RAMALLAH, West Bank, 14 July 2007 — Three Palestinian ministers were sworn into the emergency government of Salam Fayyad yesterday hours before it resigned and was reappointed by President Mahmoud Abbas as a transitional government, which can rule indefinitely.
The resignation of the emergency government was necessitated by the expiry of the emergency declared by Abbas at midnight, after 30 days. Fayyad’s emergency government had failed to win parliamentary approval. Hamas boycotted last Wednesday’s session of the Palestinian Legislative Council to prevent Fatah from achieving majority support in Parliament.
The new ministers sworn in yesterday were Tahani Abu Daqqa, Ali Khashshan and Ibrahim Abrash. Palestinian officials denied earlier reports that the foreign minister in the short-lived unity government, Ziad Abu Amr, was to join Fayyad’s government.
Meanwhile, an Arabic-language newspaper published in Nazareth reported yesterday that the Israeli Cabinet has approved plans to assassinate Ismail Haniyeh, the dismissed Palestinian prime minister.
The paper quoted an Israeli source as saying that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has approved the decision.
In a separate development, a report said yesterday that the Israeli Cabinet is discussing the idea of including Palestinian prisoners, who carried out military attacks before the Oslo Accords were signed, among the 250 prisoners that Israel will release as a good will gesture toward Abbas.
A ministerial committee headed by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is scheduled to meet tomorrow to discuss which of the prisoners Israel will release.
Olmert said last month at the summit in Sharm El-Sheikh with Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdallah that Israel would release 250 Fatah prisoners “without blood on their hands.” Drawing up the list, however, has proven more difficult than expected, because Olmert, according to Israeli government officials, does not just want to release Palestinian “rapists or thieves” from Israeli prisons, or those who are slated to be released within the next few months in any case. He thinks the release of these types of prisoners would not strengthen Abbas.
The Israeli government is willing to release prisoners who took part in attacks that did not lead to any deaths. A condition for their release will be that they have already served two-thirds of their sentences.
