Deputy Palestinian PM says gov't could be disbanded

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Apr 30 (Reuters) The deputy Palestinian prime minister, a Fatah leader, said today that a six-week-old unity government led by Hamas should be disbanded if a Western embargo is not lifted within three months.

Azzam al-Ahmad's comments, made to public school teachers holding a one-day strike over unpaid wages, were the first of their kind by a leader of the unity government that Hamas Islamists formed with President Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah faction.

''If the economic and national siege on the Palestinian people is not lifted in three months, this government should leave,'' Ahmad told hundreds of teachers after they tried to storm government offices in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

''I do not see any justification to continue as ministers if the siege goes on,'' he said after a meeting of the unity government's cabinet later in the day.

Police used batons to push back protesting teachers at the Ramallah offices of the Palestinian prime minister. Some of the teachers were hit by the police but none sustained serious injuries.

The teachers had earlier tried to storm the offices of Education Minister Naser al-Shaer, but he was not there. ''Shaer get out,'' they chanted.

The protest and Ahmad's comments put a spotlight on the difficulties the unity government faces in meeting the expectations of Palestinians who have not received their full wages since Hamas came to power in March 2006.

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader, said last week that the militant group would reassess its options in one to two months if sanctions remained in place. But Haniyeh did not say that disbanding the government was one of those options.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, in an interview published today, warned that Israel could face another Palestinian uprising unless conditions in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank improved.

Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad plans to start paying partial salaries to government workers at the start of each month, but union leaders say that falls short of the government's promises.

Government employees' union chief Bassam Zakarneh has threatened a new round of work stoppages, including another one-day ''warning'' strike on Wednesday, to demand full wages and back pay.

Hamas formed a unity government with once-dominant Fatah last month in a bid to end internal fighting and ease a year-old economic embargo. But tensions between Hamas and Fatah remain high, particularly in the Gaza Strip, and a Western ban on direct aid to the Palestinian Authority remains in place.

Ahmad was meeting in Ramallah with a European delegations when the teachers' protest broke out.

Despite appeals from Fayyad and Abbas, the European Union's aid commissioner said last week that EU aid will continue to bypass the Palestinian government until it recognises Israel, renounces violence and abides by interim peace deals as demanded by the Quartet of Middle East mediators and Israel.

In an earlier sign of friction within the unity government, Interior Minister Hani al-Qawasmi submitted his resignation to Haniyeh to protest problems instituting a security plan for Gaza. But Haniyeh convinced Qawasmi to stay on in the job, at least temporarily.

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