RIVAL Palestinian factions have agreed on a new prime minister to head a national unity Government, according to Hamas and Fatah officials.

Mohammed Shubair, a former president of the Islamic University of Gaza, is the frontrunner to succeed Ismail Haniya in a new administration that Palestinians hope will end the international embargo on the Palestinian Authority.

Dr Shubair, 60, has good relations with all political parties and although he is close to Hamas he is not an active supporter. He was born in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis and studied pharmacology at Alexandria University, in Egypt. He then moved to the United States, where he obtained a PhD in microbiology at West Virginia University. He returned to Gaza in 1993 to become president of the Islamic University, a post he held until earlier this year.

Palestinian officials said last night that he had agreed to become prime minister. Insiders signalled that the most likely candidate for finance minister was Salam Fayyad, who has held the post before and is a highly respected former International Monetary Fund official. Talks to form a new coalition are expected to take two to three weeks. Mr Haniya announced on Friday that he would step down rather than see continued financial sanctions imposed on his Hamas-led administration.

Hamas has been a pariah since winning elections in January, and its refusal to meet international demands to recognise Israel has resulted in the cancellation of hundreds of millions of dollars of international aid. About 160,000 Palestinian civil servants, doctors, nurses and security forces have also gone largely unpaid.

Mr Haniya continued the gradual softening of Hamas’s position last week when he gave consent to a Saudi plan that offers Israel normal relations with the Arab world, in return for a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank. This would be an implicit recognition of Israel.

Sceptics say that because Hamas is in control of the parliament — likely ensuring the majority of new ministers are sympathetic to its policies — the new administration could quickly become a pariah itself.

Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the European Union’s External Relations Commissioner, said yesterday that the new administration would have to recognise Israel, renounce violence and commit to new peace talks. “We will have to study the programme. . . everybody will have to look at the Government first,” she said.

Walid Awad, a spokesman for Fatah, insisted that the change would be enough to lift the siege: “Hamas has altered its position in a way that is conducive to lifting the siege on the Palestinian people. They are moving towards the position of President Abbas, not the other way around.”

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, said: “The key to a new government is not its composition but its platform. Even when people talk of technocrats, we ask, ‘Technocrats to do what, to implement what programme?’ That’s what everybody is waiting for.”

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