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Gaza payroll crisis continues

July 6, 2014 at 2:26 pm

The crisis of unpaid salaries in the Gaza Strip continues, with leaders of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority casting blame on each other amid efforts by other political factions to contain the situation.

Up to 50,000 employees of the former Hamas-led authority in Gaza are suffering from dire living conditions due to the two-month delay in paying their salaries, which constitute their main source of income, along with the continued Israeli siege of the coastal enclave.

Hamas spokesman Hossam Badran held the unity government responsible for resolving the crisis, saying that it should not discriminate between citizens. This was a reference to the government’s salary payments to West Bank employees.

In statements to Al-Ghad newspaper, Badran said that the new government succeeded the two previous governments of Gaza and the West Bank, and should assume responsibility for paying salaries to all employees without delay. He pointed out that the reconciliation agreement obliges the government to bear responsibility for all Palestinian civil servants in the West Bank and Gaza.

“The unity government should behave as a national unity government, not a Fatah government,” he said, adding that the payroll crisis is “political, not technical”. He lashed out at the banks’ refusal to receive the transfer of a Qatari grant to pay the salaries, considering it “unethical and unpatriotic”.

Palestinian media quoted an official on Friday as saying that the only solution to the crisis is forming “a legal committee” that would be tasked to follow-up the issue. He explained that the committee had been scheduled to begin its work prior to the Israeli escalation in the occupied Palestinian territories, but it has been stalled by the unrest.