25 February 2016•Update: 25 February 2016
By Ola Attalah
GAZA CITY, Palestine
Civil servants hired by Palestinian group Hamas staged a general strike in the Gaza Strip on Thursday to protest unpaid salaries.
In a statement, Gaza’s public employees union said the one-day strike includes all public institutions and schools “to protest the government’s denial of the rights of the employees”.
The union warned of escalation if the government failed to tackle their problem.
Some 40,000 civil servants employed by the Hamas government stopped receiving salaries soon after the formation of a Palestinian national unity government in June 2014.
Although the unity government was unveiled almost two years ago, it has yet to take on a governing role in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, while the relationship between Hamas and Fatah remains beset by a host of outstanding differences.
Hamas says the reconciliation agreement includes the regulation of the Gaza civil servants, a claim denied by the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.
