Hamas gunmen stormed a Palestinian television studio in the Gaza Strip today, destroying equipment and threatening journalists hours before a critical deadline for the authority to formally recognise Israel.

Workers described how around 100 militiamen fired guns into the air as they stormed the bureau in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, smashing satellites and shooting at cameras.

The Hamas militants accuse broadcasters of being biased towards President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party, their political rivals.

The attack came hours before the President's ultimatum for Hamas to soften its hardline stance was due to expire at midnight (2000BST).

"An illegal group of gunmen destroyed everything, cameras, satellite dishes, computers and furniture," said Mohammed Dawdi, the Palestine TV director general.

Bassam Abdullah, a station cameraman, said that around 100 gunmen from Hamas’s Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades military wing stormed into the broadcast centre.

"They opened fire at equipment, destroyed cameras, and hit me and the bureau chief Ahmed Saqer," he said.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, insisted that his movement had nothing to do with the attack but added that the television frequently resorted to incitement against Hamas.

Mr Dawdi denied the accusation: "This is not true. We are a professional television station catering to all Palestinians," he said.

Staff, some wearing gags, rallied outside the television’s main Gaza City office to protest against the raid. One technician told AFP that the Hamas gunmen accused station workers in Khan Yunis of being "spies".

The timing of today's raid comes at a particularly sensitive time for the ruling Hamas party. In what has been seen as a huge political gamble, Mr Abbas last month served Hamas with an ultimatum for it to accept existing agreements with Israel.

If it refuses, he has vowed go directly to the Palestinian people with a referendum on a proposal for a two-state solution, which implicitly recognises Israel's right to exist.

Meanwhile, the waning political credibility of Hamas was further dented when thousands of unpaid civil servants stormed banks demanding their promised salaries today.

The Finance Minister promised at the weekend that the wages of the 40,000 lowest-paid government workers would be deposited in their accounts but officials admitted today that the authority - starved off aid from the EU, US and Israel - is penniless.

Police were among those who descended on banks across Gaza and the West Bank, threatening managers as they demanded pay dating back to March. Some banks advanced the money to avoid violence but tens of thousands of government employees were left without salaries.

"These are people who don’t have money to buy milk," said Raed Abu Ghoneima, a policeman and one of 30 protesters who stormed a Gaza City branch of the Arab Bank. "It has nothing to do with politics, it’s about wages."

The radical Islamic government’s refusal to accept Israel’s existence has led Israel, the United States and the European Union to starve it financially since March, leaving it unable to pay the 165,000 government workers who comprise a third of the West Bank and Gaza's workforce.

A senior banking official admitted today that the Government did not have the money to cover the promised payments but had persuaded some banks to advance the money. The government, he said, gave assurances to reimburse the banks at an unspecified time.

Some of those who did get paid wondered which of their creditors to pay first as their wages began trickling in for the first time in months.

Nabil Talat, 32, a father-of-three who, was one of the fortunate ones: he received 1,300 shekels (£150)

"I don’t know what to do with this money," he said. "I owe more than 6,000 shekels - I’m thinking of hiding it because I don’t know when this government is going to pay us again."

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