Aug 1–4, Karbala: China’s Panda Aid Voices Support for Palestine at Fourth Al-Aqsa Call Conference in Karbala
- 小轩 李
- Aug 11
- 6 min read
By Kening Zhang | August 10, 2025
Karbala, Iraq, August 1–4, 2025 — The Fourth International Al-Aqsa Call Conference opened on August 1, 2025, at Al-Zahra University for Women, affiliated with the Holy Shrine of Imam Hussain in Karbala, under the theme “From Karbala to Palestine: A Journey of Sacrifice for Freedom and Dignity.” More than 400 participants from over 60 countries gathered for thematic forums, group discussions, visits to religious sites, and exchanges with local religious leaders. Topics covered multiple areas, including religion, community organizing, youth, and media. (For full participant details, see Appendix 1.)
As a key platform connecting religious and civil society organizations, the conference focused on how to apply religious teachings to oppose the military aggression and massacres of Israeli Zionism—particularly the famine and blockade in Gaza—and on promoting cooperation among humanitarian groups of different religions, regions, and ethnic backgrounds to deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people.
The event coincided with the Shiite calendar’s holiest religious occasions: Ashura (July 5) and Arbaeen (August 14–15). During this period, millions of Shiite Muslims from around the world make the pilgrimage to the holy shrine of Imam Hussein in Karbala, many walking the classic 88-kilometer route from Najaf to Karbala. The conference was deliberately held during this sacred time to inspire Shiite communities in Iraq and worldwide, through religious teachings, to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
The conference revolved around three key themes:
(1) political and legal pressure tools to confront the war of extermination; (2) international efforts to break the siege and resist displacement projects; (3) strategies to unify civil society organizations in forming international lobbying groups for the Palestinian cause.
Representing the Chinese humanitarian organization Panda Aid, Lee Siu Hin and Mr. Xu attended the conference, demonstrating China’s active role in global humanitarian solidarity. This marked Lee Siu Hin’s second visit to Iraq since 2003—when, as a journalist for the U.S. left-wing Pacifica Radio, he reported from an Iraq devastated by the U.S. invasion and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, later publishing report/CD book Reports from Baghdad.
At the Closing Session on August 3, Lee Siu Hin delivered an important speech titled “From Karbala to Gaza: The Peoples of the World Unite to Sacrifice for Peace and Justice” (full text in Appendix 2). He called on the international community: “From Karbala to Gaza, people from around the world, different race, religion, ethnicity, identity and political believes are UNITED to Sacrificed for Peace and Justice! TODAY WE are ALL Gazans!”
Lee drew parallels between the current situation in Gaza and atrocities in El Salvador in the 1980s backed by the U.S., exposing how Israel is using U.S.-made weapons to slaughter civilians and humanitarian workers in Gaza, and urging the world to provide emergency reinforcement. He cited history: the Salvadoran Civil War killed 75,000 people, and Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez of San Salvador—who dared to speak for the poor—was assassinated in 1980.
“This blood-stained script is being replayed in Gaza!” He condemned Israel’s blockade as a brutal “hunger game”—by July 16, at least 1,581 Palestinian medical workers had been killed. He highlighted grassroots humanitarian efforts worldwide, including the Gaza family project supported by friends in China, and the protest group Raging Grannies in New York, calling for international unity: “United we live, divided we perish. Long live the great unity of the peoples of the world! The united people will never be defeated!”
The conference received wide media coverage from outlets such as Al Mayadeen, Al-Manar, the Global Campaign to Return to Palestine, Karbala Now Agency, and the official website of the Imam Hussain Holy Shrine. The Panda Aid delegation was particularly commended for its active role in providing humanitarian assistance to Gaza. Recognition from third-party media underscored Panda Aid’s important position in international humanitarian action supporting Palestine.
The conference concluded with a ten-point declaration summarizing the participants’ shared position. Speaking from both faith and action, it firmly supported the Palestinian people’s legitimate resistance and liberation struggle, called on the international community to stand with Gaza through concrete action and to oppose Zionism, and expressed gratitude to all forces supporting the Palestinian cause.
At the end of the session, the speakers confirmed that the gathering in Karbala was not a passing event, but the founding of a spiritual and field-based resistance alliance that links Karbala of Hussein to Palestine, principle to reality, and cry to sacrifice. The voices were united in declaring that supporting Palestine is a duty, resistance is a right, normalization is betrayal, silence is complicity, and history will not forgive the negligent.
Appendix 1: full participant details from Lee Siu Hin
8/1-8/3 Karbala, Iraq: “Karbala to Palestine” Conference
YouTube: https://youtu.be/KGJ8MqLeaI8
8/2 Najaf, Iraq: Shrine of Iman Ali
YouTube: https://youtu.be/NmxEPJi9z2w
DouYin (TikTok China): https://v.douyin.com/k2QcqzS9HFs/
8/3 Baghdad, Iraq: Shrines of Imams Abu Hanifa and Abdul Qadir al-Jilani
YouTube: https://youtu.be/DCVaC8joVpE
8/4 Karbala, Iraq: Imam Hussain Shrine, millions of Shia Islam pilgrims who undertake religious journeys to Karbala, Iraq, to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, and the meeting of Call of Al-Aqsa Mawkeb.
YouTube: https://youtu.be/msRmlxf3KtM
Appendix 2: full text of Lee Siu Hin Speech at the Conference Closing Session
From Karbala to Gaza: People from Around the World UNITED to Sacrificed for Peace and Justice
Good morning! My name is Lee Siu Hin, 李小轩 from China Panda Aid to build humanitarian solidarity from China to the World.
Thank you for the organizer invites us from China to attend this conference, and to show our solidarity. Because we believe an injury to the one is the injury to all. From Karbala to Gaza, people from around the World, different race, religion, ethnicity, identity and political believes are UNITED to Sacrificed for Peace and Justice! TODAY WE are ALL Gazans!
As a humanitarian organization, we’re angered by the genocide and the mass destruction in Gaza. Israeli Zionist forces and U.S. are united to block all the food into Gaza, want to starve everyone to death, and creating a phony, so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to play their "hunger game" against the people of Gaza. I am ANGRY! So do peace and justice loving people from around the World, they rise up, facing the death-threat, using non-violent compassion to against the oppression.
I am not a religious person, but I always remember the freedom fighters, the martyrs of Bishop Óscar Romero and four American Catholic nuns killed in El Salvador. Following the 1979 U.S.-backed Salvadoran military coup, that caused 75,000 people killed over the years, Salvadoran Catholic activists protested against the junta's oppression of impoverished citizens. Óscar Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador, was assassinated on March 24, 1980 during the Mass, a day before his assignation, he delivered his last and most famous speech, calling out the Salvadorian military: "In the name of God, in the name of our tormented people whose cries rise up to heaven, I beseech you, I beg you, I command you, stop the oppression!" The next day, he was assassinated by the U.S.-trained Salvadoran death squads, with the U.S.-made weapons.
The same thing all over AGAIN in the GAZA! Israel massacre people of Gaza and humanitarian workers using U.S.-made weapons and technologies. As of July 16, according to the Ministry of Health of the State of Palestine, at least 1,581 health workers have been killed. Including on 14 July, Mr. Majed Salah, a nurse, was killed in a strike on his tent in Khan Younis along with his three daughters, all children.
Palestinian paramedic Rifaat Radwan, who documented his last moments before being executed by Israeli forces on March 23 in Rafah’s Tel al-Sultan neighborhood, along with his 14 colleagues: "Forgive me, Mother... this is the path I chose to help people. The army has arrived." His final words show they’re all our HEROS, the true believers who sacrificed for their life, to fight for humanity, dignity and freedom.
So what we should do? talk is cheap, action is louder than anything! We’re doing the Panda Aid humanitarian work for Gaza, not because it’s easy, because it’s difficult! We’re constantly facing serious challenges and threats. Our 307 boxes, 4.3 tones medical humanitarian aid items to Gaza for the Europe Palestinian Doctors Association, are still sitting idled in Shenzhen, China for the past eight months because of the deadly Israeli blockade, behind by U.S.
But we’re not alone! there’re many other people like us on the grassroots level, from around the world, doing the same thing. My friend Yousef, a Gazan escaped to China, with the help from his Chinese friends, organizing a family-run humanitarian project, with the help from his mother still in Gaza, to feed the people. Alice Sutter, a retired Jewish-American nurse from New York City, she formed a group call Raging Grannies, protesting every day for Palestine, resulting in multiple arrests, but she never fears.
These are all example when we work together from across the board, compassions can make difference.
United we stand, divided we fall.
世界人民大团结万岁！
People United Will Never be Defeated! Free, Free, Palestine!
Thank You!