The Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is to hold talks this week with leaders of the militant group Hamas.
The meeting, expected to be held as early as tonight in Gaza, would be the first between Hamas and Abbas since he took office last month.
Israel has demanded that Mr Abbas, widely known as Abu Mazen, cracks down on Hamas and other militant groups, disarm them and jail their leaders before it will relax its military grip on Palestinian areas.
The United States has also put intense pressure on Mr Abbas to curb violence.
Mr Abbas, a leading moderate, has made clear that he hopes to achieve a ceasefire through dialogue with militants to avoid the risk of touching off a Palestinian civil war.But militants, who have rejected a US-backed peace "road map", have vowed to continue their attacks.
Hamas officials declined to comment today, but a source said the group's leaders were meeting to work out their strategy for talks with Abbas. Hamas has defied Mr Abbass's calls for an end to attacks on Israelis.
Mr Abbas is a veteran member of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, which held Egyptian-brokered talks with Hamas in Cairo in January but failed to reach an agreement on halting violence.