A new Palestinian Authority cabinet is expected to be announced within the next 48 hours. The new cabinet will be headed by current Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Nabil Qassis, the former president of Bir Zeit University in the West Bank, will replace Fayyad as finance minister. The agreement ended weeks of tension between the two men over the formation of a new cabinet as well as other issues, including Fayyad's refusal to deliver a letter from Abbas to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu last month. 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.