MIDDLE EAST: EU foreign ministers look ready today to agree to blacklist the political wing of Hamas, the Palestinian organisation behind many of the suicide-bombings in Israel, despite the reservations of the Commission and some member-states, including Ireland.
The ministers will discuss the issue this morning during a two-day meeting in the Italian lakeside resort of Riva del Garda but diplomats believe that a ban on the organisation is inevitable.
Britain's Foreign Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, said the EU had held back from adding the organisation to an anti-terrorist blacklist earlier this year in the hope of encouraging a ceasefire in the Middle East.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, is expected to tell the meeting that, given that Hamas represents an increasing proportion of the Palestinian people, blacklisting it is unlikely to promote the peace process.
But Mr Cowen made clear yesterday Ireland would agree to a ban if most other EU member-states favoured it. "I don't think we'll seek to block an emerging consensus in the EU," he said.
In Israel, a top Hamas militant and an Israeli naval commando were killed yesterday in a gunbattle in the West Bank city of Nablus, after which the army blew up the building in which the Hamas man was holed up, leaving at least 11 families homeless.
The raid was part of Israel's continued targeting of Hamas militants in Gaza and the West Bank. Troops surrounded a seven-story building in a bid to capture Muhammad Hanbali, the head of the Hamas military wing in Nablus, who, Israel said, was responsible for a series of suicide-bomb attacks over the last three years. Once the residents had exited, troops fired rockets at the building and began searching it.
Questioned about the necessity of blowing up the building, Mr Dore Gold, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon, told the Associated Press that Israel was aware of the suffering caused to the residents, but that "the war we are facing now has been imposed on us."
Following a session of the Palestinian Legislative Council on Thursday in which the Palestinian Prime Minister, Mr Mahmoud Abbas, told lawmakers they should either afford him more powers or remove him from office, parliament is scheduled to meet again today.
Council members will hear more from Mr Abbas, who is involved in a protracted power struggle with the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat. The embattled Mr Abbas may face a vote of no confidence next week.