Hamas, Islamic Jihad to attend meeting of Palestinian president's Fatah party

The Islamic Hamas movement and Islamic Jihad group announced on Sunday that they will attend the upcoming meeting of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party, which will kick off in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday.

"Hamas agreed to attend the congress after it officially received an invitation from Fatah Party," Hamas spokesman in Gaza Fawzi Barhoum said in a statement.

The movement will send its representatives in the West Bank to attend the four-day meeting, he said.

Meanwhile, Dawood Shihab, spokesman for Islamic Jihad in Gaza, said in a statement that representatives of his group will also take part in the meeting after they were officially invited by Fatah party.

On Tuesday, Fatah Party, the largest Palestinian political group, will hold its seventh congress, which has been stalled since 2009, to elect a new central committee and a new revolutionary council.

President Abbas, leader of the party, will open the first session on Tuesday and will deliver a speech to the congress, before its members debate the current internal situation and elect a new leading committee and a council.

Fatah and Hamas are the major Palestinian rivals. Fatah controls the West Bank and Hamas has violently seized control of the Gaza Strip following weeks of fighting with Fatah in 2007.

Since then, efforts of reconciliation between the two groups have so far failed, which negatively influenced all aspects of the Palestinian life, mainly in the Gaza Strip, which has been under an Israeli blockade since then. Endit