Hamas and Fatah due to sign reconciliation agreement
The leaders of the two main Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, are due to sign a reconciliation pact in Cairo aimed at ending their four-year rift.
Mahmoud Abbas and Khaled Meshaal have not met since the expulsion of Fatah from Gaza in 2007 following the shock Hamas election victory a year earlier.
The agreement paves the way for a joint interim government ahead of national elections next year.
The recent Arab uprisings have given fresh momentum to reconciliation.
Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had been wary of bolstering Hamas, but the new Cairo government has adopted a less hostile stance towards the Islamist group.
Correspondents say it is a first sign of how political changes in the Arab world could affect the dynamic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Fatah-led Palestinian Authority runs parts of the West Bank, while Hamas governs Gaza.
Deep differences
UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Robert Serry, is also in Cairo to attend the ceremony, along with Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil al-Arabi and Arab League chief, Amr Moussa.
Senior Fatah official Nabil Shaath, speaking shortly before the final ceremony, said other officials from both sides had already signed the document, adding: "Today is the crowning of this achievement."
The two rival Palestinian leaders carry with them the hopes of millions of Arabs for an end to the infighting that has so weakened the Palestinian cause, says the BBC's Jonathan Head in Cairo.
The first step after the agreement goes into effect is to form an interim government of technocrats whose task will be to work on reconciliation and prepare for new elections.
Leading members of Hamas and Fatah will stay out of this government for now.
But there are deep differences yet to be resolved, over whether to recognise and negotiate with Israel, and over how to share security in Gaza and the West Bank, our correspondent says.
The reconciliation move has angered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has said the Palestinian Authority must choose either to make peace with Israel or with Hamas.
Israel has suspended tax transfers to the Palestinian Authority, with the Israeli finance minister saying payments would be stopped until it was clear money would not go to militants in Hamas.
Meanwhile, it remains unclear whether Western powers will deal with the new government that is to emerge from the unity deal.
The Quartet of mediators - the US, the EU, the United Nations and Russia - has long demanded that Hamas renounce violence and recognise the principle of Israel's right to exist.
In recent months, tens of thousands of Palestinians have taken to the streets in Gaza and the West Bank to ask for political unity, amid calls for democracy elsewhere in the region.
Correspondents say that while the protests were not on the scale of those elsewhere, they clearly got the attention of Palestinian political leaders.
BBC News
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