Israel will begin airlifting shipments of humanitarian aid this week to Kurdish refugees on the Iraqi-Turkish border.
An Israeli air force Hercules transport is scheduled to take off Tuesday carrying six tons of medical supplies, clothing, blankets and other essentials on a list of needed items provided by Turkey’s Red Crescent Society to the Magen David Adom of Israel.
Other planeloads will follow.
It is the first instance of direct communications between the Red Crescent and the MDA, the Moslem and Israeli equivalents of the Red Cross.
The supplies were donated by the Israeli government and the MDA. The clothing was purchased with contributions made to a special fund established by the Association of Jews from Kurdistan.
The supplies will be turned over to the Turkish Red Crescent in Turkey. The Red Crescent will transport them over several hundreds of miles of mountainous terrain to the border region, where hundreds of thousands of Kurds fleeing the forces of Saddam Hussein are stranded without food or shelter.
In New York, meanwhile, the American Jewish World Service has launched a fund-raising drive to provide food, clothing and medical supplies to Kurdish and Shi’ite refugees fleeing Iraq.
Contributions may be sent to AJWS, Kurdish Relief, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, 11th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10104.
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is also collecting funds to provide relief to the Kurdish refugees. Contributions may be sent to Open Mailbox for Kurdish Refugees, JDC, 711 Third Ave, 10th floor, New York, N.Y. 10017.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
