Strike row over Gaza aid

Britain has warned the European Commission and the Palestinian Authority that it wants to prevent its humanitarian funding being swallowed by an increasingly damaging power struggle in Gaza.

The Department for International Development is trying to work out how to disburse the second £15 million ($39 million) tranche of £30 million earmarked in July by Prime Minister Gordon Brown for aid to the Palestinians without it being used to offset the impact of paying salaries of health and education employees on strike in Gaza.

The problem has been exacerbated by a decision by Fatah union leaders representing teachers and health workers to continue until the end of the year a strike which some international observers believe has harmed Gaza medical patients and schoolchildren while failing in its objective of weakening Fatah's political rival, Hamas. Britain has made it clear it wants British taxpayers' money to be used to meet humanitarian needs.

One of the most dramatic impacts of the strike has been a drop of more than 75 per cent in the numbers of seriously ill patients being referred to hospitals outside Gaza, because staff that deal with such referrals are not working.

About 50 per cent of teachers have stopped work since the beginning of the school year in late August, but the Hamas Ministry of Education in Gaza moved swiftly to recruit and pay 3000 recent graduates to replace the strikers.

The strike was called over the rotation of a minority of head teachers to other schools.

- INDEPENDENT