PALESTINIAN President Mahmoud Abbas warned yesterday that he would take “unprecedented steps” to end the political division between his West Bankbased government and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

He went into no details, but officials from Mr Abbas’s Fatah organisation have suggested that he may use financial pressure to extract concessions from Hamas.

The rhetoric comes ahead of an impending meeting between Mr Abbas and US President Donald Trump as part of a US initiative to breathe new life into Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Hamas responded to the warnings with anger saying that “the language of threats and dictating order” would not be accepted.

The Islamist group won free elections in the occupied West Bank and Gaza in January 2006, but neither President Abbas nor the Israeli occupation authority respected the people’s verdict, detaining many Hamas elected officials and activists.

A year after winning the presidential election, Hamas drove out pro-Abbas forces from Gaza and reconciliation talks since then have failed.

A national unity government was set up by President Abbas in 2014, after a deal with Hamas, but it never got off the ground in Gaza.

Hamas rejected ceding control of border crossings with Israel and Egypt while Fatah refused to incorporate civil servants and troops hired by Gaza’s government into a new administration.

No date has been set for US-Palestinian talks yet, but a Fatah advance team will leave for Washington later this month.