Middle East Monitor / February 2, 2021
The Palestinian Authority Prime Minister announced on Monday that his government is to solve the problems of the Gaza Strip’s public servants, Anadolu has reported.
Mohammad Shtayyeh told his cabinet that 6,800 employees who had been forced by the PA to take early retirement would get their full salary. He added that about 20,000 employees who have been receiving less than 70 per cent of their salaries would get 100 per cent as from this month.
About 12,500 people who were chosen to join the security services in 2005, have been paid half of their salaries for years. They will start being paid their full salary from next month.
Shtayyeh said that all PA employees in Gaza would get salaries and rights equal to those of their colleagues in the occupied West Bank. Some of the problems, he explained, can be solved through reconciliation and some can be solved now. He noted that his government, which took office in 2019, had already started to solve such issues.
Although the prime minister said that his government would pay full salaries for Gaza employees even if it needs to obtain loans to do so, he did not mention anything about the thousands of employees who have had their salaries stopped by Ramallah for allegedly “not respecting the PA’s legitimacy”. The PA cut these salaries after security reports that they are members of Hamas, the main rival of Fatah, which controls the PA.
