Yasser Arafat swore in new Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and an emergency Cabinet in a move likely to make it more difficult for Israel to carry out its threat to "remove" the Palestinian leader. The new Cabinet did not include Nasser Yousef, a veteran Palestinian military official who was expected to be interior minister. The new interior minister was to have assumed some control over the Palestinian security forces, in line with long-standing Israeli and US demands to integrate control over the eight security branches. Arafat declared a state of emergency in the Palestinian areas and abruptly named the eight-member Cabinet a day after a suicide bombing in the Israeli city of Haifa killed 19 people. The bombing led to new demands for Israel to carry through on its threat to "remove" Arafat.

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