A new Palestinian Authority cabinet is expected to be announced within the next
48 hours, sources in Ramallah said Monday evening.
They said that the new
cabinet will be headed by current Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.
The
sources said that Nabil Qassis, the former president of Bir Zeit University in
the West Bank, will replace Fayyad as finance minister.
The new cabinet
will be formed in accordance with an agreement recently reached between Fayyad
and PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
The agreement ended weeks of tension
between the two men over the formation of a new cabinet as well as other issues,
including Fayyad’s refusal to deliver a letter from Abbas to Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu last month.
Four new ministers will join the new
cabinet.
Anwar Doudin, former head of the Faculty of Medicine at An-Najah
University, is slated to replace Fathi Abu Mughli as health minister in the new
cabinet.
Ali Muhana, former head of the Palestinian Bar Association, will
replace Ali Khashan as justice minister, the sources said.
Walid Assaf, a
member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, will be appointed agriculture
minister, while Safa Nasser Eddin will replace Mashour Abu Daka as
communications minister.
Ziad Bandak is scheduled to replace Khloud
Daibes as tourism minister, the sources added.
The remaining ministries
will remain under the control of the current ministers, including Foreign
Minister Riad al-Maliki and Interior Minister Said Abu Ali.
The formation
of a new PA cabinet in the West Bank is seen as an admission of the failure of
efforts to establish a unity government with Hamas.
Earlier this year,
Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal signed an agreement in Qatar to form a
unity government.
However, the agreement, like previous accords between
the two parties, was never implemented due to the wide gap between the two
sides.