A decision by the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority to impose pay cuts on its civil servants in the Gaza Strip sparked anger among the employees yesterday.
The PA says it has been forced into the move because its budget has been hit by falling foreign aid.
Among hundreds waiting outside a bank in Gaza City to withdraw their salaries was Jawdat Abu Ramadan, who works for a PA-run institute for the disabled and said he found his monthly paycheck of 4,700 shekels ($1,300) had been shaved by 1,700 shekels.
After paying his bills he is left with “just 1,000 shekels” for himself and his three dependants until the end of the month, he said.
Announcing the cutback on Tuesday evening, the Palestinian Authority said it would be temporary.
The 70,000 PA employees in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip are in a bizarre position.
In 2007 the militant group seized power from the rival Fatah movement of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and ousted the Fatah-dominated PA.
Its staff lost their posts, but the PA kept them on its payroll nevertheless. Hamas set up its own parallel administration with 50,000 staff, whose salaries the PA refuses to pay.
The unemployment rate in the coastal territory is among the highest in the world, at 45%.
The wage cuts will have an impact beyond the civil servants themselves, as their purchasing power, Abu Ramadan says, is “the backbone of the Gaza economy”.
“It’s a premeditated massacre,” says Aysha Abu Maghassib, who worked for the Palestinian Authority’s police.
A widowed mother of two, she says that after deductions only about 200 shekels is left from this month’s wages.
Ammar al-Njjar, 33, demanded that Abbas resign, while Nevin Abu Herbid said she saw “a crisis erupting”.
Hamas called the cuts “arbitrary, inhumane and irresponsible”.