Rivalry deepens Palestinian crisis

[Englander]

By Jeremy Bowen
BBC Middle East Editor, Gaza

Gaza always feels like a pressure cooker. How could it be anything else? It is one of the most overcrowded places in the world.


Getting on for a million and a half people live in a strip of land around 50km long and 9-12km wide.

But in this claustrophobic, fragile place, brutalised by getting on for 40 years of a violent Israeli occupation, the temperature is rising.

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The Palestinian Authority has not been able to create an independent state since it was established by the Oslo agreements 13 years ago, but it has created 165,000 or so jobs.

Each job pumps money into an extended family and through them into the local economy. The money has come into the PA from foreign aid, tax and customs revenues collected on its behalf by Israel and from bank loans, all of which have now been stopped.

So since mid-March, the PA has not paid its staff, which means everyone from teachers to doctors to the men who clean the streets - and the men who carry the guns.

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