[IsraelTimes] Prodding Hamas, a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",, Abbas fires 6,145 PA employees in GazooRamallah spokesperson says measure part of ’national strategy’ to force terror group to cede control of Strip.The Paleostinian Authority on Tuesday "sent into early retirement" 6,145 employees in the Gazoo Strip, declaring the move part of a strategy to force the Hamas terror group to cede control of the Paleostinian enclave.
"This measure, previous measures, and any other measures that may be taken in this framework, are temporary, and are connected to Hamas abandoning [Paleostinian] division," the spokesperson for the government in Ramalllah, Yusuf al-Mahmoud, said in a statement to the official PA news site Wafa.
Since April, the PA has been carrying out a series of tough measures aimed at forcing Hamas to cede control of the coastal enclave, which it took over in a violent conflict with Fatah in 2007. The measures have included reducing the flow of electricity by 35 percent, and slashing government salaries and medical aid provided to the Strip.
Mahmoud said the firing of the employees was part of the "national strategy to end the division and implement President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
’s vision to dissolve the so-called Administrative Committee" and allow the Paleostinian government to assume its responsibilities in the Strip and prepare for general elections.
Hamas formed the Administrative Committee in March in order to widen its governance in the Strip.
The PA government spokesperson added that Hamas collects "hundreds of millions of shekels monthly, which it does not return to the government treasury, while at the same time, the PA allocates more than NIS 450 million per month" to Gazoo.
In early April, Abbas reduced by one-third the salaries of tens of thousands of employees of the pre-Hamas government in Gazoo who had been paid for the last decade on condition that they stay home.
In a statement Tuesday, Hamas lashed out at the decision to fire the employees, calling it "immoral, inhuman and having nothing to do with the division."
The terror group asserted the measure was part of a plan by Abbas to "purge the Paleostinian issue in line with the Zionist-American project."
The ongoing salary payments had been intended to ensure loyalty to Abbas, but inadvertently also propped up Hamas by injecting cash into Gazoo’s fragile economy.
The announcement of the decision to fire thousands of employees comes amid developments in Gazoo that point to a new government being formed between Hamas and Abbas’s rival in the Fatah party, Mohammad Dahlan.
Dahlan is a former Fatah leader and strongman in Gazoo, who was expelled from the Paleostinian territories by Abbas in 2011. He was also once considered persona non grata by Hamas and ousted in the coup that put the Islamist terror group in power in the Strip 10 years ago.
But according to Hamas leader Ahmad Yusuf, following meetings between Dahlan, Hamas leaders and Egyptian intelligence in early June, a reconciliation deal is in the works.
Yusuf, who spoke to the Jordanian daily al-Ghad on Monday, said the deal between Dahlan and Hamas would see the establishment of a new "management committee" of Gazoo.
Yusuf added that Samir Mashrawi -- considered Dahlan’s right-hand man -- is expected to return to the enclave in the coming days.