GAZA CITY, 8 August 2006 — Seven people were hospitalized when one of them opened a suspicious envelope addressed to Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, officials said. The Palestinian government has launched an investigation into the incident.
Haniyeh, a leader of the Hamas group 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 Shaer.
The envelope contained an orange tissue that emitted a strong smell, said Shaer’s office manager Abdel Basit Moatian, who opened the mail. Moatian said it had a Tel Aviv postmark. 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 hospitalized 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 Ghader Ismail, the woman who was hospitalized.
Meanwhile, the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly president, Rene van der Linden, slammed yesterday Israel’s arrest of the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Aziz Dweik, and called for his immediate release.
— With input from agencies
Hisham Abu Taha, Arab News