A MAJOR festival marking the Palestinian Intifada is expected to draw over 20,000 people to Bilad Al Qadeem tonight.
The event celebrates the International Al Quds (Jerusalem) Day, commemorated worldwide on the last Friday of Ramadan.
The event, at 8.45pm, is being staged by the Ansar Al Hussain Ma'tam for the 24th consecutive year, on an open ground in the middle of the village.
It will include speeches by top Islamic scholar Shaikh Maitham Al Salman and operettas by Lebanese singers Bassam Shams and Ali Al Attar.
A play entitled The Beating Heart of The Resistance by Bahraini director Mohammed Al Saffar will also be staged.
The actors include Sayed Hani Al Wedaie, Sayed Hussain Al Mousawi, Abdulamir Al Billadi, Hussain Al Jad, Mahdi Al Malki.
Nursery rhymes will be performed by children in addition to poetry recitals by poets and brothers Abdulla and Hassan Al Qurmazi
An exhibition featuring photos, portraits and paintings highlighting the Israeli occupation of Palestine will also feature at the event.
Booths selling Islamic, documentary and education tapes, CDs, videocassettes, scarves, T-shirts and other merchandise have already been set up at the venue.
Festival treasurer Ali Al Qattan said that the event was expected to attract more than 20,000 people.
"Our event always gets better and bigger each year, but in the upcoming festivals we will have to shift, because the venue can't accommodate the growing number of participants and visitors," he said.
"During past years, we had around 18,000 people attending the event, but more than 20,000 are expected this year.
"Our highest record of 20,000 people was six years ago when we held the event jointly with the Islamic Enlightenment Society."
Mr Al Qattan said the festival's management had plans to reloc-ate to the Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Cen-tre, Sanabis, in the future.
"Even there we know that the place will not hold our numbers, but it will be more comfortable considering that people will be in an air-conditioned venue with proper facilities rather than the current open ground we are using," he said.
For more information or to donate money to the event, contact Mr Al Qattan on 39183107.
Meanwhile, people are also being invited to take part in a march in support of the Palestinians tomorrow at 4.30pm, starting from the Burgerland roundabout, Bud-aiya Highway, to Daih village.
The event is organised by a group of political, religious and social societies under the theme No For Normalisation Of Relat-ions With the Zionist Enemy.
Islamic Olama'a Council chairman Sayed Majeed Al Meshaal will speak at the event.
alaali@gdn.com.bh
