[Onthebarricades] PALESTINE: "Internal" strikes and protests, Sept-Oct 07

[Andy]

*  Gaza municipal workers strike, blame Abbas
*  Municipal workers protest
*  Doctors suspend strike during Ramadan
*  Palestinian teachers strike against six-day week
*  Teachers, lawyers respond to PLO strike call
*  20 arrested as Palestinian police attack Hebron campus rally
*  General strike shuts down Gaza businesses, schools
*  Hamas forces clash with protesters in Gaza
*  Gunmen storm prison

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25704

Gaza City municipal workers declare strike, blame Fayyad and Abbas for 
cutting off pay
Date: 05 / 10 / 2007  Time:  15:03

Gaza - Ma'an - Frustrated after months of working without pay, employees at 
the Gaza City have declared a strike to begin Saturday.

The workers issued a statement on Friday blaming Prime Minister Salam Fayyad 
and President Mahmoud Abbas for cutting off their salaries.

The workers have demanded a full month's pay and a percentage of debts owed 
to them from nine months of unpaid work. The workers have set a deadline of 
the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.


http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25597

Gaza municipal council employees appeal to PA for salaries
Date: 29 / 09 / 2007  Time:  10:17


Palestinians burning rubbish during
a municipal strike in August (MaanImages)
Gaza - Ma'an - Employees at the municipal council of Gaza City on Saturday 
appealed to the Palestinian Authority, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, to 
provide urgent aid to pay the salaries of around two-thousand employees.

The employees have not received salaries for eight months.

The municipality issued a statement calling on the Palestinian Authority to 
include the two-thousand employees of Gaza municipal council within the 
public sector employees who receive salaries from the PA.

The statement said that these salaries would be equal to around 0.5% of the 
total salaries of public sector employees.


http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/904442.html

Last update - 14:24 17/09/2007


Gaza doctors suspend strike until holy month of Ramadan ends

By The Associated Press

Gaza doctors on Monday suspended a month-old slowdown, which has crippled 
the coastal strip's medical system, until the holy month of Ramadan ends in 
mid-October.

Hospital doctors launched the slowdown in August after Gaza's Hamas rulers 
arrested a prominent physician allied with the rival Fatah movement of 
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

On orders from Abbas' West Bank government, which pays their salaries, most 
doctors shortened their daytime hospital schedule to three hours a day, 
receiving patients afterward in expensive private clinics, though emergency 
services continued to operate throughout the day.

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Hamas later shut down more than 25 private clinics, putting Gaza patients at 
the mercy of the rivalry between the two factions.

On Monday, the chairman of the doctors' union in Gaza, former Health 
Minister Zehmi Wahidi of Fatah, said the slowdown strike would be called off 
temporarily.

"With Israel retaliating against militant fire from Gaza, doctors have 
decided to suspend the slowdown as a goodwill gesture for the holy month of 
Ramadan," Wahidi said.

There was no immediate reaction from Hamas. The Islamic group vanquished 
Fatah forces in the strip in June and has ruled there since, while Abbas 
governs with his own cabinet from the West Bank town of Ramallah.


http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25083

First day of school cancelled in the West Bank due to teachers' strike
Date: 01 / 09 / 2007  Time:  12:09

Bethlehem - Ma'an - Palestinian children were due to begin their first day 
back at school on Saturday, however in the West Bank, school was suspended 
due to a teachers' union strike.

The teachers are protesting a government decision to reduce weekends to one 
day per week and end having Saturday as a day-off.

In Tulkarem, in the northern West Bank, Ma'an's correspondent reported that 
the streets were teeming with students returning from school after finding 
their teachers absent from the classrooms.

Media coordinator of the teachers' union, Nasaan Awwad, said that all 
teachers in the West Bank were committed to the strike.

Awwad said that the strike will continue every Saturday until the caretaker 
government revokes its decision to order teachers to work a six-day week.

The deposed Palestinian government in Gaza also decided to also increase 
working days and have one day-off per week, in order to keep pace with PM 
Salam Fayyad's government.

However, teachers in Gaza appear to agree with the move and no strike was 
held in the strip


http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25226

Teachers, lawyers walk out in Gaza; Hamas government opposes strike order
Date: 09 / 09 / 2007  Time:  11:11


Children sit on the steps of school
closed due to the strike in Gaza city.
[Ma'anImages]
Gaza - Ma'an - Numerous schools in the Gaza Strip were closed Sunday as 
teachers refused to work in response to call for a general strike from Fatah 
and other factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

The factions called for the strike after Hamas-affiliated security forces 
attacked demonstrators participating in outdoor prayer services Friday.

Ma'an's Gaza correspondent reported that many students did not attend school 
in both cities and refugee camps.

By mid-day, however, it appeared that not all workers complied with the 
strike, reflecting Hamas' continued strength in the Gaza Strip.

Lawyers in Gaza also refused to work, paralyzing much of the judicial 
system.

The lawyers' syndicate released a statement saying, "This comment came as a 
condemnation of the crimes, the violations that are committed by the 
Palestinian peoples right in Gaza, and the violation of rights and public 
freedoms and especially freedom of worship and aggression against lawyers."

Gaza's government objects

In Saturday the dismissed Hamas-led government of the Gaza Strip stated 
their opposition to the strike order.

"The strike is part of a plot aimed to resume the state of chaos in Gaza 
Strip and push the citizens towards rioting for the benefit of narrow 
factional interests at the expense of the public Palestinian interests," a 
government statement said.

The government, headed by deposed Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh, warned that 
the strike would have negative repercussions for Palestinian society, 
specifically in the education sector, in light of the bad academic results 
of last year.

"The strike's may result in dangers on the unity of the Palestinian society, 
and creates more tension and dispute in the Palestinian arena which could 
allure the Israeli occupation to commit more criminal acts against the 
Palestinians as they did last week in the central and southern Gaza Strip," 
the government's statement added.

The de facto government also argued for the need to keep hospitals out of 
political disputes.


http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25233

20 Students beaten and arrested as PA security forces disperse students at 
Hebron University
Date: 09 / 09 / 2007  Time:  13:06

Hebron - Ma'an - Clashes erupted at Hebron University Sunday as Fatah-allied 
Palestinian Authority security services attempted broke up an outdoor rally 
held by Hamas-affiliated students, the university administration said. The 
students were protesting a planned tuition hike.

The university administration would not allow the gathering on campus 
because classes were not in session Sunday. The Hamas-affiliated students 
then decided to hold their meeting outside. Security forces arrived, 
"dispersing" the students with clubs.

The Associated Press (AP) reported 20 students "were beaten and arrested."

The AP also reported that the security forces "forbade journalists from 
taking pictures, confiscating the camera of one photographer." The report 
also said some journalists were beaten.

At the time this report was published, a meeting was underway between 
university officials and the commander of the security services in Hebron, 
Samih Seifi.

University officials accused the Hamas-affiliated students of staging the 
meeting for 'political purposes.'


http://www.albawaba.com/en/countries/Palestine/216685

Gaza: General strike to protest Hamas practices

Posted: 09-09-2007 , 12:14 GMT


Defying Hamas, scores of schools and shops closed their doors in Gaza on 
Sunday, observing a Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)-called strike to 
protest violence by the ruling Islamist movement. In the Rimal neighbourhood 
of Gaza City, most store fronts were shuttered and only a handful of shops 
open, AFP reported.

Main streets in Gaza city such as the Omar al-Mokhtar saw a complete 
commercial strike.
The universities of Al-Azhar, Al-Quds and Al-Aqsa were closed, as were the 
majority of state schools in the Strip. Schools operated by the UN Relief 
and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) remained open. A senior 
education official in Gaza told news agencies that the strike included 77 
percent of the governmental schools, despite the fact that a large number of 
students headed Sunday morning for their schools.

The Hamas-dominated Islamic university did not abide by the PLO's call.

The PLO called on Friday for a one-day general strike to protest the use of 
force by Hamas paramilitaries in dispersing rallies which the Islamist 
movement had not authorized.

At Shifa Hospital, the Strip's largest, only the emergency services were 
working, a doctor told AFP. The hospital has witnessed several work 
slowdowns in recent months, as staff protested Hamas firing senior hospital 
administrators who are members of Fatah.

Hamas brushed off Sunday's action. "The disturbances are partial," spokesman 
Fawzi Barhum said. "I don't think that participation in the strike is large. 
Many schools are open. Businesses are functioning, as is the health sector.

"This strike violates the law and public liberties... It is preventing the 
normal functioning of daily life in the Gaza Strip," he said, adding that 
Hamas "has the means to know who is cooperating with the Ramallah gang and 
answering its calls."


© 2007 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)


http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L07882358.htm

Palestinian govt likens Gaza clashes to Intifada
07 Sep 2007 18:08:51 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA, Sept 7 (Reuters) - The Western-backed Palestinian government said 
clashes on Friday between its supporters and Hamas security forces in the 
Gaza Strip marked the start of an Intifada against the Islamists ruling the 
territory.
Wielding clubs, Hamas security men beat protesters, hurled stun grenades and 
fired in the air to disperse open-air prayers the rival Fatah faction held 
in the Gaza Strip in defiance of a ban on such gatherings.
Medical officials said 20 people, some with gunshot wounds, were treated in 
hospital.
"What we saw in Gaza today was the beginning of a third Intifada, against 
the Hamas occupation," Palestinian Information Minister Reyad al-Maliki told 
a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "We bless this 
uprising."
Palestinians launched what they describe as uprisings against Israeli 
occupation in 1987 and 2000. Hamas took over the Gaza Strip three months ago 
after routing Fatah forces in a brief civil war.
"They are chasing and beating and arresting us as if they were occupation 
soldiers," said one young Fatah supporter in Gaza's Maghazi refugee camp, 
likening Hamas forces to Israelis.
The street showdowns had been widely expected after Hamas said it would not 
allow Fatah to conduct "political prayers" outdoors on the Muslim rest day.
The Friday gatherings have become focal points for clashes between Hamas's 
Executive Force security wing that polices the territory, and members of 
Fatah, once the dominant faction in the Gaza Strip and now holding sway only 
in the West Bank.
Responding to the latest confrontations, a Fatah-led meeting of factions in 
the Palestine Liberation Organisation in Gaza called for a general strike in 
the territory on Sunday and demanded Hamas apologise for the actions of its 
security forces.
JOURNALISTS DETAINED
The Executive Force took away three Palestinian journalists -- two working 
for Japanese television and the third man a photographer for the Associated 
Press -- and roughed up five other reporters during Friday's protests, 
witnesses said.
The three detained journalists were later released, their employers said. 
The Jerusalem-based Foreign Press Association demanded an end to a 
"coordinated ... policy of harassment" of the media.
The Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip also seized three members of 
Fatah's local leadership and an adviser to West Bank-based President Mahmoud 
Abbas, saying they had instigated "chaos". The three Fatah men were released 
later in the day, said a spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.
Speaking at a spot in Gaza City where Fatah members gathered for weekly 
worship, Youssef al-Zahar, a Hamas security officer, told reporters the 
movement was "trying to prevent people from using prayers to incite chaos 
and sabotage public property".
In Ramallah, Abbas said: "We are witnessing another new cycle of crimes 
committed by the putschist forces against our people in the Gaza Strip".
The Western-backed leader has described Hamas's routing of his Fatah forces 
in Gaza in fighting in June as a coup. Hamas has said Abbas acted unlawfully 
in subsequently dismissing a unity government it formed with Fatah in March. 
(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah)

 http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25593

Gunmen attack Junaid prison in Nablus
Date: 29 / 09 / 2007  Time:  09:25

Nablus - Ma'an - Anonymous gunmen on Friday night opened fire towards Junaid 
Central Prison, in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

Consequently, the Palestinians security services have announced a state of 
alert and Governor of Nablus, Jamal Muhaisin, has accused Hamas of providing 
illegal groups with weapons to provoke conflict.

Palestinian security sources reported that three cars of armed assailants 
opened fire at Junaid, which comprises the offices of the Palestinian 
security services and a jail, in which several Hamas loyalists are 
incarcerated.

The Palestinian security returned fire, but the gunmen fled.

There have been no reported casualties from the attack.

Palestinian security has opened an investigation into the incident.

Muhaisin said that the Palestinian security services in Nablus are aware of 
Hamas members who provide weapons for dissidents, urging them to create 
chaos and blackmail businessmen in the area.

The Hamas movement denied that its members opened fire at Junaid prison, or 
that Hamas supplied weapons to dissidents in order to incite violence in the 
West Bank. 
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