In Gaza, Police Demonstrate for Lost Wages

In a new outbreak of unrest in the Gaza Strip, thousands of unpaid members of the Palestinian police force staged a noisy protest Thursday outside the parliament building, firing guns in the air, hurling stones and denouncing the Hamas-run government.

Later, a Palestinian security officer was killed in an ambush-style shooting in Gaza City, and gunfights between rival factions elsewhere in the seaside territory left at least seven people injured.

The Palestinian Authority on Thursday missed its third monthly payroll in a row, deepening the hardship for 165,000 government workers who have gone without salaries since March.

The government, which was already strapped for cash when Hamas took over in late March, is close to financial collapse due to a dramatic drop in international aid over Hamas’ refusal to recognize Israel.

Nearly half of those who have gone unpaid are members of the security forces, and most of them are loyal to the Fatah faction defeated by Hamas, an Islamic militant group, in January parliamentary elections. The salary cutoff has been a key factor in strife between armed elements within Hamas and Fatah.

About 2,000 members of the security forces took part in Thursday’s protests, waving signs saying, “Ninety days without pay is enough!” Some scaled the building walls, draped banners from the roof and smashed windows.

Police, either from Fatahaffiliated forces or the Hamas militia that took to the streets of Gaza last month, made no move to intervene. Many of the protesters were members of the Preventive Security Service, a branch loyal to Fatah that has been involved in some of the most violent clashes with Hamas gunmen.

The man killed late Thursday when his car was riddled with bullets in the Shahti refugee camp was identified as Khader Afaneh, a member of the Preventive Security Service. Two separate gunfights in the southern town of Khan Yunis, which injured a total of seven people, were believed to have involved fighters from Hamas and Fatah.

The Hamas-led government said this week that it had scraped together the funds to pay about a quarter of the government workers -- those who make the lowest wages, of less than $350 a month. But it was unclear when those payouts would be made.

Government salaries sustain nearly one-third of the population, and most schools and hospitals are staffed with civil servants. So the lack of paychecks has had a spillover effect into almost all aspects of daily life.

Shopkeepers are broke from giving their customers groceries on credit, women have pawned wedding rings and precious heirlooms, and many people are skipping jobs and school because they cannot afford even the paltry price of a communal taxi.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a relative moderate with Fatah who supports peace talks with Israel, is trying to force Hamas to ease its stance and get aid flowing again.

If Fatah and Hamas cannot agree on a common political platform by Tuesday, Abbas has said he will hold a territory-wide referendum that calls for the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, in effect recognizing Israel. Polls have suggested that such a referendum would pass by a large majority.

Israel refuses to have any dealings with the Hamas government, but Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was quoted in Thursday’s editions of the Yediot Aharonot daily as saying he hoped to meet with Abbas at the end of this month. The Bush administration has strongly urged Olmert to at least attempt to hold negotiations with the Palestinian leader before embarking on a plan to consolidate Jewish settlements in the West Bank into several large blocks while relinquishing remote ones.

Palestinians have said Olmert’s plan amounts to a land grab that would, in effect, draw the borders of any future Palestinian state. They have demanded that borders instead be determined through negotiations.

Special correspondent Fayed abu Shammaleh in Gaza City contributed to this report.