RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Dozens of Palestinian truck drivers have blocked
the main streets of the West Bank city of Ramallah to protest rising prices.
Nearby, about two dozen quarry workers also held a demonstration. The Sunday
protests were the latest in a series of small but snowballing strikes against
the Western-backed Palestinian Authority over rising prices and delayed payment
of salaries to more than 150,000 civil servants.
The Palestinian Authority, which governs Palestinians in the West Bank, is
suffering a budgetary shortfall because the U.S. and Arab countries that sustain
it haven't paid all the aid money that they have promised.
Palestinian officials have done little to calm the protests, saying the
unrest reflects popular anger over foreign donors' failure to deliver money they
have promised.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
