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Palestinian Authority Criticized for Referring Thousands of Gaza Employees to Early Retirement

Palestinian employees process data on their laptops at Unit One in Gaza City January 15, 2015. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
Palestinian employees process data on their laptops at Unit One in Gaza City January 15, 2015. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
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Palestinian Authority Criticized for Referring Thousands of Gaza Employees to Early Retirement

Palestinian employees process data on their laptops at Unit One in Gaza City January 15, 2015. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
Palestinian employees process data on their laptops at Unit One in Gaza City January 15, 2015. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

A controversy on Palestinian Authority employees in the Gaza Strip has erupted following a PA decision to offer early retirement to around 7,000 employees.

The Palestinian Ministry of Finance imposed an early retirement program on the employees, the majority of whom work for the ministries of education, health, transportation, social development, and finance.

This prompted the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to renew calls on the PA and the government to put an end to all forms of discrimination among the public sector employees and to suspend all procedures taken against them in Gaza.

The Front denounced the measures, which it said coincides with the worst humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It stressed the urgency of national calls to halt all discrimination policies practiced against the Gaza Strip, describing the new measures as illegal and part of the collective punishment of its people.

The Front also decried statements made by Palestinian Social Affairs Minister Ahmed Majdalani, who said that Gaza laborers have been receiving their salaries for 13 years without working. They can’t be compared to the workers in the West Bank, he added.

Senior Fatah official in Gaza Ibrahim Abu al-Naja sent a letter to the government in Ramallah requesting a clarification of Majdalani’s statement, which he deemed offensive.

Fatah Central Committee member Tawfiq al-Tirawi also criticized the latest decision and highlighted the importance of protecting salaries in Gaza, which preserve the people’s social dignity and provide them with a decent living.

For its part, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights called on the government to adhere to its legal commitments, to assume its responsibilities, and to withdraw the punitive measures imposed on Gaza since March 2017 under the pretext of political and geographical division.

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Drones Drag Sudan War into Dangerous New Territory

Smoke billows after drone strikes by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) targeted the northern port in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, Sudan, Tuesday, May 6, 2025. (AP Photo)
Smoke billows after drone strikes by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) targeted the northern port in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, Sudan, Tuesday, May 6, 2025. (AP Photo)
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Drones Drag Sudan War into Dangerous New Territory

Smoke billows after drone strikes by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) targeted the northern port in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, Sudan, Tuesday, May 6, 2025. (AP Photo)
Smoke billows after drone strikes by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) targeted the northern port in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, Sudan, Tuesday, May 6, 2025. (AP Photo)

Paramilitary drone strikes targeting Sudan's wartime capital have sought to shatter the regular army's sense of security and open a dangerous new chapter in the war, experts say.

Since April 2023, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) group has been at war with the army, which has lately recaptured some territory and dislodged the paramilitaries from the capital Khartoum, said AFP.

The latter appeared to have the upper hand before Sunday, when drone strikes began blasting key infrastructure in Port Sudan, seat of the army-backed government on the Red Sea coast.

With daily strikes on the city since then, the RSF has sought to demonstrate its strength, discredit the army, disrupt its supply lines and project an air of legitimacy, experts believe.

According to Sudanese analyst Kholood Khair, "this is intended to undermine the army's ability to provide safety and security in areas they control", allowing the RSF to expand the war "without physically being there".

For two years, the paramilitaries relied mainly on lightning ground offensives, overwhelming army defenses in brutal campaigns of conquest.

But after losing nearly all of Khartoum in March, the RSF has increasingly turned to long-range air power.

Using weapons the army has hit strategic sites hundreds of kilometers (miles) away from their holdout positions on the capital's outskirts.

Michael Jones, research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, says the RSF's pivot is a matter of both "strategic adaptation" and "if not desperation, then necessity".

Strategic setback

"The loss of Khartoum was both a strategic and symbolic setback," he told AFP.

In response, the RSF needed to broadcast a "message that the war isn't over", according to Sudanese analyst Hamid Khalafallah.

The conflict between Sudan's de facto leader, army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, has split Africa's third-largest country in two.

The army holds the center, north and east, while the RSF controls nearly all of the vast western region of Darfur and, with its allies, parts of the south.

"It's unlikely that the RSF can retake Khartoum or reach Port Sudan by land, but drones enable them to create a sense of fear and destabilize cities" formerly considered safe, Khalafallah told AFP.

With drones and light munitions, it can "reach areas it hasn't previously infiltrated successfully", Jones said.

According to a retired Sudanese general, the RSF has been known to use two types of drone -- makeshift lightweight models with 120mm mortar rounds that explode on impact, and long-range drones capable of delivering guided missiles.

Both sides have been accused of war crimes including targeting civilians, but the RSF is specifically accused of rampant looting, ethnic cleansing and systematic sexual violence.