GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The salaries of Palestinian Authority (PA) employees in the Gaza Strip were disrupted yet again in May, but the workers will be paid, according to PLO Executive Committee Secretary-General Saeb Erekat. Erekat gave the assurance May 23, when he clarified his statements that appeared May 21 in Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
In the newspaper interview, Erekat said the government wasn't able to pay PA employees in the Gaza Strip because of economic and technical reasons. In his more recent statement, Erekat said the delay is due to a technical glitch, and that PA employees in the Gaza Strip will get their money. He said his words in the newspaper were taken out of context.
In April, the PA suspended the salaries of all 35,000 public employees in the Gaza Strip. Employees staged protests April 12 in front of some banks, which temporarily closed their doors as a precautionary measure. On May 2, Gaza Strip employees received only half of their salaries for that month. Furious workers protested May 10, demanding to be treated equally with their fellow employees in the West Bank, who have been paid consistently. No explanation so far has been given regarding the missing money.
Conflict between the two main Palestinian parties, Fatah and Hamas, resulted in a PA split in 2007, when Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip. Fatah controls the PA, based in Ramallah in the West Bank, and the PA holds the purse strings of its employees there and in the Gaza Strip. PA President Mahmoud Abbas has imposed sanctions on the Gaza Strip. Though the PA hasn't explicitly declared that it will gradually stop paying its Gaza employees, several political analysts expect such a measure.
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