Israel’s government on Tuesday rejected an agreement by 14 Palestinian movements, including decades-old rivals Hamas and Fatah, to form a “national unity” government in the Palestinian territories after the war in the Gaza Strip — where thousands of residents continue to flee — ends , to leave their homes in areas bombarded by the Israeli armed forces.

“Nothing like that is going to happen, because Hamas will be crushed and (Fatah leader Mahmoud) Abbas will be looking at Gaza from afar,” said Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, whose country owns the West Bank and east Jerusalem since 1967 and continues large-scale military operations in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for Hamas’s unprecedented incursion into southern sectors of Israeli territory on October 7.

“Instead of rejecting terrorism, Mahmoud Abbas is embracing the killers,” fumed Mr. Katz.

Israel’s political and military leadership has vowed to wipe out Hamas and refuses to end military operations in the enclave before the Palestinian Islamist movement, which seized power there in 2007, is dismantled, two years after Israeli troops withdrew from the enclave. area they held for 38 years.

In Beijing, Hamas announced yesterday that it had signed an agreement with thirteen other Palestinian factions, including Fatah. The text refers to an “interim national government” agreed between them, which will exercise “its powers in all Palestinian territories”: the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The Palestinian Authority under Mr. Abbas, based in Ramallah in the West Bank, praised the deal. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called it an “important step” towards the establishment of an “independent” Palestinian state.

The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, voted on July 18 to approve a text against the creation of such a state.

On an official visit to the US, Mr Netanyahu is expected to address the full US Congress tonight, before meeting President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump — Mrs Harris and Mr Trump are expected to compete in the November 5 presidential election.

Israel’s main ally and supplier of military equipment internationally, Washington has struggled to hide its irritation in recent months over the consequences of Israeli operations in the Gaza Strip, publicly insisting on the need to protect civilians and get humanitarian aid into the besieged and ruined enclave, whose population is threatened with starvation, as the UN has been warning for months now.

On October 7, members of Hamas’ military wing launched an unprecedented raid in southern Israel, during which 1,197 people, mostly civilians, died, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data. Another 251 people were kidnapped, of whom 116 are still being held in the small coastal enclave, but 44 of them are believed to be dead, according to the Israeli military.

In the Israeli air, naval and ground retaliatory operations that followed in Gaza, at least 39,090 people, also mostly civilians, have died, according to the Health Ministry of the Hamas government.

In cooperation with Qatar and Egypt, Washington is continuing efforts to restart marathon indirect negotiations aimed at declaring a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, accompanied by the release of Israeli hostages in the enclave and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. An Israeli delegation is expected the day after tomorrow Thursday in Doha. A Hamas official, Sami Abu Zohri, commented yesterday speaking to the Reuters news agency that he does not see any change in the attitude of the Israeli government, despite Mr. Netanyahu’s statements that an agreement may “be close”: “Netanyahu is simply evading and sends delegations to calm the anger of the families of the Israeli prisoners,” he ruled.

Continuing to put pressure on their government, Israelis demonstrated once again last Tuesday night in Tel Aviv, demanding a settlement that would ensure the return of the hostages.

“Sign an agreement,” one read on the placards.

In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli armed forces continued their operations, even in areas where they assured that they had destroyed the units of the military arm of Hamas, a movement characterized as a terrorist organization by Israel, the US and the EU.

New shelling yesterday hit Khan Younis and Rafah (south), as well as Jabalia and Gaza City (north), where at least eight Palestinians, including three children, died, according to civil protection.

At the beginning of the week, the Israeli army ordered the hasty evacuation of civilians from eastern Khan Younis – from which it only left in early April – ahead of a new operation “against terrorist organizations”, after rockets were fired at Israeli territory. Tens of thousands of people have fled since Monday.

“We’ve been displaced so many times I’ve lost count,” said Han Younis resident. “We’ve gotten to the point where we’d rather die,” Palestine snapped bitterly as he left.

Hundreds of civilians were also leaving Bureage, where a hasty evacuation of civilians was also ordered — on foot, in vehicles, in donkey carts.

The war has displaced most of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million residents, while the UN says there is no safe place in the enclave.

The World Health Organization underlines that it is concerned about the possibility of an outbreak of epidemics in Gaza, from where at least 14,000 people need immediate medical transport outside the enclave, as everything is missing.