DOHA, May 7, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – Leading Muslim scholars will meet in Doha on May 10-11 to discuss the starving of the Palestinian people after international aid cut, and are expected to issue a fatwa obliging Muslims and governments to help.

"In view of the financial siege clamped on the Palestinian people, it is the duty of Muslim scholars to meet and make their position known to the nation," prominent scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi told a press conference on Saturday, May 6.

"We have called for a conference that will bring together influential people and groups in the Muslim nation," added Qaradawi, president of the International Union of Muslims Scholars (IUMS).

A galaxy of Muslim scholars will be attending the two-day meeting including renowned Saudi scholar Sheikh Salman Al-Odah, IUMS Secretary General Mohamed Salim Awa and Harith al-Dari, chairman of Iraq's Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS).

A number of Palestinian leaders will also show up including Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shalah and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command leader Ahmed Jibril.

Talks are still underway with reluctant Fatah movement to send delegates.

Sheikh Qaradawi said the two-day conference will discuss issuing a fatwa on the duty of the Muslim nation and of governments to offer financial aid and moral support to the Palestinians.

"This is the duty of Muslims as stipulated by religion and national unity," he averred.

The prominent scholar said the conference will set up a follow-up committee to implement its resolutions.

Qaradawi had weeks ago urged world Muslims to financially support the suffering Palestinian people.

Increasingly desperate for funds, the Palestinian government has asked Palestinian monetary authorities for an emergency $100 million loan.

The Palestinian government needs $170 million a month, out of which $115 million goes to 165,000 civil servants.

The Palestinians have been facing serious shortages of food and medicine since the US and the EU suspended direct aid to the Hamas-led government.

Israel has further stopped transferring customs duties worth around $50 million a month and previously collected for the Palestinian Authority.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees warned on Friday, May 5, that a humanitarian crisis was now "on our doorstep" in the Gaza Strip due to the aid freeze.

Sheikh Qaradawi slammed "the West's double standards in rejecting the Palestinian democracy simply because its result did not suit them."

He branded this as "political hypocrisy which we reject."

Western countries have boycotted the new Hamas-led Palestinian government.

Former US president Jimmy Carter cautioned on February 20, against punishing the Palestinian people for electing the resistance group.

Sheikh Qaradawi also criticized Arab banks for "failing to allow the transfer of donated funds to the Palestinians."

Several banks have shied away from transferring funds for the PA fearing American sanctions.

The Arab Bank, which holds some 30,000 accounts of PA workers, refrained from accepting such transfer after the US threatened to deem this as assistance to Hamas.