Gaza: Hamas leader Esmail Haniya called yesterday for public protests against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's emergency government over its refusal to pay salaries to workers hired by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
"Press ahead with your campaign until the wrongdoing is corrected," Haniyeh, who serves as prime minister of the Hamas-led government that Abbas dissolved last month, told hundreds of public sector employees outside his Gaza office.
Abbas dismissed Haniya's government and appointed an emergency administration under his own control in the occupied West Bank after Hamas seized the Gaza Strip by force on June 14.
Abbas's emergency government, headed by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, plans to pay all Palestinian National Authority (PNA) workers - excluding up to 23,000 who report to Hamas - their first full wages in 17 months starting today.
Fayyad will be able to pay full salaries for the first time because Israel, the United States and other major Western powers ended their crippling economic embargo of the PNA after Abbas sacked Haniya's government last month.
Economic sanctions remain in place against Hamas in its Gaza strong-hold. Haniya has refused to recognise Abbas's order disbanding his government.
Fayyad's payments will go to nearly 140,000 PNA workers, including tens of thousands in Gaza, according to Western diplomats.
But up to 23,000 workers hired under Islamist Hamas after it won January 2006 parliamentary elections will be excluded from Fayyad's payroll, said an aide to Haniya. Haniya said Fayyad's decision to exclude those employees went against "the minimal rights of Palestinian citizens" and would fuel resentment between Gaza, controlled by Hamas, and the West Bank, dominated by Abbas's secular Fatah.
Haniya did not say whether his administration in Gaza would do anything to pay workers excluded by Fayyad, or spell out what form their protests should take. Hamas succeeded in bringing tens of millions of dollars into Gaza last year despite the embargo, and the group could try to use similar means to overcome restrictions imposed by Abbas's emergency cabinet.
