RAMALLAH, West Bank, Jan 13 (AFP) - Newly-elected Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas was preparing a government clear-out Thursday, as he welcomed the formation of a new Israeli coalition as a chance to advance the peace process.
No formal announcement on a new-look Palestinian government was expected to be made before Abbas's installation on Saturday but political sources said a number of allies of his late predecessor Yasser Arafat were facing the axe.
"At least four or five ministers will leave," one official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "We know for sure that (interior minister) Hakam Balawi will go."
Balawi is almost certain to be replaced by Nasser Yusef whose appointment by prime minister Ahmed Qorei was blocked by Arafat in late 2003.
The change of interior minister, a key post in the security sphere, follows the resignation of Arafat's old presidential national security advisor, Jibril Rajub.
He quit on Tuesday and Arafat's long-time rival, the former security minister Mohammed Dahlan, looks set for a return to high office.
Other sources said that veteran foreign minister Nabil Shaath and welfare minister Intisar al-Wazir, the widow of Arafat's old number two Khalil al-Wazir, were also set to bow out.
Shaath is widely expected to be replaced by the Palestinian representative to the United Nations, Nasser al-Qidwa, who is a nephew of Arafat.
The communications minister Azzam al-Ahmed said that while a certain number of changes would be announced in the next few days a more widespread shake-up would take place in July after elections to the parliament.
"What we are expecting is a light reshuffle but the real changes will come after the legislative elections," Ahmed told AFP.
One person expected to return to government is the former information minister Nabil Amr who was the victim of a shooting attack in July shortly after a television interview in which he criticised Arafat.
The moderate former prime minister Abbas's landslide election victory on Sunday has boosted hopes of a breakthrough in the troubled peace process.
While Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon kept Arafat under virtual house arrest for the last three years of his life, he made a point of phoning Abbas to congratulate him on his victory.
The two men are expected to meet before the end of the month in what would be the first summit between Israeli and Palestinian leaders for four years.
Abbas said Thursday that a new coalition put together by Sharon, which won parliamentary approval only hours after his own election victory, would have a positive impact on the peace process.
"We have a new Palestinian Authority and Israel has a new government with the Labour party on board which is a positive element for the peace process," Abbas said.
The coalition, which has been assembled to implement a pullout from the Gaza Strip later this year, has meant the return to government of Labour leader Shimon Peres who worked closely with Abbas to draw up the Oslo autonomy accords in the heyday of the peace process in the early 1990s.
Meanwhile in events on the ground, a 23-year-old Palestinian man, Alaa Hassuna, was shot dead by Israeli soldiers while driving his pregnant wife to hospital in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli military sources initially said that only warning shots had been fired but later confirmed that troops had opened fire at the vehicle as it drove towards them at speed and was regarded as "an immediate danger".
A 22-year-old Palestinian was also shot dead by troops during an army incursion into Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza while several miles further south, the Israeli air force fired a missile at a Palestinian car but without causing any injuries.
01/13/2005 13:24 GMT - AFP