Gaza public employees strike over unpaid salaries

Thousands of Palestinian public employees in the Gaza Strip went on general strike today in protest against the Palestinian unity government’s recent decisions.

In a statement released yesterday, Gaza’s Public Employees Union described the government’s decisions as “irresponsible”.

“The union’s decision comes in response to the government’s irresponsible decisions,” it said.

On Tuesday, the unity government decided to form a committee to control Gaza’s border crossings and to activate the legal committee to deal with issues relating to Gaza employees.

The committee held the government fully responsibility for the negative consequences of its decision and called on the Ramallah government to resolve the Gaza employees’ problem as soon as possible.

The strike excludes services in emergency and intensive care units, nurseries, dialysis and oncology departments in the Ministry of Health’s hospitals and clinics as well as post offices.

Images by MEMO photographer Mohammed Asad