GAZA CITY: Hamas-run security forces dispersed some 150 teachers loyal to the Islamic Jihad movement who had gathered on Saturday to protest against the politicisation of the civil service in the Gaza Strip. Hamas police forcibly dispersed the teachers in Gaza City to protest against both the Islamist-run government’s sacking of loyalists of the rival Fatah party and the resulting strikes by teachers and medical workers. They also prevented photographers from approaching the demonstration, witnesses said.

Senior Islamic Jihad member Nafid Azam slammed the dispersal of what he said had been a peaceful and non-political protest, calling it a “dangerous and unacceptable situation.”

“The teachers did not demand anything beyond insulating public education from political differences,” he told AFP, referring to the rivalry between Hamas and the secular Fatah movement of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

The two main Palestinian movements have been bitterly divided since Hamas seized power in the impoverished territory of 1.5 million people after routing Abbas’s security forces in a week of bloody street battles in June 2007.

Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian factions have remained mostly neutral in the Hamas-Fatah dispute while calling for national unity. “Regrettably (police) attacked some of the teachers who were participating in the demonstration, which was entitled ‘Preserving the Unity of the Teachers’ and was not allied with any party at the expense of another party,’” Azam said.

A spokesman for the Hamas-run interior ministry said the demonstration was illegal because the teachers had not obtained a permit, but Azam said the organisers had informed police of their plans.

Thousands of doctors and teachers across the isolated territory have been on strike for more than a week in protest at the Hamas-run government’s firing of dozens of civil servants belonging to Fatah.