A public-health disaster compounds Gaza’s humanitarian crisis

Special A public-health disaster compounds Gaza’s humanitarian crisis
Palestinians wounded waiting to be treated at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on December 16, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 12 March 2024
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A public-health disaster compounds Gaza’s humanitarian crisis

A public-health disaster compounds Gaza’s humanitarian crisis
  • Hellish scenes playing out at enclave’s few still functioning hospitals and clinics
  • Many doctors and nurses have either fled, been wounded or killed in the fighting

DUBAI: Children lie in rows on hospital floors and on pavements outside crowded clinics as they await the attention of sleep-deprived medics. Many are caked in dust, congealed with blood and tears, their untreated wounds growing septic the longer they wait.

Among them, men and women search frantically for missing loved ones or plead with doctors for medical attention, while mothers cradle dying infants. With supplies of gauze now scarce, many are bandaged in a patchwork of whatever fabric is available.

Deprived of antiseptics and even clean water, doctors are forced to perform operations and amputations without sterilized equipment, leading to infections for which there are no antibiotics. These often take place without anesthetic or pain relief.

Such hellish scenes are playing out at the few remaining hospitals and clinics across the Gaza Strip, which has endured months of bombardment and effective siege since Israel launched its retaliation for the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7.




Palestinian children suffering from malnutrition receive treatment at a healthcare center in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 5, 2024. (AFP)

“There are still patients and casualties who are scheduled for operations that cannot be performed because there are no supplies, no anesthetic drugs, no generators in these hospitals,” Hisham Mhanna, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross based in Rafah, told Arab News.

“It’s a mess. It’s a catastrophe.”

This, at a time when doctors and nurses have themselves fled, been wounded or even killed amid the bombardment. According to the World Health Organization, just 30 percent of Gaza’s medics are still working — many of them stretched to breaking point.

“They deal with the resulting casualties that are coming into the emergency rooms after airstrikes,” said Mhanna. “This is in addition to the hundreds of thousands of patients and vulnerable groups, including cancer patients, people with disabilities, pregnant women and people with chronic diseases.”




A Palestinian woman comforts her children as they wait at the hospital to be checked in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on October 12, 2023. (AFP)

According to Hamas-run Gaza’s Ministry of Health, some 30,900 Palestinians have been killed, 70,500 injured, and 7,000 have gone missing since the violence began. Faced with such carnage, the local health system is buckling.

On Feb. 18, the WHO said Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza, where fighting is ongoing, was no longer functional.

“The European Gaza Hospital is the only hospital that’s functional and can provide advanced healthcare services such as surgeries, intensive care and X-rays,” Jessica Moussan, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross based in Dubai, told Arab News.

“There are a few other hospitals partially functioning that have been provided a few supplies.”




A picture shows the damage in Nasser Hospital and the surrounding area in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on February 26, 2024. (AFP)

At the end of January, the ICRC said: “Gaza is at risk of complete medical shutdown without urgent action to preserve services.”

In a statement, William Schomburg, head of the ICRC office in Gaza, said: “Every hospital in the Gaza Strip is overcrowded and short on medical supplies, fuel, food and water.

“Many are housing thousands of displaced families. And now two more facilities risk being lost due to the fighting. The cumulative impact on the health system is devastating and urgent action must be taken.”

INNUMBERS

30,900 Palestinians killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to local health officials.

1.3% Proportion of Gaza’s prewar population of 2.3m killed in the conflict.

70,500 People registered as injured, although the true figure is likely far higher.

Just nine of Gaza’s 36 health facilities are still functioning, many only partially, and all at many times their intended capacity. The crowding is made worse by displaced families camped out on hospital grounds, believing they are safe there from the Israeli bombardment.

“The few remaining hospitals that are still functioning struggle on a daily basis with large numbers of casualties in addition to the pressure resulting from the thousands of families who are internally displaced at the hospitals,” said Mhanna.




Palestinians run for cover next to covered bodies after an Israeli airstrike near the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on November 22, 2023. (AFP)

The displacement of some 85 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants to densely packed refugee camps has left the population — especially young children — vulnerable to waterborne diseases, placing further pressure on health services.

There are also the cases generated by the spread of disease during the war, added Mhanna.

“At certain points sewage was flooding into the hospitals. There is also no personal space, and people cannot afford to buy food,” he said.

“They would rather buy food than hygiene items and without hygiene items you create the perfect storm for a public health crisis filled with waterborne diseases like cholera, hepatitis, chicken pox and influenza, because it is also cold here.”

Then there are those suffering with chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer, who have been unable to access routine treatments and therapies since the onset of the crisis, not to mention those in need of physiotherapy and mental health support.




Children injured in an Israeli strike are rushed to the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on October 15, 2023. (AFP)

Among the most vulnerable are pregnant women and newborns, who lack access to midwives, surgeons and incubators, as well as pain relief and antiseptics, making complications even more likely.

Critics say the vast destruction is evidence that Israel’s attacks are disproportionate and fail to limit civilian casualties. “Hospitals, intended to be safe havens … have frequently turned into death traps,” the Israeli watchdog Physicians for Human Rights said in a report published in February.

The Israeli government says its military does not target civilians or hospitals and blames Hamas for conducting military operations and launching rockets from crowded residential areas.

Israeli officials have also disputed claims of a mounting hunger crisis in Gaza. One official, recently cited by Bloomberg, said “there is not a shortage of food or water in the Gaza Strip at the moment,” and “it’s just not true that starvation is looming.”

Aid agencies say the limit on the amount of humanitarian relief permitted to enter Gaza by the Israeli military has caused widespread malnutrition, which doctors lack the resources to treat.

Despite repeated warnings by aid agencies about an impending famine, several Gazans have reportedly starved to death.




Aid agencies say the limit on the amount of humanitarian relief permitted to enter Gaza by the Israeli military has caused widespread malnutrition. (AFP)

In northern Gaza, where 300,000 people are thought to remain, around 16 percent of children under the age of two were acutely malnourished as of January, according to the UN. The organization has cited an “unprecedented” rate of decline in the nutritional status of Gazans.

Aid groups operating in Gaza say it has become almost impossible to deliver supplies due to inspections and procedural red tape put in place by the Israeli military, the ongoing fighting, and the complete breakdown of public order.

Even when aid is delivered, crowds of desperate Palestinians quickly overwhelm convoys before relief can be distributed and rationed to the neediest. Such crowds have resulted in crushes, causing further death and injury.

One such incident on Feb. 29, in which more than 100 Palestinians who rushed an aid convoy were killed — many apparently shot dead by Israeli forces — prompted the US to airdrop 38,000 meals into the enclave on March 2.




A man mourns at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, over the bodies of Palestinians killed in an early morning incident when residents rushed toward aid trucks, on February 29, 2024. (AFP)

In a statement on Monday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the US was working to increase the delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza “through as many channels as possible,” including more airdrops because “the situation is simply intolerable.”

“People are desperate for food and water,” said Miller. “Parents are facing impossible choices about how to feed their children. Many don’t know where the next meal will come from, or if it will come at all.”

Although the airdrops offer desperately needed relief, Mhanna said many of the parachuted crates landed in dangerous places where they were often mobbed by desperate crowds, causing accidents, injuries, and brawls.

“These airdrops are our last resort for aid supplies,” he said. “We have seen them land on the rooftops, in the streets. And when they do, people rush to get to the first one, at times fighting each other for the aid.

“This is what makes the ceasefire more urgently needed than ever. We need these safe spaces to access the aid.”




The UN said around 16 percent of children under the age of two in northern Gaza are acutely malnourished as of January. (AFP)

While a ceasefire would ease the burden of further injuries and the release of additional aid would allow medics to save more lives, the damage to Gaza’s health system will likely take years to repair.

Indeed, if the conflict were to end now, approximately 8,000 more people could still die over the next six months as a result of the public health crisis, according to a report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health.

“Even if there is a ceasefire, the healthcare system and its workers will not be able to recover quickly,” said Mhanna. “Healthcare workers have been on their knees for months. I don’t see how they can respond to such great needs.”

 


Nerves fray in Turkiye textile sector as Syrian refugees mull return

Nerves fray in Turkiye textile sector as Syrian refugees mull return
Updated 28 sec ago
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Nerves fray in Turkiye textile sector as Syrian refugees mull return

Nerves fray in Turkiye textile sector as Syrian refugees mull return

GAZIANTEP: As excitement swept through the Syrian community after Bashar Assad’s overthrow, businesses in Turkiye that rely on them for labor began quickly crunching the numbers.
“The Syrians have made a big contribution to the textile sector here. If they leave, there will be a serious labor problem,” said Ali Gozcu, reflecting the widespread anxiety gripping Turkiye’s textile industry.
Gozcu runs ALG Teksil, a clothing firm in Gaziantep, a southeastern Turkish city that is home to half a million Syrians.
“We don’t expect a sudden departure, but if it happens, we will suffer a serious loss of labor,” he told AFP, adding that 70 percent of his workers were Syrian.
And he is not alone.
“All of the workers here are Syrian,” agreed Yusuf Samil Kandil, a quality controller at Beni Giy clothing, referring to the Unal district where textile firms line the run-down streets and old-fashioned mannequins stand in dusty shopfronts alongside racks of garments.
“If the Syrians leave, our labor costs will increase significantly, as well as our production costs,” he told AFP.
Turkiye is the world’s sixth-largest textile manufacturer and its industry is based in the southern regions that host most of its around 2.9 million Syrian migrants.
Government figures show that around 100,000 Syrians have work permits, but experts believe about a million Syrians are active in the Turkish economy, mostly in informal, labor-intensive jobs in construction, manufacturing and textiles.
Their departure could put a serious dent in the workforce of an industry that is struggling with inflationary pressures and rising costs.
So far, just over 81,000 people have returned, interior ministry figures show, although observers expect a surge in June over the Eid Al-Adha holiday.
On ALG’s factory floor, dozens of young men and women sit hunched over industrial sewing machines or overlockers, churning out thousands of t-shirts.
A new Syrian flag hangs on the wall and there is an Arabic notice on the toilet door.
Zekeriya Bozo, a 55-year-old worker who wants to return to Syria and “create a new business there” said: “If Syrians leave, there won’t be anyone left to work” at ALG.
But experts say it is a complicated picture for Syrians, suggesting fears of a mass departure are unfounded due to the uncertainty hanging over a country ravaged by 13 years of war.
“Although they’re very happy that Assad is gone, that was only one barrier to them going back,” said Professor Murat Erdogan, whose Syrians Barometer survey has consistently flagged their concerns about safety, the potential for conflict and Syria’s ruined infrastructure.
Most have established a life in Turkiye, with more than 970,000 babies born over the past 12 years.
Despite tough working conditions, they know they are unlikely to find something better back home, he told AFP.
“They told us they have a lot of problems in Turkiye and work very hard for very little money. But if they go back, even if they did find jobs, they said they’ll only get $14 a month,” he said.
They earn far more than that in Turkiye.
“Going back is a huge decision. Because of that, I think a maximum of 20 percent of them will return and that will take a lot of time.”
Despite the uncertainty, Gozcu is looking into new ways of working that could accommodate the return of some Syrians, nearly half of whom hail from the Aleppo region just across the border from Gaziantep.
“We’ve become very close with our Syrian workers,” he told AFP.
If need be, “we will open workshops in Syria for them and will continue our production there,” he said.
Although much of Syria was in ruins, Kemal Kirisci, a migration expert at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, said there was potential for developing business links in the future.
“Syria is a very promising place in the long run. Ideally, we could have a very porous economic border so people could move back-and-forth,” he told AFP.
“It would be a win for Turkish industry, for the economy, a win for Syria and for the new regime.”
There could eventually be a revival of the so-called ‘ShamGen’ area of free trade and visa-free movement between Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkiye that was inspired by the EU’s Schengen zone but collapsed at the start of the war in 2011.
“These things could be revived very easily — but the key lies with this new regime,” he said.


Syrians stuck in camps after finding homes destroyed

Syrians stuck in camps after finding homes destroyed
Updated 12 February 2025
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Syrians stuck in camps after finding homes destroyed

Syrians stuck in camps after finding homes destroyed
  • Before Assad’s overthrow, more than five million people were estimated to live in rebel-held areas in the northwestern Idlib and Aleppo provinces, most of them displaced from elsewhere in Syria

ATME, Syria: Mehdi Al-Shayesh thought he would quickly resettle in his central Syrian home town after Bashar Assad was ousted, but like many others stuck in camps, he found his home uninhabitable.
“We were unbelievably happy when the regime fell,” the 40-year-old said from his small, concrete-block house in Atme displacement camp, one of the largest and most crowded in the Idlib area in the northwest.
But “when we reached our village” in Hama province “we were disappointed,” said the father of four, who has been displaced since 2012.
“Our home used to be like a small paradise... but it was hit by bombing.” Now it “is no longer habitable,” he told AFP.
Assad’s December 8 ouster sparked the hope of returning for millions of displaced across Syria and refugees abroad. However, many now face the reality of finding their homes and basic infrastructure badly damaged or destroyed.
Syria’s transitional authorities are counting on international support, particularly from wealthy Gulf Arab states, to rebuild the country after almost 14 years of devastating war.
Shayesh said he was happy to see relatives in formerly government-held areas after so many years, but he cannot afford to repair his home so has returned to the northwest.
In the icy winter weather, smoke rises from fuel heaters in the sprawling camp near the border with Turkiye. It is home to tens of thousands of people living in close quarters in what were supposed to be temporary structures.

Shayesh expressed the hope that reconstruction efforts would take into account that families may have changed significantly during years of displacement.
“If we go back to the village now... there will be no home for my five brothers” who are now all married, “and no land to build on,” he said, as rain poured outside.
“Just as we held out hope that the regime would fall — and thank God, it did — we hope that supportive countries will help people to rebuild and return,” he added.
Before Assad’s overthrow, more than five million people were estimated to live in rebel-held areas in the northwestern Idlib and Aleppo provinces, most of them displaced from elsewhere in Syria.
David Carden, UN deputy regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis, said that “over 71,000 people have departed camps in northwest Syria over the past two months.”
“But that’s a small fraction compared to the two million who remain and will continue to need life-saving aid,” he told AFP.
“Many camp residents are unable to return as their homes are destroyed or lack electricity, running water or other basic services. Many are also afraid of getting caught in minefields left from former front lines,” he added.
Mariam Aanbari, 30, who has lived in the Atme camp for seven years, said: “We all want to return to our homes, but there are no homes to return to.
“Our homes have been razed to the ground,” added the mother of three who was displaced from Hama province.

Aanbari said her husband’s daily earnings were just enough to buy bread and water.
“It was difficult with Bashar Assad and it’s difficult” now, she told AFP, her six-month-old asleep beside her as she washed dishes in freezing water.
Most people in the camp depend on humanitarian aid in a country where the economy has been battered by the war and a majority of the population lives in poverty.
“I hope people will help us, for the little ones’ sakes,” Aanbari said.
“I hope they will save people from this situation — that someone will come and rebuild our home and we can go back there in safety.”
Motorbikes zip between homes and children play in the cold in the camp where Sabah Al-Jaser, 52, and her husband Mohammed have a small corner shop.
“We were happy because the regime fell. And we’re sad because we went back and our homes have been destroyed,” said Jaser, who was displaced from elsewhere in Idlib province.
“It’s heartbreaking... how things were and how they have become,” said the mother of four, wearing a black abaya.
Still, she said she hoped to go back at the end of this school year.
“We used to dream of returning to our village,” she said, emphasising that the camp was not their home.
“Thank God, we will return,” she said determinedly.
“We will pitch a tent.”

 


Israel’s fatal shooting of a pregnant Palestinian woman puts the focus on West Bank violence

Israel’s fatal shooting of a pregnant Palestinian woman puts the focus on West Bank violence
Updated 12 February 2025
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Israel’s fatal shooting of a pregnant Palestinian woman puts the focus on West Bank violence

Israel’s fatal shooting of a pregnant Palestinian woman puts the focus on West Bank violence
  • Across the West Bank and east Jerusalem, at least 905 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack triggered the war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry

KAFR AL-LABAD, West Bank: The call came in the middle of the night, Mohammed Shula said. His daughter-in-law, eight months pregnant with her first child, was whispering. There was panic in her voice.
“Help, please,” Shula recalled her saying. “You have to save us.”
Minutes later, Sondos Shalabi was fatally shot.
Shalabi and her husband, 26-year-old Yazan Shula, had fled their home in the early hours of Sunday as Israeli security forces closed in on Nur Shams refugee camp, a crowded urban district in the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem.
Israeli military vehicles surrounded the camp days earlier, part of a larger crackdown on Palestinian militants across the northern occupied West Bank that has escalated since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza took effect last month. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has announced the expansion of the army’s operations, saying it aimed to stop Iran — Hamas’ ally — from opening up a new front in the occupied territory.
Palestinians see the shooting of Shalabi, 23, as part of a worrying trend toward more lethal, warlike Israeli tactics in the West Bank. The Israeli army issued a short statement afterward, saying it had referred her shooting to the military police for criminal investigation.
Also on Sunday, just a few streets away, another young Palestinian woman, 21, was killed by the Israeli army. An explosive device it had planted detonated as she approached her front door.
In response, the Israeli army said that a wanted militant was in her house, compelling Israeli forces to break down the door. It said the woman did not leave despite the soldiers’ calls. The army said it “regrets any harm caused to uninvolved civilians.”
Across the West Bank and east Jerusalem, at least 905 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack triggered the war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Many appear to have been militants killed in gunbattles during Israeli raids. But rock-throwing protesters and uninvolved civilians — including a 2-year-old girl, a 10-year-old boy and 73-year-old man — have also been killed in recent weeks.
“The basic rules of fighting, of confronting the Palestinians, is different now,” said Maher Kanan, a member of the emergency response team in the nearby village of Anabta, describing what he sees as the army’s new attitude and tactics. “The displacement, the number of civilians killed, they are doing here what they did in Gaza.”
Mohammed Shula, 58, told The Associated Press that his son and daughter-in-law said they started plotting their flight from Nur Shams last week as Israeli drones crisscrossed the sky, Palestinian militants boobytrapped the roads and their baby’s due date approached.
His son “was worried about (Shalabi) all the time. He knew that she wouldn’t be able to deliver the baby if the siege got worse,” he said.
Yazan Shula, a construction worker in Israel who lost his job after the Israeli government banned nearly 200,000 Palestinian workers from entering its territory, couldn’t wait to be a father, his own father said.
Shalabi, quiet and kind, was like a daughter to him — moving into their house in Nur Shams 18 month sago, after marrying his son. “This baby is what they were living for,” he said.
Early Sunday, the young couple packed up some clothes and belongings. The plan was simple — they would drive to the home of Shalabi’s parents outside the camp, some miles away in Tulkarem where soldiers weren’t operating. It was safer there, and near the hospital where Shalabi planned to give birth. Yazan Shula’s younger brother, 19-year-old Bilal, also wanted to get out and jumped in the backseat.
Not long after the three of them drove off, there was a burst of gunfire. Mohammed Shula’s phone rang.
His daughter-in-law’s breaths came in gasps, he said. An Israeli sniper had shot her husband, she told her father-in-law, and blood was flowing from the back of his head. She was unscathed, but had no idea what to do.
He coached her into staying calm. He told her to knock on the door of any house to ask for help. Her phone on speaker, he could hear her knocking and shrieking, he said. No one was answering.
She told him she could see soldiers approaching. The line went dead, said Mohammed Shula, who then called the Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service.
“We couldn’t go outside because we were afraid we’d be shot,” said Suleiman Zuheiri, 65, a neighbor of the Shula family who was helping the medics reach their bodies. “We tried and tried. All in vain. (The medics) kept getting turned back, and the girl kept bleeding.”
Bilal Shula wasn’t hurt. He was arrested from the scene and detained for several hours.
The Red Crescent said that the International Committee of the Red Cross had secured approval from the Israeli military to allow medics inside the camp. But the paramedics were detained twice, for a half-hour each time, as they made their way toward the battered car, it said.
When asked why soldiers had blocked ambulances, the Israeli military repeated that it launched an investigation into the events surrounding Shalabi’s killing.
It wasn’t until after 8 a.m. that medics finally reached the young couple, and were detained a third time while rushing the husband out of the camp to the hospital, the Red Crescent said.
Yazan Shula was unconscious and in critical condition, and, as of Tuesday, remains on life support at a hospital. Shalabi was found dead. Her fetus also did not survive the shooting.
Mohammed Shula keeps thinking about how soldiers saw Shalabi’s body bleeding on the ground and did nothing to help as they handcuffed his other son and marched him into their vehicle.
“Why did they shoot them? They were doing nothing wrong. They could have stopped them, asked a question, but no, they just shot,” he said, his fingers busily rubbing a strand of prayer beads.
Israeli security forces invaded the camp some hours later. Explosions resounded through the alleyways. Armored bulldozers rumbled down the roads, chewing up the pavement and rupturing underground water pipes. The electricity went out. Then the taps ran dry.
Before Mohammed Shula could process what was happening, he said, Israeli troops banged on his front door and ordered everyone — his daughter, son and several grandchildren, one of them a year old, another 2 months old — to leave their home.
The Israeli military denied it was carrying out forcible evacuations in the West Bank, saying that it was facilitating the departure of civilians who wanted to leave the combat zone on their own accord. It did not respond to follow-up questions about why over a dozen Palestinian civilians interviewed in Nur Shams camp made the same claims about their forcible displacement.
Mohammed Shula pointed to a bag of baby diapers in the corner of his friend’s living room. That’s all he had time to bring with him, he said, not even photographs, or clothes.

 


‘Hell worse than what we have already?’ Gazans reject Trump plans

‘Hell worse than what we have already?’ Gazans reject Trump plans
Updated 12 February 2025
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‘Hell worse than what we have already?’ Gazans reject Trump plans

‘Hell worse than what we have already?’ Gazans reject Trump plans
  • Under Trump’s scheme, Gaza’s about 2.2 million Palestinians would be resettled and the United States would take control and ownership of the coastal territory, redeveloping it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”
  • Any suggestion that Palestinians leave Gaza — which they want to be part of an independent state also encompassing the West Bank with East Jerusalem as its capital — has been anathema to the Palestinian leadership for generations

CAIRO/RAMALLAH/GAZA: With his Gaza home destroyed in Israel’s military offensive, Shaban Shaqaleh had intended to take his family on a break to Egypt once the Hamas-Israel ceasefire was firmly in place.
He changed his mind after US President Donald Trump announced plans to resettle Gaza’s Palestinian residents and redevelop the enclave, and said they should not have the right to return.
The Tel Al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City, where dozens of multi-story buildings once stood, is now largely deserted. There is no running water or electricity and, like most buildings there, Shaqaleh’s home is in ruins.
“We are horrified by the destruction, the repeated displacement and the death, and I wanted to leave so I can secure a safe and better future for my children — until Trump said what he said,” Shaqaleh, 47, told Reuters via a chat app.
“After Trump’s remarks I canceled the idea. I fear leaving and never being able to come back. This is my homeland.”
Palestinians fear that Trump’s plan would enforce another Nakba, or Catastrophe, when they experienced mass expulsions in 1948 with the creation of Israel.
Under Trump’s scheme, Gaza’s about 2.2 million Palestinians would be resettled and the United States would take control and ownership of the coastal territory, redeveloping it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
“The idea of selling my home or the piece of land I own to foreign companies to leave the homeland and never come back is completely rejected. I am deeply rooted in the soil of my homeland and will always be,” Shaqaleh said.
Any suggestion that Palestinians leave Gaza — which they want to be part of an independent state also encompassing the West Bank with East Jerusalem as its capital — has been anathema to the Palestinian leadership for generations. Neighbouring Arab states have rejected it since the Gaza war began in 2023.

SATURDAY DEADLINE
After Hamas said on Monday it was suspending the release of Israeli hostages set out in the ceasefire deal due to alleged Israeli violations, Trump said the Palestinian militant group should release all those it still holds by noon on Saturday or he would propose canceling the truce and “let hell break out.”
“Hell worse than what we have already? Hell worse than killing?” said Jomaa Abu Kosh, a Palestinian from Rafah in southern Gaza, standing beside devastated homes.
One woman, Samira Al-Sabea, accused Israel of blocking aid deliveries, a charge denied by Israel.
“We are humiliated, street dogs are living a better life than us,” she said. “And Trump wants to make Gaza hell? This will never happen.”
Israel began its assault on Gaza after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, that killed about 1,200 people while some 250 were taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
The operation has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, by Gaza authorities’ counts, and obliterated much of the enclave.
Some Gazans said Palestinian leaders must find a solution to their problems.
“We don’t want to leave our country but also need a solution. Our leaders — Hamas, the PA (Palestinian Authority) and other factions — must find a solution,” said a 40-year-old carpenter who gave his name as Jehad.

’DOES HE OWN GAZA?“
In the occupied West Bank, Palestinians were also aghast at Trump’s words.
“Does he own Gaza to ask people to leave it?” said Nader Imam. “Regarding Trump I only blame the American people. How can a country like this, a superpower, accept a person like Trump? His statements are savage.”
“What will Trump do? There is no fear, we rely on God,” said another West Bank resident, Mohammed Salah Tamimi.
The proposal shattered decades of US peace efforts built around a two-state solution and added pressure on neighboring Egypt and Jordan to take in resettled Palestinians.
Both countries, who receive billions in aid from the United States, rejected the plan citing concerns for national security and their commitment to the two-state solution.
For Jordan, which borders the West Bank and has absorbed more Palestinians than any other state since Israel’s creation, the plan is a nightmare.
Trump said he might withhold aid to Jordan and Egypt if they refused to cooperate. Jordan’s King Abdullah is set to meet Trump in Washington on Tuesday and is expected to express his rejection of the plan.
“Jordan can never accept resolving this issue at its expense.” said Suleiman Saud, the chairman of the Palestine Committee in Jordan’s House of Representatives. “Jordan is for Jordanians, and Palestine is for Palestinians.”

 


Friends of Italian priest long missing in Syria hope for news

Friends of Italian priest long missing in Syria hope for news
Updated 12 February 2025
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Friends of Italian priest long missing in Syria hope for news

Friends of Italian priest long missing in Syria hope for news
  • Tens of thousands of people have been detained or gone missing in Syria during more than a decade of conflict, many disappearing into Assad’s jails

NABEK, Syria: In a centuries-old monastery on a rocky hill north of Damascus, friends of missing Italian priest Paolo Dall’Oglio carry on his legacy, hopeful Bashar Assad’s ouster might help reveal the Jesuit’s fate.
“We want to know if Father Paolo is alive or dead, who imprisoned him, and what was his fate,” said Father Jihad Youssef who heads Deir Mar Musa Al-Habashi, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Damascus.
For years, Dall’Oglio lived in Deir Mar Musa — the monastery of St. Moses the Ethiopian — which dates to around the 6th century. He is credited with helping restore the place of worship.
A fierce critic of Assad, whose 2011 repression of anti-government protests sparked war, he was exiled the following year for meeting with opposition members, returning secretly to opposition-controlled areas in 2013.
He disappeared that summer while heading to the Raqqa headquarters of a group that would later become known as the Daesh, to plead for the release of kidnapped activists.
Conflicting reports emerged on Dall’Oglio’s whereabouts, including that he was kidnapped by the extremists, killed or handed to the Syrian government.
Daesh’s territorial defeat in Syria in 2019 brought no new information.
Tens of thousands of people have been detained or gone missing in Syria during more than a decade of conflict, many disappearing into Assad’s jails.
His December overthrow has enabled his friends at the monastery to openly discuss suspicions Dall’Oglio might have been “imprisoned by the regime,” Youssef said.
“We waited to see a sign of him... in Saydnaya prison or Palestine Branch,” Youssef said, referring to notorious detention facilities from which detainees were released after Assad’s toppling.
“We were told a lot of things, including that he was seen in the Adra prison in 2019,” Youssef said, referring to another facility outside Damascus, “but nothing reliable.”

Dall’Oglio, born in 1954, hosted interfaith seminars at Deir Mar Musa where Syria’s Christian minority and Muslims used to pray side by side, turning the monastery into a symbol of coexistence.
Youssef said it became a bridge for dialogue between Syrians in a country that “the former regime divided into sects who feared each other.”
Some 30,000 people visited in 2010, but the war and Dall’Oglio’s disappearance scared them away for more than a decade.
The monastery reopened for visitors in 2022.
“I didn’t know Father Paolo,” said Shatha Al-Barrah, 28, who came to Deir Mar Musa seeking solace and reflection.
But “I know he reflects this monastery, which opens its heart to all people from all faiths,” said the interpreter as she climbed the 300 steps leading to the building, built on the ruins of a Roman tower and partly carved into the rock.
Julian Zakka said Dall’Oglio was one of the reasons he joined the Jesuit order.
“Father Paolo used to work against associating Islam with extremists,” said the 28-year-old, “and to emphasize that coexistence is possible.”

After Islamist-led rebels ended half a century of one-family rule, the new authorities have sought to reassure minorities that they will be protected.
Assad had presented himself as a protector of minorities in multi-ethnic, multi-confessional Syria, but largely concentrated power in the hands of the Alawite community to whom his family belonged.
This month, Jesuits in Syria emphasized the need for healing, noting in a statement that fear had “shackled” the community for years.
Youssef said that while “the regime presented itself as protecting us, in fact it was using us as protection.”
He expressed optimism that “at last, the load has been lifted from our chests and we can breathe” after decades of “political death,” adding that he hoped the new authorities would be inclusive.
For now, Youssef is intent on spreading Dall’Oglio’s message.
“We will return to organizing activities like he loved to do,” Youssef said, including a march in Homs province, home to Alawites, Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
“The regime caused deep wounds between the Islamic sects” in Homs, he said.
“Father Paolo wanted to organize a large procession there — to pray at the mass graves, to be a bridge between people — to let them listen to each other’s pain, grieve and cry together, and stand hand in hand.”