Traditional Palestinian headgear sales booming

Cairo: Donning Palestinian headgear, popularly known as the kaffiyah, Ahmad Shaaban, a dealer in fashion accessories in Cairo's famed bazaar - Khan Al Khalili - is seeing far busier trade than usual.

"Since the start of the Israeli aggression in Gaza on December 27, I have been receiving many clients, mostly Egyptians, asking for the distinctive Palestinian headgear," Shaaban told Gulf News.

"By wearing the kaffiyah people would like to show their sympathy for the Palestinians and their decades-old cause."

According to him, the high demand for the headdress has sent its price rising from 25 Egyptian pounds (Dh16.53) to 35 (Dh22.14).

"But this price tag is still lower than in the fashionable areas where the kaffiyah may sell for 55 pounds (Dh36.73)," Shaaban said.

Incursion

For more than a week Israel has been pressing ahead with a massive incursion into Gaza which has claimed more than 500 lives, many of them civilians.

The Israeli leaders cite rockets fired by Hamas at towns in southern Israel as the reason for their aerial and ground onslaught.

"If I cannot join the Palestinians in Gaza to repulse this brutal aggression, at least I can show solidarity with them by wearing the kaffiyah," said Hassan Abdul Fatah, a law student, as he was checking out an assortment of the headgear in a store in the nearby area of Al Muski in central Cairo.

"I prefer the white and black version of the kaffiyah because it is the original symbol of Palestinian identity. Colourful versions are merely fashion trends," he explained.

Arafat's version

Originally the headgear of Palestinian farmers, the keffiyeh rose to fame in the 1960s when the resistance movement began against Israeli occupation and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat always wore it. Arafat - who died in 2004 - made it his personal trademark and used to arrange it in the shape of a triangle to look like the outlines of Palestine.