Palestinian prisoners from rival Hamas and Fatah on Saturday declared reconciliation in their Israeli jail as a symbolic step to urge their leaders to bury the hatchet.

Under the mediation of prisoners from the Islamic Jihad movement, Hamas and Fatah detainees signed a deal at Ofar prison near the West Bank city of Ramallah, according to a statement of a Palestinian prisoners' rights group sent to the media.

The key achievement of the agreement is that prisoners from the two factions would share rooms again, the Prisoners Studies Center said, adding that Hamas and Fatah prisoners stopped living in the same room when Hamas routed pro-Abbas forces and seized control of Gaza in mid-2007.

The statement said efforts are underway to achieve similar agreements in 25 prisons and detention facilities where Israel hold more than 8,000 Palestinians.

The Hamas movement has been at odds with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Western-backed government since the group routed pro-Abbas forces out of Gaza by deadly clashes in June 2007.

Since February 2009, Egypt has brokered several rounds of the reconciliation talks in Cairo between rival Fatah and Hamas to iron out their rifts, which have yielded little tangible results.