Roundup: Gaza civil servants outraged over sharp cut in salaries

The decision of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) consensus government in Ramallah to cut 30 percent of the monthly salaries of civil servants and former security officers in the Gaza Strip has outraged on Wednesday the coastal enclave's populations.

Civil servants and employees were totally shocked and outraged, when they went on Wednesday morning to get their money from cash withdrawal machines outside banks all over the Gaza Strip and found out 30 percent cuts in their salaries.

Thousands of employees, their children and their wives demonstrated in Gaza city center against the Palestinian government's decision issued on Tuesday. They called on the government to regret its decision.

"The daily life and the economical situation in the Gaza Strip has been deteriorating over the past ten years, and cutting around one-third of our salaries would damage our life and increase our daily suffering besides the existing pain and poverty," said Ahmad Ghanim, one of the employees said.

The employees gathered at the square of the Unknown Soldier in the city's downtown in protest to the decision.

They chanted slogans against the government of Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and called for regretting the decision and stopping increasing the suffering of more than 2 million people live in the Gaza Strip.

"These salaries are not paid for us to enjoy or have fun, the money we receive every month is for our children, for their schools and universities and for their foods and medicines," said a employee, who is a former security office that used to work in the police before Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007.

Spokesman of the Palestinian consensus government in Ramallah, Yousef al-Mahmoud, said Tuesday that the reason the government decided to cut salaries of the employees "is because of the suffocating fiscal crisis the Palestinian (National) Authority is passing through."

He stressed that this decision is not permanent and it could be changed and get back on track as soon as the PNA passes its fiscal crisis.

He justified the decision that it was made due to the fiscal siege that the international donors and Israel are imposing on the PNA.

The cuts in the salaries had targeted around 70,000 civil servants, former police and security officers in the Gaza Strip, excluded employees in the West Bank and those who are living abroad.

The decision was largely slammed by many activists and unions.

Social media activists slammed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah for the decision that targeted the Gaza Strip, which basically suffers from high rates of poverty and unemployment.

Senior leaders, activists and members in Abbas Fatah Party expressed deep outrage following the decision.

Dozens of them announced that they decided to quit from the part on the light of the decision. They called on the party's high-ranking establishments to act in order to annul the decision.

Meanwhile, Fawzi Barhoum, spokesman of Islamic Hamas movement said in an emailed press statement that Hamas expresses full sympathy with the employees.

"Hamas movement calls on the government of Hamdallah and the authority of Abbas to regret their decision, cancel it and stop cutting 30 percent of the employees salaries," said Barhoum, who warned that the decision "would mount the humanitarian crisis that was a result of an unfair siege imposed on Gaza." Endit