GAZA: President Mahmood Abbas’s Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Gaza-based group Hamas agreed on Wednesday to a unity pact, the two sides announced at a news conference.

The move, coming after a long line of failed efforts to reconcile after seven years of internal bickering, envisions a unity government within five weeks and national elections six months later.

“This is the good news we tell our people: the era of division is over,” Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh said to loud applause at a press conference also attended by representatives of the PLO.

Israel said after the announcement that Abbas had chosen Hamas over peace, and cancelled a session of US-brokered talks with the Palestinians that had been scheduled for Wednesday night in Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office that Abbas “chose Hamas and not peace. Whoever chooses Hamas does not want peace.”

Along with the United States and the European Union, Israel views Hamas as a terrorist organisation, and says Abbas’s efforts to unify with the group show he is not serious about extending the troubled negotiations.

The talks, aimed at ending its decades-old conflict with the Palestinians and establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, are scheduled to end on April 29.

Palestinians have long hoped for a healing of the political rift between the PLO and Hamas, which won a Palestinian election in 2006 and seized control of the Gaza Strip from forces loyal to Western-backed Abbas in 2007. But reconciliation dreams have been dashed repeatedly in the past.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki told reporters in the West Bank the unity deal did not interfere with Abbas’s efforts to reach a peace deal with Israel.

“There is also an understanding with Hamas that the president has the mandate to negotiate with Israel on behalf of all the Palestinian people,” al-Malki said.

“When the president reaches an agreement with Israel...(there will be) a referendum where the Palestinian people will decide whether they support such an agreement or not,” he said. Minutes after the announcement, meanwhile, Israel launched an air strike on northern Gaza, wounding 12 people, including several small children, local medical officials said.