.
With
Labor out of the government and Sharon showing no signs of approaching
President Moshe Katsav to dissolve parliament and call early
elections, it looked increasingly likely he would seek a narrow
coalition which would be dominated by the far-right, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) reported.
Media
reports said Sharon would hold talks Thursday with hardliner Avigdor
Lieberman, who leads the extreme-right National Union coalition of
seven MPs - enough for the prime minister to recover his majority in
parliament.
In
exchange for National Union's support, Sharon has reportedly offered
Lieberman the foreign affairs portfolio, Israeli daily Maariv
said, citing sources close to Lieberman.
And
following the departure of Ben Eliezer, Sharon handed the defense
portfolio to the hawkish former chief of staff and
Shaul Mofaz, a post which Mofaz officially accepted Thursday.
With
Israel teetering on the brink of a violent lurch rightwards, the
prospects for a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians looked
increasingly bleak.
"It
appears that the Israeli political class is distancing itself more and
more from the quest for peace," Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb
Erakat said, according to AFP.
And
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat predicted the situation would
deteriorate rapidly with the appointment of Mofaz as Defense Minister
and Moshe Yaalon as Chief of Staff.
"Imagine
the Middle East with Sharon, Mofaz and Yaalon!" he added.
"The
anticipated appointment of Mofaz is a step ... which is liable to have
an impact on the entire region," the Israeli daily Yedioth
Aharonot quoted the Palestinian President as saying.
"What
are we, the Palestinians, left to expect of a government that is
headed by Sharon, with Mofaz to his right and Yaalon to his
left?" he said in an interview to be broadcast later Thursday on
Israel private television.
"In
Mofaz's appointment we are not talking about the defense minister of
Micronesia or some other country, but the appointment of the Intifada
chief of staff as the defense minister of Israel," he said.
Meanwhile
in the occupied Palestinian territories, an Israeli army officer
killed a Palestinian activist Thursday close to the (illegal) Jewish
settlement of Beit El in the West Bank, the Israeli army said,
according to AFP.
A
Palestinian ambulance was hit in the middle of the shootout, leaving
one person wounded, the army added.
The
latest killing brought the Palestinian death toll since the start of
the Intifada against Israeli occupation to 1,949, according to AFP.
In
the West Bank city of Tulkarem Thursday, an elite squad of a dozen
Israeli soldiers traded fire in a 30-minute gunbattle with the Al-Aqsa
Martyrs Brigades.
The
occupation soldiers penetrated a few meters (yards) inside Tulkarem
refugee camp when the Brigades, an offshoot of President Arafat's
resistance Fatah movement, opened fire on them from the camp's
alleyways, a source from the Brigades said.
The
Brigades thought at least one Israeli was shot because they could hear
a soldier crying, the source said.
The
occupation soldiers escaped after about 30 minutes, the source added,
AFP added.
But
before they did, they shot dead an 18-year-old Palestinian youth who
was hit in the chest.
Israeli
military sources denied any soldiers were hit in the battle, but said
at least two Palestinians were wounded.
A
unit of plain-clothes soldiers stormed the refugee camp when they came
under a hail of fire, after which a regular army unit came for help,
the military sources said
