Fatah, Hamas in unity deal

JERUSALEM - Rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas have reached a tentative agreement to end their four-year rift by forming a caretaker government of independent technocrats and holding elections next year in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, officials said Wednesday.

The pact, brokered by Egypt's intelligence agency and interim government, followed several days of secret meetings in Cairo.

Palestinian officials acknowledged they had not yet resolved all their long-standing differences, and it remains unclear whether they can work together to implement a deal over the coming year. Previous reconciliation efforts have failed between the mainstream, secular Fatah, which controls the West Bank, and Hamas, the Islamist extremist group that rules Gaza.

"It's not the end of the path," Moussa Abu Marzouk, head of the Hamas delegation, said at a news conference in Cairo. "We have a lot to do."

Unanswered questions include who will be prime minister and run security forces, and what will be the government's policy toward Israel.

A previous Fatah-Hamas unity government collapsed in 2007 after a power struggle that was followed by a brief armed clash in which Hamas seized control of Gaza. After that, each faction set up rival governments, prime ministers, and security forces in the two territories. They have accused each other of arresting and torturing each other's members in the land they control.

Both factions have been under growing pressure from the Palestinian public to end their division, which has distracted from efforts to end the Israeli occupation and win statehood. Opinion polls show that Palestinians blame both parties for the fracture and rank the division among their biggest problems.

Analysts said the recent unrest in Egypt and other Arab nations helped propel an agreement amid worries that Palestinians might also begin to rebel against their leaders.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad are also eager to demonstrate that they represent all Palestinian territories as they prepare to bid for statehood recognition in September from the United Nations. Many in the international community viewed the political division as a key roadblock to statehood.