Representatives of rival Palestinian factions of Fatah and Hamas met on Monday under the mediation of Egypt officials on the fragile Gaza ceasefire and the internal Palestinian dialogue, reported the Egyptian MENA news agency.

The Fatah-Hamas meeting, the first one since November, involved Fatah parliamentary leader Azzam al-Ahmed and Jamal Abu Hashim, a senior Hamas official who met Sunday with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, the report said without elaborations.

In November, Hamas boycotted an inter-Palestinian dialogue scheduled to be held in Cairo to reach a reconciliation, end the status of rivalry and form a national unity government in both Gaza and the West Bank.

The move irked Egypt, the Palestinian factions' premier mediator, which later showed little sympathy for the group in the 22-day Gaza war.

Earlier on Monday, Suleiman met with visiting delegations of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which consists of Fatah, the Palestine Democratic Union, the Palestinian Arab Front and other factions, on means of cementing the Gaza ceasefire and reviving the long-stalled inter-Palestinian reconciliation.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared late on January 17 a unilateral ceasefire in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, after a 22-daywar which claimed more than 1,300 lives.

Hamas and other Gazan militant groups later echoed that they would stage a one-week ceasefire with Israel, leaving room for further negotiations under the auspices of Egypt.

Egypt hosted Israel and Hamas delegates respectively on Thursday and Sunday on consolidating the shaky truce.

Ayman Taha, a Hamas representative from Gaza, told the Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV after Sunday's talks with Suleiman that the group is mulling an 18-month ceasefire and might accept Fatah forces' presence on the Palestinian side of the Egypt-Gaza border, provided they are from the enclave.

According to an international agreement signed in 2005 when Israel withdrew from Gaza, the Rafah border crossing, the sole one bypassing Israel, could be opened only under the deployment of Fatah's forces and European monitors.

(Xinhua News Agency January 27, 2009)