News - Middle East: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has welcomed an accord brokered by China seeking reconciliation between Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions.

“I think all steps towards unity are to be welcomed and encouraged,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Tuesday.

Guterres “very much welcomes the signing of the Beijing Declaration by the Palestinian factions.”

Hamas says it signed an agreement in Beijing with other Palestinian factions, including Fatah, to work together for “national unity.”

The Hamas political bureau member, Mousa Abu Marzook, made the announcement after meeting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and emissaries from other Palestinian groups, namely Fatah, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP).

Chinese officials have described it as a deal aimed at maintaining Palestinian rule over Gaza once the Israeli campaign of genocide ends.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has said the Palestinian envoys agreed to set up an “interim national reconciliation government” to govern post-war Gaza.

Beijing, Wang said, called for a “comprehensive, lasting and sustainable ceasefire,” as well as efforts to promote Palestinian self-governance and full recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations.

The agreement brokered by China on Tuesday has infuriated the Israeli regime.

The foreign minister Israel Katz accused President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmud Abbas, whose Fatah faction signed the deal, of embracing the resistance groups which launched Operation Al-Aqsa Storm on October 7, 2023.

Hamas says a new and independent government of non-partisan figures should run the post-war Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The resistance movement has said the administration of Gaza after the war is an internal Palestinian matter and the group will not discuss it with foreign parties.

According to Hamas officials, the post-war government will pave the way for a general election in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.

Hamas has repeatedly said Israel must withdraw from the entire territory of Gaza after a ceasefire.

Source: Press TV