Abbas swears in new Palestinian cabinet

---

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Jun 17 (AFP): Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas swore in his new cabinet Sunday, further sealing the divide sparked by Hamas's bloody takover of the Gaza Strip, where fears of a humanitarian crisis are mounting.
Palestinian officials hope the creation of the emergency cabinet without Hamas will lead to the lifting of a crippling Western aid boycott, while Israel has said it will work with the new government as a partner for peace.
The appointment comes amid a continuing Palestinian power struggle, with masked Fatah fighters storming parliament in the West Bank and ransacking Hamas-linked institutions, while Hamas militants hunted out Fatah men and looters rifled through fallen bastions in the Gaza Strip.
Abbas was formally swearing in the 11 ministers under prime minister Salam Fayyad at a ceremony in the West Bank political capital of Ramallah.
Hamas -- regarded as a terror group by Israel and the West -- routed forces loyal to Abbas from the impoverished Gaza Strip Friday after days of vicious gunbattles that left more than 110 people dead.
Abbas, who enjoys the support of the West, declared a state of emergency and sacked the Hamas-led unity government, naming Fayyad, a respected former finance minister and World Bank economist, as prime minister.
Hamas's takeover of Gaza, branded a military coup by Abbas, has effectively split the Palestinians into two separate entities in Gaza and the West Bank, making their aspirations of an independent state an ever more distant dream.
But the end of the three-month-old unity government has also given Abbas the opportunity to appoint a new cabinet in the hope of ending the crippling Western aid boycott.
Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal said his Islamic Resistance Movement was not seeking to take power in the territories and vowed to cooperate with Abbas -- an olive branch rejected by Fatah officials.
But the Islamists have nevertheless rejected Abbas's new government as illegitimate and sacked prime minister Ismail Haniya has vowed to continue to govern.
The United States and European Union halted direct aid to the Palestinian Authority after Hamas formed a government following its shock election victory over Fatah in January 2006.
A senior Palestinian official said the US government has indicated it will resume aid once the new cabinet took office, but a State Department spokeswoman in Washington said no decision had yet been made.
With Gaza sealed off from the outside world by Israel, there are fears of a humanitarian crisis in the tiny strip of land, home to about 1.5 million people and one of the most overcrowded places on earth.