Palestinians detain teachers for striking

Palestinian teachers say police have detained about a dozen of them for organizing a two-day school strike.

Palestinian teacher Yousef Badran of Hebron says that the Palestinian Authority has not fulfilled a 2013 pledge to issue a 10 percent raise to teachers. He says teachers scrape by on salaries of about $640 per month and “all we demand is a decent life.”

The Western-backed Palestinian Authority is going through a severe fiscal crisis and struggling to pay its vast number of government employees. Teachers make up the largest group of this sector.

Badran says about 20,000 teachers from across the West Bank demonstrated this week in Ramallah outside the prime minister’s office.

Local officials say the strike of governmental schools was done illegally. The Palestinian Authority declines comment.

— AP