One of the biggest Palestinian companies said on Sunday it would distribute food coupons worth 500 shekels ($112) to 40,000 government workers who have not received salaries since Hamas came to power.
Abdel-Malik Jaber, the head of telecoms firm PalTel, said employees of the Hamas-led government who used to be paid 1,500 shekels ($336) or less would this week get the coupons to buy milk, rice, sugar and other essentials.
He urged other companies in Gaza and the West Bank to make similar contributions to help ease a humanitarian crisis.
Major Western donors led by the United States froze direct aid to the Palestinian government after Hamas Islamists won a January election and refused to recognise Israel, renounce violence and embrace past peace deals.
The aid cuts and a banking boycott have prevented the new government from paying salaries to its 165,000 employees, increasing poverty and stoking fears of civil war.
PalTel's mobile phone subsidiary, Jawwal, has not been spared the violence. Gunmen stormed its Gaza headquarters last month in protest at having their phones cut off in sign of growing lawlessness.
PalTel said it will spend a total of about $10 million on the coupons and to provide local farm products, such as wheat, honey and olive oil, to needy Palestinians.
Government salaries total an estimated $120 million each month and are the driving force of the Palestinian economy.
Jaber said the programme would not put his company at risk of US or international sanctions.
"We are not taking a risk when we provide milk, bread and rice to children and women," Jaber said. "Whoever wants to punish us for what we give to our people should go to hell."
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