By Wafa Amr

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday that he expected to form a unity government with the rival Hamas faction this month in the hope of lifting a Western aid embargo.

Addressing tens of thousands of Palestinians after a week in which rancour soared over bloody Israeli military actions in the Gaza Strip, Abbas called on the Jewish state to talk peace.

"I announce to our people the happy news that we have achieved great progress on the path to establishing a national unity government that can end the siege and open the way toward a political settlement," Abbas said in a speech marking the second anniversary of the death of his predecessor, Yasser Arafat.

"I expect that, God willing, this government will see the light of day before the end of this month," he said.

The United States and Europe imposed crippling sanctions on the Palestinian Authority when the militant Islamist group Hamas ousted Abbas's more moderate Fatah faction in an election in January. Israel also withheld tax and customs receipts owed to the Palestinians.

Hamas, which advocates Israel's destruction and helped spearhead a Palestinian revolt that erupted in 2000, has refused to soften its stand, prompting Abbas to seek to bring Fatah into the government in a bid to bridge differences.

But Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said on Friday he was prepared to step aside to end the embargo.

Israel has cautiously welcomed Abbas's efforts, though it insists that any new Palestinian government must recognise Israel's right to exist and renounce violence -- preconditions set by Western power-brokers -- before peace talks can begin.

"There is hope for the moderates, those who believe in a two-state solution," Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Friday.

MILITARY FORCE

But Abbas said Israel must also take the lead.

"It is high time the Israeli government realises that the continuation of its settlement and occupation is an impossible matter and that military force, no matter how mighty, will not break the will of the people," he said.

Palestinians seek statehood in the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war. Though Israel quit the latter territory last year, it has said it will keep Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank under any future peace deal.

The diplomatic deadlock since Hamas's election victory has seen spiralling violence between Israeli forces and Palestinian gunmen, as well as fighting between Hamas and Fatah loyalists.

Israel has mounted military sweeps of Gaza to try to counter cross-border rocket salvoes and retrieve a captive soldier. The most recent mission culminated with the death of 19 civilians in an Israeli artillery barrage on the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.

Abbas condemned the killings -- which Israel said resulted from a gunnery error -- as a "barbaric massacre".

But he said that Hamas's hard line against peace talks, as opposed to the previous Fatah-led government's pursuit of coexistence with Israel, would only spell more bloodshed.

"Any political program that is not based on the national program that was endorsed by popular consensus, and enjoyed international as well as Arab support, will only give a pretext to Israel to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and to refuse to withdraw from our land," he said.

AlertNet news is provided by

Delicio.us  |   Digg  |   NewsVine  |   Reddit