Turkish relief organization helps injured Palestinians

By Mohamed Majid

GAZA CITY, Palestine

Turkey’s humanitarian relief organization (IHH) is providing financial aid to Palestinians in the blockaded Gaza Strip who have been injured while taking part in ongoing rallies along the Gaza-Israel buffer zone.

Mahmoud al-Shurafa, the IHH’s spokesman in Gaza, told Anadolu Agency that Turkish aid delivered on Thursday had been distributed to 565 Palestinians recently injured by Israeli army gunfire.

Al-Shurafa put the total value of Thursday’s aid delivery at some $100,000, with roughly $175 going to each injured individual.

For the last seven months, Palestinians in Gaza have been staging regular demonstrations along the Gaza-Israel buffer zone to demand the right to return to their homes in historical Palestine from which they were driven in 1948.

They also demand an end to Israel’s 12-year blockade of the Gaza Strip, which has gutted the coastal enclave’s economy and deprived its two million inhabitants of many basic commodities.

Since the rallies began on March 30, more than 200 Palestinians have been martyred -- and thousands more injured -- by Israeli troops deployed along the other side of the buffer zone.