GAZA CITY, March 17: The Hamas group is set to take all key posts in a new Palestinian cabinet in the face of continued failure of coalition talks with other factions, officials said on Friday.

“The majority of ministers will come from Hamas but the cabinet will also include technocrats, independents and a Christian,” the spokesman for Hamas’s parliamentary bloc, Salah al Bardawil, said.

“Foreign affairs, interior, finance and education” portfolios will all go to Hamas, another party official said. Two-thirds of the ministers will be drawn from outside parliament, said Hamas MP Mushir al Masri.

The Hamas officials would neither confirm nor deny press reports that senior leaders Mahmud al Zahar and Said Siam would take the foreign affairs and interior portfolios.

The Islamist movement had wanted to form a broad national unity government, but after nearly four weeks of coalition talks since its upset January election victory, no other faction has agreed to join it.

Hamas no longer believes the mainstream Fatah party of Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas, which it trounced in the elections, will agree to participate, Mr Bardawil said. Three smaller parliamentary groups – Al Badil, the Third Way and Independent Palestine — have given a definite no, Mr Bardawil said.

Only the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, whose jailed leader Ahmed Saadat was seized by Israel in a controversial raid on a West bank prison on Tuesday, is still considering its position, he added.

Senior PFLP official Jamil al Majdalawi confirmed that discussions were still going on within the movement’s leadership. “We have asked our brothers in Hamas to delay the announcement of the cabinet line-up.”

Prime minister-designate Ismail Haniya is due to submit both the line-up and the government programme to Mr Abbas in Gaza City on Saturday, Mr Bardawil said.

Hamas hopes to present the line-up to parliament for approval as early as Monday, Mr Bardawil said.

The leader of Fatah’s parliamentary bloc, Azzam al Ahmed, said a new meeting with Hamas was scheduled for Saturday in Gaza City.

“It will be our final attempt to persuade Hamas to modify its government programme.

“If we fail, we will not take part in the cabinet and we will not give it our support in the (Palestinian) Legislative Council,” he warned.

Fatah’s central committee reiterated after a meeting chaired by Mr Abbas on Thursday evening that it would not enter a government led by Hamas unless it respected all past agreements signed between the leadership and Israel.

“The new government must ... implement all the agreements between the Palestine Liberation Organisation or Palestinian National Authority and Israel, and respect all decisions of the United Nations about the Palestine issue,” a statement said.—AFP