Tens of thousands rally behind Hamas government

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have rallied in Gaza City in support of a Hamas-led government engulfed by a fiscal and political crisis and battling an international boycott.

The protesters packed the city's main sports stadium carrying enormous fluttering banners in the Islamist movement's trademark green and wearing baseball caps in the same colour.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, the head of the Hamas-led adminstration was due to address the rally while the radical movement's main leaders were also in attendance.

Addressing the crowd, one speaker repeatedly hailed Hamas's exile political supremo, Khaled Meshaal, who is based in Damascus.

The demonstration comes at a time of stalemate in talks with Hamas and its main rivals, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party on forming a national unity government, billed as a means to exit the ever-deepening crisis.

Hamas has refused immense pressure from the West and Abbas for an eventual unity government to accept a political program that amounts to recognition of Israel and past Israeli-Palestinian agreements, and renounces violence.

Deprived of international aid and customs duties owed by Israel since taking office last March, the Hamas-led government is practically bankrupt and civil servants have not received their full salaries for six months.

- AFP