BUELACH, Switzerland, April 26, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Swiss Muslim women launched a fresh worldwide campaign to collect donations with the aim of alleviating burdens of their Palestinian counterparts, suffering under the yoke of the Israeli occupation.

“The campaign is meant for helping the Palestinian women suffering under the Israeli occupation and improving their impoverished economic conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip,” Faissal Laghzaoui, public relations official of the Geneva branch of the Islamic Relief, told IslamOnline.net Tuesday, April 26.

Addressing the 12th annual conference of the Muslim women in Buelach, Switzerland, Laghzaoui said the campaign eyes offering education, information and skill courses for Palestinian women to enhance their abilities.

“Under the campaign, scholarships will be offered to some 200 university female students and to 200 students at schools in the occupied Palestinian territories,” he added.

Citing difficult living conditions of the Palestinian people and rising poverty rates in the occupied territories, Laghzaoui said many Palestinian families are no longer able to send their sons to schools or universities.

On March 31, Amnesty International said Palestinian women bear the brunt of the Israeli occupation forces’ intimidation practices, with some being forced to deliver at Israeli checkpoints after being denied passage to reach hospital.

The international human rights watchdog also stressed that as a result of Israeli military siege, more than 77% of the Palestinians in the Strip live below the poverty line -- almost double the number that existed before the Intifada.

According to 2002 UN statistics, unemployment increased to 50% in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The Islamic campaign, which is expected to last for one year, will incorporate two training courses for the Palestinian women on running small-scale projects and developing such enterprises.

These training courses will be open to some 100 university female graduates who have not yet found jobs.

Joining the training courses will cost each Palestinian participant only 100 US dollars.

Other training courses and seminars will also be organized under the campaign for some 1,600 Palestinian refugees to raise awareness of their rights and other issues of concern in their daily life.

“The campaign will include 40 training courses for Palestinian refugees to be held in ten different places over a whole year,” Laghzaoui told IOL.

“The courses will be held on a weekly basis with a cost of 170 US dollars for each participant.”

Responding to the Islamic campaign, Swiss female Muslims, during their annual conference, launched a campaign to collect donations for the Palestinian women, amounting to 3,000 US dollars, in addition to other personal gold pieces in just two hours.

Many Swiss Muslims also expressed readiness to broadly contribute in such relief campaigns to help the persecuted Palestinian people.

Females further voiced pride that the launch of the world Islamic campaign coincided with the holding of their annual conference.

Officials in charge of the Islamic female work in Switzerland said an organized campaign would be launched in support of the Islamic campaign, with e-mails being used to collect donations.

The association of female Muslims in Switzerland and the cultural society of the female Muslims in Zurich also decided to step up efforts in support of the Islamic campaign.

Islam is the second religion in Switzerland after Christianity. The country is home to 330,000 Muslims representing a sizable 4.5 percent of the country’s some eight million people.