GAZA, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- Leaders of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Movement Tuesday called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to form a unity government to prepare for the general election.

Forming a unity government "is important to achieve a national partnership and rearrange the Palestinian home," the two groups' leaders said in a joint press statement after their meeting in Egypt's capital Cairo.

"Otherwise, everything will be a waste of time in making tests and preventing proposals that will keep the internal Palestinian division going on," said the statement.

On Sunday, Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders headed to Cairo for more talks on an Egyptian-brokered calm understanding reached with Israel in November.

Leaders of the two groups will discuss an end to the internal Palestinian division that has been going on between Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party for more than 12 years.

They also called for the necessity of achieving the Palestinian unity and ending the internal division on the basis of a national partnership in order to confront the new U.S. peace plan, better known as the "Deal of the Century."

Referring to the rallies and protests, known as the "Great March of Return," which broke out in late March last year, the two groups said protests will go on until they achieve the goal of ending an Israeli siege imposed on Gaza since 2007.