Thousands of Palestinian security men fired off automatic rifles and smashed windows at parliament in Gaza yesterday in one of the biggest protests over unpaid wages since the Hamas government took office.

Protesters criticised a plan by Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, who is also a senior leader of the Hamas Islamic militant group, to make partial salary payments to the lowest paid workers in the Palestinian Authority in the next few days. “We want to know when this tragedy will stop,” one security official shouted through a loudspeaker outside the parliament building in central Gaza City.

The government has been unable to pay salaries for three months to 165,000 government workers after the United States and other Western countries imposed sanctions over Hamas’s refusal to recognise Israel, disarm and accept interim peace accords.

The embargo has deepened a humanitarian crisis in the occupied West Bank and the impoverished Gaza Strip. Around 70,000 security men are on the government payroll.