Acting Minister of Finance, Information Minister Sameer Abu Aisheh announced today that health sector employees in the West Bank began receiving the second part of their November salaries on Thursday. Payment of Gaza employees, Abu Aisheh confirmed would begin today. All employees of this sector returned to their workplaces as of today, Saturday, in accordance with an agreement reached between the Ministry of Finance and health sector labor unions.

Health employees have been part of the 160,000-strong civil servant sector that has not been paid their complete salaries for the past nine months following the economic siege imposed on the Hamas government after its formation last March. A comprehensive strike among government employees in protest of not being paid their salaries began at the beginning of September.

Abu Aisheh also said employees in the judiciary have been given part of their salaries and have also returned to their workplaces today.

Meanwhile, members of the Palestinian security forces took to the streets in protests Saturday morning in Khan Younis and Rafah, demanding they be paid their salaries. Protestors closed off the Bani Suheileh roundabout on the main Salah Eddin Street, lighting tires and barring traffic from crossing.

The demonstrators also called for the formation of a national unity government to bring an end to the economic, political and social crises suffered by the entire people.

On that note, Hamas politburo chief Khaled Masha’al said during a PFLP festival in the Palestine Refugee Camp in Damascus that Hamas still strives for the creation of a national unity government but according to Palestinian and not US standards. He said all Palestinian factions are currently in consensus over the establishment of a Palestinian state on lands occupied in 1967 and that if the United States and Israel really want to stop the bloodshed in the region, they should jump at the opportunity because future Palestinian generations will not be so conceding.

Both Hamas and Fateh maintain their commitment to national unity government negotiations but have yet to overcome the major differences blocking such a formation. A major sticking point between the two major factions has reportedly been who will claim the most crucial ministries, including the interior and finance ministries.