RIYADH/JEDDAH, 3 November 2004 — The Kingdom’s Expatriates in general and Palestinians in particular reacted with shock and grief over the news of the death of the UAE President Sheikh Zayed ibn Sultan Al-Nahayan who ruled over the emirate for over three decades.
They paid tributes to his staunch support for the Palestinian cause and said they had lost a true friend and well-wisher of the Palestinians. He had donated generously to the UN Relief Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees.
In Riyadh, expressing his shock over the UAE president’s death, Abu Omran, a Palestinian, said Sheikh Zayed showed solidarity with the Palestinians and let them know that they were not alone in their darkest hour.
Abdulkareem Hafez, a Palestinian from Hebron, said that at the humanitarian level the late UAE president played a major role in raising funds by organizing telethons, charity walks and one-day salary donations.
He also raised funds for relief agencies engaged in humanitarian work and created an awareness about the plight of the Palestinians.
In this context, Hesham Ferhat, an Egyptian expatriate, explained how Sheikh Zayed ordered the reconstruction of residential units destroyed by the Israeli Army at the Jenin refugee camp in West Bank. He bore the full cost of building 800 housing units, equipped with all amenities.
The same day, following the Israeli destruction of the Jenin Camp in 2002, a plane carrying 40 tons of foodstuff and medicines left Abu Dhabi for Egypt’s Al Arish Airport as part of the UAE’s uninterrupted supply by air of relief materials to the occupied territories.
Sheikh Zayed also gave instructions to the UAE Red Crescent Society to contact officials of Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity and Omar mosque with a view to repairing the damage inflicted by Israeli fire.
Vinod Menon, a Riyadh-based journalist, said Sheikh Zayed had played a major role in the transformation of the UAE into the most advanced and forward-looking Gulf state. Thanks to his far-sightedness, the UAE has become a magnet for investors from the East and the West. His industrialization program was instrumental in bringing hundreds of thousands of Indians into the UAE, he added.
In Jeddah, the news saddened the citizens and residents present at various iftar parties.
“It’s shocking indeed,” Abdullah Saleh Maddah, a real estate businessman, said. The contribution of the founding father of the UAE to the cause of Palestine has been immense, he said, adding that he turned the UAE into one of the richest countries in the world.
“Sheikh Zayed was genuinely loved by his people for using oil money to turn his desert country green,” Fahad Marei, a factory owner in the Jeddah Industrial City said, adding that Sheikh Zayed had played a key part in creating the UAE on Dec. 2, 1971 following Britain’s pullout from the Gulf.
“Sheikh Zayed believed security and prosperity of the region could be assured only through unity and he achieved it since independence from Britain in 1971,” Hassan Ahmed Alghamdi, a general trading and contracting owner, said.
Sheikh Zayed was a man of great vision and undertook a spectacular modernization program for the entire country, he said.
In just a few decades the UAE has built booming banking and tourism sectors and, at present levels of production, oil and gas supplies are expected to last for 100 years, said Abdul Karim Idriss, a UAE national. He also recalled some of Sheikh Zayed’s role in tackling the regional issues and his preparedness to support humanitarian causes.
