Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party on Saturday rejected a Hamas proposal on sharing power with Fatah only at the border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.

In a response to an Egyptian mediation effort, Hamas, which overran pro-Abbas forces and seized control of Gaza in June 2007, has said the Islamic movement and Fatah can only form a joint force at Rafah border crossing.

Ibraheem Abu al-Najja, a Fatah official in Gaza, argued that the Egyptian proposal calls for forming a joint force to be in charge of the security in all over the Gaza Strip.

"A specific faction can not be in charge of the security in Gaza alone and the joint force was not only proposed to work on Rafah crossing," Abu al-Najja said.

Egypt has been trying to broker a national reconciliation among the Palestinian groups to allow the formation of a unity government that would restore political unity to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and the Fatah-dominated West Bank.

Meanwhile, Abu al-Najja slammed "the measures Hamas apply on the ground" which he said hinder the progress of the Cairo-hosted dialogue, without giving details.

During the fifth round of Palestinian reconciliation talks in Cairo earlier this month, rival Fatah and Hamas agreed to form joint security forces in the Gaza Strip, according to senior Fatah official Nabil Shaath.

"Hamas and Fatah agreed to form joint security forces in Gaza, which will be in charge of the security service in Gaza until January," Shaath said in a statement during the fifth round of talks.

All the Palestinian factions will come to Cairo for the final round of reconciliation talks on July 5 to discuss the draft document of a unity deal, according to the statement.

(Xinhua News Agency May 30, 2009)