"The announcement of the truce will take place Sunday night or Monday morning simultaneously in Cairo and the Palestinian territories," the source, who is close to the Palestinian dossier, said Saturday.

He added that representatives of several hardline Palestinian groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad were already in Cairo, while teams from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah and other factions were expected to arrive shortly.

A Palestinian source said earlier that the Hamas and Islamic Jihad members were due to brief Egyptian officials Saturday on progress toward agreeing to the temporary halt in anti-Israeli attacks.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said "things are moving in the right direction and positive news is expected".

Maher, quoted by the official MENA news agency, called on Israel "to respond to the good intentions of the Palestinians by a similar move."

Hamas officials Osama Hamadan and Imad al-Alami arrived in Cairo Friday night and had already had a first meeting with Egyptian officials, the Arab League source said, adding that an Islamic Jihad delegation was due to join the talks.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah have "agreed on" a truce document which will be released within the next few days, a senior official of the radical Hamas movement said Friday.

"There is a shared document, which reflects a shared position, and was agreed on by Hamas, Jihad and Fatah. It will be announced very soon, within a few days," Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi told AFP, adding that Hamas "prepared the document."

Rantissi said the three factions now needed to inform Arafat's "Palestinian Authority, our brothers in Egypt and other concerned parties".

Meanwhile, a senior Islamic Jihad leader Mohamed al-Hindi said Saturday the truce deal should be announced within the next 24 hours provided the Palestinians receive required guarantees from Israel.

"The announcement of a truce will come in the next 24 hours," said Hindi, "and depends on the conditions of (Israel) stopping murders, incursions and demolishing houses, as well as freeing prisoners."

Egypt has been working hard in recent months to convince armed Palestinian groups to end their attacks against Israel, in exchange for Israel doing the same with regard to Palestinians.

Cairo sent two delegations of security officials to the Palestinian territories earlier this month to mediate a truce.

WAR.WIRE