![Head of Gaza's political bureau Ismail Haniyeh meets Director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate Khaled Fawzy in Gaza on 3 October 2017 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/2017_10_03-Head-of-Gazas-political-bureau-Ismail-Haniyeh-meets-Director-of-the-Egyptian-General-Intelligence8.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1)
Palestinian rival factions Hamas and Fatah have reached a deal over political reconciliation, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh said in a statement on Thursday without providing further details.
A Hamas official told Reuters that details are expected to be released at a noon news conference in Cairo, where unity talks between the rival factions began on Tuesday.
The Western-backed mainstream Fatah party lost control of Gaza to Hamas, considered a terrorist group by the West and Israel, in fighting in 2007. But last month Hamas agreed to cede powers in Gaza to President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah-backed government in a deal mediated by Egypt.
Read More: What is behind the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation?
“Fatah and Hamas reached an agreement at dawn today upon a generous Egyptian sponsorship,” Haniyeh said in a statement.
Egypt has helped mediate several attempts to reconcile the two movements and form a power-sharing unity government in Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas and Fatah agreed in 2014 to form a national reconciliation government, but despite that deal, Hamas’s shadow government continued to rule the Gaza Strip.