Government staff paid for first time in 15 months

Palestinian government employees loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas stood in long lines outside banks in Hamas-ruled Gaza today to collect their first full salaries in 15 months.

The salary payments to workers in Gaza and the West Bank were a boost to Abbas in his power struggle with Hamas, which took control of Gaza by force last month.

Abbas has since fired the Hamas-led government and said civil servants who sided with the Islamic militants will not be paid.

Since Hamas won Palestinian elections in March, 2006, the Palestinian government’s 165,000 government employees, half of them members of security forces, received only sporadic and partial payments because of an international aid boycott on the militants.

Following the Gaza takeover, Western aid and Israeli tax transfers were renewed to the West Bank-based Palestinian government appointed by Abbas.

Salam Fayyad, the new prime minister in Abbas’ government, said today that the salary payments were “an important sign of breaking another ring of the economic siege.”