GAZA CITY, 7 November 2006 — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh held talks in Gaza yesterday on the formation of a unity government and Haniyeh’s replacement. A government spokesman earlier said Hamas had chosen a candidate to take over as prime minister.
The talks came hours after a Palestinian woman blew herself up near Israeli troops in a Gaza town where Israeli forces had killed two women acting as human shields.
It was the first bombing since April. One soldier was wounded, the army said.
Fatah leader Abbas and Hamas leader Haniyeh discussed the formation of a coalition government uniting their rival movements and a replacement for Haniyeh as the prime minister.
One Hamas source earlier said the current health minister in the Hamas-led administration, Basim Naeem, was a front runner.
“Palestine is bigger than all of us,” Haniyeh told a meeting of his Cabinet in what sounded like a farewell speech. “It is very easy for us to move to another position in the interests (of our people).”
In comments ahead of his meeting with Abbas, Haniyeh said Hamas wanted a unity government dedicated to “lifting the siege and ending the suffering of the Palestinian people.”
But Hamas spokesmen have stressed the group will never recognize Israel or join a government that did, rejecting one of the main conditions set by the “Quartet” of Middle East peace brokers for renewing direct aid to the Palestinian Authority.
Hamas lawmaker and senior leader Yahya Moussa announced on Sunday an agreement in principle with Fatah on a unity government of technocrats that would not be headed by Haniyeh.
In other violence in northern Gaza, Israeli airstrikes killed three Palestinians, witnesses and hospital officials said. A civilian wounded on Friday died of his injuries in hospital.
After dark an unmanned military drone crash-landed in Israeli territory near the Gaza Strip, an army spokesman said.
He added that the circumstances of the crash were unclear and that investigators were examining the wreckage.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair urged the Palestinians and Israelis yesterday to free prisoners and return to negotiations for a two-state solution, calling the violence in the Gaza Strip “tragic.”
Blair, who has made efforts to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict a top priority before he leaves office, said he would make his intention to return to the area clearer in the coming weeks.
“What is happening in Gaza at the moment is tragic, terrible,” Blair told his monthly press conference.
The offensive is the latest in four months of Israeli military operations in the territory, where more than 300 Palestinians have been killed since Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit was captured in late June.
“We need the release of Corporal Shalit. We need Palestinian prisoners also released. We need a proper set of meetings that allow us then to plod our way back through to a negotiating solution, which is a two-state solution,” he said.
