The World - News from Aug. 29, 1988

Israeli police shut down a federation of 108 Palestinian charities and accused it of being a front for the Palestine Liberation Organization. Police raided the Federation of Charitable Societies in Jerusalem after the West Bank military commander, Maj. Gen. Amram Mitzna, ordered it closed for a year. Ellen Araj, deputy head of the charity group, denied the organization had political goals and said many of the group’s projects aiding the poor and the handicapped would be hurt. But a government statement said the charity office distributed PLO funding “under cover of financial aid and charity.”