PALESTINIAN MINISTERS CUT GAZA TRIP SHORT

Gaza, 3 Rajab 1436/22 April 2015 (MINA) – Ministers of the Palestinian unity government yesterday cut short a ten day visit to the Gaza Strip, Quds Press reported.

The 11 ministers from the occupied West Bank, who were accompanied by other officials, left the Strip just 24 hours after they arrived.

“The Palestinian ministers have left the Gaza Strip following heated disagreements with Hamas over the civil servants’ crisis,” Saleh Zidan, a member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), told the Anadolu Agency.

He said the ministers were prevented from starting to process applications of thousands of civil servants ordered to start a civil disobedience since Hamas gained control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Middle East Mnitor (MEMO) quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu-Zuhri said in statement that Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, who should have accompanied the ministers in their visit, ordered then to leave.

Abu-Zuhri said that Hamdallah’s instructions came amid the failure to negotiate a deal to pay the salaries of around 40,000 civil servants hired by Hamas during the period if governed the Gaza Strip.

He said Hamas is expressing its deep concerns, mainly because the visit was dedicated only for processing the applications of civil servants who have taken part in civil disobedience, while it is ignoring the employees who served the people since 2007.

Hamas called for the unity government to bear the responsibility for all the Palestinian employees without discrimination.

The unity government has been refusing to pay the salaries of employees hired by Hamas in Gaza since 2007; however, the agreement by the unity government clearly included a solution for the employees. (T/P002/R04)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)