Posted on 04/13/2006 5:13:54 AM PDT by nuconvert
Gunmen storm Palestinian PM’s office
(AFP)
13 April 2006
RAMALLAH, West Bank - Around 20 gunmen from the radical Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade on Thursday stormed the Palestinian prime minister’s office in the West Bank town of Ramallah, security sources said.
The militants forced their way into the downtown building in the middle of a video-conference linking senior civil servants based in the West Bank town with their counterparts in Gaza City, the security sources and witnesses told AFP.
Although Ramallah serves as the administrative capital of the Palestinian Authority, new prime minister Ismail Haniya has had to operate out of Gaza as a result of travel restrictions imposed on the new Hamas-led administration.
A group of Al-Aqsa followers also took over and forced the closure of the nearby offices of the transport ministry where they demanded a resumption of the distribution of permits to enable the families of people killed in the ongoing Palestinian uprising to travel free by taxi.
Al-Aqsa followers, nominally loyal to the former ruling Fatah faction, have raided government buildings with an increasing frequency in recent months to demand jobs and financial benefits.
The Palestinian Authority is in the grip of an acute financial crisis at the moment because of cuts in direct aid payments by both the European Union and United States.
Most of the 140,000 civil servants in the Gaza Strip and West Bank have not received their March salaries as a result.
We really need to post a sticky here for a winner take all lottery.
How long will ABBAS remain alive?
I know I would.
L
The Palestinans plan to live on handouts forever without working or contributing to society.
They've been doing that for more than half a century.
This isn't Abbas, the President, but Haniya, the prime minister.
Now we can start two lotteries.
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