After three days of talks in Moscow, the main Palestinian parties, Fatah, Hamas, and others on Tuesday evening announced deal to form a national unity government ahead of the upcoming municipal elections, after three days of talks in Moscow. On Tuesday, Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmad said in Arabic the two sides reached an agreement to, “within 48 hours” call on PA leader Mahmoud Abbas to launch “consultations on the creation of a [national unity] government.”

The two sides have made the same agreement several times before, and each time the “unity” falls apart when it comes to actually functioning as a unified government. After three days of negotiations in Moscow, both parties declared they had reached an agreement and that a new National Council would be formed that would include Palestinians who had been exiled. However, senior al-Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmed reportedly said: "Today the conditions for [such an initiative] are better than ever." The unity deal was announced late Tuesday, three days after the talks began under the Russian auspices among representatives from Ramallah-based Fatah as well as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both headquartered in the Gaza Strip, and other factions. The secular Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, based in Ramallah, and Islamist militant group Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in 2007, will form a new National Council including the Palestinian diaspora to hold elections. The first elections since 2007 were due to be held in 2016, but were delayed multiple times after legal complaints filed by various political actors and a high court ruling found elections could only be held in the West Bank. A deal has been on the Palestinian agenda since Hamas won the Palestinian legislative election in 2006, but Fatah and Hamas have repeatedly failed to agree on the package. In another development on Monday, the Palestinian diplomats met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, asking Moscow to help dissuade US President-elect Donald Trump from fulfilling his campaign pledge to move Washington’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem al-Quds, which the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state.
The Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority agrees to form a unity government with Hamas following a three-day delegation in Moscow.