Middle East: In a move that could reshape Palestinian politics and affect relations with Israel, the militant Hamas group has said that it will run in parliamentary elections scheduled for July.
The Israeli cabinet, meanwhile, decided yesterday to dismantle 24 illegal outposts in the West Bank, but did not set out a timetable for their removal.
The move came as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived in Israel last night for his first visit in four years. He said as he met Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon that he hoped to push forward Middle East peace efforts. Mr Annan, in Israel to attend this week's opening of a newly renovated Holocaust museum, told reporters he intended to discuss a long stalled "road map" peace plan for a Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.
Hamas leaders, who boycotted parliamentary elections when they were last held in 1996, were non-committal on whether they would join a government under Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas - a move that would essentially make them partners to negotiations with Israel.
Hamas has been responsible for most of the suicide bombings inside Israel in the last four years.
A leader of the Hamas political wing, Mohammed Ghazal, said his organisation would only decide after the election whether to join the government. "We still haven't decided whether to be a part of the Palestinian government and we haven't decided on the issue of Israel . . . we will decide in the future whether to talk to them," he said.
Hamas has refused in the past to participate in elections because it does not recognise the Oslo Accords and the Palestinian Authority that emerged as a result of them.
However, the group has been reassessing its position, especially in light of its sweeping victory in Gaza municipal elections in January. Hamas won 77 of the 118 seats up for grabs in 10 municipalities and local councils.
Meanwhile, at the weekly meeting of the Israeli cabinet yesterday, ministers approved a report which outlined how successive governments - including those headed by the prime minister, Ariel Sharon - had helped establish and expand more than 100 illegal outposts in the West Bank. The cabinet also set up a special ministerial committee to ensure no more outposts were established.
Many of the outposts were built after Mr Sharon, as foreign minister in the late 1990s, told settlers to grab the hilltops so as to ensure Palestinians could never establish a viable state in the West Bank.
Yesterday he said he was committed to removing the outposts as part of the road map peace plan, but he did not say how many would ultimately be dismantled or when.