GAZA CITY, 15 August 2006 — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh were due to meet in Gaza to discuss developments in the region including the proposed formation of a “national unity government,” a spokesman said.
Calls for the dissolution of the current Hamas-led administration and its replacement with a national unity government have grown louder against the backdrop of Israel’s continued military operation in Gaza and detention of dozens of Palestinian lawmakers.
Cabinet spokesman Ghazi Hamad said Abbas and Haniyeh would discuss forming a coalition Palestinian government as well as ties between the Palestinian presidency and the government and the current financial crisis facing the Palestinian administration.
Meanwhile, three Palestinians from the same family were killed by Israeli tank fire yesterday as the military pressed on with its offensive on the Gaza Strip a year after it began a historic pullout from the territory.
The three, a 14-year-old boy, and two men aged 45 and 50, were killed after a tank shell hit their house in Beit Hanoun.
The Israeli Army said the strike had targeted militants who had fired rockets at the Israeli city of Ashkelon, north of Gaza.
“Two rockets were fired at Ashkelon, without causing casualties,” an army spokesman said. “We identified those who fired the rockets and opened fire on them.” The Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility for the rockets, saying it fired them in response to “the Zionist aggression against the Palestinian people and our brothers in Lebanon.”
Meanwhile, two journalists from the US Fox News television channel, one American and the other Irish, were kidnapped by armed men in Gaza yesterday, witnesses said.
The Fox TV team’s Palestinian driver and two other journalists were set free.
— With input from agencies
