Wusam Salsaa is deliberating whether he can afford to marry his fiance this summer, and Naela Saheen stays up nights worrying how she will pay her utility bills.

Salsaa, a teacher at a public school in the West Bank town of Beit Jalla, has not received his salary for more than three months. He says he is lucky because he lives with his mother and has been able to save some money for his wedding, but he is worried about how he will provide for his new bride without a salary.

"I am worried because I need money," said Salsaa, a 27-year-old Catholic living in Bethlehem. "Maybe I will spend all my savings for my wedding, and then after the wedding what will I do?"

Saheen, a 54-year-old Greek Orthodox from Bethlehem, worries about electric and phone bills. Her husband is sick and unemployed, and she has been borrowing money from her sister to give to her son, a college student. She convinced the power company not to cut off her electricity by explaining that she teaches at a government school in Beit Jalla.

But now the phone bill has arrived, and she does not know where she will get the money to pay it.

"This is no life. It is a very big problem," she said. "Only God will help us. I have faith only in God to solve our problems."

The solution to her problems is simple: If she received the three months' salary due her, she would be able to pay her debts and resume her life.

The Hamas-led Palestinian government says it cannot pay the thousands of state employees because the international community has been withholding funding since the January elections that put Hamas in power. The boycott is aimed at forcing Hamas to formally accept the existence of Israel and renounce any use of violence against the Jewish state and its citizens.

Recently, there has been talk of possible ways of getting international humanitarian aid to the necessary Palestinian institutions while bypassing the government.

The average Palestinian citizen is feeling the brunt of the burden. Civil servants -- including those in schools, hospitals, government offices and security services -- have not been paid for almost four months. Most people's savings have already been used by the financial strain of five and a half years of the intifada, or Palestinian uprising.

The lack of money has a domino effect on all aspects of Palestinian life -- from young couples considering marriage, to parents not able to buy food and pay school tuition fees and hospital patients not receiving proper medical treatment because the hospital cannot afford to buy needed medicines.

Caritas Jerusalem has been inundated with hundreds of requests for help to secure medicine, social assistance and life-saving medical care, as well as requests for food assistance and desperate pleas for cash, said Claudette Habesch, secretary-general of Caritas Jerusalem. The agency has launched a special appeal to help with the heavy load of requests.

Catholic Relief Services representative Tom Garofalo said the U.S. bishops' development agency has been working with the World Food Program to increase its food-for-work program by some 25 percent to help the increasing number of needy families. The program should be put in place in early June, he said.

"Obviously, it is a critical situation," said Garofalo, adding that as workers are not collecting salaries "you have to wonder what the real impact is, if it is hurting Hamas or individual people who have nothing to do with it."

He added that the boycott seems to "have the biggest impact against people who are least able to absorb it."

In the Gaza Strip, people are coming to the office daily with their children in tow, asking for help, said Omar Shaban Ismail, project manager for CRS Gaza.

"No single economy in the world can bear what is going on here," he said, noting that people are becoming more tense and there has been an increase in crimes.

The Latin Patriarchate is also finding it difficult to pay the salaries of parish schoolteachers, since students are unable to pay their tuition, said Father Majdi al-Siryani, director of schools for the patriarchate. Extracurricular activities have been suspended, and students do not have the money even to buy drinks or snacks at school.

Father al-Siryani described the boycott as "collective punishment" for the actions of 10 percent of the population.

---CNS