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GAZA: Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas’s
new emergency cabinet, basking in the support of the West, held its
first meeting on Monday since the bloody seizure of Gaza by Hamas
fighters.
New premier Salam Fayyad chaired
the meeting of the 12-member government in the West Bank town of
Ramallah amid Palestinian hopes a crippling Western aid freeze will
be lifted soon.
As the international community
signaled support for Abbas and vowed to continue isolating Hamas,
frantic Gaza residents stocked up on supplies over fears of a
humanitarian crisis in the territory cut off from the outside world
by Israel.
Abbas swore on Sunday in the new
cabinet and declared illegal the armed forces of Hamas, whose
fighters routed security services loyal to the president after a
week of street battles in Gaza that killed more than 110 people and
drove the Palestinians to the brink of an all-out civil war.
The dramatic events have split
the Palestinians into two separate geographical entities, with Hamas
lording over Gaza and Abbas’s Fatah party in control in its West
Bank stronghold.
Abbas said on Sunday that his new
government’s remit would cover both the Israeli-occupied West Bank
and Gaza Strip.
But the Islamists now in control
of Gaza immediately dismissed the new cabinet an “illegitimate”
lackey of Israel and the United States.
The international community has
welcomed the new Fayyad cabinet and is widely expected to lift a
devastating 15-month economic and diplomatic boycott imposed after
Hamas—considered a terror group by Israel and the West—came to
power after a shock election win in January 2006.
The United States has already
announced its intention to renew badly needed financial aid to
Abbas’s Palestinian Authority.
EU foreign ministers meeting in
Luxembourg on Monday are expected to offer political and financial
support to the new Palestinian government, although it was unclear
if they would authorize a resumption of direct aid.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has
also signaled that Israel will recognize the new government, and
said its installation could pave the way for the revival of peace
talks, which have been stalled for nearly seven years.
“We will be ready to discuss
with Abbas the political horizon for what will eventually become the
basis for a permanent agreement between us and the Palestinians,”
Olmert said.
Olmert said he was ready to renew
regular contacts with the Palestinian President in order “to
resolve the outstanding daily issues and move forward to finding
ways to solve grander issues.”
Israel is also ready to release
over $600 million in Palestinian tax money which Israel had withheld
after Hamas’s election win.
Olmert also said Israel would
ease travel restrictions across the West Bank, where the army has
deployed hundreds of roadblocks, which it says are necessary to
hamper the movement of militants.
“We want to reach an accord
with Abbas and Palestinian moderates and we have to go through
various phases to make sure that the future Palestinian state does
not become a terrorist state,” Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told
public radio.
In Gaza, queues formed outside
stores and gas stations as residents stocked up on supplies, fearing
a prolonged Israeli closure of the impoverished territory where 80
percent of the population depends on aid.
On Sunday, an Israeli firm cut
off gasoline supplies to the territory.
Olmert pledged to UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday that Israel would avert a feared
humanitarian crisis in Gaza, already reeling from the yearlong
economic boycott of the Palestinian government.
“Israel will take into
consideration all the humanitarian needs in Gaza. We will not stand
idly by and see the execution of innocent people,” Olmert was
quoted as telling Ban.
 --AFP
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