Palestinian Cabinet set; Hamas would dominate

JERUSALEM -- The militant Islamic group Hamas presented its Cabinet list to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday, after he did not bring other factions into its government.

Abbas is expected to approve the list in the coming days, and the new government will be presented to parliament for a vote of confidence.

Governing alone without more moderate factions, Hamas will be more vulnerable to international isolation and cuts in desperately needed foreign aid, which could deepen the economic crisis of the Palestinian Authority.

Israeli, Palestinian and US negotiators agreed yesterday to open a border crossing with the Gaza Strip to allow emergency shipments of food, after Israel closed the main cargo crossing into the area, and after aid officials warned of a looming humanitarian crisis.

Hamas's list was given to Abbas in Gaza City by Ismail Haniyeh, the designated prime minister. Haniyeh said the Cabinet would have 24 members, 10 from the Gaza Strip and 14 from the West Bank.

Abbas said he would submit the list to the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and then to parliament. Aides to Abbas said he would approve the Cabinet, but would issue a letter detailing reservations about its platform.

Abbas has demanded that the government abide by agreements with Israel and remain committed to peace negotiations.

But the Hamas draft program endorses the right of ''resistance by all means" to Israeli occupation, and says negotiations will be considered if Israel guarantees a full withdrawal from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It says signed agreements will be dealt with ''responsibly and in a way that protects the higher interests of our people," a formula likely to be unsatisfactory to Abbas and foreign donors.

The United States and European Union have threatened to cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority if Hamas does not renounce violence, recognize Israel, and promise to honor agreements with the Israelis. Israel has stopped monthly transfers in taxes and customs duties it collects on behalf of the Palestinians.

Although Hamas had sought a broad coalition with Abbas' Fatah Party and other factions, it did not agree with them on policy guidelines. Talks with Fatah foundered over the issue of respecting agreements with the Israelis, officials said.

On Sunday the last remaining potential partner, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a militant leftist faction, said it would not join the Cabinet. An official of the group said a main sticking point had been the failure of Hamas to state in its government platform that the PLO is ''the sole, legitimate representative of the Palestinian people."

Haniyeh said the foreign minister in the new Cabinet would be Mahmoud Zahar, a top Hamas leader in Gaza.

Zahar, a physician, lost a son when Israel bombed his house in an attempt to assassinate him. He has taken a harder line toward Israel in his public comments than Haniyeh, who is considered a pragmatist.

Said Siyam, a Hamas lawmaker from Gaza, was appointed interior minister, with responsibility for three of the five branches of the Palestinian security forces. Omar Abdel Razek, an economics professor recently free from an Israeli jail, was named finance minister.

Hamas officials said Haniyeh had chosen Nasser Eddin Shaer, an Islamic studies professor at Al-Najah University in the West Bank city of Nablus, as his deputy. Shaer also will serve as education minister and is expected to run government affairs in the West Bank because Haniyeh is barred by Israel from traveling out of the Gaza Strip, according to the officials.

As Hamas's Cabinet was submitted, an urgent meeting hosted by the US ambassador to Israel, Richard Jones, was held to ease a mounting food shortage in Gaza.

Israel's prolonged closure of the Karni Crossing, the entry point for goods into the Gaza Strip, had created shortages of flour and other staples, aid officials said, and bakeries were closing.

Israeli officials said the closure was prompted by warnings of planned attacks on the Karni terminal by Palestinian militants, and they offered to move limited shipments into Gaza through Kerem Shalom, a crossing on the border with Egypt and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians initially rejected that proposal, saying Kerem Shalom was too small. But yesterday, Jones said that the sides had agreed that today, food and other goods would be shipped through that crossing.