Palestinian leader says he’ll resign

RAMALLAH, West Bank – After days of bitter quarreling with Yasser Arafat, interim Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said Sunday he intends to give up his post in the coming weeks, dampening hopes of reviving a stalled U.S.-backed peace plan.

Arafat and Qureia disagree over the amount of control the Palestinian leader will retain over Palestinian armed forces, as well as procedural and personal issues.

Israel and the United States insist Arafat hand over authority, charging he is tainted by terrorism. Palestinians deny that and say Arafat is their elected president – although the term he won in 1996 has expired.

Qureia heads an emergency Cabinet that Arafat appointed by decree a week ago. When that Cabinet’s term expires in three weeks, Qureia was set to form a more permanent government subject to approval by Palestinian legislators.

But Qureia said after Sunday’s meeting of the central committee of Arafat’s ruling Fatah party that a new government will be formed in about three weeks “with a new prime minister, too.”

During the Fatah meeting, Qureia told officials he did not intend to remain prime minister when the emergency government’s term expires.

If Qureia quits, he would be the second prime minister in five weeks to resign over disputes with Arafat, casting doubt on whether Arafat will ever relinquish enough power to allow a premier to succeed.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army said it withdrew some troops from the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza, where it fought Palestinians for two days while searching for weapons-smuggling tunnels. Eight Palestinians were killed, and local residents reported the army destroyed 100 homes.

Also Sunday, former Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Efraim Sneh and Ted Hooton, editor of Jane’s Naval Weapon Systems in London, dismissed a Los Angeles Times report that Israel had modified submarine-based missiles to carry nuclear warheads, saying such an alteration was technically impossible.