Palestinian officials batle as suicide bomber attacks

RAMALLAH, West Bank – In a setback for the new Palestinian prime minister, legislators postponed a vote on his Cabinet amid bitter disputes Thursday over its composition and size. In the West Bank, a suicide bomber blew himself up at an Israeli army base, injuring three people.

Following his failure to win parliament approval for his Cabinet, Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia held a stormy meeting with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in which he suggested he no longer wanted the job, officials said. Arafat’s spokesman said there were “serious differences” but denied Qureia had resigned.

Thursday’s bombing killed the attacker, wounded two Israeli soldiers, one seriously, and slightly wounded a Palestinian, army officials said.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack and identified the bomber as Ahmed Safadi, an 18-year-old high school student from the village of Oref south of Nablus.

The bomber walked up to an office at an Israeli army base near the West Bank town of Tulkarem where Palestinians apply for humanitarian permits to cross roadblocks and blew himself up, the army said.

The bombing came after Israel ordered a special call-up Thursday of four reserve battalions to patrol the West Bank and Gaza.

Qureia has pledged to work to end the ongoing violence, but Thursday’s developments seemed to bode ill for his chances of survival.

The arguments over his Cabinet flared in back-room negotiations even as dozens of legislators and hundreds of Palestinian officials gathered for its expected confirmation. Arafat appointed the eight-member temporary “emergency Cabinet” Sunday; a vote would have turned it into a normal government.

“Everyone has his own script and so we feel that we need more time. We are sorry for troubling you,” Deputy Parliament Speaker Ibrahim Abu Najar told legislators, who had waited at Arafat’s headquarters here.

The vote’s tentative rescheduling for Saturday came as factions within Arafat’s Fatah movement argued over the status and size of the Cabinet.

“If this government were presented … today, it would have failed,” said Salah Tamari, a Fatah legislator.

Some legislators objected to the idea of legitimizing the emergency Cabinet, which Arafat appointed without consultation. Others favored confirming the Cabinet with a vote in parliament but voiced objections to its small size. There were even doubts about whether Palestinian law enabled a government by decree.

“This is a constitutional crisis,” Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi said.

During the meeting with Arafat and the leadership of his Fatah Party, Qureia told the Palestinian leader at one point, “Just relieve me of this job,” according to officials present. That sparked speculation he might have resigned, which Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rdeineh denied.

“There are serious differences, but it did not reach the point of resignation,” Abu Rdeineh said outside Arafat’s Ramallah headquarters.

Qureia’s success is key to efforts to salvage the U.S.-backed “road map” peace plan, which foresees an end to three years of violence and a Palestinian state by 2005. It has been stalled for months.

On Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz ordered a special call-up of four reserve battalions, roughly 1,000 soldiers, to patrol the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The call-up was to begin in about 10 days, after the end of the weeklong Sukkot holiday, which begins Friday night.

Mofaz had already ordered two battalions of active-duty soldiers sent to the West Bank and Gaza, canceling leaves and training, and ordered the continuation of a strict lockdown on Palestinian areas, reportedly at least through Oct. 22.

Restrictions on Palestinians, barring them from entering Israel and preventing many from leaving their towns, were tightened after an Islamic Jihad bomber killed 19 Israelis in Haifa on Saturday.

Mofaz reportedly went against the recommendations of security officials, who said the level of alerts about possible terror attacks was not unusual.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon faced his own Cabinet troubles with the National Religious Party threatening Wednesday to walk out of his center-right government over a religious dispute.

While a decision by the six-strong NRP faction to pull out of Sharon’s 68-seat coalition would still leave the prime minister with a slim majority in the 120-seat parliament, Israeli governments have fallen before over relatively marginal matters, not war and peace.

Speaking later at a meeting of his Likud party, Sharon accused the opposition parties of trying to “topple the government by illegitimate means,” an apparent reference to a series of public sector strikes, protesting austerity measures.

Sharon also accused opposition members of “coordinating their actions with the Palestinians behind the government’s back.”

Qureia has said he hopes to begin truce talks with Israel quickly, but that – like his predecessor, Mahmoud Abbas – he will use only persuasion, not force, to get Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other armed groups to halt attacks in Israel.

The violent Islamic groups are enjoying a surge of support, while the Palestinian Authority, headed by Arafat and Qureia, has been unable to persuade Israel to relax roadblocks, curfews and closures that have decimated the Palestinian economy, costing it popular support.

In the West Bank town of Nablus on Thursday, one person was killed in an explosion in the courtyard of the hospital. Palestinian security sources said the man apparently was playing with an anti-tank missile when it exploded.