According to AFP, Russia has invited Hamas and other Palestinian factions including Fatah to Moscow for talks on the Israel-Hamas war and other issues in the Middle East, an official said Friday.
Moscow for years tried to court good relations with all major players in the middle east and has grown increasingly critical of Israel and its Western backers amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
According to reports, Russia has invited around a dozen Palestinian groups to Moscow for 'inter-Palestinian' talks from February 29, the state-run TASS news agency reported, citing Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov.
President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for the Middle East Bogdanov said, "We invited all Palestinian representatives — all political forces that have their positions in different countries, including Syria, Lebanon and other countries in the region".
The invited groups include Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, alongside representatives of Fatah and the broader Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel in response of decades of unprecedented oppression and killings of the Palestinian people that resulted in the deaths of about 1,139 people.
On the other hand, Israel’s attacks on Gaza have killed at least 28,775 Palestinians and wounded 68,552 since October 7.
