Haniyeh says Hamas government won't step down

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said today that his embattled Hamas-led government had no intention of stepping down, despite a sweeping civil service strike and an economic crisis that a top UN official said has brought the Gaza Strip to a “point of near meltdown".

Hamas’ takeover of the Palestinian Authority in March has provoked crushing international sanctions that have rendered the government unable to pay its 165,000 employees for the past six months.

Tens of thousands of teachers, health workers and other government employees, aided by the rival Fatah movement, launched an open-ended strike last Saturday.

“The government is not going to resign,” Haniyeh told 2,000 worshippers at a mosque in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.

“We have no thoughts of resignation or dismantling the (Palestinian) Authority.”

In New York, Karen AbuZayd, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said conditions in Gaza have reached a breaking point, encouraging greater intransigence, not compromise.

“These pressure tactics have not resulted in a desire for compromise but rather have created mass despair, anger and a sense of hopelessness and abandonment,” she said.