Palestinian movement Hamas on Thursday began paying a months-long backlog of salaries to more than 40,000 of its employees in the Gaza Strip, the finance ministry an**unced. Hamas, which formally governed Gaza until early June, had been unable to pay many of its employees from October 2013 due to a biting financial crisis caused by Egypt's closure of cross-border tunnels through which most of Islamist movement's financial support was delivered. Other employees had received only a partial salary. It was the first time in months the employees had been paid, with workers each receiving between 1,000-4,500 shekels ($276-$1,240/215-960 euros), depending on their pay grade, the finance ministry said.