Six Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip over the weekend while workers began to protest against their government’s failure to pay them wages for two months.
A 60-year old farmer was the latest victim of Israeli shelling, which continued all day on Saturday in response to the firing of six missiles at Israel on Friday.
Five militants were killed on Friday in an Israeli airstrike on their training camp in Rafah in the northern Gaza Strip.The militants, who belonged to the Popular Resistance Committees, were buried on Saturday as their comrades vowed to fire hundreds more missiles in revenge.
The Israeli killings were the first since new Defence Minister Amir Peretz took over. Peretz, the leader of the Labour party, is perceived as less anti-Palestinian than his predecessor, Shaul Mofaz, but the killings suggest there has been little significant change in policy.
The Israeli army has fired tens of thousands of shells at Gaza to suppress the firing of homemade rockets at Israel, but without success. On Saturday, the army dropped leaflets warning residents that it planned to fire artillery at rocket-launching grounds and urged civilians to avoid the areas. ”We warn you not to get close to the areas where rockets are launched in order to keep yourselves and your families safe,” the leaflet said.
The violence is just one of many problems facing Palestinians amid a deepening economic crisis and political rivalry between the Hamas government and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President. The European Union and the United States stopped funding the Palestinian Authority when Hamas took over, and an American-sponsored financial blockade has prevented donations from reaching the authority from Arab states and Iran that could help pay its wage bill.
Russia managed to transfer $10-million to Abbas on Saturday, who re-directed it to the Palestinian ministries for health and education, but the payment of Palestinian wages still seems a distant prospect.
Sources at the US embassy in Tel Aviv said the path that Russia took to support the Palestinian authority indirectly would not be acceptable to them, because the money was still under the supervision of a Hamas minister. ”We are prohibited by law from passing funds in any way that could go to a Hamas government. Even if funds go elsewhere, there is the concern they could be diverted to the Hamas government,” said the source. ”The easiest way to solve this would be for Hamas to to accept the international community’s three principles: to renounce violence, recognise Israel and respect previous agreements.”
There were demonstrations all over the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Saturday to protest at non-payment of wages. Most of the demonstrations have been organised by Fatah, which lost power in the January elections to Hamas. Abbas was due to meet Ismail Haniyeh, the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, in Gaza City on Saturday night for talks to sort out the increasing numbers of difficulties between Hamas and Fatah. – Guardian Unlimited Â