Hamas signals post-war ambition in talks with Palestinian rival Fatah Deep divisions will limit progress at reconciliation talks between Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah this month, conversations with five sources in the groups indicate, but the meetings highlight that the Islamist group is likely to retain influence after Israel's war in Gaza.
The talks between Hamas and the Fatah party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will be held in China in mid-June, according to officials from both sides. They follow two recent rounds of reconciliation talks, one in China and one in Russia. China's foreign ministry declined to comment.
The next meeting will be held amid attempts by international mediators to reach a ceasefire deal for Gaza, with one of the key sticking points being the "day-after" plan - how the enclave will be governed.
Considered a terrorist organisation by many Western nations, Hamas was shunned long before its Oct. 7 attacks killed 1,200 people in Israel, with more than 250 hostages taken, triggering the war in Gaza.
But even as it is pummelled militarily, the meetings of Hamas politicians with officials from the Fatah party that controls Palestinian politics in the Israeli-occupied West Bank point to the group's aim of shaping the post-war order in the Palestinian territories, according to a source familiar with conversations within Hamas.
The person, like other unnamed officials in this story, declined to be named because they weren't authorized to discuss sensitive matters with the media.
Hamas, which ruled Gaza before the war, recognises it cannot be part of any internationally recognised new government of the Palestinian territories when fighting in the enclave eventually ends, said the source.
Nonetheless, it wants Fatah to agree to a new technocratic administration for the West Bank and Gaza as part of a wider political deal, the source and senior Hamas official Basim Naim said.
"We are speaking about political partnership and political unity to restructure the Palestinian entity," Naim, who attended the previous round of China talks, said in an interview.
"Whether Hamas is in the government or outside it, that is not a prime demand of the movement and it doesn't see it a condition for any reconciliation," he said. Naim, like much of Hamas' political leadership, operates in exile outside of Gaza...............
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hamas-signals-post-war-ambition-talks-with-palestinian-rival-fatah-2024-06-05/
