Official: New Palestinian prime minister offers resignation
Palestinian Authority official says Rami Hamdallah offered resignation to Abbas over 'dispute with deputies'
It was not immediately clear whether Abbas would accept the resignation by Hamdallah, an academic and political independent whose cabinet only met for the first time last week.
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The government source told Reuters that Hamdallah made the abrupt, unexpected move because of a "dispute over his powers".
A senior Palestinian official told Ynet that Hamdallah decided to quit in light of major disagreements with his two deputies - Mohammad Mustafa and Ziad Abu Amar, both close confidantes of President Abbas. The source said a visibly angry Hamdallah left his office in his private car, rather than in the government-owned vehicle provided for him.
'Dispute over his powers.' Hamdallah
Earlier this week Hamdallah toured the Al-Aqsa Mosque in east Jerusalem and said, "Jerusalem and the holy sites are a top priority for the new Palestinian Authority government."
Hamdallah, 55, is a British-educated linguist. He has been serving as president of the An-Najah National University in Nablus since 1998.
Hamdallah's cabinet consists overwhelmingly of members of the Fatah party led by Abbas, and political commentators immediately questioned how much room he would have to maneuver.
His predecessor, American-educated economist Salam Fayyad, resigned in April after six years in power defined by tough economic challenges and rivalries with Fatah politicians, who were eager to get their hands on the levers of power.
Since a brief civil war in 2007 between the Western-backed secular Fatah party and the Islamist group Hamas, Palestinians have had no functioning parliament or national elections.
Abbas exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank while Hamas, which won 2006 legislative polls, has its own prime minister in the Gaza Strip.
You can contact Elior Levy, Ynet's Palestinian Affairs Correspondent, at: paldesk@gmail.com
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