Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's emergency government paid Palestinian Authority workers, excluding some 19,000 who report to Hamas, their first full wages in 15 months on Wednesday.

The Palestinian government was able to make the payments because Israel, the United States and other Western powers ended an economic embargo of the Palestinian Authority after Hamas seized Gaza last month and Abbas dismantled the government led by the Islamist group.

"I will use the money to pay my debts," said Falah Samaam, a Health Ministry employee in Gaza whose monthly wage is NIS 1,300 (about $325).

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Dozens of workers formed long lines in the morning in front of banks in the Hamas-controlled territory to withdraw money the government deposited in their accounts.

In the West Bank, where Abbas's Fatah faction is dominant and the standard of living higher, lines at the banks were thinner. "The salaries are in the [employees'] accounts, but they are at work," said a bank official.

Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, overseeing the payments, said 133,000 Palestinian Authority workers received wages.

Senior sources in Fayyad's office said 19,000 Hamas-appointed workers were not paid.

Some 12,000 other employees from Fatah and other factions were also excluded because they were hired after Hamas came to power in a January 2006 election and their salaries were not included in the last annual budget in 2005, the sources said.

Hamas leader and deposed prime minister Ismail Haniyeh said Fayad's decision to exclude some employees went against "the minimal rights of Palestinian citizens" and would fuel resentment between Gaza and the West Bank.

He did not say whether his administration in Gaza would take any steps to pay those workers.

Hamas managed to bring tens of millions of dollars into Gaza last year despite the Western aid embargo, and the group could try similar means to overcome restrictions imposed by Abbas's emergency government.

Fayad has pledged to pay civil servants who return to work in Gaza as long as they follow the emergency government's instructions -- and not those of Hamas.

Members of the Fatah-dominated security services in Gaza have been asked by their commanders in the West Bank to stay at home as a condition for receiving their salaries.

Fatah does not want its forces to follow orders from Hamas, or get involved in further clashes with gunmen from the group.

Among those excluded from Fayad's payroll were nearly 6,000 members of Hamas's elite Executive Force, which played a key role in the fighting that routed Fatah in Gaza.

"This is a ... divide and rule policy that colonial powers used in the past and it is now being used by [Abbas]," said Abu Ramadan, an Executive Force member who did not receive his wages from the emergency government.