Palestinian factions to hold reconciliation talks

Palestinian factions including the secular Fatah movement and its Hamas rivals will meet in Cairo on Wednesday in a new reconciliation bid, a senior Fatah official said yesterday.
"Egypt has informed (Palestinian) president (Mahmud) Abbas and the factions that it will launch a dialogue on February 25 with all Palestinian groups," Azzam al-Ahmed, the head of the Fatah parliamentary bloc, told AFP.
He added that five commissions would be created to look into the main points of conflict between the two main Palestinian factions, including reforming the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the security forces.
The two groups have been bitterly divided since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 after driving out Abbas's forces, effectively confining the Western-backed leader's authority to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The Egyptian-brokered talks were originally going to be held Sunday, but Cairo officials said more preparatory discussions were required.
The talks are part of an Egyptian-proposed plan for a lasting truce following Israel's massive three-week offensive against the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip that killed more than 1,300 Palestinians.
Meanwhile, two Gaza militants were killed on Saturday in an explosion near the border with Israel, Palestinian sources said, although there were conflicting reports about the circumstances of their death.
Muawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza emergency services, said the two men were militants killed by Israeli shelling and gunfire in the village of Juhr al-Dik southeast of Gaza City.