After some arm-twisting from Saudi Arabia, Fatah and Hamas at last formed a unity government at a meeting in Mecca in February.
At the time, Hamas deputy leader Moussa Abu Marzouk called the killings "unlawful" and said the perpetrators should be punished.
BBC: Hamas failed to probe Palestinian 'collaborator' deaths
If the new Powell doctrine takes root, it must be asked: At what point will Hamas be considered sufficiently "changed" to qualify along with Abbas as a "partner for peace"?
CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Wishful thinking about Islamist terror
While the star of Arab nationalism has fallen everywhere, among the Palestinians in the West Bank it is still alive, kept on life support by international aid, the Israeli military, and an unquantifiable sense of dread at the prospect of a Hamas takeover.
Egypt's ageing president, Hosni Mubarak, now looks fearfully over his shoulder at the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas's parent organisation.
The gold and silver markets showed little reaction to news reports at midday Wednesday that Israel and Hamas had agreed to an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire.
At a news conference in Gaza, Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad called on militant groups to treat the soldier well.
Of the Gaza deaths this year, 57 were in Hamas-Fatah clashes and at least 37 were due to family feuds.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, met late Monday with Erdogan, who plans to visit the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip at the end of May.
And now there are now reports that Hamas -- which won at the polls at least partly in reaction to Fatah's corruption -- is joining their erstwhile rivals in stealing from their compatriots.
Thus, runs the theory, Mr Abbas will reap the praise for a better life in the West Bank, while Gazans' well-being will be at the mercy of a now-isolated Hamas.
Israeli forces in the West Bank have arrested at least 20 members of the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Mr Haniya's visit to Cairo was the second by a senior Hamas official since Mr Mursi took office at the end of June.
BBC: Egypt's president discusses Gaza blockade with Hamas PM
PA, seeing the survival of the peace process at stake, could decide to act, perhaps banning Hamas.
And for the moment at least, it appears that Iran has decided to let Hamas go down.
At the same time, Egypt has tried to mediate between Fatah and Hamas, and the tensions between those two groups have spilled over to gun battles and Egypt has tried to mediate, and Egypt has also been providing quite a lot of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people.
Now a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, he says it's time to talk to Hamas.
Nevertheless, many of them acknowledge that the agreement may force Hamas to stop firing rockets across the border from Gaza, and welcome at least that aspect of it.
At the time, the media worked with Kadima to suppress information about the strategic significance of Hamas's electoral victory in the January 2006 Palestinian Authority elections.
Yet the Palestinian leader, trying to save Palestinian unity at a time when he has little to offer his people, has undoubtedly softened his persecution of Hamas.
Just as Arafat has to control Hamas, Misuari must coax the MILF and the other militant groups to express their dissent at the polls rather than with pistols.
At the same time Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in the news conference that he has no intention of pressuring Hamas.
In rallies at Mr Abbas's West Bank headquarters, the yellow flags of his Fatah group are increasingly speckled with Hamas's green.
The Egyptian government is still trying to convince Hamas to accept its most basic criteria calling for a small number of European and Palestinian Authority monitors at the crossing, in line with the agreement that was signed with Israel when its forces withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
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