ISRAEL: The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, last night offered the defence ministry portfolio to a tough former army chief. Mr Shaul Mofaz forged Israel's military campaign against the Palestinian uprising and wants President Yasser Arafat deported.
The moderate Labour Party left the government on Wednesday evening. Mr Mofaz is expected to accept the position.
Mr Sharon's choice of Mr Mofaz came as the prime minister began efforts to construct a narrow government, based on the support of the far-right. Mr Sharon, whose coalition shrank to 55 seats in the 120-seat parliament after Labour demanded the reallocation of funding for Jewish settlements to the Israeli poor, is considering bringing in the seven-seat National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu faction.
This would make Mr Sharon dependent on a party which opposes a political settlement with the Palestinians, wants the Oslo accords nullified, is demanding even harsher military measures against the Palestinians, and some of whose members support deporting them from the occupied territories.
The Iranian-born Mr Mofaz, who emigrated to Israel with his parents in 1957 aged nine, has overseen Israel's policy of targeting leading Palestinian militants for assassination and the implementation of harsh restrictions in the territories, including long-term curfews on Palestinian cities.
He has also implemented two major military offensives in the West Bank in response to a wave of suicide bombings inside Israel - one in April and a second which began in June and is still ongoing, and during which the army reoccupied much of Palestinian-controlled territory in the West Bank.
Mr Mofaz, who left the army only four months ago, was caught unawares on camera earlier this year pushing Mr Sharon to expel Mr Arafat in the wake of a suicide bombing.
"We should kick him out," he told the prime minister, as the two huddled at a table. "I know," answered Mr Sharon. "This is an opportunity that won't return," Mr Mofaz insisted.
While many Israelis, incensed by Palestinian attacks, support such measures, Palestinian leaders have accused the Mr Mofaz of war crimes.
They said yesterday Mr Sharon's choice was a clear signal that Israel had no intention of returning to the negotiating table. "Mofaz on one side, [Chief-of-Staff Moshe\] Ya'alon on the other and Sharon over them, what do you imagine will happen to the region?" Mr Arafat remarked on the Arabic news station al Jazeera.
It was reported yesterday that Scotland Yard was investigating charges of alleged war crimes levelled at Mr Mofaz by a British Muslim group.
In the Gaza Strip, three members of Hamas were killed by a blast in a garage. Six people were injured in the explosion, which appeared to have been the result of a bomb that went off prematurely. A senior Hamas official ruled out Israeli involvement when he described the blast as "an internal explosion."