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Before Oct. 7th 2023, Hamas was clearly in power in the Gaza Strip. But did the Palestinian Authority have any role in government? Did they employ civil servants, for example? If not, who handled basic administrative work like delivering mail, issuing passports, and so on?

To further explain what I mean: a government or political party is not the same as a state. For example, when the Democrats took over the US presidency in 2021, they didn’t fire all the mail carriers and create a totally new system staffed by their own members.

So it would be wrong to say that the Democrats handle delivering mail in the US. Rather, it is the US postal service, which is ultimately indirectly controlled by Joe Biden, but still not part of the Democratic Party. Similarly, when Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, they must have inherited a whole network of building code inspectors, traffic police, mail deliverers, and so on, most of whom are not members of Hamas. So rather than “Hamas delivers mail” it seems more accurate to say “the remnants of the Palestinian quasi-state in Gaza, which Hamas now controls, delivers mail”.

But since this quasi-state was formerly part of the Palestinian Authority, I wonder if that organization is at all involved in running it, especially the parts that Hamas doesn’t care about because they have nothing to do with militancy. And in particular, are there any civil servants in Gaza whose salary is paid by the Palestinian Authority. If not, who does pay them? If Hamas, a political party and militant group is paying the salaries of random bureaucrats in boring government departments, I would find that very unusual.

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    Is there some precision your need that is not covered by the wiki page ? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/… Otherwise : Delivering mail : Hamas-led Gaza administration. Issuing passports : Israel.
    – Evargalo
    Commented Oct 18 at 10:59
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    Please see my edit
    – Brennan Vincent
    Commented Oct 18 at 13:42
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    Competing in electoral politics to gain control of a pre-existing state is but one function of political parties. In other historical contexts, parties do sometimes either distribute positions and replace staff or create parallel structures and services. It doesn't necessarily happen overnight but in Soviet-style one-party states, the party doesn't merely control the postal service (and the military, industry, etc.) from the top but creates a parallel management structure. In Party membership and loyalty then becomes required for any kind of professional career.
    – Relaxed
    Commented Oct 20 at 22:17
  • I don't know enough about Hamas to answer the question but we shouldn't assume it's a party in the same way US parties are. Incidentally, US parties are also unusual in Western liberal democracies due to their relative lack of ideological coherence.
    – Relaxed
    Commented Oct 20 at 22:19
  • @CriticizingSEisbannable I'm not sure I understand the question. I meant to talk about the time before the present invasion by Israel, because we can assume that may have changed how the governance of the Gaza Strip operates (e.g., I suspect the quasi-state has entirely broken down in many places and that regardless, the situation is in flux).
    – Brennan Vincent
    Commented Oct 22 at 16:15

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Essentially, for about a decade (2007-2017) the PA still acted as the main paymaster (or at least router/intermediary for payment thereof) for a sizeable proportion of the civil servants and other state employees in the Strip (tens of thousands of employees.)

In breakdown by the World Bank from around 2013 (p. xv), the PA was paying wages for employees amounting to about 17% of the Palestinian territories GDP, and a Hamas an additional 3-4%.

Apparently, due the PA routing the money for many civil servants and state employees, this resulted in an increasingly dysfunctional situation in the Strip where some people who were getting paid were not actually working either because Hamas deemed them unreliable or undesirable or the PA encouraged them not to work. (The World Bank document says [p. 51] that the PA encouraged some 6,000 health workers in Gaza not to show up for work, in 2008. And that by 2013 around 1,800 health workers were still in that situation.) According to an FT article from 2013, there thousands in that situation among government/state employes, with their money ultimately coming from the EU back then, though the so-called PEGASE mechanism.

After that the situation was "simplified" with more cash sent in suitcases from external donors (mostly Qatar) directly to Hamas, with the tacit approval of Israel. While one might think this change was entirely due to Trump's administration instance on the "deal of the century" (which cut some PA funding), this shift in financing for Gaza was in fact somewhat more gradual over the 2014-2018 period. By 2021 Qatar was funding half the paycheck of some 50,000 Hamas government employees, although the exact routing mechanisms for this tended to vary from year to year.

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First some context:

Hamas was founded in 1987 by the muslim cleric, Ahmed Yassin. It's formation was encouraged by Israel as a counter to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and to divide Palestinian political unity. It was invited to compete in the 2006 elections, which to the surprise of everyone it duly won. However, the PA and Israel with the backing of the USA immediately instituted a coup which resulted in a battle where Hamas seized control of Gaza from Fatah. It is due to this that Israel instituted a blockade against Gaza and is one reason why its understood to be the occupying power. At this point, Hamas regarded the PA as an illegitimate government in the West Bank.

There were efforts at reconciliation which led to the 2014 Fatah-Hamas Reconciliation Agreement. This led to the formation of a national unity government under President Abbas for administrative control agreed between the two parties but keeping their political identity intact however it dissolved a year later as it both parties in practise were not able to work together.

Now Wikipedia states that

in March 2017, the Fatah dominated government in the West Bank expressed its concern that the Gaza administration is being upgraded by Hamas into a full-fledged 'shadow government'. Further in April and May 2017, Abbas vowed to take unprecedented measures to end the division – cutting 30–50% of Gaza Strip-based employees of the Palestinian administration, suspending social assistance to 630 families and preventing Gazan cancer patients from reaching treatment in Jerusalem or Israeli hospitals. In addition, Ramallah-based government stopped paying for Gazan electricity bills to Israel and on April 28 Abbas approved early retirement of 35,000 military personnel in Gaza (originally funded by the Ramallah administration) and cut financial aid to former Hamas prisoners.

This suggests that the PA had some administrative role in Gaza whilst Hamas was in power but no real political role.

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