GOD SENT CALAMITY has struck the country. Around 40,000 have perished and three times as many injured. Thousands are still trapped under debris of collapsed houses and other structures. The helpless are dying and those trying to help have no means to pull them out. The worst earth quake in past 100 years has ripped through northern areas of Pakistan and Azad Kashmir. The survivors have nothing to eat and drink. They have no shelter and no medicines. The dead cannot be provided shrouds as quite a some areas in the worst affected region have run short of white cotton cloth. The Government and NGOs have sprung into action. Aid has started to flow in from abroad. Doctors and paramedics from within and outside Pakistan are rushing to the remote areas, particularly in Azad Kashmir and Hazara and Batgram Divisions of Frontier province to provide critically needed aid to the injured. The task is however enormous. The Federal Cabinet has approved an emergency relief package of Rs. 5 billion. This is however not enough. The resources needed even to provide much needed emergency assistance in the worst hit areas can not at this stage be assessed.
As Muslims, we have been taught that we are not expected to eat as long as our neighbour is hungry. Muslims are like one body. Its several parts have been chopped off or are suffering intense pain. Then, this is the month of Holy Ramazan during which Muslims are supposed to do more good deeds for greater reward from the Creator. We were looking forward to the festivities. Allah had ordained otherwise. We should now instead do our utmost to help those in need. Quake-affected people in hundreds of thousands have been rendered homeless. They are made to languish under the open skies. No clothes and nothing to protect them from cold. They have lost all their belongings. The only clothes they have axe those they were wearing at the time the tragedy befell the nation around 9 in the morning on Saturday. The nations go through a period of trial. This is the test we are being put to.
Every Pakistan, especially those with means must, go all out to help the needy. Donations must be rushed to most affected areas in the shape of clothes, tents, edibles, medicines and cash. The reconstruction and rehabilitation work must be well coordinated and honest efforts by all concerned in the relief operations must be put in. The elected representatives, Government officials, political workers and NGO s should join hands in providing help where it is needed most. Politics should not come in the way. It is a humanitarian problem of enormous magnitude and those who want to help should not care about publicity. After all, Pleasure of Allah can be earned by helping His creatures. The people have an excellent opportunity to do more good deeds in this holy month. Allah will surely reward the manifold. The official agencies must ensure that unscrupulous elements are not allowed to exploit the situation. Exemplary punishment may be given to those who try to siphon off relief assistance to their benefit.

Intra-Palestinian conflict

SHOULD Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon meet tomorrow, Abbas will come with a long agenda. The Palestinians want Israel to fulfill promises made at a previous Abbas-Sharon summit in February, including the release of additional Palestinian prisoners and a military withdrawal from more West Bank towns.
But now being stirred into the already murky stew is an entirely new ingredient — a worsening intra-Palestinian conflict which is becoming a trouble zone of its own. In Gaza, a fortnight of accumulated tension between the PA and Hamas culminated in street clashes and a firefight at police stations, resulting in the deaths of three people. In another incident, a previously unknown Palestinian group did what would have been unthinkable a short while ago — abducted senior Hamas members. So dire is the situation that the government of Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei is to submit its resignation to Abbas so that he can form a new government capable of handling the chaos now rampant throughout the territories. That Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are closer than ever to the point of implosion is a situation worlds away from that of only a few weeks ago when Hamas was reveling in some of the best days it had ever known, celebrating Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. It claimed that its attacks had forced Israel into a humiliating retreat, and that Gaza was just the beginning.
Then, however, once again came Israeli helicopters and fighter jets in the sky over Gaza after Hamas launched rocket attacks at the Israeli town of Sderot in retaliation for the explosion that ripped through one of the group’s victory rallies and killed sixteen. The blast was blamed on Israel by Hamas while the PA thought it an accident. Hamas’ major concession — a halt to all its attacks from Gaza — after swift Israeli military retaliation apparently broke its spirit. Hamas normally adopts the most hostile possible position toward Israel; so the uncharacteristic raising of the white flag was a clear sign of concern that any advantage it had gained from Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza would be squandered if its actions were to draw Israel back into the territory.
From then on, Hamas, the movement that portrays itself as the iron fist of the Palestinian resistance, looked beatable and was in fact defeated in recent municipal polls by Fatah and thus insult was added to already painful injury. The vote is viewed as a prelude to January’s crucially important Palestinian Legislative Council elections which Hamas was expected to do well in, although such a prediction may be dampened by unfolding events. Should Abbas and Sharon meet, the Israeli prime minister will definitely want tougher action to be taken against Hamas. Abbas has refused to use force to disarm Hamas, preferring instead to negotiate with it. The PA’s viewpoint has been that the best way to conquer Hamas is not necessarily at the ballot box but to co-opt it. The problem is that Hamas as a group and an ideology is not yet sure whether it is in the Palestinians’ best interests, or its own, if it forswears activism for participation in a nascent democracy.

—Arab News