State of emergency in Gaza
2003-10-06 07:49
Ramallah, West Bank - Yasser Arafat named Ahmed Qorei his new prime minister and head of a crisis cabinet on Sunday following a devastating anti-Israeli suicide bombing and a retaliatory air strike against Syria which threaten to inflame the region.
The veteran Palestinian leader also declared a state of emergency in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"President Arafat has signed a decree creating an eight-member emergency government," Qorei told reporters.
He said the government would "operate for one month" after which it would seek the approval of the parliamentary Palestinian Legislative Council.
The appointments end lengthy consultations on the new Palestinian cabinet and come nearly a month after Qorei agreed to succeed Mahmud Abbas, who resigned over a power struggle with Arafat.
Action against militants
It is expected to allow Qorei to take action more quickly against militants in the wake of the suicide bombing in the northern Israeli coastal city of Haifa which killed 19 people as well as the Islamic Jihad bomber.
Arafat declared a state of emergency in the same decree.
"Considering the difficult circumstances and the extreme situation across the homeland ... a state of emergency is declared in all the territories of the Palestinian Authority," the decree said.
The moves are seen as a part of strategy by Arafat to prevent Israel from going ahead with an earlier threat to "remove" the leader in the wake of the Haifa attack.
Qorei confirmed Nasser Yussuf, who is close to both Arafat and Qorei, had been appointed to the sensitive interior ministry post which would play a large role in any crackdown on militants.
He also confirmed that the ministers of finance, Salam Fayad, and foreign affairs, Nabil Shaath, kept their jobs in the slimmed-down cabinet.
Other members of the emergency cabinet include veteran negotiator Saeb Erakat and newcomer Jawad al-Tibi.
The official announcement of the Palestinian government had been delayed several times by differences within Arafat's Fatah party and the lack of US and Israeli guarantees over the veteran leader's fate, according to Palestinian parliament sources.
The clock is ticking
But an Israeli official said following the Haifa attack on Sunday that "the clock is ticking" over Arafat's fate.
Daoud Alzir, an MP from Arafat's Fatah movement, said that the attack in Haifa was the major reason for the formation of the emergency cabinet.
"The suicide bombing had a big impact in pushing the Palestinian leadership towards this," Alzir told AFP.
Another Fatah MP, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he expected the Palestinian leadership to now embark on a crackdown of militant groups such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas.
"This will allow the leadership to go after the fundamentalists," he said.
Bad news
"It could be bad news as it could lead to many arrests and divisions within the Palestinian ranks."
The outgoing head of national security in the West Bank, Haji Ismail Jabar, and head of military intelligence, Amin Al-Hindi, would serve as advisors to Yussuf as he embarks on any crackdown.
Abbas had resigned after he battled with Arafat for control of the myriad Palestinian security services in order to engineer his own campaign against the armed factions.
Israel broke off all negotiations with the Palestinians in the aftermath of a massive Hamas suicide bomb in Jerusalem on August 19 which it said was a direct consequence of Arafat and the Palestinian leadership's failure to dismantle the infrastructure of such groups.
- AFP