Indonesia has welcomed the Beijing Declaration on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, that unifies all political factions in Palestine.
Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said the approval of the Beijing Declaration by Palestinian stakeholders is a step forward in encouraging reconciliation and unity of the Palestinian people, especially amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
“Indonesia hopes that what has been agreed upon can be implemented,” Retno Marsudi said in a statement on Wednesday, July 24, 2024.
She cited that Indonesia always brings up the issue of unity in any meeting with Palestinian factions. Unity is key to realize peace and future of Palestine.
As reported by France24.com, Hamas announced on Tuesday it had signed an agreement in Beijing with other Palestinian organizations, including rivals Fatah, to work together for “national unity”, with China describing it as a deal to rule Gaza together once the war ends.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who hosted senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk, Fatah envoy Mahmud al-Aloul and emissaries from 12 other Palestinian groups, said they had agreed to set up an “interim national reconciliation government” to govern post-war Gaza.
“Today we sign an agreement for national unity and we say that the path to completing this journey is national unity. We are committed to national unity and we call for it,” Abu Marzuk said after meeting Wang and the other envoys.
The announcement comes more than nine months into a war sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza, including 44 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 39,000 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
The relentless fighting has plunged Gaza into a severe humanitarian crisis.
China has sought to play a mediator role in the conflict, which has been rendered even more complex due to the intense rivalry between Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and Fatah, which partially governs the occupied West Bank.
Israel has vowed to keep fighting until it destroys Hamas, and world powers including key Israeli backer, the United States, have scrambled to imagine scenarios for the governance of Gaza once the war ends.
Neither Israel nor the United States would sanction any post-war plan that includes Hamas, which is proscribed as a terrorist organization by Washington.
While it is unclear whether the deal announced in Beijing on Tuesday can hold, it does indicate that the only world power that can engineer a rapprochement between the Palestinian rivals is China.
As Tuesday’s meeting wrapped up in Beijing, Wang said the groups had committed to “reconciliation”.
“The most prominent highlight is the agreement to form an interim national reconciliation government around the governance of post-war Gaza,” Wang said after the factions signed the “Beijing declaration” in the Chinese capital.
“Reconciliation is an internal matter for the Palestinian factions, but at the same time, it cannot be achieved without the support of the international community,” Wang said.
