BEIT HANOUN, March 21: Three families of Palestinian “martyrs” were each given 10,000 dollars on Friday by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein despite the US-led invasion of Baghdad, and no one here could imagine it might be the last handout from the Iraqi leader.

The money was given out on a platform decorated in the colours of the Iraqi and Palestinian flags and within sight of the northern Gaza border crossing of Erez, manned by Israeli soldiers.

Under a portrait of a beaming Saddam, speakers took turns to address a silent and attentive crowd of 1,000 people.

At the forefront of the crowd was an old man in Bedouin dress and a despondent-looking 50-year-old holding a photo of a bearded youth bearing a rifle and bandolier.

The framed photo, prettified with aluminium foil and fake flowers, shows the two men’s grandson and son Abdelkarim Shabat, a member of the radical Islamic group Hamas killed last December by an Israeli tank while trying to attack a Jewish settlement close to the town.

The Arab Liberation Front (ALF), a movement funded by the pan-Arab secular nationalist Baath party in Iraq, regularly hands over large donations fron President Saddam to families of suicide bombers, slain gunmen and civilians killed by the Israeli army.

On Friday, some 30,000 Palestinians took to the streets in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to demonstrate their support for the beleaguered Iraqi strongman.—AFP