The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told a large rally of his Fatah movement today that he won't allow fighting with their Hamas rivals to continue and called on opposing factions to respect each other.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas waves to supporters during a Fatah rally in the West Bank city of Ramallah
Thousands of Fatah supporters waved the movement's yellow flags and chanted slogans against the Islamic Hamas group and its Iranian backers. Several Fatah activists briefly carried Abbas on their shoulders. "Go, go, until liberation," they chanted. Others fired in the air.
The rally in the West Bank city of Ramallah was organized as a show of Fatah's strength against Hamas - which is powerful in the Gaza Strip - but Abbas aides said the Palestinian leader would also give coalition talks with Hamas another chance.
Negotiations on bringing Fatah into the Hamas-led Cabinet are to resume soon and continue for two weeks, said Rafiq Husseini, a senior Abbas aide. If the talks fail, he said, Abbas would proceed with his plan to call early elections.
In his speech, Abbas did not make clear whether he was still determined to go ahead with early elections to resolve the problem of the divided Palestinian government and made no reference to a resumption of coalition talks.
Without mentioning Hamas by name, he said the response to his election call last month was violence, and said those opposed to new polls should challenge the decision in the courts, not in the streets.
"The priority for me is preserving national unity and preventing and prohibiting internal fighting," Abbas told the crowd. "Palestinian blood is a red line."
Abbas did not say how he would stop the bloodshed. Thirty-five people have been killed in several weeks of fighting between Fatah and Hamas.
In previous coalition talks with Hamas, Abbas insisted that the militant Hamas soften its positions so the program of the new coalition will be acceptable to the international community and help end a 10-month international economic boycott.
Hamas is going into the talks with a revised agenda, including a demand that Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas remain in the job, said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum. In the previous round of talks, Haniyeh had agreed in principle to step down and let an independent be appointed in his place.
It was not immediately clear whether Abbas would agree to have a Hamas politician lead the new coalition, but he and Haniyeh get along well.
Hamas officials also said they are willing to compromise on a previous sticking point, control over the Interior Ministry which oversees the security forces, and are willing to give the post to an independent. In the previous round of talks, Hamas had demanded continued control over the ministry.