Al Khater debunks propaganda against Qatari aid to Palestine

(MENAFN - The Peninsula) Doha: Assistant Foreign Minister and Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs H E Lolwah Al Khater has debunked the propaganda about Qatari aid going to non-humanitarian purposes saying that Qatari aid goes to all Palestinians. To a question about Qatari aid going to non-humanitarian purpose, she said that this claim is absolutely inaccurate. ''Whoever has been talking this is not saying the truth. We do exercise very strict measures on our aid in general and this has been done through UN and obviously with the approval of Israel,” said H E Lolwah Al Khater in an interview with Sky News. She said that all aids are going to electricity sector or humanitarian purposes. ''We have commissioned half a billion US dollars and most of this money is going to rebuilding houses. Within coming five to six months, we are confident that we can rebuild around 45,000 housing units,” said Lolwah Al Khater.  She said that this is in addition to rebuilding some of other facilities for example Qatar Red Crescent building, the building which hosted Associated Press, Al Jazeera building and Hamad Rehabilitation Hospital which were partially damaged in this attack. ''In the past what happened was that 50 percent aid was going to energy sector as 2 million people in Gaza were living on two hours of electricity supply per day until Qatar intervened to increase the supply 16 hours per day,” said H E Lolwah Al Khater. She said that in the past the other 50 percent of the previous aid used to go to the poor families in Gaza at the rate of $100 per family which is minimum for the survival of the families in need of foods and medication. ''I should highlight here that our aid is not only going to Gaza but it also goes to West Bank for example the largest housing project is in West Bank,” said Lolwah Al Khater. She said that what happened in Gaza was catastrophic and the root causes of the most recent escalation in Gaza started specifically with the ethnic cleansing process happening in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. ''Talking about two sides aggression is miss-representation of the situation. We are talking about a nuclear state which has one of strongest army globally and stateless people,” said Lolwah Al Khater. She said that most of the commentators in Israel are saying this because of domestic and political reasons for election purposes basically. To a question about peace deal between Palestine and Israel, she said: ''We will have to remain optimistic this was brokered through efforts by Qatar, Egypt, Jordan in coordination with the United States.” She said that the problem is not Israel Hamas basically this is struggle of Palestinian people from past 73 years.  ''We are talking about stateless people in Gaza alone; there are 2 million people who are living in open air prison and we are also talking about many million refugees and we are talking about Oslo agreement which was never fulfilled. We need to address this issue holistically,” said Lolwah Al Khater. She said that western nations should stop unconditional support to Israel. ''The suffering of the Palestinian people under occupation started at least since 1948. Hamas was founded in late 1984. There were decades of suffering before Hamas ever existed. It is time for western nations to start approaching to this holistically and stop the struggling of Palestinian people by finding a just and viable solution,” said Lolwah Al Khater.MENAFN31052021000063011010ID1102181456