Palestinian president, Yasser Arafat told his Fatah faction in a closed-door meeting Sunday that he wants Parliament Speaker Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala) as his next prime minister, a senior Palestinian official said.
"The president [Arafat] expressed his wish to name Abu Ala as prime minister," cabinet minister Yasser Abed Rabbo told Reuters. He said the appointment was approved by the Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee.
A senior Palestinian official said Qurei was studying the proposal. A response was expected early in the week, he said. Qurei attended the meeting Sunday night but did not comment, Fatah officials said. The parliament speaker "is our only nominee," said Abbas Zaki, a member of the Fatah central committee.
Qurei, a 66-year-old, helped broker the 1993 Oslo accords between Israel and the PLO. He was born in Abu Dis, Jerusalem, and is a banker by trade.
He joined Fatah at the end of the 1960s but did not come to prominence within the PLO until the mid-1970s, when he took over its economic and production enterprises in Lebanon.
When the PLO was forced out of Lebanon, Abu Ala went to exile in Tunisia with Arafat. With the death or assassination of other senior PLO leaders, he gradually gained more influence until he was elected a member of the Fatah central committee in 1989.
Israeli strike
Meanwhile, Israeli helicopters launched a missile strike late Sunday at the home of Abdel Salam Abu Moussa, a member of Hamas military wing. The Israeli army said the target was an ammunition store belonging to Hamas, east of the Khan Yunis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip.
At least 13 people were wounded in the strike.
© 2003 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
