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Middle East
Haniya for protests by Gaza workers
Emergency government's decision not to pay employees hired by Hamas is decried.
Last Modified: 03 Jul 2007 16:08 GMT
Hundreds of public sector employees gathered
outside Haniya's office in Gaza on Tuesday [AFP]
The recently dismissed Palestinian prime minister has called for protests against the new emergency government after it refused to pay salaries to workers hired by his Hamas faction in the Gaza Strip.

"Press ahead with your campaign until the wrongdoing is corrected," Ismail Haniya told public sector employees outside his office on Tuesday.
Haniya's government was dissolved by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, after Hamas took full control of Gaza.

The new administration in the West Bank has said it plans to pay Palestinian Authority workers - excluding up to 23,000 who report to Hamas - their first full wages in 17 months.
Salam Fayyad, the prime minister in the emergency administration, will be able to pay full salaries after the United States and other nations ended their crippling economic embargo of the Palestinian Authority when the new cabinet was swon in earlier this month.

Tax revenues

Israel has also released some of the tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinians which were withheld after the Hamas government won elections early last year.

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Economic sanctions remain in place against the Hamas administration in Gaza and Haniya has refused to recognise Abbas's order disbanding his government.

Almost 140,000 Palestinian Authority workers will receive the payments on Wednesday, including tens of thousands in Gaza, according to Western diplomats.

Fayyad has pledged to pay civil servants who return to work in Gaza as long as they follow the emergency government's instructions - and not those of Hamas.

An aide to Haniya said this means that up to 23,000 workers who were hired after Hamas won parliamentary elections in January 2006 will miss out.

Haniya said the 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.
Source:
Agencies
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