Palestinian workers receive partial pay in Gaza

[Englander]

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA, June 19 (Reuters) - Palestinian government workers lined up at post offices in Gaza on Monday to receive cash that members of the Hamas-led administration hand-carried into the territory to sidestep a Western aid boycott.

"This is only an injection to put us to sleep and then wake up in pain again," said a government employee who gave his name only as Abu Abdallah.

He was one of 90,000 workers on the Palestinian Authority payroll allocated $300 as partial payment after more than three months without wages.

Economic hardship has deepened in the occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip since Western donor nations froze aid to the Palestinian government after Hamas, an Islamic militant group dedicated to Israel's destruction, came to power in March.

Fearing a humanitarian crisis, The European Union is trying to set up a mechanism to distribute aid directly to some Palestinians, bypassing the Hamas-led Authority.

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