Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party set up a representation committee in the Gaza Strip for the first time since Islamic Hamas movement routed pro-Abbas forces and seized the coastal strip in 2007.

The new committee includes members of various Fatah's institutions and will report to the Central Committee, the movement's decision-making body that was elected during Fatah's sixth general convention in August, said Yahia Rabah, a member of the new Gaza committee.

The Gaza committee "would implement Fatah's political trends on the level of media, the movement's internal situation and the inter-Palestinian national affairs," Rabah told Xinhua.

Hamas banned Fatah activities in Gaza since June 2007 when Hamas drove out forces of the secular Fatah movement.

The direct contacts between the two rival movements were at the lowest level during the past couple of years, despite continued Egyptian efforts to broker an inter-Palestinian reconciliation last year.

But earlier this month, a member of the Central Committee Nabil Shaath visited Gaza and held meetings with Hamas leaders, including the deposed Prime Minister Ismail Haneya. During his visit, Shaath said he talked with Hamas about allowing Fatah to reopen some of its offices in Gaza.

On Tuesday, a Fatah official said another delegation of seven Fatah leaders will visit Gaza Thursday for the first time since Hamas ousted the movement.

(Xinhua News Agency February 25, 2010)