Egypt to invite Palestinians to new unity talks

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt plans to invite leaders of Palestinian groups for talks, Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said on Thursday, renewing efforts to heal internal splits and pave the way for elections.

Egypt has been trying to reconcile Hamas, the Islamist group ruling the Gaza Strip, with President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah which holds sway in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

They have long been at loggerheads, the more so since Hamas routed Fatah in Gaza in June 2007.

"We will invite the heads or the secretary-generals of the (Palestinian) organizations to come to Egypt hopefully soon, one after the other," Aboul Gheit told reporters after talks with his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni. He did not elaborate.

Abbas, whose term expires on January 9, said this week in Cairo that presidential and general elections would have to wait until "all chances for dialogue are exhausted".

Abbas decried the rift between Hamas and Fatah on Thursday and urged the Islamist group to show "reason" and return to reconciliation talks.

"We don't want to isolate them. They are a part of the Palestinian people, whatever their ideas and vision might be," Abbas said during his first visit as president to Hebron, a Hamas stronghold. "We will not accept going into a civil war."

Hamas boycotted a planned reconciliation conference involving most Palestinian groups in Cairo in November because it said security services loyal to Abbas had not freed more than 400 Hamas men jailed in the West Bank.

The boycott forced Egypt to delay the talks.

(Additional reporting by Haitham Tamimi in Hebron; writing by Alaa Shahine; editing by Andrew Roche)