Palestinian factions, including rivals Hamas and Fatah, will hold unity talks in China in July, two senior Hamas and Fatah officials told Reuters on Monday, as they try to resolve deep divisions.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Reuters/Hamad I Mohammed
Palestinian factions, including rivals Hamas and Fatah, will hold unity talks in China in July, two senior Hamas and Fatah officials told Reuters on Monday, as they try to resolve deep divisions.
The two factions met in China in April to discuss reconciliation efforts to end around 17 years of political splits.
The meetings come amid rising tensions between the two factions over Hamas' continued war with Israel. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who leads the Fatah movement, has previously criticized the Islamist Hamas group for the war, while Hamas has accused the Palestinian president of taking Israel's side.
The two main Palestinian factions have been at odds since Hamas won legislative elections in 2006 and took over the Gaza Strip in 2007 after a brief civil war in which it routed the Western-backed Palestinian forces loyal to Abbas.
Efforts since 2007 by Arab countries, led by Egypt, have so far failed to end power-sharing disputes between Hamas, which runs Gaza, and the Fatah movement of Abbas, which makes the backbone of the Palestinian Authority.
Reporting by Nidal Al Mughrabi and Ali Sawafta
Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia, received German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Monday for high-level discussions aimed at strengthening bilateral ties and addressing key regional and global issues.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday the United Nations has "great potential" but has to "get their act together," as he stopped U.S. engagement with the U.N. Human Rights Council, extended a halt to funding for the Palestinian relief agency UNRWA and ordered a review of the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO.
Israel is preparing to send a high-level delegation to the Qatari capital Doha to discuss continued implementation of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Tuesday.
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