A Palestinian unity government rejected by Israel as a peace partner took office on Saturday, pairing Islamist Hamas and secular Fatah in a coalition they hope can end factional violence and painful foreign sanctions.
Palestinian lawmakers formally endorsed the cabinet, later sworn in by President Mahmoud Abbas, after Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas declared the new administration would uphold the right to "all forms" of resistance against Israel.
Abbas, who heads the Palestine Liberation Organisation, again endorsed an Arab League offer of full peace with Israel if it quits all the land it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.
Israel ruled out dealing with the new coalition, citing Hamas's refusal to accept demands, set by a Quartet of foreign peace mediators a year ago, that it forswear violence, recognise the Jewish state and accept past interim peace deals.
"We're not going to work with this government," said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokeswoman Miri Eisin. But Israel has said it would maintain a dialogue with Abbas, and with international anxiety mounting over diplomatic impasse, internal violence and Palestinian poverty, there have been signs of Western flexibility on talking to non-Hamas cabinet members.
"The two big challenges facing the government now are lifting the siege and ending chaos," Deputy Prime Minister Azzam al-Ahmad of Fatah told Reuters in Ramallah. The Quartet - the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia - cut off direct aid to the Palestinian Authority, deepening poverty in the West Bank and Gaza, after Hamas came to power in a January 2006 election.