Arafat favours parliament speaker for prime minister

Palestinian parliament speaker Ahmed Qureia emerged as Yasser Arafat’s choice to take over as prime minister following the resignation of Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian officials said.

While Mr Qureia considered the offer, it remained unclear today if Israel would agree to deal with him. Israeli leaders have said they will not negotiate with any new government controlled or hand-picked by Mr Arafat.

The veteran Palestinian leader asked Mr Qureia to form a new government yesterday shortly after his nomination was confirmed by top officials of the ruling Fatah party and the PLO, said Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an Arafat aide.

Israeli helicopters, meanwhile, launched a missile strike on a Gaza Strip house that the army said was being used by the militant group Hamas to store weapons, wounding 11 people, including three children, hospital officials said. The army said it was targeting explosives and firearms stored there in preparation for attacks on Israelis.

The strike came during a day of intensive backroom politics set off by Mr Abbas’s resignation on Saturday. Mr Abbas said he was stepping down after Mr Arafat refused to grant him more power over the Palestinian security services.

Mr Qureia was present at the meeting of Fatah leaders last night but did not comment on the possibility of taking over as prime minister, officials said.

Mr Qureia, a moderate who helped cobble together the 1993 Oslo accord between Israel and the PLO, was considered a top candidate because he has led past negotiations and has credibility with the Israelis.

Mr Abbas’s departure dealt a serious blow to the US-backed “road map” plan for establishing a Palestinian state by 2005. Israel and the US have refused to deal with Mr Arafat, whom they accuse of fomenting terrorism, and made Mr Abbas, a critic of terrorist attacks against Israelis, their partner in peace efforts.

But Palestinian foreign minister Nabil Shaath said the “peace process did not die and the principles (of the road map) we had agreed upon are acceptable to everybody”.

Even as the Palestinians were scrambling to resolve their political crisis, momentum appeared to be growing in Israel for expelling Mr Arafat, with Cabinet ministers arguing that Mr Abbas’s resignation proved the 74-year-old Palestinian leader is the main impediment to efforts to end three years of violence.

“As long as Arafat is in the region, he won’t let any other leader develop,” foreign minister Silvan Shalom told Army Radio.

The US has blocked Mr Arafat’s expulsion in the past, and security advisers to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have warned that Mr Arafat could do more harm to Israel abroad than by remaining trapped at his West Bank headquarters in the town of Ramallah.

Speaking on the NBC television Meet the Press programme, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said sending Mr Arafat into exile was not a good idea because it would “put him on the world stage as opposed to the stage he is currently occupying”.

Israel’s recent policy has been to sideline Mr Arafat – but that goal seemed far from being realised yesterday as Mr Arafat seized centre stage in the search for a new prime minister.

In a closed-door meeting that lasted into yesterday evening, Mr Arafat and leaders of his Fatah movement discussed options, and several sources present at the meeting said the Palestinian leader made clear his preference for Mr Qureia, also known as Abu Ala.

Mr Qureia has long been the No 3 leader in Fatah. Seen as a moderate and a pragmatist, he was a key player in the secret talks that led to the 1993 Oslo accords, which led to Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza. He also led the Palestinians in negotiations with Israel during the years that followed.

The 65-year-old politician is considered one of the few Palestinians who have credibility with Israel but also count – at least for the moment – on the important support of Mr Arafat.

Mr Sharon said in an interview published yesterday in the newspaper Yediot Ahronot that all Hamas members are now “marked for death”.

Israel intensified its military strikes on Hamas militants after a Hamas suicide bomber killed 22 people on a Jerusalem bus on August 19.

The army has killed 12 Hamas members and five bystanders since then in a series of strikes in the Gaza Strip, and Hamas has promised revenge.