Egypt offers Palestinian rivals new unity ideas

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Egyptian mediators trying to break the deadlock in talks on a Palestinian government of national unity have told rival groups Fatah and Hamas to cooperate on reconstructing Gaza as a first step, officials said.

Palestinian groups have been talking in Cairo for months but have so far failed to agree on a unity government which would prepare for elections. The proposal to cooperate on Gaza was an attempt to break the impasse, an official said.

"It became clear that a deal between the two sides was near impossible," a senior Palestinian official involved in the talks told Reuters.

Palestinian elections are supposed to take place in January 2010, but a Hamas leader, Mohammed Nazzal, told a pro-Hamas website: "There will be no elections next year unless an agreement is reached in the dialogue."

The aim of the talks is to end almost two years of enmity between the groups, who fought a brief civil war that culminated in Hamas's seizure of the Gaza Strip in 2007.

Egypt's new plan is for a Fatah-Hamas committee answerable to the West Bank-based government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Western-backed Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to oversee reconstruction work, while the Hamas administration in Gaza provides the headquarters and logistics.

NEW SESSION

Fatah welcomed the proposal as an introduction to a solution but Hamas said it would give legitimacy to Fayyad's government, which the Islamist group has never accepted.