What does a unity government in Palestine mean?

Rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah on Thursday signed a landmark reconciliation agreement in Cairo.

"The two sides agreed in principle to allow the legitimate Palestinian government to return to Gaza in accordance with [Palestinian] law," said Azzam al Ahmad at a news conference. He led Fatah's delegation at the Cairo talks,

Hamas and Fatah have been rivals since 2006 when Fatah did not accept Hamas’s 2006 election victory in Gaza. Hamas took full control of the Gaza Strip after forcing Fatah out a year later.

Many reconciliation efforts, organised mostly by Egypt, have failed since then. Only in June 2014 did Hamas agree to a national unity government that was formed under President Mahmoud Abbas. This would oversee all Palestinian territories, including Gaza, but it never came into effect.

Thursday’s deal dictates that Presidential Guard units linked to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority would be deployed along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt no later than November 1, according to Ahmad. 

Egypt’s mediation

Ahmad praised Egypt's role in helping to achieve Palestinian national reconciliation and providing a venue for the talks.

Egypt helped mediate several previous attempts to reconcile the two movements and form a power-sharing unity government in Gaza and the West Bank, where Abbas and the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority are based.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al Sisi, who came to power in 2013 after he ousted Egypt's first-ever democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi, supports Fatah. 

Morsi was the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has close ties with Hamas.

Egypt supports a solution which would empower Fatah as the legitimate force in Palestine.

Rafah crossing 

A key point of the agreement was the Rafah crossing, Gaza's only gateway to the world for the two million people packed into the small impoverished territory. 

Fatah said it should be run by the presidential guards, supervised by the European Union border agency, EUBAM, instead of the Hamas-linked employees that are currently deployed.

Some 3,000 Fatah security officers are set to join the Gaza police force. But Hamas will remain the most powerful armed Palestinian faction, with around 25,000 well-armed militants.

Both rivals hope the deal's proposed deployment of security personnel from the Palestinian Authority (PA) to Gaza's borders will encourage Egypt and Israel to lift tight restrictions at frontier crossings – a step urgently needed to help Gaza revive its war-shattered economy.

Another major issue in talks on the deal was the fate of 40,000 to 50,000 employees Hamas has hired in Gaza since 2007, a thorny point that caused crash the 2014 unity accord.

Under the deal, these employees will receive 50 percent of what their PA salary would be – or equivalent to what they are paid now by Hamas – pending vetting of their professional qualifications.

Hamas and Fatah are also debating a potential date for presidential and legislative elections and reforms of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which is in charge of the long-stalled peace efforts with Israel.

Meanwhile, Israel viewed the Palestinian accord warily, saying it must abide by previous international agreements and terms set out by the Quartet of Middle East peace mediators, including the recognition of Israel and the disarming of Hamas.

"Israel will examine developments in the field and act accordingly," said a statement released by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.

Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets across Gaza on Thursday in celebration of the unity pact, with loudspeakers on open cars blasting national songs, youths dancing and hugging.