Palestinians call for mass resignations from Fatah, PLO to protest Gaza sanctions

Palestinian writers and intellectuals have called on members of Fatah, the National Council, the Central Committee and Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) to resign in protest against the Palestinian Authority’s imposition of sanctions on the Gaza Strip.

Human rights activist and writer, Mustafa Ibrahim, called on members of the Palestinian National Council, the Fatah Central Council and the PLO Executive Committee to “free themselves from the restrictions” imposed on them by their positions.

Do not forget that you represent a national liberation movement, liberating yourselves is not difficult in order to lift the injustice from your people

he wrote on Facebook.

Writer Aziz Al-Masri said that “a mass resignation is the most honorable form of protest and at the same time the most difficult message to be directed at the regime or the government.”

“The key influencer of the salary crisis is the Fatah movement as the head of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah,” Al-Masri wrote on Facebook.

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On Tuesday, Fatah members in Gaza demanded the PA lift the punitive measures imposed on the Gaza Strip and to pay the salaries of Gaza employees in full and treat them like their counterparts in the occupied West Bank.

Fatah member in Gaza, Abdel Rahim Al-Hindi, resigned as a result of the “crime” of not paying the salaries of Gaza employees.

The Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas imposed a number of sanctions on the Gaza Strip in April 2017 which escalated in April this year to reach deduction 50 percent of the salaries of Gaza employees .