JEDDAH, 27 March — A special fund set up by Arab leaders a year and a half ago to support the intifada and provide cash to the Palestinian Authority has been crucial in helping the Palestinian people survive the daily onslaught against their livelihoods and homes at the hands of the Israeli occupation forces, according to a report to be submitted to the Arab summit conference opening today in Beirut.
The $1 billion Intifada and Al-Aqsa Fund was set up by Arab leaders at an emergency summit in Cairo in October 2000. The summit was called to discuss Israel’s use of fighter planes, helicopters, tanks and ships against Palestinian towns and villages in an attempt to crush the Intifada that had erupted a month earlier.
The fund was set up at the behest of Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard. Saudi Arabia pledged and fully paid one quarter of the total money ($250 million), while other Arab countries pledged the remaining amount.
Soon after the summit, 11 countries — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Algeria, Egypt, Yemen, Oman, Syria, Bahrain, Jordan and Sudan pledged $693 million toward the fund. The Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank (IDB) was chosen by the leaders to administer the fund.
The new report, to be submitted to the leaders by IDB President Dr. Ahmad Muhammad Ali said the PNA was given $480 million toward backing its budget, while an additional $423 million was used in health, education, agriculture and housing projects.
Dr. Ali said in the report that the fund helped rebuild more than 12,000 homes destroyed by the Israeli Army, renovate 200 schools, print six million textbooks, plant 700,000 saplings of olive and other fruit trees uprooted by Israeli Army bulldozers and Jewish settlers, supply hospitals and health centers with medical equipment, and dig 180 wells to provide water to areas where water supplies were cut by the occupying forces.
“The aid extended to the Palestinian people from this fund has greatly helped to solidify the resolve of the Palestinians,” Dr. Ali said.
