Gaza banks reopen after Palestinian wages dispute

GAZA CITY/OCCUPIED — Gaza’s banks reopened Wednesday after being closed for six days by Hamas forces, an official said, in a dispute that is the first challenge to a new Palestinian unity government.

“All automatic telling machines at bank branches in the Gaza Strip are working again today,” said a statement from Jihad Al Wazir, head of the Palestinian monetary authority, the Palestinians’ central bank.

Hamas forces withdrew from outside banks, where they had been preventing the use of ATMs.

All banking services would be available on Thursday morning, Wazir said.

Hamas demanded Thursday that the Palestinian Authority take employees of the disbanded Gaza government onto its payroll, after the PA’s Gaza-based staff received their salaries but their Hamas counterparts went empty-handed.

After scuffles broke out at ATMs, Hamas security forces closed the banks.

The row over pay was the first hitch in a reconciliation deal between Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organisation that began with the formation of a new unity government.

The PA has so far refused to pay Hamas’ 50,000 civil servants, who are not registered as its employees because they were appointed after the Islamist movement ousted bitter rivals Fateh — which dominates the PLO — from Gaza in 2007.

Although Hamas allowed banks to reopen Wednesday, it continued to levy financial pressure by confiscating a number of card machines from Gaza shops and supermarkets so customers could not pay by credit card.

Meanwhile, Palestinian fighters in Gaza fired a rocket Wednesday which struck southern Israel without causing any casualties or damage, Israeli officials said.

A statement from the military said the rocket hit the Eshkol region, with a police spokesman telling AFP it caused no damage.

Some 140 projectiles fired by fighters in the Gaza Strip have hit southern Israel since the start of 2014, according to the military.

On June 1, two rockets from Gaza hit Israel, following which the Israeli air force launched raids on the Palestinian enclave.