Official sets conditions to be leader

Former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas resigned after four months in office.
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RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Palestinian parliament speaker Ahmed Qureia said today he will accept his nomination as prime minister only if Washington guarantees Israeli compliance with a U.S.-backed peace plan, including a halt to military strikes.
Qureia told The Associated Press that he does not want to set himself up for failure, an apparent reference to outgoing Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, who resigned over the weekend after just four months in office that were marred by wrangling with veteran leader Yasser Arafat.
However, sources close to Qureia said he has already agreed in principle to take the job offered him by Arafat, and that his formal acceptance is expected to be announced in the coming days. Qureia is to meet with Arafat this evening.
In a meeting Sunday, the ruling Fatah party decided that the new government should be formed quickly, in part to prevent a prolonged vacuum in which Israel might be tempted to take action against Arafat, Palestinian officials said. After Abbas' resignation, there had been growing calls, including by Israeli Cabinet ministers, to expel Arafat.
Powell's comments
Speaking on NBC television's "Meet the Press," Secretary of State Colin Powell said sending Arafat into exile was not a good idea because it would "put him on the world stage as opposed to the stage he is currently occupying."
It remains unclear if Israel will agree to deal with Qureia. Israeli leaders have not commented publicly on Qureia's nomination, but have said they will not negotiate with any new government controlled or hand-picked by Arafat.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told Powell in a phone call that the appointment of Qureia will not lead to progress on the peace plan, as long as Arafat pulls the strings, Israel Radio said. Israeli officials have said privately they would have liked to see Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayad in the job of prime minister.
Arafat asked Qureia -- a moderate who helped cobble together the 1993 Oslo accord between Israel and the PLO -- to form a new government Sunday shortly after his nomination was confirmed by top officials in Fatah and the PLO, said Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an aide to Arafat.
Qureia said today that he wants to improve the lives of Palestinians who have largely been confined to their communities by a network of Israeli military barriers during the past three years of fighting. "I want to see what kind of change on the ground the Israelis will make, what kind of support from the United States in this regard [I will get]," he said.
Qureia also said he would not be able to govern without Arafat's support, and said Israel must change its approach to Arafat. Israel and the United States want to sideline Arafat, who has been confined to his West Bank headquarters by Israeli sieges.
An explosion heard today in the Israeli port city of Haifa was apparently caused by burglars trying to break into a store, police said.
Earlier, police said the explosion appeared to be the result of a gas leak, but then said criminals had used explosives to blow out a door.
Israeli security forces have been on high alert since a weekend threat by Hamas to avenge a failed attempt by Israel to kill leaders of the group.

ic militant group in a bombing in Gaza City.
On Sunday, Israeli helicopters launched a missile strike on a Gaza Strip house that the army said was being used by Hamas to store weapons, wounding 11 people, including three children, hospital officials said. The army said it was targeting explosives and firearms stored there.
Also in Gaza, Israeli soldiers today killed an armed Palestinian who was apparently planning to infiltrate a Jewish settlement, Col. Yossi Haddad said. The Palestinian -- dressed in Israeli army fatigues and armed with a submachine gun, ammunition clips and hand grenades -- fired back at the soldiers who were manning an outpost, Haddad said, adding that no Israeli troops were injured.
Effect on 'road map' plan
Abbas' departure dealt a serious blow to the U.S.-backed "road map" plan for establishing a Palestinian state by 2005. But Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said the "peace process did not die and the principles [of the road map] we had agreed upon are acceptable to everybody."
The peace plan was in jeopardy even before Abbas resigned.
Problems began months ago. Arafat fought the political and security reform central to the road map, while Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government didn't formally accept the plan. Israel instead accepted the "steps" outlined in the road map and then appended 14 reservations.
As the months went by, analysts say, neither side fully complied with the plan. Both sides predicated progress on actions the other refused to take.
Israel wanted Palestinians to use force to crush militant groups before it met any of its own obligations. Abbas wanted Israel to ease conditions so that he could win support away from groups such as Hamas and then, perhaps, directly confront militants.
"The level of compliance was minimal from the start. So was the level of American monitoring and determination to oblige the sides to comply," says Joseph Alpher, an independent Israeli strategic analyst. "Given the American sponsorship of the road map, I think that's the more cardinal sin."