RAMALLAH, West Bank, 13 October — Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is due to announce a new government within the next 10 days, a senior Arafat aide said yesterday.
“President Arafat has started intensive consultations with the aim of forming a new government which should take place within the next 10 days,” Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP.
The new Cabinet members will focus on putting an end to the Israeli occupation, on preparing for January presidential and legislative elections, as well as carrying out the reform of Palestinian institutions, he said.
Arafat met yesterday with members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), or Parliament, in the West Bank town of Ramallah to discuss the appointment of the new Cabinet, Abu Rudeina added.
The last Cabinet, announced by Arafat in June, resigned en masse on Sept. 11 to avoid a vote of no confidence by the Parliament, which said the government line-up did not go far enough in implementing promised reforms.
Arafat was then asked to form a new Cabinet by Sept. 25 but a week beforehand, his Ramallah compound was put under heavy siege for 10 days by the Israeli Army.
Following the Israeli withdrawal from Arafat’s compound, the Palestinian Parliament agreed to give Arafat an extra month, until Nov. 5, to name a new Cabinet.
In the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian youth was shot dead yesterday morning because Israeli soldiers suspected a shovel he was carrying meant he was planting explosives.
Arafat Abu Rujeila, 21, was hit in the head by machine gun fire from an Israeli tank just east of the battered town of Khan Yunis in the south of the territory.
Another Palestinian teenager, Taher Abu Haatu, 19, was also shot dead by Israeli bullets in the center of the northern West Bank town of Tulkarm yesterday, Palestinian medical sources and witnesses said.
The latest killing came after security personnel close to the US Embassy in Tel Aviv gave chase to and overpowered Friday night a would-be bomber after he was prevented from entering a crowded beach-front cafe by a security guard.
