Occupied Jerusalem: The Hamas government in Gaza will begin paying salaries to more than 10,000 civil servants who were cut from the payroll of the rival West Bank-based administration because of their loyalty to Hamas, a union official said yesterday.
The payments mark a further step toward entrenching two Palestinian governments, one controlled by the Islamic militant Hamas in Gaza and a US-backed Cabinet of moderates in the West Bank.
The split evolved after Hamas's violent takeover of Gaza in mid-June. In response, President Mahmoud Abbas fired Hamas from the government and installed a new Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in the West Bank.
In all, the Palestinian National Authority employs about 165,000 people, half of them members of the security forces. After the fall of Gaza to Hamas, Fayyad ordered civil servants in Gaza not to cooperate with Hamas.
Those who ignored the order or were hired by Hamas in the past year did not receive salaries in July. Among them were thousands of members of the Executive Force, a Hamas militia now policing Gaza.
Ala Al Batta, head of a Hamas-run civil servants union in Gaza, told a local news radio yesterday that more than 10,000 government workers will receive their salaries from Hamas. Hamas officials said payments will begin today.
The salaries of civil servants provide for about one-third of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
During a year of Hamas rule, following the group's election victory in January 2006, civil servants were only paid sporadically because of an international aid boycott, prompting a further downturn in the battered Palestinian economy.
For income, Hamas has relied largely on aid from sympathetic governments, such as Iran, and on donations sent to its charities in Gaza.
Return of Gazans
The Fayyad government announced it has reached a compromise with Israel that will enable some 6,000 Gazans stranded in Egypt since the beginning of June to return home gradually. The first group, of 627, will cross back into Gaza today and tomorrow, officials said.
Their return had been delayed by a dispute over the Rafah terminal on the Gaza-Egypt border, Gaza's only gate to the world. Rafah has been closed since the start of the internal fighting that led to the Hamas takeover of Gaza in June.
Under a US-brokered agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, the crossing was operated by Egypt and the Palestinians, with EU monitors deployed on the Palestinian side. During the Hamas takeover, the European monitors fled and Hamas militiamen took control of the terminal.
Israel and Egypt have refused to reopen the crossing as long as Hamas is on the border. The Fayyad government tried to negotiate a one-time deal for those stranded in Egypt, but balked at Israel's proposals to reroute them through Kerem Shalom, an Israeli-controlled crossing into Gaza.
