A new Palestinian Authority cabinet is expected to be announced within the next 48 hours, sources in Ramallah said Monday.

They said that the new cabinet will be headed by current Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

The sources said that Nabil Qassis, the former president of Bir Zeit University in the West Bank, will replace Fayyad as finance minister.

The new cabinet will be formed in accordance with an agreement recently reached between Fayyad and PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

The agreement ended weeks of tensions between the two men over the formation of a new cabinet and other issues, including Fayyad´s refusal to deliver a letter from Abbas to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu last month.

Four new ministers will join the new cabinet Anwar Doudin, the former head of the Medicine Faculty at An-Najah University, is slated to replace Fathi Abu Mughli as minister of health in the new cabinet.

Ali Muhana, the former head of the lawyers´ syndicate, will replace Ali Khashan as minister of justice, the sources said.

Walid Assaf, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, will be appointed minister of agriculture, while Safa Nasser Eddin will replace Mashour Abu Daka as minister of communications.

Ziad Bandak is scheduled to replace Khloud Daibes as minister of tourism, the sources added.

The remaining ministries will remain under the control of the current ministers, including foreign minister Riad Malki and interior minister Said Abu Ali.

The formation of a new PA cabinet in the West Bank is seen as an admission of the failure of efforts to establish a unity government with Hamas.

Earlier this year, Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal signed an agreement in Qatar to form a unity government.

However, the agreement, like previous accords between the two parties, was never implemented due to the wide gap between the two sides. (© 1995-2011, The Jerusalem Post 05/07/12)