Palestinians see Gaza peace dividend pass them by

Life began to look up for Gaza’s Palestinians when reconciliation between its Hamas Islamist rulers and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority in October brought a drop in crippling prices.

Three months on, discount stickers still adorn goods from clothes to cars but few of the two million people in the enclave blockaded by Israel are buying.

Although Hamas handed administrative control to the Western-backed PA, which lifted tax surcharges Hamas had imposed on businesses, making room for the price cuts, the rival leaderships are still arguing.

The result is that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads the PA, has not reversed a 30 percent wage cut he imposed in April on 60,000 civil servants who stayed on the PA’s payroll when the authority lost control of Gaza to Hamas in 2007.

Read the whole story from Reuters.

Featured image courtesy of AP