Special report: Hamas-led cabinet takes office

   GAZA, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haneya, also a senior Hamas leader, on Friday set out a series of conditions which threatened to compromise forming a new national unity government.

   Haneya gave the threat at the main weekly Muslim prayers in Gaza City on Friday, where he insisted a Hamas member head the government, and the Palestinian cabinet ministers and members of parliament arrested by Israel be released as a prelude to form a coalition government.

   He also told prayers that neither could any official implicated in corruption take part in any possible national unity coalition alongside his movement.

   On Wednesday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced that he started consultations with Haneya on forming a new national unity government.

   Forming a new Palestinian coalition government was essential to overcome a crisis worsened after Israel arrested eight Palestinian ministers and at least 20 lawmakers including Aziz Dweik, Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) from the governing Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the West Bank.

   The Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, and Fatah movement would lead the government in coalition government and Hamas also demanded the coalition government to be headed only by a Hamasprime minister, a Palestinian source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, revealed early on Thursday.

   The source expected that Hamas would get seven ministries in the new government while Fatah would get six.

   Hamas, which overwhelmingly won the January legislative elections, failed to form a national coalition government and had alone formed a government in late March. Enditem