Occupied Jerusalem -
3 weeks ago, videos of displaced Syrians suffering from cold and frost exhausted the psyche of Palestinian youth Ibrahim Khalil.
This young man, who came from the village of Al-Ba’ina-Nujaidat in the Palestinian interior, felt his negligence towards the children who shivered from the cold, and others whose slender bodies froze and died due to the severe cold, so he initiated a campaign called “Heaters” with the aim of collecting 100 heaters for one camp in the north of Syria, at a cost Each is about $190.
However, this young man was surprised hours after the start of the campaign, when a Palestinian businessman took over the costs of heaters and donated to these families blankets for tents, winter clothes and bread, so Khalil decided to start collecting donations for the “Koknaya” camp in northern Syria, where 255 families live in tragic living conditions.
Young Khalil tells Al Jazeera Net that only two days after the campaign was launched, trucks loaded with urgent humanitarian aid entered the camp, and the women there greeted them with ululations. heaters and other aids, but she wished to live with her grandmother in a house, not a tent."
The Palestinian aid convoy in the Turkish city of Gaziantep is on its way to northern Syria (Al-Jazeera)
house instead of tent
Khalil continues, "From here, I immediately launched the (a house instead of a tent) campaign, and within 24 hours of its launch, we were able to collect enough donations to build homes for all the families living in Koknaya camp, so we moved to collecting donations to build homes for 273 families living in the Green Valley camp, and then for 430 families. Others live in the Hadath camp and so on."
Khalil was surprised that the area of donations began to gradually expand, and that towns and cities in the Palestinian interior joined the announcement of the launch of donation campaigns, including Tamra, Nahef, Nazareth and Umm al-Fahm. Then, Jerusalem neighborhoods and towns began to join the campaign automatically, and the residents of the occupied capital collected millions of shekels despite the difficult living conditions. in which they live.
Thus, Khalil decided, in cooperation with charities inside the Palestinian territories, to appeal to the people of the West Bank to join the donation campaign by providing a link dedicated to donating, but these people faced obstacles in transferring money from banks in the West Bank to the accounts of associations inside the Palestinian territories.
A child donates in the town of Beit Hanina in Jerusalem for Syrian refugees (Al-Jazeera)
The total donations until last Thursday amounted to 10 million US dollars, and Khalil asserts that they have now exceeded the 17 million dollars barrier, with the Palestinians continuing to donate despite the suspension of receiving donations in many areas.
This young man was astonished by the results of the campaign, which he announced in a simple way on social platforms, and said that what he noticed in it was that the donors are from the poor;
"One of them donated his university tuition and another one that he had saved for years to perform the Hajj, an elderly woman donated all her gold, and others were widows and orphaned children who were among the donors. I am proud of my Palestinian people who have given their all to help the exhausted refugees in their tents."
From the Turkish city of Gaziantep, the director of the Association for Compassionate Hearts, Raed Badr, spoke to Al Jazeera Net about the preparation and entry of 80 trucks loaded with heaters, winter clothes, tent covers, food and other items from Turkey to Syria, where aid will be distributed to refugees in dozens of camps.
The precious sons of Palestine continue their giving and campaigns in a way that confirms that Palestine and Syria are one issue that does not differentiate between them
and makes us believe that the second decade of the #Syrian_revolution will be different
without camps and tents..with true solidarity that restores the revolution its soul#new_life #home_instead_tent #until_the last tent https://t.co /Gy8kf4Li9L
— Lubaba Alhawari (@lubaba_alhawari) February 11, 2022
15 thousand beneficiary families
Compassionate Hearts was one of the first associations to join the campaign inside the Palestinian territories, and its director went with a group of volunteers to Turkey to supervise the distribution of aid to 15,000 displaced Syrian families.
Raed Badr asserts that the generous donations from the Palestinians until the end of last week will be enough to build 3,037 homes for refugees who are currently living in tents, and a large number of homes will be added to that, which will be announced in the coming days.
In Jerusalem, the city’s residents stood at the heart of one man between a volunteer and a donor, and it was noted that many donors deliberately concealed their faces during the delivery of cash, and it was noted that many children donated their piggy banks.
Palestinian aid convoy before entering northern Syria (Al-Jazeera)
The volunteer in the campaign “Syria is crying out.. Beit Hanina answers the call.” Abdul Karim Darwish says that donations were collected over a period of 4 days in the Al-Dawa Mosque in the town of Beit Hanina, during which two million US dollars were collected.
He adds that volunteers from the town of Beit Hanina will go in the coming weeks to find out about arrangements for building an integrated village comprising 100 housing units in the north of Syria. In the village market.
Charitable societies and institutions inside the Palestinian territories and Turkey joined this campaign to arrange the arrival of aid to the tent residents and to secure a decent life for them. In all parts of Palestine, calls were launched urging Palestinians to participate in the huge donation campaign.
Among these calls was what was issued by the Islamic movement in Jerusalem, which praised the donations of the people of the city, and in a brief statement to it, “O Jerusalemites, the money that you donated is heavy in the balance of God, despite its smallness compared to the capabilities of the nation and its wealth, and heavy in the balance of the nation, which will not forget your support and support for your family.” and your brothers in beloved Syria.