Cairo - Mohammed Dahlan, a senior official of the Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has rejected insinuations in some Arab media that his group would return to power in the Gaza Strip on the heels of the Israeli incursion against the rival group Hamas.

In telephone comments to Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa late Sunday, Dahlan, the former Fatah leader in Gaza prior to their expulsion by Hamas in June 2007, denied any such aims by his group.

"We do not want any power which has been purchased with the blood of Palestinians," Dahlan told dpa.

The Fatah movement was prepared to forget the past, he said, in reference to the ouster of Fatah from Gaza by the Islamist movement Hamas.

That power struggle effectively divided the Palestinian factions geographically, with Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip and Fatah operating in the West Bank.

"Now we are all in the same boat," said Dahlan. (dpa)