Fatah loyalists block Gaza City roads

Angry protesters blocked the commercial Omar Mokhtar Street and forced shopowners to shut down, an AFP correspondent said.

Wassafi Batala, an officer in the national security service, said: "We haven't received salaries in six months. Tomorrow is Eid el-Fitr celebration (ending the Muslim holy

month of Ramadan) and we have no money for the feast.

"What can we do? This is the only type of protest that helps."

Shopowners on the usually bustling street said they were forced to close down.

Anwar Helles, who runs a shoeshop said that "state employees, members of Force 17 and all the security services asked us to close because they want their salaries."

Another shopowner said: "Young men passed through all the shops and asked us to close. What can we do? We are afraid."

Members of the presidential Force 17 also erected barricades and set tires ablaze on arteries in eastern Gaza City.

"We will block all the streets of the Gaza Strip," one protester warned.

The Palestinian territories have been hit in recent weeks by violent clashes between militants loyal to Abbas's Fatah movement and those loyal to the ruling Hamas party.

The fighting has claimed the lives of eight people and wounded more than 100.

On Friday, gunmen opened fire near prime minister Ismail Haniya's convoy, causing no injuries.

The 160,000 or so Palestinian Authority employees have not received their full salaries since Brussels and Washington froze direct aid when the radical Hamas took office in March, citing its refusal to recognize Israel, renounce violence and abide by previous peace agreements.

Most civil servants have been on an open-ended protest strike since September 2.

Since Hamas's landslide victory in the January general elections, more than 30 people have been killed in internecine clashes across the Palestinian territories.

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