Ramallah - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement added fresh blood to its decision-making bodies with the election of second-generation members to its Revolutionary Council, according to the official list announced Saturday.

Fatah had opened its sixth congress, the first in 20 years, in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on August 4, and after a week of deliberations, over 2,000 delegates voted for
18 of the 23 Central Committee members - whose official results were announced Wednesday - and 80 seats of the 128-seat Revolutionary Council, the movement's legislative body.

The list of 81 Revolutionary Council members - 81 because the last two received an equal number of votes - included mainly members who fought during the first intifada
(uprising) against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Intifada - mainly young Palestinians with stones confronting heavily armed Israeli soldiers - broke out in December 1987 and ended after the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed the Oslo Accords with Israel in 1993.

A second and more bloody intifada, where weapons were used, broke out in September 2000 after the peace process started with the Oslo agreement had faltered.

The results announced in Bethlehem at the school where Fatah held its conference showed at least 70 new members entering the Revolutionary Council, with members from the Gaza Strip winning 20 seats and women 11.

The highest number of votes went to a woman who spent many years in Israeli jails for her role in the resistance. Christian members won four seats and a Jew won one seat.

New members include a number of Fatah activists from the diaspora, including Samir Rifai, Fatah's secretary in Syria, and Khaled Abu Usba, who participated in an attack on Israel in the 1980s killing at least 30 Israelis.

They also include Fadwa Barghouti, wife of Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences in Israeli jails for his role in the second intifada, and who has been elected to the Fatah Central Committee.

Addressing the winners, Abbas declared Fatah's sixth congress "a new launch for Fatah," saying: "We have great work ahead of us."

He urged the members to work toward "reviving Fatah, which today more than any previous time needs the efforts of its young members to lead the movement into the future."

Abbas expressed hope that the dialogue with the Islamist Hamas movement would lead to reconciliation and reunite the West Bank and Gaza after Hamas defeated Fatah and the Palestinian Authority forces and pushed them out of Gaza in armed clashes in June 2007.

He said he hoped presidential and legislative elections will be held in January, which he said he was working toward in the dialogue with Hamas.

He also said that he was ready to resume the political process with Israel "once Israel stops all settlement activities."

Abbas said he will convene the PLO's parliament-in-exile, the Palestinian National Council, for an "extraordinary meeting" in the next few days in an effort to start work on reforming the Palestinian umbrella organization.

The Fatah Central Committee, the movement's executive branch, saw the introduction of 14 new members in the results announced on Wednesday ousting as a result most of the so-called old guard leaders of the movement who dominated it since its establishment in 1958.

The Revolutionary Council's work includes monitoring the work of the Central Committee and guiding its decisions. An additional 40 members will be later appointed to the Revolutionary Council and three to the Central Committee.

Palestinians welcomed Fatah's election results expressing hope that the younger leadership of the most important Palestinian movement will be able to correct mistakes made in recent years that derailed Fatah's popularity and charged it with accusation of corruption and mismanagement.(dpa)