Abbas Sides With Angry Civil Servants

Palestinian riot police prepare to run towards protestors during an unemployed workers' demonstration outside the Palestinian parliament compound in Gaza City, Tuesday Aug. 29, 2006. Some 300 unemployed Palestinian laborers surrounded the parliament building Tuesday, demanding welfare payments, scuffling with police and waving empty plates in another challenge to the beleaguered Hamas government. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa) (Hatem Moussa - AP)

Abbas backed the unions on Wednesday. "It is the employees' right to demonstrate and strike," he said.

According to Abbas' draft platform for a unity government, obtained by The Associated Press, the president is calling for the government to push for a peace deal with Israel based on a two-state solution. He also would be responsible for administrating those negotiations, as well as the "higher commander of the national security forces.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops killed eight Palestinians in Gaza in two air strikes and gunbattles on the outskirts of Gaza City, Palestinian witnesses and hospital doctors said.

The deaths raised to 18 the number of Palestinians killed since Israeli forces began searching for tunnels and explosives in Gaza City's Shajaiyeh neighborhood Saturday night.

Most of those killed have been militants, but a 14-year-old boy was shot to death Wednesday as he gathered with a group of people to watch the fighting, hospital officials said.

Israeli forces withdrew from the area Thursday. A day earlier, the army released footage and photos of what it described as a tunnel dug by militants from the Shajaiyeh neighborhood to the Karni crossing, the main cargo passage between Gaza and Israel.

The army began its wide-scale offensive in Gaza after Hamas-allied militants used a tunnel to sneak into Israel on June 25 and attack an army post, capturing Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit. The offensive also was intended to stop militant rocket attacks on Israel.

Separately, an army force raided the West Bank city of Nablus on Thursday and killed a leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent group allied with Abbas' Fatah Party, witnesses said.