The new Fatah leadership will work to restore the Palestinian unity and end internal split, a senior Fatah official said on Tuesday.

The first task of the new central committee of Fatah will be "rebuilding and correcting the internal statues of Fatah, and reuniting its frames in order to restore its leading position," said Nabil Shaath, a member of the committee.

Shaath is one of four members who preserved their positions at the new central committee elected during the Fatah general conference in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.

Fourteen new members, most of them from the younger generation, have been elected to the central committee, the top decision-making body in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' party.

The second task facing the central committee is the reconciliation with Islamic Hamas movement, Fatah's bitter rival which controls the Gaza Strip, according to Shaath.

Hamas and Fatah have been involved in a power struggle since the Islamic movement routed pro-Abbas forces and seized control of Gaza in 2007.

Mutual crackdown the two sides exchange against each other in Gaza and in the West Bank complicates Egypt's efforts to reach an inter-Palestinian reconciliation.

Shaath added that Fatah will continue its "struggle to achieve the creation of an independent Palestinian statehood within the 1967 borders." He was referring to the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

The elections were held at Fatah general convention in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. The conference was the first one Fatah holds in 20 years and the sixth in the movement's 44-year-old history.

The delegates have also voted for a new revolutionary council and the results are expected to come out later Tuesday.

(Xinhua News Agency August 12, 2009)