Egypt’s mufti, Nassr Farid Wassel, has issued a religious edict urging Muslims to pay zakat, or alms, to the Palestinians, who are rising up against 34 years of Israeli occupation.
The top cleric said that supporting the Palestinians, who are stuggling to throw off the Israeli military occupation, was a kind of jihad, or struggle - a word sometimes interpreted as holy war.
The UK-based magazine The Economist has reported that Israel has "flouted" the 1993 Oslo peace accords by settling tens of thousands of its citizens on land taken from Palestinian owners in 1967.
The local press quoted him Thursday as saying that “each Muslim should help his brethren mujahedeen in the Palestinian lands with all that he can afford.”
The Palestinians have been under an Israeli economic and military siege since the outbreak of the Intifada in September 2000.
According to statistics, about 36 percent of the Palestinian workforce has been left jobless since Israel barred about 125,000 workers from entering to the Jewish state for work.
The Arab states have set up two funds to support the Palestinians, with assets reaching $1 billion – Albawaba.com
