GENEVA: The UN said Friday that its refugee operations were seeing swelling funding through a dedicated Islamic philanthropy platform aimed at collecting the charity payments required of Muslims under the religion.
A day after the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the United Nations’ refugee agency said it was increasingly able to channel obligatory donations under Islam to help fund its activities.
Since it was first piloted in 2017, the UNHCR’s Refugee Zakat Fund has raised nearly $200 million from Zakat — one of the five pillars of Islam, which requires Muslims to give around 2.5 percent of their savings and wealth each year as obligatory almsgiving — and from voluntary charity funds known as Sadaqah.
“During the last five years, we managed to assist six million people, mainly in Muslim countries, with the Zakat and the Sadaqah,” Khaled Khalifa, UNHCR’s representative to the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, told reporters in Geneva.
The main recipient operations have been for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, internally displaced people in Yemen, and Syrian refugees in Lebanon.
Overall, cash assistance and other aid has been handed out across 26 countries.
Last year, the fund received $21.3 million in Zakat contributions and $16.7 million in Sadaqah donations, the UNHCR said.
Khalifa said the UNHCR platform had allowed it to become the main beneficiary of such funds within the UN system and perhaps in the global humanitarian sector.
While the aid went mainly to Muslim-majority countries, Khalifa said that “we do not help Muslims alone, and we do not divide the beneficiaries by religion.”
He acknowledged that compared to the UN refugee agency’s overall multibillion-dollar budget, Islamic philanthropy represented “only a drop in the ocean.”
“I hope it will be much bigger in the future,” he said.
So far, Sheikh Thani Bin Abdullah Bin Thani Al-Thani of Qatar, who serves as a UNHCR advocate, has been the biggest contributor to the fund, providing more than $110 million to date, or more than half of total contributions.
“I think this demonstrates how powerful this tool could be if we provide a platform for individual donors who can contribute to refugee issues worldwide,” Khalifa said.
He added though that the fund is trying to “reduce our dependence on large donors... and to rely more on small, individual donors who can contribute small amounts but in an economy-of-scale perspective.”
The agency is hoping to see more funds coming in during Ramadan.
“Last year, we raised more than $20 million in Ramadan alone,” Khalifa said. “We are hoping to exceed that this year.”
UN sees growing Islamic donations for refugee aid
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UN sees growing Islamic donations for refugee aid
- A day after the start of Ramadan, the UN’s refugee agency said it was increasingly able to channel obligatory donations under Islam to help fund its activities
- The main recipient operations have been for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, internally displaced people in Yemen, and Syrian refugees in Lebanon
Blinken says Israel needs a clear and concrete plan for Gaza’s future
Israel says it intends to keep overall security control and has baulked at proposals for the Palestinian Authority to take charge
KYIV: Israel needs a clear and concrete plan for the future of Gaza where it faces the potential for a power vacuum that could become filled by chaos, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday.
Washington and its ally Israel say Hamas cannot continue to run Gaza after militants from the group ignited the conflict with attacks on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people on Oct. 7.
“We do not support and will not support an Israeli occupation. We also of course, do not support Hamas governance in Gaza... We’ve seen where that’s led all too many times for the people of Gaza and for Israel. And we also can’t have anarchy and a vacuum that’s likely to be filled by chaos,” Blinken said during a press conference in Kyiv.
The US top diplomat has held numerous talks with Israel’s Arab neighbors on a post-conflict plan for Gaza since Israel vowed to root out Hamas from the Palestinian enclave more than seven months ago.
But Israel says it intends to keep overall security control and has baulked at proposals for the Palestinian Authority, which governs with partial authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to take charge.
“It’s imperative that Israel also do this work and focus on what the future can and must be,” Blinken said. “There needs to be a clear and concrete plan, and we look to Israel to come forward with its ideas.”
Turkiye tells US that Israel’s attack on Rafah unacceptable, Turkish source says
- Fidan also told Blinken that it was important to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza as soon as possible
ANKARA: Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told his US counterpart Antony Blinken in a call on Wednesday that Israel’s attack on the Gazan city of Rafah is unacceptable, a Turkish diplomatic source said.
Fidan also told Blinken that it was important to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza as soon as possible, while emphasising that obstacles to the access of humanitarian aid into the enclave must be removed, the source said.
Ireland to recognize Palestinian statehood ‘this month’: FM Martin
- FM Micheal Martin: ‘We will be recognizing the state of Palestine before the end of the month’
- Martin: ‘The specific date is still fluid because we’re still in discussions with some countries in respect of a joint recognition of a Palestinian state’
DUBLIN: Ireland is certain to recognize Palestinian statehood by the end of May, the country’s Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said on Wednesday, without specifying a date.
“We will be recognizing the state of Palestine before the end of the month,” Martin, who is also Ireland’s deputy prime minister, told the Newstalk radio station.
In March the leaders of Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and Malta said in a joint statement that they stand ready to recognize Palestinian statehood.
Ireland has long said it has no objection in principle to officially recognizing the Palestinian state if it could help the peace process in the Middle East.
But Israel’s war against Hamas militants in Gaza has given the issue new impetus.
Last week, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Spain, Ireland and Slovenia planned to symbolically recognize a Palestinian state on May 21, with others potentially following suit.
But Martin on Wednesday shied away from pinpointing a date.
“The specific date is still fluid because we’re still in discussions with some countries in respect of a joint recognition of a Palestinian state,” he said.
“It will become clear in the next few days as to the specific date but it certainly will be before the end of this month.
“I will look forward to consultations today with some foreign ministers in respect of the final specific detail of this.”
Last month during a visit to Dublin by Spanish premier Pedro Sanchez, Irish prime minister Simon Harris said the countries would coordinate the move together.
“When we move forward, we would like to do so with as many others as possible to lend weight to the decision and to send the strongest message,” said Harris.
Harris’s office said Wednesday that he updated King Abdullah II of Jordan by telephone on Ireland’s plan for statehood recognition.
Harris “outlined Ireland and Spain’s ongoing efforts on Palestinian recognition and ongoing discussions with other like-minded countries,” a statement read.
“The King and the Taoiseach (prime minister) agreed that both Ireland and Jordan should stay in touch in the coming days,” it added.
The conflict in Gaza followed Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack against Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized about 250 hostages, 128 of whom Israel estimates remain in Gaza, including 36 the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 35,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Hezbollah says struck Israel after field commander’s killing
- Hezbollah fighters on Wednesday attacked “the Meron base with dozens of Katyusha rockets, heavy rockets and artillery shells“
- The attacks were “part of the response to the assassination carried out by the Israeli enemy in the south” the previous day, it said
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it launched dozens of rockets at north Israel military positions Wednesday in retaliation for the killing of a member Israel said was a field commander.
Israel and Hamas ally Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily fire following the Palestinian group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
Hezbollah fighters on Wednesday attacked “the Meron base with dozens of Katyusha rockets, heavy rockets and artillery shells” as well as targeting a barrack with “heavy rockets,” the group said.
The attacks were “part of the response to the assassination carried out by the Israeli enemy in the south” the previous day, it said.
Israel’s army said sirens sounded in Meron on Wednesday without providing further details.
On Tuesday evening, Hezbollah said Israeli fire had killed its member Hussein Makki, who was identified as a field commander by a source close to the group.
The Israeli army later confirmed it had launched the strike that killed Makki.
It described him as “a senior field commander” in Hezbollah responsible for planning and executing “numerous terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and territory.”
“He previously served as the commander of Hezbollah’s forces in the coastal region,” the army added.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency had reported two people killed in an “enemy drone strike that targeted a car on the Tyre-Al-Hush main road.”
But another source close to Hezbollah later told AFP that while Makki was killed, the other person was injured.
At least 412 people have been killed in Lebanon in more than seven months of cross-border violence, mostly militants but also including 79 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israel says 14 soldiers and 10 civilians have been killed on its side of the border.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced in areas on both sides of the border.
Jordan foils militant attempt to smuggle arms
- Investigations are ongoing on the smuggling attempt
AMMAN: Jordan foiled an attempt by foreign-backed militants to smuggle arms into its territory, a security official told state news agency PETRA on Wednesday.
Security services seized the arms and detained the smugglers, who were Jordanians, in March.
“Investigations and operations are ongoing,” read the PETRA statement.
Jordan had recently blocked several attempts to smuggle arms including mines, explosives, Kalashnikov rifles, and Katyusha rockets.
