Today's donation: a total of $285,000 a princely sum in the economically distressed Gaza Strip.
One of the recipients is Nada Mahdi, a 22-year-old student, who arrived for the ceremony carrying her 3-month-old son, Ismail. Her husband, Mohammad, blew himself up last month trying to attack an Israeli military post in the Gaza Strip. There were no other injuries in the incident.
"I am proud of him," she says in Arabic after collecting her $25,000 check. "May God reward him."
Soliciting Murder?
In the two years of the renewed Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iraq has given Palestinian families more than $10 million, all according to a well-known scale. Families of suicide bombers get $25,000 each and families of those killed in confrontations with Israel get $10,000. Those who houses are destroyed by the Israeli military get $5,000 and those wounded by Israelis get $1,000.
President Bush says the money rewards and solicits murder. An official of the charity that distributes the money says it symbolizes solidarity between Iraqis and Palestinians both, he says, targets of American aggression.