A statement from Hamas movement said the decision came in response to recent diplomatic efforts by Egypt to reconcile the rival factions, while PA President Mahmoud Abbas has been calling on Hamas to end the administrative committee, relinquish control of the small territory to the PA, and hold presidential and legislative elections. Some polls show that if parliamentary elections were held now, Hamas would win them in both Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the seat of Abbas’s Palestinian Authority. "We are trying to reconcile those who live and work in the Gaza Strip with those in the West Bank and Mahmoud Abbas' administration," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted earlier this month during a three-day visit to the Middle East. "In a statement posted on its website,As a step aimed at achieving national unity, the group, considered terrorist by Israel and some other states, has "invited the reconciliation government to come to the Gaza Strip to exercise its functions and carry out its duties," the statement says.The statement was greeted as a "positive" development by the deputy head of the ruling Fatah movement, Mahmoud Al-Alul.
Hamas, through Egyptian-mediated talks, agrees to dissolve its Gaza administration, hold talks with the Fatah West Bank government, and hold elections for a Palestinian unity government.