Palestinians’ Abbas appoints new PM to outrage of Hamas

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas named British-educated political independent Rami Hamdallah as new prime minister yesterday, a move that was immediately condemned by Gaza Strip rulers Hamas.

Mr Abbas and the militant Islamist group agreed in principle last month to form a unity government for the divided Palestinian territories, and a Hamas spokesman said Mr Hamdallah’s appointment threw that into doubt.

The group called Mr Hamdallah’s appointment “illegal”.

But official Palestinian news agency WAFA said that in naming Mr Hamdallah, Mr Abbas, who has sought to end harassment of the Islamist group’s activists by security forces in the West Bank, had “stressed his commitment to reconciliation” with Hamas.

A little-known figure outside the Palestinian territories, Mr Hamdallah is a professor of linguistics who has been president of An Najah National University in the West Bank’s largest city since 1998.

He will replace western-favoured economist Salam Fayyad who quit in April and formally leaves office this month.

Led by the secular Fatah party, Mr Abbas’s western-backed Palestinian Authority has pursued surveillance, firings, arrests and torture to bar its Islamist rivals from public life in the West Bank, since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip enclave in 2007. Past attempts to heal the rift have foundered. – (Reuters)