Abu jihad, as the 22-year-old Gazan likes to be known, earns 1,100 shekels ($250) a month as an employee of the Palestinian Authority (PA) security services. Or maybe "earns" is the wrong word. Since signing on a year ago, Abu Jihad has not shown up for work once. Rather, he considers the modest wage ("not enough to pay the mobile phone bills," he complains wryly) his fair due for giving his best years to the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the cells of fighters loyal to Fatah, the PA ruling party. Mu'in, a long-serving intelligence officer from the West Bank town of Jenin who would not give his full name, joined the brigades at the start of the second intifada in 2000 but kept drawing his salary; he hopes to rejoin his unit just as soon as Israel hands responsibility for security in the occupied territories back to the PA.
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