"Representatives of the Palestine National Liberation Movement and the Islamic Resistance Movement recently came to Beijing," foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said, referring to the groups by their formal names.

"The two sides fully expressed their political will to achieve reconciliation through dialogue and consultation, discussed many specific issues and made positive progress," he added, without specifying when the sides had met.

Islamist movement Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 after ferocious fighting with its rivals in Fatah, which maintains partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank through the Palestinian Authority.

China has historically been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and supportive of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Beijing has been calling for an immediate ceasefire since the start of the current Israeli war on Gaza in October last year.

Israel's war has killed at least 34,535 people in the Gaza Strip, mostly women and children, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said on Tuesday.

Beijing said on Tuesday the two factions had "agreed to continue this process of dialogue to achieve Palestinian unity at an early date".

"The two sides highly appreciated China's firm support for the just cause of the Palestinian people to restore their legitimate national rights," Lin said.

He did not identify the representatives from Hamas and Fatah who met in Beijing.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for an "international peace conference" to resolve the fighting.

In November, Beijing hosted a delegation of diplomats from Arab and Muslim-majority nations, in which Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned a "humanitarian disaster" was unfolding in Gaza.