RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reappointed his Western-backed prime minister Tuesday, a move that aims to shore up Abbas’ stature in the United States but dims the chances of reuniting the Palestinian territories and rebuilding the Gaza Strip.
By swearing in Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and 19 other Cabinet ministers, Abbas moved to end weeks of disarray in his West Bank-based administration and distance it further from Hamas’ rival government in Gaza before he meets in Washington next week with President Barack Obama.
The Palestinian factional rift has complicated efforts to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. Obama, trying to revive peace talks, met in Washington on Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Late Tuesday, Israeli fighter jets and helicopters carried out 10 airstrikes against groups of Hamas fighters, suspected weapons factories and smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border, officials in Gaza said. The attacks, which injured four Palestinians, followed a rocket attack from Gaza that damaged a house in the Israeli city of Sderot.
Hamas, an Islamic group doctrinally committed to Israel’s destruction, shared power in a coalition with Abbas’ secular Fatah party for several months in 2007. After factional fighting drove Fatah forces out of Gaza that year, Abbas named his own government in the West Bank, made up of people affiliated with neither faction.
Fayyad announced in March that he was stepping aside to facilitate the latest round of power-sharing talks. His move brought down the West Bank government, but Abbas kept it in place provisionally while Egyptian-sponsored talks with Hamas proceeded in Cairo.
After four rounds, however, the talks are at an impasse.
Fayyad is a Texas-trained economist and former World Bank official who belongs to no political party.
