Hamas urges Gaza workers to protest cut-off in wages

GAZA, July 3 (Reuters) Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called today for public protests against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's emergency government over its refusal to pay salaries to workers hired by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

''Press ahead with your campaign until the wrongdoing is corrected,'' Haniyeh, who serves as prime minister of the Hamas-led government that Abbas dissolved last month, told hundreds of public sector employees outside his Gaza office.

Abbas dismissed Haniyeh's government and appointed an emergency administration under his own control in the occupied West Bank after Hamas seized the Gaza Strip by force on June 14.

Abbas's emergency government, headed by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, plans to pay all Palestinian Authority workers -- excluding up to 23,000 who report to Hamas -- their first full wages in 17 months starting on Wednesday.

Fayyad will be able to pay full salaries for the first time because Israel, the United States and other major Western powers ended their crippling economic embargo of the Palestinian Authority after Abbas sacked Haniyeh's government last month.

Economic sanctions remain in place against Hamas in its Gaza stronghold. Haniyeh has refused to recognise Abbas's order disbanding his government.

Fayyad's payments will go to nearly 140,000 Palestinian Authority workers, including tens of thousands in Gaza, according to Western diplomats.

But up to 23,000 workers hired under Islamist Hamas after it won January 2006 parliamentary elections will be excluded from Fayyad's payroll, said an aide to Haniyeh.

Haniyeh said Fayyad's decision to exclude those employees went against ''the minimal rights of Palestinian citizens'' and would fuel resentment between Gaza, controlled by Hamas, and the West Bank, dominated by Abbas's secular Fatah.

Haniyeh did not say whether his administration in Gaza would do anything to pay workers excluded by Fayyad, or spell out what form their protests should take.

Hamas succeeded in bringing tens of millions of dollars into Gaza last year despite the Western aid embargo, and the Islamist group could try to use similar means to overcome restrictions imposed by Abbas's emergency government.

Fayyad has pledged to pay civil servants who return to work in Gaza so long as they follow the emergency government's instructions -- and not those of Hamas.

Members of the Fatah-dominated security services in Gaza have also been asked by their commanders in the West Bank to stay at home as a condition for receiving their salaries.

Fatah does not want its forces to follow orders from Hamas, or get involved in further clashes with Hamas.

Among those who will be excluded from Fayyad's payroll are nearly 6,000 members of Hamas's elite Executive Force, which played a key role in the fighting that routed Fatah in Gaza.

REUTERS GT RK2048