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Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Get Your Hand Off Children Food: Palestinian Orpha |
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| Maliha |
| 08/28/03 at 22:29:09 |
| [slm] [i]What is WRONG with these People??!!!! Abbas could not sink any lower in my eyes!!! >:( >:( >:( What's the deal?! Even the European governments have restrained themselves from stopping the funds that go to feed the *Destitute* orphans and mothers of Palestine....What price is he willing to pay to get the west to "recognize" him, and pat him on his back....How is this supposed to help with the peace process, all they will do is create a bunch of really mad youngsters, who now have more of a reason to want to fight to simply remain alive :'(May Allah aid them and give our *men* the backbone to do what's necessary in the face of this evil. (Amin)[/i] Get Your Hand Off Children Food: Palestinian Orphans Thursday, August 28 2003 @ 10:53 PM GMT "'Had all Palestinian children and orphans become terrorists? We depend on these frozen money, which helps us buy our food and clothes…In doing so, the PA will create a generation of beggars ..'" GAZA CITY - Thousands of Palestinian orphans and destitute families took to the streets of Palestinian cities on Thursday, August 28, to protest the Palestinian Authority's move to freeze the bank accounts of 18 charities suspected of having links with the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas. They assembled before the Palestinian Legislative Council, urging the PA to backtrack on this decision, which would distress thousands of Palestinian families, who depend on monthly allotments provided by the charitable societies. "I am an orphan…Am I a terrorist?" Read one of the banners which were written in Arabic, English and French. "Had all Palestinian children and orphans become terrorists? We depend on these frozen money (provided by charitable societies), which helps us buy our food and clothes…In doing so, the PA will create a generation of beggars," another orphan lamented. Six charitable societies had their bank accounts frozen Thursday by Palestinian authorities after similar decision targeting 12 others was made on Sunday, August 24. The affected societies include: the Islamic Association, El-Mojamma al-Islami, Al-Salah, the Muslim Yong Women, Al-Nour, Student Friends, the Center of Science and Culture, Zakat al-Rahma, Al-Aqsa, the Charitable Committee for Zakat and Relief, the Social Charitable Committee and the Social Care Committee. "We totally depend on the monthly allotments provided by Zakat Al-Rahma and I have no other source to eke out a living," said one of the many mothers marching in the demonstration which also included handicapped children in wheelchairs and blind people. "We exhort the PA to renege on this abhorrent decision, which would have its toll on thousands of families," she said. Mohidin al-Naggar, the deputy director of Zakat al-Rahma, told IslamOnline.net that all relief projects had come to a cessation after the PA decision, warning that up to 2000 orphans would be left without breadwinners. "What adds insult to injury is that the academic year is drawing closer and the families of course cannot afford buying uniforms or textbooks," he said. Naggar urged those with "live conscious" to help the Palestinian orphans and poor "because the money they used to get from these charities is one of their rights in life." Unfair In Gaza City, some five thousand children and mothers slammed the PA decision as "unfair," urging Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to intervene and reverse it. "School are knocking the doors and I want to buy my children the necessary books and uniforms," complained Um Mahmmoud, a mother of 12 school children. Amir Abu al-Amrin, the director of the Al-Mojamma al-Islami, said he was taken aback by the PA decision. "It came as surprise to me and the society has not been formally notified. We knew it when Palestinians went to get their monthly allowances but were blocked by an order from the Palestinian attorney general," he said. In the West Bank city of Khan Yunis, the marchers carried banners reading: "Leave the orphans to live in peace…Let them live…Get your hand off the food of our children…The Palestinian children orphans are not like other children." Orphan Ahmad Abu Regila, 14, carried a banner showing two orphans in an appalling condition with a phrase in boldface saying: "What is my guilt?" The orphans and mothers further appealed to the governor of Khan Yunis that "the decision deprived us of our sole source of livelihood, which provides us with a decent life…We beg you not to leave us a prey for poverty and illnesses." In Rafah, scores of orphans and mothers joined their brothers in other cities carrying banners like: "Enough is enough…Let us live with dignity…No for bread confiscation…Do not kill our dreams…What is my guilt as a child?...Who will cater to those orphans…and Do not turn us into beggars." The PA move came hard on the heels of a White House decision to freeze and block the assets of six Hamas leaders and five pro-Palestinians charities in Europe and Lebanon. Hamas dismissed the Bush's decision as "some kind of a robbery and is tantamount to a declaration of war on Islam." The France-based Committee for Palestinian Charity and Aid (CBSP), one of the five charities targeted by the American move, said the freeze decision meant starving thousands of orphans in the occupied Palestinian territories. Source: Islam OnLine - www.islamonline.net |
| 08/28/03 at 22:30:53 |
| Maliha |
Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board |