The decade-long schism between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza is officially set to end on Monday, when Hamas hands over control of Gaza to a unity government.

Although it agreed to the arrangement three years ago, the decision to implement it now marks a striking reversal for Hamas, which is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and most of the most powerful Arab countries.

"Hamas has made big concessions, and every coming concession will be stunning and surprisingly bigger than the one that passed, so that we can conclude reconciliation and this division must end," the chief of Hamas in Gaza, Yehya Al-Sinwar, said during a meeting this week with social media activists.

In 2007 the civil war split Palestine between Hamas and Fatah factions. Many families lost family members in the war but recently some families, supported by reconciliation programmes have decided to receive a $50,000 blood money payment from an Egyptian-Emirati charity fund, in return for publicly renouncing the demand to avenge the deaths of their sons.

for the sake of preventing bloodshed, for the sake of blockaded Gaza and for the sake of Palestine

Since that war a decade ago, Fatah, led by the secular heirs of Yassir Arafat, has run the West Bank, headed the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority and been responsible for all negotiations with Israel.

Its rivals, the Islamist group Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, drove Fatah out of Gaza and has run the tiny coastal strip that is home to 2 million people, nearly half of the population of the Palestinian territories.

Taking part of the reconciliation process but from abroad, is the exiled former Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan, based since 2011 in the United Arab Emirates.

Officials on both sides of the Palestinian divide and in other Arab countries say Dahlan is behind an influx of cash to prop up Gaza, and a detente between Hamas and Arab states including Egypt. Before his exile, Dahlan was known to the public as Hamas's fiercest foe, according to Reuters.

Palestinians shake hands during a reconciliation ceremony in the southern Gaza Strip August 31, 2017. Photo: Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa.

Dahlan's return to prominence could have consequences for Palestinian politics as profound as the reconciliation itself. As hated as he once was in Gaza for trying to uproot Hamas, he is perhaps even more reviled by the Fatah leadership in Ramallah for challenging the authority of President Mahmoud Abbas. Ambitious and charismatic, he has long been suspected of harbouring designs to succeed the 82-year-old Abbas.

Whatever Dahlan’s intentions, “old wounds will be hard to salve”, Reuters wrote. Activists on both sides hold memories of their enemies shooting out kneecaps or torturing each other in partisan prisons.

One family Reuters talked to made the decision to reconcile, despite their intense grief over the loss of their son, "for the sake of preventing bloodshed, for the sake of blockaded Gaza and for the sake of Palestine".

Dahlan has also raised millions more, financing mass weddings for hundreds of young couples and distributing cash aid for several thousand needy families.

Additionally he allegedly used a close relationship with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to regain his influence. Sisi, who took power by toppling a president from Hamas's Muslim Brotherhood allies, controls Gaza's only non-Israeli frontier and the keys to its prosperity.
"Dahlan worked hard, together with his contacts in Egyptian intelligence and sometimes with direct intervention from Sisi," a Gulf source who asked not to be named told Reuters.

Dahlan’s strategy may be gaining him good will: an opinion poll last week by the West Bank-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey showed that those who still support Fatah in Gaza are shifting their loyalty to Dahlan. His popularity among Gazans, the survey said, has risen over the past nine months from nine to 23 percent.

The handover of Gaza suggests Dahlan's allies in Egypt and the UAE realise that any bid to put the Palestinian house in order, for now at least, needs unity.
"Every time anyone speaks to (Israeli Prime Minister) Netanyahu, he would say how can you reach a solution when the Palestinians are splintered?" the Gulf source added.

Short of funds and friends, Hamas may have few options but to make concessions. For years they were backed by Islamist-leaning Turkey and the wealthy Gulf Arab state of Qatar, where Hamas houses its headquarters. But in recent months, especially Qatar, have been on the back foot. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have imposed an economic and diplomatic boycott on Doha over alleged support of terrorists, including, in their reckoning, Hamas.

Three conflicts with the Jewish state have also left many civilian neighbourhoods in Gaza pulverized. Rebuilding has been thwarted by the Israeli-Egyptian blockade, which Sisi has the power to ease.

Hamas figures blame Abbas, Fatah and Dahlan for encouraging Egypt and other Arab countries to keep the economic pressure on, forcing Hamas to agree to the reconciliation.
"One of our reasons was to spare our people this suffering which this time was made by Palestinian hands," Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.

One of our reasons was to spare our people this suffering which this time was made by Palestinian hands- Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri

Senior Fatah official Nasser al-Qidwa praised Hamas's reconciliation moves and chalked up the group's sudden change of tack to "the governance crisis that Hamas is living through and the crisis of foreign alliances, as well as the difficult conditions of some of Hamas' traditional allies."

Imposing its writ over policing Gaza and its borders will be the main challenge for the non-partisan cabinet of technocrats as it seeks to make this month's unity initiative a reality.

Setting out a hard line, Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah said in a statement on Tuesday that Hamas must eventually cede all "crossings, security and government departments."

Gaza bristles with hundreds of rockets belonging to Hamas's armed wing, and the movement insisted that the arsenal it says is essential to confronting Israel will never be given up, Reuters reported.