A Hamas leader today renewed his call for dialogue with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's rival Fatah faction a week after Mr Abbas restarted talks with Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas formally relaunched a US-sponsored peace process last week and Israel has since stepped up raids on Hamas-run Gaza to try to curb rocket fire by militants.
Hamas Islamists, who have vowed to undermine the peace effort by fighting Israel, seized control of Gaza in a brief civil war with Fatah in June, prompting Mr Abbas to dismiss a Hamas-led government and reopen talks with the Jewish state.
Hamas has since called for dialogue with Fatah but Mr Abbas, who holds sway in the larger West Bank, rules out talks unless the Islamist group first gives up control of the Gaza Strip - a condition Hamas rejects.
"We believe it is necessary to immediately begin a non-conditional dialogue that will work to heal the Palestinian wounds," Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the government dissolved by Abbas, told Reuters in an interview today.
Israel says dialogue between Fatah and Hamas, sidelined by the West, could torpedo the peace process.
A senior Abbas aide said Saudi Arabia, which brokered a previous agreement between the Palestinian factions, had relayed a message to Mr Abbas from Hamas offering talks this week, but that the president repeated his condition on Gaza.
Mr Abbas's administration also announced it was centralising the distribution of alms in the West Bank and Gaza. The move followed an earlier decision to shut down more than 100 mostly Islamist charities, and drew charges from Hamas that Mr Abbas sought to starve his political rivals of grassroots funding.