MIDDLE EAST: Dr Ismail Haniyeh is set to be prime minister, writes Nuala Haughey in Ramallah
Following its startling victory in last month's Palestinian elections, Hamas is today expected to nominate its moderate and pragmatic Gaza-based leader, Dr Ismail Haniyeh (42), as its candidate for prime minister.
The new Palestinian parliament controlled by the Islamic militant group is due to be sworn in today in Ramallah, a move which could spark a raft of punitive Israeli measures.
Hamas, which has until now boycotted the Palestinian Authority and its institutions, will form the largest parliamentary bloc with 74 of the total 132 seats, compared with 45 for president Mahmoud Abbas's weakened Fatah faction.
Today's inaugural gathering marks an unprecedented period of cohabitation between a president from the largely secular Fatah and a Hamas-led parliament. The session will begin with a speech from Mr Abbas who is expected to call on the radical faction to honour existing agreements with Israel and to stress his commitment to a settlement through peaceful means.
Mr Abbas is likely to invite Hamas to form the next government, even if it does not meet Israel's demands for it to renounce violence and recognise the right of the Jewish state to exist.
Hamas has five weeks from today to assemble a new cabinet, although party sources indicate that it is likely to be finalised sooner. But Israel has threatened to implement swingeing economic and diplomatic sanctions from the moment Hamas takes over the parliament, regardless of the future cabinet composition.
A series of punitive steps which the Israeli cabinet is due to vote on tomorrow includes freezing monthly transfers of about €40 million in tax revenues to the cash-strapped PA and reneging on long-stalled agreements to allow the development of a seaport and airport in Gaza.
The Israeli defence establishment plan also includes a travel ban between Gaza and the West Bank, an embargo on the already small number of Palestinian workers in Israel and a potentially devastating blockade on exports from impoverished Gaza to key Israeli and world markets.
Israel has also threatened to pass a new banking law to cut off all alternative funding to the PA from the Arab world, claiming that the money will be used to fund terrorism.
The Israeli media this week quoted Dov Weissglas, an adviser to Israel's acting prime minister Ehud Olmert, as saying the aim of the proposed sanctions was "to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to starve them".
In Gaza, Dr Haniyeh said yesterday the Islamic movement's supporters would weather Israel's "policies of oppression and collective punishment".
"I don't think Hamas will have much problem in finding alternative sources of money, though there might be tightening of the channels through which aid comes," said Prof Hisham Ahmed, a political scientist at Bir Zeit university near Ramallah.
"Maybe the belief by some international players is that by imposing more pressure on the Palestinian people they will make them angry with Hamas. My belief from my experience over the years is that the opposite would happen."
Due to Israeli travel restrictions and the fact that some 13 newly-elected parliamentarians are imprisoned, it is not known how many of the 132 lawmakers will attend today's opening session of what is only the second-ever Palestinian parliament.
Israel has also blocked Hamas members from travelling from the Gaza Strip for today's sitting. Parliamentarians will gather in separate venues in the West Bank town of Ramallah and Gaza city, with the sitting linked by two-way video.
In an effort to avoid detention or delays at Israeli checkpoints, Hamas lawmakers from around the West Bank began gathering at a hotel in central Ramallah last Thursday. The new parliamentarians milled around the foyer while locals joked that the usual muted background music had been replaced with incantation of Koranic verses.
Khalid Suleiman (38), a former imam and newly-appointed spokesman for the Hamas parliamentary faction, said one of the first tasks of the new parliament would be to create procedures to allow elected members to register their votes even if Israel has imprisoned them or blocked them from getting to the chamber.
"We are thinking of two options; one is for members to appoint deputies who can vote instead of them, or else allowing voting by telephone," he said.
Hamas has already chosen as its parliament speaker Aziz Dweik, a professor of urban planning from the southern West Bank city of Hebron.
Israel has been making strenuous efforts to maintain international backing for its tough anti-Hamas stance.
After talks in Berlin yesterday, British prime minister Tony Blair and German chancellor Angela Merkel underlined demands that Hamas must recognise Israel and renounce violence if the Palestinians want aid from the EU, the PA's largest donor.
However, Russian president Vladimir Putin irked Israel recently by inviting Hamas to talks in Moscow early next month.