Hundreds protest in Ramallah against PA crackdown on Gaza

Hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated Saturday in the occupied West Bank to demand the Palestinian Authority lift punitive measures against the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, an AFP reporter said.

Demonstrators in Ramallah chanted "scrap the sanctions!" during protests against the Palestinian Authority, organised by civil society groups.

The Ramallah-based administration has introduced a series of measures against Gaza over the past year.

Tens of thousands of its civil servants in the coastal enclave, separated from the West Bank by a strip of Israeli territory, have gone without full pay for months.

Critics say such moves by the PA, dominated by the Fatah movement of president Mahmoud Abbas, further exacerbate the split between the two parts of the Palestinian territories.

The rally passed peacefully, unlike a protest on 13 June during which Palestinian security forces fired stun grenades and tear gas to disperse demonstrators.

On Saturday, policemen were seen handing out Palestinian flags to the protesters.

Hamas has run Gaza since seizing it from the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority amid deadly clashes in 2007.

Since that year, Israel has maintained a crippling blockade on Gaza which it argues is necessary to isolate Hamas.

Rights groups say the siege amounts to collective punishment.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars in the territory since 2008.

Neighbouring Egypt has also largely sealed its land border with Gaza in recent years, citing security threats.

The United Nations has said Gaza, which is home to two million people, will be uninhabitable by 2020.

Hamas and Fatah signed a reconciliation agreement last October, but it has since collapsed.