‘Human chain’ protests gov’t penalties in Gaza

By Nour Abu Aisha

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) – Dozens of Palestinians formed a human shield in the Gaza Strip on Monday to protest salary cuts by the Ramallah-based government.

“We are here to protest the policy of cutting salaries of ex-detainees by the Palestinian Authority,” Mustafa Muslimani, a former detainee in Israeli prisons, told Anadolu Agency in Gaza City.

He said the protest aimed to “break the barrier of silence, end the penalties and restore our rights”.

Demonstrators waved banners calling on the Palestinian government to pay salaries of employees and former detainees in Israeli prisons.

In March, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to take a set of punitive financial and legal measures which he has not specified against the Gaza Strip.

The threat was followed by the delay in the payment of salaries of Palestinian Authority (PA) employees in Gaza in March for about a month before being disbursed in early May, after a salary cut of 50 percent, according to a number of PA employees.

In April, Palestinian detainees said the PA had cut the salaries of hundreds of them.

Salaries of Gaza-based employees have been a thorny issue in reconciliation talks between Abbas’ Fatah group and Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.

The two groups have been at odds since Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 from PA security forces after deadly street fighting.