GAZA CITY, 11 November 2006 — Ismail Haniyeh of the ruling Islamic group Hamas said yesterday he would step down as Palestinian prime minister if the move would persuade the West to lift debilitating economic sanctions.
“When the issue of the siege is on one side, and my being prime minister is on the other, let the siege be lifted to end the suffering of the Palestinian people,” he said, referring to the international aid boycott that has devastated the Palestinian economy.
His statements appeared to be another indication that Hamas and the rival Fatah Party of President Mahmoud Abbas were inching closer to a national unity government made up of independent experts — a coalition that presumably would present a more moderate face to the world.
Haniyeh, a longtime Hamas leader, told worshippers at a Gaza mosque that Western countries wanted him out of government.
On Thursday, Abbas spoke by phone to his main political rival, Hamas’ supreme leader Khaled Mashaal — their first conversation in months. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said their discussion was proof that the two are now in agreement on the shape of the new government.
However, weeks of up-and-down negotiations have repeatedly failed to yield results, and a fresh breakdown in talks appeared possible.
The West and Israel have withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and tax revenues since Hamas took power in March in an effort to pressure the ruling group to moderate its violently anti-Israel ideology.
The sanctions have prevented Hamas from paying a large portion of the salaries owed to 165,000 government employees, causing widespread hardship in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The international community, including the United States, has said it will not lift sanctions unless Hamas recognizes Israel, renounces violence and accepts past peace deals, something Hamas has so far refused to do.
The program of the proposed new unity government is vague on the key issue of recognizing Israel, calling for a Palestinian state on only the lands captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast War.
Also Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed regret for an errant Israeli artillery barrage that killed 19 Palestinian civilians and called for an immediate renewal of contact between himself and Abbas.
At the same time, however, Olmert said the army would keep targeting Palestinian rocket squads in Gaza despite the risk of hitting civilians.
The death toll from Wednesday’s artillery barrage in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun rose by one yesterday after Israeli hospital officials confirmed that one of the wounded transferred to Israel, Bassem Kafarna, had died in Tel Aviv’s Ichilov hospital.
