Text size  GAZA - It's Ramadan and everyone's fasting. Maybe
it's the heat, the hunger and the thirst that generate the
feeling that the Gaza Strip is liable to blow up at any minute.
It seems that with every passing week, the distress deepens and
the poverty becomes more tangible.  Only last week, Palestinian
Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister
Ismail Haniyeh promised that by Ramadan some of the PA
employees' salaries would be paid. But on Sunday came the
announcement that this month, too, the PA did not have the money
to pay its workers. The despair is visible in the people's eyes,
as irritable drivers get into fights with each other at every
traffic jam.  A traffic jam of a different sort blocked the area
across from the main marketplace in the Jabalya refugee camp
yesterday. Although donkey carts are popular here, the dozens
that filled the square yesterday were not there for the regular
market run, but had been rented so the lucky residents could
bring home the food packages s