The fact that the town of Beit Hanun "was flooded by rivers of blood," as the Palestinian papers put it, apparently served as a catalyst to promote the phone conversation between Palestinian Authority Chair Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and Hamas Political Bureau Chief Khaled Meshal, prior to the establishment of a national unity government; but the real reason was a concession by Hamas.

The concession was expressed clearly in the announcement by Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh to the effect that he is willing to resign his position. According to the agreement between Abu Mazen and Hamas, a government of technocrats and neutral leaders will be established, to be elected by representatives of the various factions, headed by Hamas and Fatah. The prime minister will be a candidate acceptable to Hamas.

The candidates now being discussed are senior professors at the Islamic University in Gaza, led by former president Dr. Mohammed Shabir, and the incumbent president, Dr. Kamalain Shaat. All the Hamas leaders and spokesmen admit they were forced to concede because of the siege of the PA and the Palestinian people. Those who imposed the siege - Israel and the United States, and most of the nations in the world, including Arab nations, can congratulate themselves on their success. The Hamas government is being forced to resign.

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Abu Mazen also contributed to this. Although he is not a leader like the late PA chair Yasser Arafat, whose death two years ago was commemorated in the territories this week, circumstances caused him to maneuver in a way that forced Hamas to give in. In a weekend interview in the daily Palestinian newspaper Al Quds, Haniyeh complained that during his entire term as prime minister, Abu Mazen never bothered to participate in cabinet meetings. He never took a government representative with him on his trips abroad and never invited ministers to meetings in his office with VIPs from all over the world.

Abu Mazen and his people had an answer to that. They claimed that all the foreign visitors and hosts told Abu Mazen that if he invited representatives from the Hamas government, the meetings would be canceled. In other words, Abu Mazen had no choice but to participate in the international boycott of his government.

Will the Hamas concessions lead to the establishment of the new government and to a calming of the situation in Gaza? That's not a certainty. After Fatah and Hamas agreed on the two important issues - a common political policy (based on the "prisoners' document") and a government of experts - a third, no less serious, problem remains: the deal to release prisoners in exchange for kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Without a solution on this issue, there is no new Palestinian government. In other words, there is no chance of removing the siege and of achieving calm.

Israel has a lot to say, both in relation to the political program of the new government and stopping the siege and renewing the transfer of money to the PA. But on the subject of the prisoners, Israel's position will determine what happens. When, for example, will the dozens of Hamas ministers and MPs and other political activists who were arrested (the Palestinians say "kidnapped") after the kidnapping of Shalit be released? They were arrested as hostages to procure his release. It is impossible to describe it in any other way, and if Israel wants to promote the exchange and the establishment of the new Palestinian government, it can move up the date of their release.

What will be the fate of about 360 veteran prisoners who have been in Israeli prisons since before the Oslo Accords, most of whom have what is called "blood on their hands"? Without Israeli willingness to release them, there will be no deal. And which other prisoners will be released?

Palestinian spokesmen say in bitter mockery that Israel may be willing to release over 1,000 prisoners now, but since the kidnapping of Shalit, more than 1,000 additional Palestinians have been imprisoned, so what is the point of the entire deal?

After all the failed military attempts to stop the launching of Qassam rockets, the time may have come for a political attempt, based on the rehabilitation of Gaza with the help of the new Palestinian government. The lever for its establishment will be the release of prisoners in a manner that takes Palestinian demands into account.