Top > World > 2006 > April > 2006-04-02

Abbas Swears In Terror Government

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas swore in a Hamas government on Wednesday, in a 24-member Cabinet that includes 14 ministers who served time in Israeli prisons. The ceremony came a day after the centrist Kadima Party of interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert won Israel`s elections on a platform of imposing the Jewish state`s final borders with the Palestinians by dismantling remote settlements in the West Bank.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a moderate from the defeated Fatah Party, administered the oath to some of the Cabinet ministers in a brief ceremony at Gaza City`s parliament building. With Israel banning the travel of Hamas leaders between the West Bank and Gaza, the remaining ministers held a separate ceremony in the West Bank. The two settings were hooked up by videoconference.

The United States ordered its diplomats and contractors not to have any contacts with Palestinian ministries once the government was sworn in, U.S. officials said. The directive, distributed to U.S. officials in the region by email, bars them from having contacts with Hamas-appointed government ministers, whether they are members of Hamas or not, as well as with those who work for them, U.S. officials said.