 RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian civil servants who have received practically no pay for the past six months were on Thursday paid a 340-dollar advance each, officials said.
| If the civil servants are owed money, why is this called an 'advance'? |
Interim finance minister Samir Abu Eisheh told a news conference that 1,500 shekels (340 dollars) had been paid into civil servantsÂ’ accounts and that the money could be withdrawn from cash machines by afternoon.
Long seething queues quickly formed outside ATMs at various banks in the West Bank political capital Ramallah, an AFP correspondent said.
| Someone explain to me how an ATM machine survives on the West Bank. |
The more than 160,000 Palestinian Authority employees have received practically no pay since March, as a result of the suspension of direct Western aid and the refusal of banks to transfer Arab donations to government coffers.
Most civil servants have been on an open-ended strike since September 2 to protest against the non-payment of their salaries.
The head of the office of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said the advances had been transferred by the Palestinian Authority presidency thanks to aid money from Arab and Muslim countries that somehow slipped through the borders.
Rafiq al-Husseini told reporters that the presidency, controlled by the so-called moderate Fatah party, had Thursday released 65 million dollars to pay the advances, pensions and benefits for the families of “martyrs and prisoners”. |