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Most Palestinians blame Israel devastating their economy with travel restrictions and a ban on Palestinians working in Israel.
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Around 4,000 protesters in Gaza have broken into Palestinian Authority chairman Mr Yasser Arafat's compound in Gaza in protest at the poverty they are enduring during the intifada against Israel.
They chanted "We want jobs, We want food" and some carried pitta bread as a symbol of how hard it is to earn their daily bread.
Most Palestinians blame Israel devastating their economy with travel restrictions and a ban on Palestinians working in Israel.
Work in Israel provided much of the income for Gaza Palestinians before the current violence erupted in September 2000 and the gates were shut.
Mr Arafat has not been in Gaza since late last year. Much of the time he has been confined by Israeli tanks to his West Bank headquarters in the town of Ramallah.
Elsewhere in Gaza, Israeli forces blew up a tunnel the military says is used for smuggling weapons under the border with Egypt to the town of Rafah.
Meanwhile, the second largest party in Israel's ruling coalition is at odds over its policy towards Palestinian Territories and its future in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government.
At the opening of the Labour Party conference yesterday, its leader, Defense Minister Mr Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, rejected demands by members to withdraw from government.
"It should be clear that quitting the government would cause the immediate cessation of the building of the separation fence," Mr Ben-Eliezer said in reference to the planned 210-mile barrier along the frontier with the West Bank.
Mr Ben-Eliezer also voiced support for a Palestinian state and the dismantling of some Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip under a future peace deal. But he said he objected to any unilateral move to uproot them.
"I say the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state living in peace alongside an Israel that has safe and recognized borders is a supreme Israeli interest," Mr Ben-Eliezer said in his televised speech to the convention in Tel Aviv.
"This state must cover the large majority of territory in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] and the Gaza Strip, contiguously and with special passage arrangements," he said.
Mr Ben-Eliezer's main rival in the Labour Party, Mr Haim Ramon, has called for an immediate and unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
PA