Israel-Hamas war: What is Russia's role as Mideast mediator?
Feuding Palestinian organizations groups are set to meet in Moscow this week for talks. Russia wants to help bring them together and potentially free more hostages.
This week, delegates from various Palestinian factions will travel to Moscow for talks on the Israel-Hamas war and other Middle Eastern topics at an "inter-Palestinian dialogue."
Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told Russian state news agency TASS that between 12 and 14 organizations will attend the conference, which begins on February 29 and will run for two or three days.
This includes representatives of the political arm of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fatah, the political organization running the occupied West Bank and the Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO, the broader umbrella organization for all Palestinian groups.
The various groups take very different positions on topics like the recognition of Israel as a state. The Fatah-led PLO recognized Israel in 1993, partially in exchange for a possible Palestinian state. Hamas has rejected that stance for years, even though recently its rhetoric has softened. It is not part of the PLO.
There has also been violence between the groups. After Hamas won elections in Gaza in 2006, it was unable to come to a power-sharing deal with the more moderate Fatah and fighting broke out. Fatah eventually left the Gaza Strip, leaving Hamas in charge there, and now manages the West Bank. Its governing authority there is also known as the Palestinian Authority, or PA.
'Dialogue for dialogue's sake'
This isn't the first time a more unified Palestinian front has been discussed. As Ruslan Suleymanov, an independent Russian Middle East expert based in Baku, told DW, there has been mediation between the different groups before. "But they have never been effective," he said.
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