In a piece published in the Independent entitled Gaza is already on its knees – if coronavirus spreads, the fallout will be catastrophic, Muneeb Abu-Ghazaleh, the Islamic Relief Country director for Gaza, tries to solicit donations (hat tip: Michal):
As aid workers race to mitigate the impact of coronavirus on communities, non-critical activities that involve high exposure to others have been suspended. Every year during Ramadan, Islamic Relief distributes food parcels to low-income households around the world. With the holy month just weeks away, we are putting plans in place to do this in a way that doesn’t put people at risk.
And for now, our operation is prioritising three things: providing the quarantine centres and municipality with hygiene materials like soap, chlorine and disinfectant spray, and food aid for families who have lost income specifically because of this situation.
Children like my son have only ever experienced life under siege, their community impoverished and in dire health. Gaza is already on its knees – and if Covid-19 were to spread, this humanitarian crisis would bring us crashing down. It would be catastrophic.
Muneeb Abu-Ghazaleh is Islamic Relief Country director for Palestine – Gaza
Islamic Relief UK has launched an emergency coronavirus appeal to support vulnerable communities in Gaza, Syria and Yemen as well as local partners in the UK. You can donate here
About Islamic Relief…
German officials have accused Islamic Relief Worldwide of “significant” connections to the underground Muslim Brotherhood, triggering concerns among politicians over the diversion of official funds to Islamists.
A submission to the Bundesrat revealed that the powerful Federal Court of Audit was examining official grants to Islamic Relief, which was founded in Birmingham, UK, that totalled €6.1 million in the years to 2016. The response said Islamic Relief was connected to Muslim Brotherhood groups not only in Europe but around the world.
Liberal MP Oliver Luksic said the answer was deeply alarming. “It is a scandal that German taxpayers’ money is going to go to Islamists,” he said.
The centrist party has called on the German government to address the issue as an “urgent problem” and said its refusal to accept concerns expressed by parliament was a matter of deep concern.
Most of the German funding provided to Islamic Relief was designated for projects in Syria, the statement added.
The United Arab Emirates designated Islamic Relief Worldwide as a terrorist organisation in 2014 over its global links to the Muslim Brotherhood. Meanwhile concerns over the provenance of funds led global banking giant HSBC to shut down Islamic Relief’s accounts as had the Swiss banking corporation UBS four years earlier.
The announcement of a German review into official funding of Brotherhood-related groups comes amid growing concern over the spreading influence of the group in the country. The most recent published intelligence assessment said that there were an estimated 1,040 Brotherhood activists active in the country. It further said the group exerted active control over 50 mosques or Islamic centres.
Following concerns about the group’s underground influence at centres in Bonn, Colletta Manemann, Germany’s Integration Commissioner, warned that mosque-goers were targeted by the group. “To our knowledge, the Brotherhood is more in the focus of the security agencies than ever before,” she said. “We welcome that.”
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Volker Beck, a Green Party politician, said the Brotherhood had built up ties with the main Islamic body for German Turks, using a conference organised in Cologne late last year as a platform for pan-European ambitions. “At the conference at the Islamic centre in Cologne there was the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood,” he said. “This event is quite interesting and a bit terrifying. They are not anymore trying to organise the Muslims in Germany but on a European level.”
More here, including its ties to Hamas.
I guess the Independent have a very short memory, or just don’t give a damn.