Fatah leaders to meet in China for talks next week

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A Hamas delegation led by the organization's leader, Ismail Haniyeh, will arrive in Beijing next week to meet with a delegation of Fatah officials, including Mahmoud al-Aloul, the deputy chairman of the Palestinian Authority ruling party, for talks facilitated by China, reported The New York Times on Monday.

According to a senior Hamas official, Mousa Abu Marzouk, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, will meet with the two Palestinian factions on July 21 and again on July 23. The rival Palestinian groups will reportedly hold their own discussions in between.

“China is a powerful country and we want to strengthen our ties with it,” Abu Marzouk explained.

China’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to the NYT request for comment.

China has increasingly sought to present itself as a global power alternative to the United States and the Western alliance by leveraging its growing influence in the Middle East.

Last month, China hosted the tenth session of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum in Beijing, an initiative formed in 2004 to advance closer cooperation between China and the wider Arab world. In April, the Chinese government also hosted Hamas and Fatah leaders at a meeting but failed to make progress in the negotiations between the two rivals.

China has long held friendly ties with Palestinian leaders. Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has visited China five times during his nearly two decades in power. His most recent visit was in June 2023, about four months before Hamas terrorists invaded and attacked southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7. Since Oct. 7, China has openly supported and sided with Hamas, despite the deep ties that Israel has cultivated with China over the past decades.

At the recent China-Arab States Cooperation Forum in Beijing, Yi told media representatives that Chinese leaders "firmly support the Palestinian people in restoring their legitimate national rights.”

In January, Yi called for an end to Israel’s military operations in Gaza and a unilateral implementation of the two-state solution. That same month, a large cache of Chinese weapons was found in Gaza.

“This has come as a big surprise as before the war, relations were very good, but we have found massive amounts of Chinese weaponry and the question is, did it come directly from China to Hamas or not?" an Israeli intelligence source said at the time.

"This is top-grade weaponry and communications technology, stuff that Hamas didn't have before, with very sophisticated explosives which have never been found before and especially on such a large scale.”

“China has changed its attitude to Israel dramatically and it's gone totally towards a position of anti-Semitism now,” an unnamed Israeli intelligence source told the Telegraph at the time.

“Before October 7, the Chinese loved Israel and Jews and felt a sense of admiration [for them] but now, the media coverage hasn't even shown the Chinese public what happened on October 7, only the aftermath. The regime is brainwashing the public in a totally different direction and it's happening at an unprecedented pace.”