Since last week, 15,000 public sector workers across the Gaza Strip's five biggest towns have walked out in protest at unpaid wages.
Palestinian workers
The strike began on Saturday, when workers in Gaza City walked out over 6 months of unpaid wages, and since then this has grown to include 15,000 people.
The International Herald Tribune reported:
"Mountains of garbage piled up across Gaza on Saturday and acrid smoke billowed from burning refuse bins as a municipal workers' strike over unpaid salaries spread to the territory's five biggest towns, in the widest sign of public dissatisfaction with the Palestinians' new coalition government.
The strike began last week in Gaza City, where workers walked off the job to protest six months of overdue wages. By Saturday, the walkout's reach had extended to encompass 15,000 workers there and in Khan Younis, Rafah, Deir el-Balah and Jebaliya.
Government workers across Gaza and the West Bank have been only partly paid since Islamic Hamas militants took control of the Cabinet last March, provoking bruising international sanctions meant to force it to recognize Israel and renounce violence. The sanctions have remained largely intact even after Hamas formed a coalition government last month with the more moderate Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who seeks a peace agreement with Israel.
A strike organizer, Sakr Hamdan, appealed to the government to include municipal workers in an emergency aid project funded by the European Union, which is helping to pay health and education workers.
"We are sorry to see Gaza's streets full of garbage, but since everyone has forgotten us, we have no choice," Hamdan said in a statement to the press.
The tons of garbage and burning of trash in bins to make room for more refuse only added to Gaza's already widespread environmental problems. Less than three weeks ago, a sewage reservoir in northern Gaza collapsed, killing five people in a cascade of waste and mud that swamped a village.
Gaza City Mayor Majed Abu Ramadan cautioned that an environmental catastrophe in Gaza loomed, and said his administration was making ongoing efforts to persuade municipal workers to end their strike.
"The situation is very dangerous" Abu Ramadan said."
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