General strike in schools and hospitals Monday

Bethlehem – Ma'an – Non-essential hospital staff and teachers will strike Monday, while schools will also close after 11pm Wednesday and Thursday, protesting what officials called the failure of the Palestinian Authority to meet demands for better conditions.

Mohammad Suwan, a Teachers Union representative, said PA Minister of Labor Ahmad Majdalani had promised to address the goverment around demands, but Suwan said union members decided to go ahead with the strike because Majdalani had not offered any guarantees that demands would be met.

"If it is interested, the government could halt the strikes" by going ahead with plans to change structures to educational workers pay scales and job titles and implementing a more clear policy around staff hierarchies, he said during an interview on Ma'an Radio's "Hadith Al-Watan."

As such, Suwan said, the PA is responsible for "the deterioration of education in the Palestinian territories."

Health sector union representative Usama An-Najjar said the strike, for a similar set of pay clarification and job hierarchy amendments, would affect all public hospitals and health facilities. Emergency wards, cancer, dialysis, Thalassaemia, maternity and previously scheduled surgeries, along with blood banks, would not be affected.