Ramallah - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned Iran Wednesday against "widening" Palestinian divisions by meddling in internal Palestinian affairs.

"Iran must not intervene in the internal Palestinian affairs," he told a news conference with the visiting US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Ramallah.

"You are widening our divisions, not helping us," he told Tehran.

Ramallah - The Palestinian Authority's health ministry on Saturday accused the militant movement Hamas of turning some of its medical facilities in the Gaza Strip into detention centres.

After Israel stopped 23 days of aerial and ground attacks in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip last month, "Hamas unfortunately used several facilities, mainly a large number of hospitals, as stations for summons, interrogation, torture and detention," the Ramallah-based ministry said in a statement.

Ramallah - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Friday that he was working on sustaining the ceasefire Israel and the Palestinian factions have agreed on two weeks ago in the Gaza Strip.

He said in a news conference in Ramallah with the visiting Slovenian President Danilo Turk that "the first thing we want to do is to sustain the ceasefire."

He said that even though the 22 days of Israeli military assault on Gaza has ended, "there remains some problems we want to see end so that we can start rebuilding and providing the people of Gaza with their humanitarian needs."

Ramallah  - The Palestinian Authority is demanding that Israel implement all the signed agreements including the Access and Movement Agreement (AMA) of 2005, acting Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said Wednesday.

He said in a joint press conference with Javier Solana, European Union foreign policy chief, that he discussed this matter with Solana and he will also raise it with the US peace envoy George Mitchell when they meet on Thursday in Ramallah.

Ramallah  - Only 24 hours after US President Barack Obama had called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to stress his commitment for the peace process, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also reaffirmed her commitment for a peaceful settlement to the Middle East conflict in a telephone call she made to Abbas on Thursday, according to a statement issued by Abbas' office.

Ramallah - A top aide of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Hamas Thursday of "obstructing" efforts to reconcile the warring Palestinian political factions, by raising "new conditions."

Yasser Abed Rabbo said Abbas' secular Fatah movement was willing to form a national unity government with Hamas.

But the radical Islamist movement was raising new conditions because it was not interested in reconciliation and was instead working to consolidate its hold over the Gaza Strip, he said.

He accused Hamas of killing, arresting and torturing Fatah fighters in Gaza.