One of thousands of public servants in Gaza's Hamas-run government, Karim, a public works ministry employee, received what seemed like an ordinary message on his phone: an invitation "for a coffee".

The text gave a time for a meeting near a school sheltering displaced people amid the wreckage and rubble of nearly two years of war between Hamas and Israel in the Palestinian territory.

Karim, who like others interviewed by AFP asked to use a pseudonym, explained how he went to the meeting in July terrified of a possible Israeli attack, but found "an employee I knew waiting for me".

He "gave me 1,000 shekels ($298)," the 39-year-old said, adding that that was only part of his pre-war salary of 2,900 shekels.

The war has destroyed public infrastructure and put most government employees out

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