Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' emergency government paid Palestinian Authority workers, excluding some 19,000 who report to Hamas, their first full wages in 17 months yesterday.

It was able to make the payments because Israel, the United States and other Western powers ended an economic embargo of the Palestinian Authority after Hamas seized Gaza last month and Abbas fired the government led by the Islamist group.

"I will use the money to pay my debts," said Falah Samaam, a Health Ministry employee in Gaza whose monthly wage is 1,300 shekels (US$310).

Dozens of workers formed long lines in the morning in front of banks in the Hamas-controlled territory to withdraw money the government deposited in their accounts.

In the occupied West Bank, where Abbas' Fatah faction is dominant and the standard of living higher, lines at the banks were thinner. "The salaries are in the (employees') accounts but they are at work," said a bank official.

Nearly 140,000 Palestinian Authority workers, including tens of thousands in Gaza, were slated to receive their salaries, according to Western diplomats.

Senior sources in Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's office said 19,000 Hamas-appointed workers were not paid.

Some 12,000 other employees from Fatah and other factions were also excluded because they were hired after Hamas came to power in a January 2006 election and their salaries were not included in the last annual budget in 2005, the sources said.

Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, the prime minister dismissed by Abbas, said Fayyad's decision to exclude some employees went against "the minimal rights of Palestinian citizens" and would fuel resentment between Gaza and the West Bank.

He did not say whether his administration in Gaza would take any steps to pay those workers.

Hamas managed to bring tens of millions of dollars into Gaza last year despite the Western aid embargo, and the group could try similar means to overcome restrictions imposed by Abbas' 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 been asked by their commanders in the West Bank to stay at home as a condition for receiving their salaries.

(China Daily via agencies July 5, 2007)