November 26, 2000
Iraq has decided to send a formal memorandum to the United Nations to include the Palestinians in the U.N. oil-for-food program, which began in late 1996 to alleviate the crippling impacts of the sanctions on Iraq.
The official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported on Sunday that at a cabinet meeting concluded late Saturday night, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ordered to submit a formal request to the U.N. Security Council as well as U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The request will list "Palestinian brothers" in the spheres of food and medicine of the oil-for-food program.
This means that if approved by the U.N., Iraq will also use its oil revenue under the U.N. humanitarian deal to provide food and medicine for the Palestinians who have been under the "embargo" of Israel, as termed by the Iraqi president. But the INA report did not say when Iraq will formally put forward this to the world's leading body.
This has been regarded as one of the most important decisions made by the Iraqi government to support the intifada (uprising) of Palestine against Israel.
More than 270 people, mostly Palestinians, have been killed and thousand wounded in the surge of Israeli-Palestinian violence over the past two months. Iraq on Saturday dispatched a third medical team to Amman, capital of Jordan, to help treat the Palestinians wounded in the conflicts with Israel soldiers.
In response to the call by the Iraqi government for a holy war to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation, more than 6.5 million Iraqis have volunteered to go to Palestine to fight along with their Palestinian brothers against Israel. Moreover, demonstrations have been held all over the country recently to condemn the "Israeli butchery" against the Palestinians.
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