PA employees protest against forced early retirement

Palestinian Authority (PA) employees demonstrated in Gaza City against a PA decision to impose drastic salary cuts for its Gaza-based employees, on 8 April, 2017 [Mohammad Asad/Middle East Monitor]

The Union of Palestinian Authority (PA) Employees in the Gaza Strip staged a protest against the forced early retirement of the employees in Gaza, the Anadolu Agency reported.

On 4 July, the PA referred 6,145 employees from Gaza for early retirement in an effort to push Hamas to give up control of the coastal enclave.

People who took part in the protest raised banners reading:

Forced early retirement means: poverty, starvation and begging… We will not accept the illegal decisions.

Khalid Abu-Sharekh, a union member, said: “This protest is against the latest PA decision to refer employees in to early retirement in addition to a series of earlier decisions, including halting promotions, halting payment of annual salary increases and slashing one third of salaries.”

Read: PA forces 6,145 civil servants in Gaza into retirement

“The decision to force the employees into early retirement is oppressive and illegal.”

He called for the PA President Mahmoud Abbas to cancel this decision.

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