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Government employees on strike in Hamas-run Gaza

Xinhua, February 25, 2016 Adjust font size:

Employees of the Islamic Hamas movement-run government in Gaza held a one-day general strike Thursday demanding that the national consensus government absorb them and pay their wages.

Government offices in Gaza were closed when 45,000 civil servants of the Hamas-run administration did not show up for work.

Members of the public sector civil servants' syndicate in Gaza were also on strike.

The syndicate's deputy chief, Ehab Al-Nahhal, told Xinhua that the strike was in response to continued protests due to the national consensus government's non-payment of salaries.

Al-Nahhal held Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah responsible for the "results of ignoring employees' rightful demands."

He warned that any reconciliation deal between the Hamas movement and Abbas' Fatah party would not be conclusive without settling the issue of the government employees' back pay.

Civil servants in Gaza's Hamas-run government have not been paid for three years, except for intermittent prepayment by Hamas almost two years ago.

The Palestinian national consensus government was established in 2014, but it does not cover Gaza's Hamas government employees, citing budgetary restraints.

The consensus government suggested a plan to reinstate employees that the governing Gazan Hamas movement expelled in 2007, and then assimilate the new employees appointed by Hamas.

Hamas, however, rejected the plan. Endit