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Occupied Jerusalem – The Israeli occupation intelligence in Jerusalem prevented the launch of a campaign to collect donations from Jerusalemites for the benefit of… Gaza Strip Which has been subjected to a devastating war and starvation since October 7, 2024, and threatened its organizers with confiscation of donations and arrest, six minutes after announcing the launch of the campaign via social media.
Jerusalemite activist Hassan Alqam and his father, Secretary-General of the Jerusalem and Palestine Clans Abdullah Alqam, announced on Sunday morning, through a video clip, the launch of a relief campaign from Jerusalem To the Gaza Strip.
The clip was published at exactly 10:00 a.m., and Hassan received a call six minutes later in which an intelligence officer threatened him not to collect any donations, but he insisted on achieving his goal of relaunching the campaign and involving Jerusalem in volunteer work for the benefit of the Gaza Strip.
thud
In the details, Hassan Alqam said – in his interview with Al Jazeera Net – that the Israeli officer told him, “This work is forbidden in Jerusalem, and if you start collecting donations, we will stop the campaign, confiscate the donations, and arrest you immediately.”
Alqam replied that relief campaigns had been launched in Palestinian interiorAnd that Jerusalem is part of this campaign, and donations will be transferred to the village of “Jit” in the northern triangle, and from there to the Kerem Shalom crossing, and then to Gaza.
The intelligence officer responded to Alqam by saying, “No sound is allowed to come from Jerusalem,” and the call ended after Alqam told the officer that he would launch a new campaign after obtaining legal cover, and the latter responded by saying, “And if you do, we will stop the campaign.”
Why did the occupation intelligence threaten the organizers of the donation campaign for Gaza in Jerusalem? And why did it prevent it from being held, as with the campaigns taking place inside the occupied territories?
Activist Hassan Alqam answers, “Jerusalem is the Compass.”#Jerusalem_the_compass pic.twitter.com/3uG2ddfvCx
— Jerusalem Compass (@alqudsalbawsala) August 19, 2024
Looking for an umbrella
The campaign organizers were forced to freeze it until they succeeded in being included under a legal umbrella. To this end, they approached several parties, including Arab Knesset members and the “Rahma” Association, whose organizers promised to organize a special campaign in Jerusalem in the coming days, with donations to be collected at five main points in the holy city.
Returning to the idea of launching the “There is Good in Us” campaign from Jerusalem to Gaza, Hassan Alqam said, “Great tragedies revive peoples, and Jerusalem had to shine in a huge campaign, especially since the people of this city have been shackled and its voice silenced since October 7th, and it was not possible to launch any campaign before that.”
“We are all one hand, and when it comes to our humanity, all other considerations fall away. This is where the idea came from a group of young volunteers to help our people in the Gaza Strip with a huge campaign to satisfy the hunger and thirst,” according to the Jerusalemite activist.
Hassan and the volunteers want to make a mark because Jerusalem is the “address and the origin,” as he put it. To achieve this, they will devote themselves after their daily working hours to receiving donations, sorting them, and packaging them in preparation for transporting them to the Palestinian interior and from there to the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians in the occupied interior launch a donation campaign to help the people of Gaza who are exposed to Israeli aggression pic.twitter.com/IPZ19FxjgK
— Al Jazeera Egypt (@AJA_Egypt) August 19, 2024
Reviving the culture of volunteering
Alqam believes that one of the most important goals of this campaign is to revive the culture of volunteering in Jerusalem because “when a person is keen to devote part of his time to serving his country and community, he reaches the highest levels of morality, generosity and giving.”
Regarding the steps taken by the volunteers to launch the campaign, Alqam pointed out that they searched for associations working in the relief sector, and found associations that included leftist Jews among their members, but that was not acceptable in the Jerusalemite community.
In the end, an agreement was reached with the official in charge of the donation campaign inside Palestine under the umbrella of the international humanitarian organization “Rahma” to start collecting donations in Jerusalem. “The official expressed his desire for us to join them, but due to his lack of time, he was unable to give us written approval. After the campaign was frozen, he promised us to focus on Jerusalem with a new campaign that will be launched in the coming days.”
At the end of his speech, the Jerusalemite activist said that the courageous step of knocking on the tank walls was taken, but the determination to move and set out remained because Gaza deserves it and the people of Jerusalem “have good in them.”
