Ramallah

Tony Blair said on Tuesday there was a new ”moment of opportunity” in the Middle East but cautioned in his first visit as an international envoy against expecting any peace breakthrough soon. Blair, in his first public remarks since starting his mission on Monday, said he came ”to listen and to learn and to reflect” in talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Thousands of Palestinian civil servants began receiving their first full salaries in 17 months on Wednesday after Israel released tens of millions of dollars of withheld tax receipts. Relieved Palestinians queued en masse outside banks, checking their names on a list or drawing cash from ATM machines.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was set to swear in a new Cabinet in the West Bank on Sunday, further sealing the divide sparked by the bloody seizure of the Gaza Strip by his Islamist rivals. Palestinian officials hope the creation of an emergency Cabinet without Hamas will lead to the lifting of a crippling Western aid boycott.

Hamas may now rule Gaza, but for many ordinary Palestinians the bloody conclusion of this week’s factional fighting promises only more chaos. Emergency measures imposed by President Mahmoud Abbas in an 11th-hour bid to bolster his secular Fatah against Hamas Islamists provided little consolation to Palestinians.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal warned Israel could face another Palestinian uprising unless conditions in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank improve. Meshaal told the Palestinian daily al-Ayyam on Monday that continuation of a Western economic embargo of the Palestinian government and military actions by Israel would ”give notice to a huge explosion”.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday put off talks with Hamas aimed at breaking a stalemate over forming a unity government, in a sign of deep internal divisions. Abbas’s aides had said the president was expected to travel to Gaza on Tuesday for talks with leaders of the ruling Hamas Islamist movement, including Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.

The Palestinian foreign minister returned to the Gaza Strip on Wednesday from a trip abroad with an estimated -million packed in 12 separate suitcases, according to officials. Mahmoud Zahar, a member of Hamas, declared the amount he was carrying to Egyptian officials at the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.

A new round of talks on Monday, hosted by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, which are designed to ease tensions between rival factions, made significant progress. Aziz Dweik, the Hamas speaker of the Ramallah-based Parliament, told reporters that he believed agreement on a common approach was within reach.

Palestinian Premier Ahmed Qureia lent his voice on Tuesday to a growing chorus insisting that the January 25 parliamentary elections be postponed unless Israel allows Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem to vote in the municipality boundaries. ”There will be no elections without Jerusalem,” Qureia said.

It was on the third day of captivity that Kate Burton decided she had had enough. ”I asked them to release us. I told them that it had gone on for long enough,” she said. Ahmed, one of the kidnappers, shouted back: ”I can’t believe what you are doing. You are being so disrespectful after everything we have done for you.”

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday that an Israeli-Palestinian deal on reopening the Gaza-Egypt border is imminent, following talks with United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. ”We have discussed issues relevant to the Gaza Strip in order to avoid transforming the Gaza Strip into a big prison,” Abbas said.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas told Parliament on Wednesday he will not form a new government before January’s legislative elections. Parliament passed a motion on October 3 calling on Abbas to appoint a new government as a result of the current administration’s failure to halt the security chaos in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

A summit between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas looked set to be postponed on Monday amid a dispute over demands for the release of Palestinian prisoners. Top officials from both sides were due to hold another round of talks in a last-ditch effort to save the summit.