As the school year began on Saturday, civil servants from public institutions and teachers went on the biggest general strike in protest against wage shortage since the creation of Palestinian National Authority (PNA) .

The unpaid employees accused Hamas, which leads the government, of being responsible for lack of international fund to pay wages due to its policy not to meet international demands of renounce violence and recognize Israel.

The governing Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), in return, has accused unions behind the strike of illegality.

Unofficial estimates say people commitment with the strike was about 80 percent on the first day of back-to-school.

However, lines of students were still seen on Gaza streets heading to schools amid calls by Prime Minister Ismail Haneya to suspend the strike.

Inside the schools, not all teachers welcomed the pupils. Only those who support Hamas were willing to give class lessons, but in most schools, Hamas teachers were a few.

The future of more than 1 million students in the Gaza Strip and the West Banks remains unclear.

On Saturday, the union of government employees, termed illegal by Hamas, released a fresh call for the 165,000 employees to abide by the strike for not receiving salaries since more than six months.

Meanwhile, the government tries to redress schools with volunteer teachers supporting the Hamas, sources closed to the cabinet said.

The sources added that this decision was taken after talks inside the government and the ruling party, and will come to effect if the strike lasted for one week.

Workers of almost all public foundations also went on strike as well. On Friday, Hamas supporters, along with their prime minister Haneya, organized a voluntary campaign to clean out Gaza streets which were polluted by piles of waste as municipal workers were on strike.

Source: Xinhua