July 15, 2007	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Sani 29, 1428

GAZA, July 14: Hamas on Saturday rejected as unconstitutional the government appointed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and called for parliament to convene to try to reverse the decision.

President Abbas disbanded a government led by Hamas and formed an emergency administration after the group seized the Gaza Strip by force on June 14. Since then he has ruled by emergency decree.

Responding to a constitutional limit on the 30-day state of emergency, the president on Friday swore in three new ministers and reappointed Salam Fayyad as prime minister. President Abbas’s Fatah group said the manoeuvres put the government on a new legal footing.

But Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said the caretaker government was illegal. He said his group “will not deal with it in any way or form, and we call upon our people not to deal with it”.

Hamas called for a special session of the Palestinian parliament to be convened on Sunday to try to challenge Mr Abbas’s decisions.

Abdullah Abdullah, a Fatah leader in parliament, said it was ‘illegal’ to convene parliament on Sunday because it had not begun a new session. “We’ll not join in,” he told Reuters.

The senior lawyers who wrote the Palestinian Basic Law said this week that it did not grant the president the power to appoint a new government without legislative approval.—Reuters