PA sends 6,145 civil servants in Gaza to early retirement, as part of its feud with Hamas
Headline: "The [PA] government decides to make 6,145 employees take an early pension in the southern districts"
"The [PA] national unity government, in its weekly meeting today (Tuesday) [July 4, 2017], decided to make 6,145 employees in the southern districts (the Gaza Strip) [parentheses in source] take an early pension. Official [PA] Government Spokesperson Yusuf Al-Mahmoud explained that the government emphasized that this step, the steps that preceded it, and every other step likely to be taken in this framework are temporary steps, [whose cancellation] depends on Hamas abandoning the rift [with Fatah]…
The official spokesman said that the national condition to ending the rift is the implementation of [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas' vision: To dismantle what is called the Managing Committee (a sort of shadow government set up by Hamas in Gaza to administer the region –Ed.), to allow the national unity government to fulfill all of its roles in the Gaza Strip in accordance with the national agreement, and to prepare for general elections. The government also guaranteed in its meeting that it would reverse all of the steps it has taken if Hamas reverses the steps of disengagement [from the West Bank]… The government emphasized that the Hamas Movement collects hundreds of millions of [Israeli] shekels a month and does not return them to the public coffers, while the [PA] government is allocating more than 450 million shekels a month for the southern districts."
"The [PA] national unity government, in its weekly meeting today (Tuesday) [July 4, 2017], decided to make 6,145 employees in the southern districts (the Gaza Strip) [parentheses in source] take an early pension. Official [PA] Government Spokesperson Yusuf Al-Mahmoud explained that the government emphasized that this step, the steps that preceded it, and every other step likely to be taken in this framework are temporary steps, [whose cancellation] depends on Hamas abandoning the rift [with Fatah]…
The official spokesman said that the national condition to ending the rift is the implementation of [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas' vision: To dismantle what is called the Managing Committee (a sort of shadow government set up by Hamas in Gaza to administer the region –Ed.), to allow the national unity government to fulfill all of its roles in the Gaza Strip in accordance with the national agreement, and to prepare for general elections. The government also guaranteed in its meeting that it would reverse all of the steps it has taken if Hamas reverses the steps of disengagement [from the West Bank]… The government emphasized that the Hamas Movement collects hundreds of millions of [Israeli] shekels a month and does not return them to the public coffers, while the [PA] government is allocating more than 450 million shekels a month for the southern districts."