JEDDAH, 12 April — Viewers from inside Saudi Arabia and abroad strongly responded to last night’s national telethon for the Palestinian people giving millions of dollars in donations. The donations include gold, cars and even slingshots sent by Saudi children to help their Palestinian brethren fight Israeli occupation. By the time this paper went to press, an hour before the early morning deadline for the end of the telethon, the amount had reached SR210 million ($56 million).

Throughout the telethon, the second since the start of the current Palestinian intifada 18 months ago, the Ulema on screen urged Saudis and expatriate workers to give generously to relieve the suffering of the Palestinian people. The viewers’ response turned the courtyard of the television studios in Riyadh and Jeddah into a giant warehouse. Roads leading to the two TV stations were clogged with vehicles and entire families were seen heading toward the site to give their contributions.

Four Indonesian Muslim maids on their way home to spend vacation with their families paid SR100 each to the authorities at King Khaled International Airport in Riyadh saying they wanted to join to the campaign to help the Palestinians.

Westerners, too, joined in the campaign. A Briton from Dammam in eastern Saudi Arabia contributed cash and blamed the United States for what is happening in the occupied land and the suffering of the Palestinians.

A Saudi businessman based in Jeddah said giving money is the least Saudis could do to help the Palestinian.

At the television stations the yards overflowed with goods of every kind from giant tin trunks bursting with heavy gold bangles and pearl necklaces to cars including ambulances, electrical appliances and dresses. One Saudi man offered to donate one kidney and to give blood 13 times to Palestinians in need of medical treatment. Another came up with a rare copy of the Holy Qur’an, which he put for auction, and it fetched SR150 million soon after the start of the bidding.

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd, who donated SR10 million, ordered the11-hour telethon. Generous donations also came from Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, and Prince Sultan, second deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation, and other members of the royal family. A unified bank account was set for the event by the Saudi Committee for the Support of the Intifada headed by Interior Minister Prince Naif. The committee coordinates assistance to the Palestinians.

The last telethon for Palestinians saw support pouring from all over the world and by the end of the day SR40 million were raised.

The committee has urged Saudi citizens and expatriates to support the intifada and help provide food, medicines and clothes to the Palestinians and contribute to rebuilding homes and other infrastructure destroyed by the Israeli Army. It said it would continue to provide direct assistance to the families of Palestinian martyrs, the wounded and families suffering under the occupation.

A spokesman for the committee called the station to say the committee will start sending 100 vehicles loaded with food, medicines and other relief material in addition to ambulances to the Palestinians through Jordan.

“The telethon reflects the solidarity the Saudis and expatriates in the Kingdom feel toward the Palestinian people. What is happening in Palestine stirs mixed feelings of pain and hope in Muslims. They feel pain and anger seeing the killings and destruction that the Palestinians continue to suffer and the conspiracies being directed against the Muslim identity and sanctuaries. But at the same time there is hope because this event is being launched from the land of the two holy mosques (in Makkah and Madinah) which is closely linked to the land of Al-Aqsa Mosque,” said Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais, imam of the Grand Mosque in Makkah.

He was referring to the ascension of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) who was transported from the Sacred Mosque in Makkah to the Farthest (Al-Aqsa) Mosque of Jerusalem in one night and shown the Signs of God.