Mohammed Salem / Reuters

Palestinians take part in a rally marking the 48th anniversary of the founding of the Fatah movement, in Gaza City, on January 4. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians joined a rare rally staged by President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah group in Gaza on Friday, as tensions ease with rival Hamas.

Updated at 8:40 a.m. ET: TEL AVIV, Israel — Officials with rival factions Hamas and Fatah will this weekend seek a reconciliation deal that would potentially give Palestinians a stronger position in future peace negotiations with Israel.   

The talks are meant to help bury years of differences that have damaged Palestinian efforts to create a separate state. Discussions began Friday and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah, and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal were due to meet Sunday.

Salah Bardaweel, a senior official with Hamas — which controls the Gaza Strip, said the negotiations between Meshaal and Abbas would cover the creation of a new government headed by Abbas.

"Reconciliation is a national necessity and all are working on achieving it," he said.

Fatah and Hamas have starkly different visions of what a future Palestinian state would consist of.  

Fatah controls the Palestinian Authority, which represents the Palestinian cause internationally, and is pursuing a negotiated solution with Israel with the eventual establishment of a separate state alongside Israel. Islamist Hamas, branded a terror group by the United States and other governments, does not recognize Israel as a legitimate state. 

Alaa Badarneh / EPA

Palestinians participate in a Hamas rally as part of celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of the Islamist movement's founding in the West Bank city of Qalqilya on December 15.

A recent announcement that President Barack Obama was planning to visit Israel and the West Bank this spring raised the prospect of a new U.S. push to restart the long-stalled Israel-Palestinian peace efforts. Success is far from certain — Israel and the Palestinians remain deeply at odds on how to restart talks that broke down more than two years ago.

Israeli-Palestinian talks foundered in 2010 and Israeli then sped up housing construction in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem — land the Palestinians claim for a future state. 

Bernard Sabella, a member of the Palestinian parliament, said reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah would give “the Palestinian people the chance to practice its national right in electing their president, legislative council and so on.”

Ahmad Assaf, a Fatah spokesperson, said a  transitional government would operate for three to six months until elections were held.

"The transitional government’s role is to prepare for the elections and to unify the Palestinian institutions," he said. "In Fatah, we are determined on achieving the reconciliation through elections."

Divisions
While Hamas and Fatah said that they were determined to reach a reconciliation deal, signs persisted of ongoing troubles between the two sides.  

Palestinian security forces had arrested more than 25 members of Hamas over two days,  Agence France Presse news service cited an unnamed security source as saying on Friday. According to him, explosives were found in the possession of some of those detained in the area of Ramalah in the West Bank.

And on Thursday, Hamas accused the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority of escalating an arrest campaign against its supporters in the West Bank.

Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip area, said in a press release that eight activists had been detained in the previous two days in Ramallah and Nablus districts.

A recent report by the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR ) said that human rights violations have been continuing in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The report said the ICHR last month received 31 complaints about torture and mistreatment and 24 alleging unwarranted arrests.

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Thaer Ghanaim / PPO via Reuters

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, left, and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, right, sit on either side of Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani as they sign an agreement in Doha on Monday.

Updated at 8:05 a.m. ET: JERUSALEM -- Israel's prime minister says it will be impossible to hold peace talks if the Palestinians go through with a new reconciliation deal, The Associated Press is reporting.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has chosen to "abandon the way of peace" by reaching a power-sharing deal with the Hamas militant group, according to the AP.

The leaders of rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas signed a deal in Qatar on Monday to form a unity government of independent technocrats for the West Bank and Gaza, headed by Abbas.

Israel considers Hamas a terrorist group. In a statement Monday, Netanyahu said: "It is either peace with Hamas or peace with Israel. You can't have them both."

Original post: DOHA, Qatar -- The main Palestinian political rivals took a major step Monday toward healing their bitter rift, agreeing that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would head an interim unity government to prepare for general elections in the West Bank and Gaza.

The agreement, brokered by Qatar, was signed by Abbas and Khaled Mashaal, chief of the Islamic militant Hamas.

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A senior Palestinian official told Reuters that under Monday's agreement, Abbas would assume the role of prime minister.

Both leaders said they are serious about moving forward.

"We promise our people to implement this agreement as soon as possible," said Abbas, who is head of the secular Fatah organization.

"We inform our people that we are serious about healing the wounds ... to reunite our people on the foundation of a political partnership, in order to devote our effort to resisting the (Israeli) occupation," Mashaal added.

The two had reached a reconciliation deal last year to end more than four years of separate governments in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but disagreement over who was to head an interim government had delayed implementation. Hamas, which runs Gaza, had strongly opposed Abbas' initial choice of Salam Fayyad, the head of his Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Fatah and Hamas have been bitter rivals since the Islamist movement seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 after a brief war and kicked out Abbas' Fatah-led Palestinian Authority.

It remains unclear whether the interim government would be acceptable to the West. The United States, Europe and Israel consider Hamas a terror organization, and said they would shun any government that includes members of an unreformed Hamas.

Israeli settlement building up 20 percent, watchdog says

Abbas has international backing and Monday's agreement said all Cabinet ministers would be politically independent technocrats.

With the Palestinians moving toward unity, the fate of low-level border talks with Israel also remains uncertain. Abbas has said that the talks have run their course, as far as he is concerned, and that he would only resume them if Israel made a better offer on where to draw the border with a Palestinian state. It is not clear whether Israel would negotiate with Abbas as head of a Palestinian unity government.

As part of reconciliation, elections were initially set for May. However, the delays in implementation make it unlikely the vote will be held on time.

The last presidential and parliamentary elections were held in 2006. Hamas won the parliamentary vote.

The Fatah-led Palestinian Authority supports a negotiated peace with Israel that would give Palestinians an independent state in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in Gaza, co-existing with the Jewish state. Hamas is officially sworn to the destruction of Israel but is open to an indefinite ceasefire.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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