Region | Palestinian Territories
Palestinian PM says he was targeted with poison gas
Palestinians launched an investigation yesterday after seven people were hospitalised when one of them opened a suspicious envelope addressed to Palestinian Prime Minister Esmail Haniya, officials said.
- AP
- Published: 00:00 August 8, 2006
- Image Credit: Reuters
- Members of the Palestinian security forces and bystanders outside a hospital in Ramallah. Seven people in the Palestinian prime minister's office in the West Bank fell ill after opening a letter containing an unknown substance.
Ramallah, West Bank: Palestinians launched an investigation yesterday after seven people were hospitalised when one of them opened a suspicious envelope addressed to Palestinian Prime Minister Esmail Haniya, officials said.
Haniya, a Hamas leader who heads the Palestinian government, said he believed this may have been an Israeli attempt to kill him with "poison gas."
"We don't rule out the involvement of the Israeli security services, which indicates a dangerous mentality," he said in a speech to the Palestinian Parliament in Gaza.
The Palestinian Cabinet building in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where the envelope was delivered, was evacuated, said Deputy Prime Minister Nasser Shair.
The envelope contained an orange tissue that emitted a strong smell, said Shair's office manager Abdul Basit Moatian, who opened the mail. Moatian said it had a Tel Aviv postmark.
Israel has tried to poison Palestinian leaders in the past and there were widespread rumours that Israel poisoned the late-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, an accusation Israel vehemently denied.
Israeli officials declined to comment on the report.
A security guard who handled the envelope and another woman who was in the room at the time were hospitalised and given oxygen, local hospital director Hosni Atari said.
Atari said they were complaining of strong headaches and had fainted, but were now conscious.
Five other people who came in contact with the envelope, including Moatian, were briefly admitted for checks, he said.
"It was a bad, bad strong smell," said Gader Esmail, the woman who was hospitalised.
Palestinian officials said it was not clear what the substance was or if it may have been an attempt on a member of the Hamas government.
After Hamas won January parliamentary elections, Israel boycotted the Palestinian National Authority, refusing to deal with the group. In June, Hamas-linked fighters from Gaza attacked an Israeli army post and captured a soldier, a raid that sparked a wide-scale Israeli offensive in Gaza.
"I can't rule out that someone was targeting someone in government, but I can't confirm this," Deputy Health Minister Anan Al Masri said.
"I can confirm that there was a strange substance," he said, adding that tests were being carried out to determine what it was.
Moatian said workers in the building became suspicious of the envelope because it was mailed to Haniya in the West Bank, even though Haniya lives in Gaza and is banned from travelling to the West Bank by Israel.
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