Palestinians pay first full salaries in over a year

Palestinian civil servants began receiving their first full salaries in 17 months on Wednesday, keen to start paying debts that piled up during a crushing Israeli economic boycott. Relieved Palestinians queued en masse outside banks, checking to see whether their names were on a list of those to be paid, or drawing cash from ATM machines.
The Western-backed Palestinian government based in the West Bank has vowed not to pay allies of the Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip, which overran their Fatah rivals loyal to the Palestinian Authority nearly three weeks ago.
The estimated 170,000 employees on the Palestinian Authority books have received only partial salaries since March 2006, owing to Israeli and Western economic boycotts slapped on successive administrations led by Hamas, considered a terror outfit by Israel and the West.
The boycott was eased after president Mahmud Abbas sacked the Hamas-led government following the Islamists' bloody Gaza take-over and installed an emergency cabinet headed by internationally respected economist Salam Fayyad.
"This is the first time I received my complete salary in more than a year," said a grinning 51-year-old Jasser Sbai, who works in the agriculture ministry in the West Bank political capital of Ramallah.
"Unfortunately most of this salary will go to the electricity company and shops because I owe them too much," he added, surrounded by more than 50 Palestinians queueing to use the ATM, with dozens more further down the road.
The salaries were paid three days after Israel transferred 118 million dollars to the new emergency government based in Ramallah, as part of hundreds of millions in tax duties owed to the Palestinian Authority.
Israel froze monthly transfers of 50 to 60 million dollars worth of customs duties, levied on goods destined for Palestinian markets that transit through Israel, in February 2006 after the general election win by Hamas.
Officials refused to say on Wednesday how many Palestinians would receive their pay cheques, but Hamas charges that 23,000 civil servants are being boycotted because of links to the Islamist movement.
"The Fayyad government's decision not to give thousands of employees their salaries enforces the political and geographical separation of Palestinian people," spokesman Sami Abu Zurhi told AFP in Gaza City.
Palestinians finally receiving their full salaries were all smiles after withdrawing the funds, though their problems that have piled up over the past year are far from over.
"The problem is how to solve what happened in previous months. We need another month's salary to cover all of our debts," said Ruba Hamad, who has an outstanding rent payment of 3,500 dollars for one year. At a branch of the Arab Bank in Gaza City, hundreds of people queued in two lines snaking outside.
Ashraf Shada, a 40-year-old doctor at the Palestine Bank in Gaza City, waiting from early morning.
"I am very happy because this is the first time I get a complete salary for more than a year. I hope things will carry on like this," he said. But not everyone was pleased. Mohammed, a 27-year-old policeman, waited for hours outside a bank in Gaza City, but did not find his name on the list of those due to be paid. "We followed (president Mahmud) Abbas's decision not to work (after the Hamas take-over) and I was shocked not to see my name on the list," he said, sad and angry.