Palestinian President Yasser Arafat told his Fatah faction in a closed-door meeting on Sunday that he wanted parliamentary speaker Ahmed Qurei as his next prime minister, a senior Palestinian official said. Qurei, also known as Abu Ala, would replace Mahmoud Abbas, whose resignation on Saturday threw the Palestinian leadership into turmoil. "Arafat has told the Fatah leadership that he nominates Abu Ala to form a new government," the official said. Meanwhile, the Israeli army patrols have been accompanying amid heightened fears of bomb attacks and political turmoil among Palestinians following the resignation of their prime minister Mahmoud Abbas. It comes after Israel failed in an attempt to assassinate Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in an attack similar to those which have killed several Palestinians, some of them members of Hamas group in recent weeks. Israeli opinion appears to be divided over whether military force alone can defeat Hamas but there is a grim consensus that the organization will try to strike back. Shaikh Yassin was slightly wounded when an Israeli missile blasted a house in Gaza where he'd been visiting. He warned afterwards that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would pay "a high price" for the attack. The resignation of Prime Minister Abbas has further destabilized a volatile situation. Abu Mazen has quit over an ongoing power struggle with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. He has accused both the US and Israel of failing to support him in his efforts to win over the Intifadha. **EU Foreign Ministers React to Abbas Resignation*** "Dangerous instability " for some , "very worrying" for others, Mahmoud Abbas's resignation sparked strong reactions on the final day of the EU foreign ministers meeting. Foreign policy head Javier Solana stayed brave, commission head Romano Prodi more circumspect; Solana said no-one had expected the road to peace to be anything but bumpy, but Prodi said it was regrettable proof that extremists on both sides were gaining the ascendancy. More downbeat than most was the Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh, who rounded on US and Israeli policy with the Palestinian leadership ; "Mr Arafat is of course responsible, as he has not given the prime minister enough authority, but great responsibility must be borne by Israel , and the US who gave him the kiss of death", she said. Britain's Jack Straw hailed the decision to put pressure on Hamas, naming it a terrorist organization, as proof the EU was making positive contributions to the peace process. The Riva del Garda meeting has been dominated by the middle east at a time when EU foreign policy has much other important business and strict timetables to follow , but the middle east crisis is so acute it cannot be ignored. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Palestinian President Yasser Arafat attends on the meeting with his Fatah faction in the West Bank city of Ramallah September 7, 2003. (Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)