GAZA CITY, 22 February 2006 — Hamas’ Prime Minister-designate Ismail Haniyeh was formally asked yesterday by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to form a new government, one month after the Islamist group’s massive election victory. Abbas handed an official nomination letter to Haniyeh at his Gaza City office, an arrangement agreed in talks between the moderate Palestinian president and leaders of the radical movement late Monday.

“I received the nomination letter from President Abu Mazen (Abbas). The Hamas leadership will examine the contents of this letter before soon giving a definitive response to the president,” Haniyeh told reporters.

According to a source in Abbas’ Ramallah office, the one-page letter asked the new government to commit to agreements signed by the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian declaration of independence based on a two-state solution.

Mahmoud Al-Zahar, Hamas’ overall leader in the Gaza Strip, has said the line-up of a new governing coalition would be finalized within three weeks.

Hamas, which won 74 of the 132 seats in the Ramallah-based legislative council in a Jan. 25 election, is keen to bring independents and other parties into government, including the vanquished Fatah faction of Abbas.

The leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine has already agreed in principle to join the government, but Fatah, which now has only 45 seats, has remained cool toward such an idea.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said talks that were due to have taken place yesterday with the head of Fatah’s bloc in Parliament, Azzam Al-Ahmed, had been shelved because the official was unable to travel to Gaza.

As part of a package of Israeli sanctions, Hamas members are barred from traveling between their traditional Gaza power base and the West Bank, including the Palestinian Authority’s political capital in Ramallah.

Visiting Iran to reinforce ties with a key ally and Israel’s archenemy, Hamas’ political supremo vowed yesterday to keep up the fight against the Jewish state.

In the West Bank, Israeli troops found more than 70 kilograms of explosives in Nablus. Eighteen Palestinians were wounded in clashes yesterday with Israeli Army in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus, Palestinian officials said.

The army has been hunting for Palestinians in the camp for three days. Palestinians said they were running out of food and water, and the army allowed five Hamas lawmakers to bring residents supplies. The lawmakers said they were dressed as doctors and didn’t identify themselves as Hamas activists.

“I have 10 people in my home. Since yesterday I have only had breakfast, nothing else. We don’t have anything else to eat,” said 67-year-old Balata resident Mohammed Zarhan.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Army removed a small unauthorized West Bank settlement outpost near Jerusalem yesterday, military officials said. Soldiers met no violent resistance when they dismantled Givat Haor, which consisted of a tent inhabited by three people.

Earlier this month, some 200 people were injured when Israeli forces clashed with settlers during the evacuation of part of the Amona outpost. Under the US-backed road map peace plan, Israel has pledged to remove about two dozen unauthorized West Bank outposts, but has yet to fulfill its commitment.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned yesterday after talks with Egyptian officials in Cairo that Hamas has to choose between terror and politics.

“You cannot have one foot in the camp of terror and another foot in the camp of politics,” she said during a joint press conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit. “The international community expects that any Palestinian government will have to meet certain requirements for governing, which means a dedication to peace, a dedication to the agreements that the Palestinians have signed on to before,” she said.

“Obviously, you can’t have peace if you don’t recognize the other partner and therefore the recognition of Israel’s right to exist and the need to renounce terror,” Rice said.

For his part, Abul Gheit condemned Israel’s freezing of Palestinian customs receipts and expressed his confidence that Hamas would respond to the demands of the international community.

“We should give Hamas time,” Abul Gheit said. “I’m sure that Hamas will develop, will evolve. We should not prejudge the issue. I am sure the Palestinians will recognize the requirements of the situation as they stand today: the road map, the need for political peaceful settlement among Israelis and Palestinians, the need to see two states living side-by-side in secure and recognized boundaries for both.

“There are issues the Palestinians, the government of Hamas, when composed, will have to face,” he said in English.

Rice stressed it was counting on its ally to guide Hamas to a more moderate stance.

“Egypt is an important voice at this time of change and choice for the Palestinian people,” said Rice, who held talks earlier yesterday with Egypt’s intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, a major broker on the Palestinian scene.

She said she had discussed “candidly” the issue of reform in Egypt during her one- hour meeting with Abul Gheit and renewed Washington’s trust in the regime of President Hosni Mubarak, whom she will meet today.

Egypt “can and will lead the entire region (toward democracy), that is a statement not just of hope but of confidence in our friend Egypt,” she said.

— With input from agencies