GAZA, June 3 (UPI) -- The Islamic resistance movement Hamas rejected a Palestinian Authority offer to join a revamped Cabinet under Chairman Yasser Arafat, hampering Palestinian efforts to reform their government.
Isma'eel Abu Shanab, a senior Hamas movement leader in Gaza, told United Press International late Sunday that after an internal Hamas leadership debate on the overture, the movement was declining to join a new Palestinian Authority government.
Official Palestinian sources reportedly said Arafat decided to nominate two Islamic Hamas leaders for posts in a new Cabinet. Abu Shanab denied the reports and said that the movement had issued its decision not to participate in the new government.
"The movement is studying how to present a draft to the Palestinian Authority that calls for complete, comprehensive reforms in the Palestinian community that take into consideration the needs of the Palestinian people in the present and the future," said Abu Shanab.
Hours earlier, Abdullah El Shami, an Islamic Jihad senior leader in Gaza said that his organization had also rejected the authority's offer to participate in a new Cabinet.
The Palestinian Authority's information minister, Yasser Abed Rabbo, said the government invited all Palestinian political groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as other Palestine Liberation Organization opposition groups.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine announced their rejection a few days ago of an offer to join a reshuffled Cabinet.
Abed Rabbo had said that Arafat plans to make changes in the Cabinet in the next few days, adding that the number of Cabinet ministers would not be more than 20 compared with the current one that includes more than 30 officials.
Reshuffling the Cabinet, combining Palestinian security apparatuses and having municipal and parliamentarian elections by the end of this year came as part of the changes that Arafat said he would like to carry out soon.
The proposed reforms were made under pressure from Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel, Europe and the United States also pressured him, saying that a reformed Palestinian Authority might end the ongoing violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
