Three year-old Khaled Saadeh looks out over the sell-out crowd at the Palestine Children's Charity Dinner, while Sister Barbara Cameron and Dr Alan Kerr enjoy a brief break. PHRCW Co-president, Dr Ruba Harfeil, models a traditionally embroidered Palestinian folk dress.
Three year-old Khaled Saadeh looks out over the sell-out crowd at the Palestine Children's Charity Dinner, while Sister Barbara Cameron and Dr Alan Kerr enjoy a brief break. PHRCW Co-president, Dr Ruba Harfeil, models a traditionally embroidered Palestinian folk dress.
A capacity crowd at the first Palestine Cultural Dinner in Hamilton earlier this month raised more than $2000 for Dr Alan Kerr's charity, Palestine Children's Relief Fund (PCRF).
Palestine Human Rights Campaign Waikato (PHRCW) had promised donors an evening to remember and they were not disappointed.
The 120 guests wereserved a three-course meal prepared by chef Nabih Mansour and heard moving eyewitness accounts of what children endure in occupied Palestine.
Dr Asad Khan, a specialist at Waikato Hospital, recounted his experiences in West Bank.
A video clip drove home his message that a growing web of more than 600 checkpoints and roadblocks set up by the Israeli military (in an area the size of the Coromandel) blocks and delays Palestinians requiring urgent access to hospitals. This stranglehold means that what should be a 10-minute ambulance trip in greater Jerusalem now takes an average of two hours.
Sister Barbara Cameron, a Catholic nun, has made two trips to Palestine, the first of which was with International Women's Peace Service. She spoke of the determination and courage of Palestinian families to use peaceful tactics of non-violent resistance.
Sister Barbara described an occasion when 50 Jewish settlers rampaged through the Palestinian village of Huwara attacking homes and breaking windows with the intention of torching the local school and place of worship. Sister Barbara was in that village, staying with a family.
Dr Alan Kerr, a heart surgeon and founder of the NZ branch of PCRF, described the difficult conditions under which operations were undertaken in Gaza.
He said the devastation and danger is now extreme. Children needing complex heart operations must make the journey to PCRF-supported facilities in the West Bank. In spite of the difficulties, PCRF continues each year to give almost 200 children heart operations who otherwise would not have had a chance at life.
The mood of diners was sombre, but Charlotte Warren-Jenkins, MC for the evening and a teacher at Hamilton Boys High, offered the audience hope.
