GAZA CITY, 1 October 2006 — Unrest in the Gaza Strip reached a flash point yesterday as Palestinian Authority workers took to the streets protesting against unpaid wages a day before the start of the latest round of diplomacy aimed at reviving the Middle East peace process.
Mere hours after receiving loans and advanced payments for long overdue salaries, hundreds of Palestinian security officers took to the streets of Gaza yesterday as part of a large demonstration blocking the main roads in the coastal salient. The demonstrators set fire to wheels and closed several major junctions in the Gaza Strip, firing shots in the air and demanding complete salaries they had not received for nearly half a year.
The protests led to several chaotic outbursts throughout the central Gaza Strip. A militant threw a hand grenade at a group of protesting officers after they refused him passage through a junction to Gaza city. Five security members were wounded.
The demonstrations came as United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice prepared to embark for the region in a new Middle East tour aimed at bringing peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians back on track.
Rice is slated to arrive in Israel on Wednesday for meetings with Israelis and Palestinians, and will also be visiting Egypt.
Ahead of Rice’s arrival in the region, Jordan’s King Abdallah and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak were set to hold talks in Cairo.
In Rafah city, unpaid employees forced a number of stores to close. The employees threw stones at the car of culture minister in the Hamas-led government, Attalla Abu Al-Sebah. The government, hampered by Western sanctions and lack of foreign aid, condemned the attack against Abu Al-Sebah.
“Such immoral behavior by mobs shows the level of defiance by some of those who use violence against the ministers and lawmakers,” Cabinet spokesman Ghazi Hamad said in a statement.
Hamas also condemned the protests by the security officers, calling them a contribution to the Western and Zionist efforts to topple the Hamas-led government. In a statement, Hamas called for Interior Minister Said Siam to take legal actions against the “trouble-makers.” Meanwhile, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired a rocket into Israel yesterday, wounding two Israelis, a military official said.
The homemade rocket hit a house in Sderot, a town with 24,000 inhabitants in the Negev desert, just to the east of the Gaza Strip, said the official.
Since the start of the Palestinian intifada in September 2000, more than 1,000 such rockets have hit Sderot, claiming the lives of five people, including three children, and causing dozens of injuries. Israel warned it would react strongly to the launching of rockets into its territory from the Gaza Strip, according to a senior member of the Israeli Cabinet.
“The government must re-examine its policy with respect to the Gaza Strip because of the continuation of the shooting” of rockets, said Public Safety Minister Avi Dichter.
Meanwhile, Israeli Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, a former defense minister, told army radio yesterday that Israel should “liquidate” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah “at the first opportunity,”.
“We must liquidate Nasrallah at the first opportunity, because he is the embodiment of evil, not just for us but for Muslims and Christians too,” Ben Eliezer said.
The minister is a member of the center-left Labor Party, the main coalition partner of the centrist Kadima formation of Ehud Olmert.
— With input from agencies
