Palestine Govt Pm Hamdallah Leaves Gaza

Prime Minister of the Palestinian unity government, Rami Hamdallah, left the Gaza Strip late on Thursday, heading back to Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.



Hamdallah travelled to the West Bank through Erez crossing on the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel, a Palestinian security source told The Anadolu Agency.



Hamdallah arrived in the strip on Wednesday in the company of several government ministers.



It was his second visit to the blockaded coastal enclave since his government was drawn up last summer.



During his two-day visit to Gaza, the Palestinian Prime Minister met with representatives of Palestinian factions in the territory.



Earlier on Thursday, Hamdallah said his government was committed to solving the Gaza Strip's longstanding woes.



He added that in addition to solving Gaza's longstanding grievances, his government would work to reconstruct the war-battered enclave.



"Lifting the Israeli blockade on Gaza is the only way for construction materials to enter the territory for reconstruction," Hamdallah told attendees of a Palestinian-Turkish surgery conference in Gaza.



He added that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was preoccupied with the issue of Gaza reconstruction and the problems faced by the strip's roughly 1.9 million residents.



He said Gaza's problems, especially his government's failure to pay the overdue salaries of the strip's civil servants, would be resolved within the next few weeks.



Hamdallah said his government had formed a working group tasked with resolving the Gaza Strip's many problems.



Thousands of the Gaza Strip's civil servants have not received their monthly salaries since Hamdallah's government was unveiled in June of last year.



The Ramallah-based government has yet to assume political control of the Gaza Strip, which since 2007 has been governed by Hamas.



Israel destroyed thousands of homes and public facilities across the coastal enclave during a devastating military onslaught that went on for 51 days last July and August.



www.aa.com.tr/en - Gazze