GAZA: Dozens of masked Palestinian policemen demanding the Palestinian Authority to pay their salaries take over a local parliament building

Record ID: 376859

  • Title: GAZA: Dozens of masked Palestinian policemen demanding the Palestinian Authority to pay their salaries take over a local parliament building
  • Date: 15th April 2006
  • Summary: WIDE SHOT POLICEMEN TAKING OVER GOVERNMENT BUILDING; POLICEMEN OCCUPYING BUILDING; EMPLOYEES LEAVING AS MASKED POLICEMEN TAKE OVER BUILDING; BROKEN GLASS ON FLOOR; POLICEMEN SITTING IN ROOM; POLICEMAN RUNNING INSIDE BUILDINGM (7 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 30th April 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Police
  • Reuters ID: LVA8BILJTLD254HXOSD2USL8H6QA
  • Story Text: Dozens of Palestinian policemen took to the street of a Gaza town on Saturday (April 15, 2006), demanding the Palestinian Authority to pay their salaries amid fears that the new Hamas government would collapse under U.S., European and Israeli financial pressure.
    Wearing masks and firing their rifles in the air, the policemen blocked a main road in the town of Khan Younis. The policemen then took over a local parliament building, allowing the employes to flee the scene.
    Hamas says it inherited a Palestinian Authority with empty coffers and more than 1.3 billion U.S. dollars in government debts.
    Unable to pay March salaries to 140,000 government workers, Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stepped up appeals to Arab states to make up for the loss of Western funds.
    Washington and the European Union cut aid to the Hamas-led government because it has not renounced violence, recognised Israel or agreed to abide by interim peace deals.
    The U.S. Treasury Department also barred Americans, U.S. companies and the U.S. subsidiaries of foreign firms from pursuing most business dealings with the Palestinian Authority.
    Like the United States, the European Union has severed political contacts with the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority.
    Without Arab aid, Hamas officials said the Palestinian economy could collapse within three or four months.
    Analysts say that if the Hamas government collapsed because of lack of funds it would increase hardship and almost certainly provoke a dramatic rise in social and political instability.
    But Palestinian Prime Minister and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said on Friday (April 14) that the financial pressure would not bring down the new Hamas government.
    He said the United States and Israel were mistaken if they thought the newly sworn-in government would fall in four to six weeks because of Western aid cuts.
    Haniyeh said the consequences of bringing down the current government would be "grave". He suggested that the Islamic militant group would be able to prevent any other government from forming to replace Hamas, which took power last month after winning parliamentary elections in January.
    Hamas leader and lawmaker Younis al-Astal said the collapse of the current government could prompt the group to resume a suicide bombing campaign against Israel.
    In a rare appeal on its Web site, Hamas asked for donations at an account in Egypt's Misr International Bank which French bank Societe Generale gained control of last year. Societe Generale had no immediate comment.
    A similar account set up at the Cairo branch of Amman-based Arab Bank, was closed, an Arab League official said.
    Israel, which has frozen vital tax revenue transfers to the Palestinian Authority, said Hamas has only itself to blame.
    Hamas has carried out nearly 60 suicide bombings against Israelis since a Palestinian uprising began in 2000, but has largely abided by a year-old ceasefire.
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