In the Occupied Territories, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has announced that the governing Hamas party and his rival Fatah party have agreed to form a power-sharing government. Under the plan, the Hamas-led cabinet will soon be dissolved and a coalition cabinet will be formed.

• Ghassan Al-Khatib, president of Jerusalem Media Communications: “It will also allow for political platform which hopefully will enable the international community to resume the aid and support to the Palestinian people and hopefully will enable the Quartet to resume political efforts towards resuming a political process and bilateral negotiations of the kind that can help in ending this occupation in return for peace.”