GAZA CITY, 8 May 2006 — In a bid to find a common path out of a deepening fiscal crisis, ministers from the Hamas-led government and aides to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were to hold a joint meeting yesterday.
Abbas and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh agreed to establish the forum at late-night talks on Saturday and the pair could meet again yesterday evening if the committee meeting yields results.
Foreign Minister Mahmoud Al-Zahar, Interior Minister Said Siam and Cabinet Secretary-General Mohammed Awad would attend the meeting on behalf of the Hamas administration, government spokesman Ghazi Hamad said.
“We will meet at six o’clock (1500 GMT) tonight. If there is an agreement, there is a possibility that Abu Mazen (Abbas) and Prime Minister Haniyeh will meet again afterward,” he said. Sources in Abbas’ office meanwhile said that the president’s chief aide Rafiq Al-Husseini, former Deputy Premier Nabil Shaath, former Parliament Speaker Rawhi Fattuh and head of the opposition Fatah faction in the legislative council Azzam Al-Ahmed would be present at the talks in Gaza City.
The Palestinian Authority has been mired in a financial crisis since Hamas came to power in late March with the European Union and United States both freezing aid payments over the Islamists’ failure to renounce violence or recognize Israel’s right to exist.
Although some Arab states have pledged to fill the shortfall, the funds have yet to arrive with banks understood to be under pressure from the United States not to handle any cash.
“We have the money but the problem is how to get the money in,” Haniyeh told reporters after Saturday night’s meeting with Abbas.
Zahar, who has just returned from a tour of Arab states designed to whip up financial support, insisted that donors were prepared to match their pledges with hard cash.
“I can tell you that the Arab countries which have promised me that they would supply funds will supply funds,” Zahar told reporters.
Zahar also expressed confidence that the common European front to boycott Hamas was unsustainable and claimed that he had met with one counterpart from the continent on his travels. “I met with one foreign minister and I had numerous contacts with European parties,” he added, while refusing to identify the minister in question.
Meanwhile, Jewish settlers in Hebron clashed with Israeli police trying to evacuate them from an illegally-occupied house yesterday, as new Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned that the government would not accept “bullying” and attempts to create facts on the ground.
Unlike previous attempts to evacuate settlers occupying homes or unauthorized outposts, the evacuation of the house in the southern West Bank city proceeded fairly quickly.
There was little major violence, although overnight clashes at the location left 13 border police officers wounded as the settlers poured paint, and threw rocks, flaming tires and — according to unconfirmed reports, what may have been firebombs — at the policemen.
After breaking down the heavy iron doors to the structure in the early morning, police appealed to the three families inside, and the dozens of settler youths who came to reinforce them, to leave peacefully.
While some did, others had to be forcibly removed, after throwing paint and eggs at the evacuating force.
The eviction followed a ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court giving the three settler families until today to leave the Palestinian-owned house they have been occupying for a month.
The eviction order was based on arguments that documents attesting to the original sale of the house were forgeries, claims the settlers vehemently deny.
— With input from agencies
