GAZA: Unpaid security men protest

Fatah security unit members took to southern Gaza streets on Saturday (September 30, 2006) in an armed demonstration demanding that the Hamas-led government pay their salaries. The protesters shot rifles in the air and chanted anti-Hamas slogans in the southern Gaza town of Rafah. The tens of thousands of security staff of all political factions are part of some 170,000 Palestinian government employees who haven't received their salaries in the past seven months. Western countries imposed financial sanctions on the Palestinian government after the Islamist movement of Hamas took office in March. The financial embargo has prevented the Palestinian Authority from paying full salaries to its employees, which has led to mounting tensions in the West Bank and Gaza. In recent weeks, various protests have been staged, with teachers, doctors and other essential governmental workers going on strike to demand the payment of their salaries. Earlier on Saturday, Palestinian policemen blocked the main road-crossing through the Gaza Strip, to pressure the government for their overdue wages. The policemen set tyres ablaze and placed cement blocks on Salah a-Din road connecting north and south Gaza. They diverted traffic back in several places along the road. "I want food for my family and food for my children," said one policeman as he was setting tyres ablaze. President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah has been locked in an increasingly bitter confrontation with the Hamas-led government of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh over stalled efforts to form a unity coalition government. It was hoped that the formation of the unity government with the more moderate Fatah movement members might have led to the lifting of at least some of the financial restrictions. Abbas's Fatah movement said Hamas was trying to escape its responsibility for ending the financial crisis.

ITN Source | September 30, 2006

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