RAMALLAH, West Bank: In a divorce court where a man’s testimony is worth twice a woman’s, victory for lawyer Reema Shamasneh is rare and often bittersweet.
On this morning, a young nurse is desperate to end her marriage to a truck driver who she says beat her, doused her with scalding tea and kept her from seeing her dying mother. But her husband will only agree if she forgoes all alimony, including the $14,000 stipulated in the marriage contract.
Eager to escape and claim her young son, she says yes. The man stands before a copy of the Qur’an, the Muslim holy book, and repeats after an Islamic judge: “You are divorced.”
Shamasneh blinks back tears of relief and frustration, and then quickly composes herself.
“This is not a big victory,” the 39-year-old lawyer says with an air of quiet determination. “I gave her what she wanted, but at the same time I am not happy because she gave up her rights.”
Dressed in the headscarf and long robe of a devout Muslim, Shamasneh fights for Arab women in the most intimate arena of their lives: Marriage and divorce.
While countries such as Tunisia and Morocco have introduced reforms, brides in others must still be represented by male guardians who sign marriage contracts. Men can divorce on a whim, while women must prove cause. And polygamy is legal only for men.
Such notions enjoy strong support, even among women. In a 2013 poll by the Pew Research Center, large majorities in seven Arab countries said a woman should obey her husband, from 74 percent in Lebanon to 87 percent in the Palestinian territories and 93 percent in Tunisia.
“We cannot copy the Western laws because the Western societies are different and they have very complicated problems,” says Maryam Saleh, a representative of the Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas in the now-defunct Palestinian parliament.
But Shamasneh believes the laws are the way they are because they were passed by men.
“They were raised in a certain culture that says men are better than women, and this is reflected in the laws,” she says.
As a girl in the farming village of Qatana, Shamasneh would see women get the leftovers at wedding feasts, after the men. And while her four brothers could come and go, she and her five sisters had to account for their limited movements.
“Until now, there is discrimination, even with simple things,” she says. “This makes me angry.”
However, her father Mohammed, a retired contractor, wanted all his children, including the girls, to get an education. Shamasneh chose law, a profession that turned out to be a good fit for her pragmatic, analytical nature.
Her 74-year-old mother Amneh, sitting across from Shamasneh, says she is proud of her daughter’s success. But her mother was against her studies, Shamasneh interjects.
“At the time, it was shameful for a woman to study and have a job,” Amneh says apologetically.
Amneh herself was married off at age 13, without her consent, and had her first child at 15. Four of Shamasneh’s sisters married in their 20s. A fifth was forced into an arranged match at 16 and endured a prolonged divorce two years later.
Shamasneh was a child at the time. She says the bitter experience, including the lack of empathy displayed by her sister’s male lawyer, fueled her interest in law.
As a single woman, Shamasneh’s only socially acceptable option is to continue living with her parents. She says she would move out if she wanted to, but she likes spending time with her parents. In her childhood bedroom, law books are lined up on a shelf above her dresser.
She is fiercely protective of her relative independence. For her, this means not getting married.
“I can take care of myself,” Shamasneh says. “I am a strong woman. I hate traditional marriage.”
On a typical day, Shamasneh arrives before 9 a.m. at the Islamic courthouse in Ramallah. One recent morning, she meets a 25-year-old client, a thin, pale woman in a frayed green robe who says she wants a divorce from her abusive husband.
Her father is also there to testify on her behalf, but her brother didn’t turn up because he was sick. Shamasneh sternly cautions her client that this may hurt her case, because the court usually requires two male witnesses or a man and two women.
In a small victory, the judge rules later that day that the case can move forward.
The growing presence of female lawyers like Shamasneh has helped create more empathy for women going through divorce. When Shamasneh began practicing 15 years ago, female lawyers were rare.
Now women occasionally outnumber men in the courthouse.
There’s even a female judge. Kholoud Al-Faqeeh defends the law in principle, saying that it reflects different gender roles, and that women sometimes fail to exhaust their legal rights.
Still, the judge occasionally reins in men appearing before her. When a witness in a custody hearing portrays a sister-in-law as an unfit mother because she holds down two jobs, the judge, a mother of four, snaps: “Palestinian women work. Do you want us all to give up our children?“
On another day, Shamasneh challenges a male colleague’s claim that Islamic law gives the same rights to men and women seeking divorce. She refuses to give in. When he appears to run out of arguments, he resorts to “It’s in the Qur’an.”
Mahmoud Habbash, the head of the Islamic courts in the West Bank, warns that the views advocated by Shamasneh and other activists could lead to the collapse of society. He argues that men and women are different by nature and require different rules.
“The problem is that in the West, you don’t understand how we treat women,” Habbash says. “We treat them like queens.”
Only one-third of Palestinians support a wife’s right to divorce at all, according to the Pew survey. Across the region, support for divorce rights for women is even lower in Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, but is backed by a majority in Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia. Some countries allow “khula” divorce, where a wife pays the husband compensation to get out of a marriage.
With so much opposition, Shamasneh knows that a long road lies ahead. Progress on legal reform has stalled, because the Palestinian self-rule government has limited authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
At home, her village remains deeply conservative. The local mosque preacher, Yacoub Al-Faqeeh, says that while he respects Shamasneh, he sharply disagrees with demands for equal marriage and divorce rights.
“If women are free in divorce, they will divorce every day because they are emotional, while men are rational,” he says.
Shamasneh could emigrate and join two brothers in Douglasville, Georgia. She has visited the area seven times, traveling without a male chaperone. “People talk, but I don’t care,” she says.
Yet life in the West holds no allure. Everything is too easy, she says. The struggle for women in her community gives her life meaning, and she couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
“People in the village are resisting change,” she says. “Therefore, I invest my energies in the court.”
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Associated Press writer Aya Batrawy in Dubai contributed reporting.
Palestinian lawyer fights for women, one divorce at a time
Palestinian lawyer fights for women, one divorce at a time

Israeli strike hits vehicle at Beirut southern entrance: state media
According to the NNA, “an enemy drone targeted a car on the Khalde highway” south of Beirut.
The Israeli army said it “eliminated a terrorist responsible for smuggling weapons and advancing terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops, on behalf of the Iranian Quds Force,” the foreign operations arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Algeria jails historian who questioned Amazigh culture

- He was arrested on May 3 for “the crime of undermining national unity“
- Belghit’s lawyer Toufik Hichour said on Facebook that a court sentenced him to five years
ALGIERS: An Algerian court on Thursday sentenced historian Mohamed Amine Belghit to five years in prison for offending national symbols, his lawyer said, after remarks questioning the existence of the native Amazigh culture.
Belghit sparked outrage in the North African country when he said in a recent interview that “the Amazigh language is an ideological project of Franco-Zionist origin,” and that “there’s no such thing as Amazigh culture.”
He was arrested on May 3 for “the crime of undermining national unity” by targeting “symbols of the nation and the republic” as well as “disseminating hate speech,” the prosecution said at the time.
On Thursday, Belghit’s lawyer Toufik Hichour said on Facebook that a court outside the capital Algiers sentenced him to five years behind bars.
The prosecutor had requested seven years jailtime and a fine of 700,000 dinars ($5,400).
Algeria in 2016 granted official status to Tamazight, the language of the Amazigh people, who are also known as Berbers.
The Berber new year celebration, Yennayer, was added in 2017 to the list of national holidays.
Belghit, a university professor, is no stranger to controversies.
His remarks often cause uproar, with critics accusing him of historical revisionism and hostility toward the Amazigh people.
Iran committed to Non-Proliferation Treaty, foreign minister says

- Abbas Araqchi made the comment a day after Tehran enacted a law suspending cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog
- Iran has accused the IAEA of siding with Western countries and providing a justification for Israel’s airstrikes
Iran remains committed to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its safeguards agreement, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday, a day after Tehran enacted a law suspending cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog.
“Our cooperation with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) will be channeled through Iran’s Supreme National Security Council for obvious safety and security reasons,” Araqchi wrote in a post on X.
President Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday enacted the legislation passed by parliament last week to suspend cooperation with the IAEA, a move the US called “unacceptable.”
Araqchi’s comment on X was in response to a call from Germany’s Foreign Ministry urging Tehran to reverse its decision to shelve cooperation with the IAEA.
Araqchi accused Germany of “explicit support for Israel’s unlawful attack on Iran, including safeguarded nuclear sites.”
Iran has accused the IAEA of siding with Western countries and providing a justification for Israel’sJune 13-24 airstrikes on Iranian nuclear installations, which began a day after the UN agency’s board of governors voted to declare Tehran in violation of its obligations under the NPT.
Western powers have long suspected that Iran has sought to develop the means to build atomic bombs through its declared civilian atomic energy program. Iran has repeatedly said it is enriching uranium only for peaceful nuclear ends.
IAEA inspectors are mandated to ensure compliance with the NPT by seeking to verify that nuclear programs in treaty countries are not diverted for military purposes.
The law that went into effect on Wednesday mandates that any future inspection of Iranian nuclear sites by the IAEA needs approval by Tehran’s Supreme National Security Council.
“We are aware of these reports. The IAEA is awaiting further official information from Iran,” the Vienna-based global nuclear watchdog said in a statement.
US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told a regular briefing on Wednesday that Iran needed to cooperate fully with the IAEA without further delay.
Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq to hand over weapons in first step toward disarmament

- “A group of guerrilla fighters will come down from the mountains and will bid farewell to their arms in an effort to declare their good will for peace and democratic politics,” PKK said
- A PKK spokesperson said the fighters will destroy their weapons “under the supervision of civil society institutions”
IRBIL, Iraq: A Kurdish militant group that has waged a long-running insurgency in Türkiye announced Thursday its fighters in northern Iraq will begin handing over their weapons, marking the first concrete step toward disarmament as part of a peace process.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, announced in May it would disband and renounce armed conflict, ending four decades of hostilities. The move came after PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul since 1999, urged his group in February to convene a congress and formally disband and disarm.
Ocalan, 76, continues to wield significant influence in the Kurdish movement despite his 25-year imprisonment. His call to end the fighting marked a pivotal step toward ending the decades-long conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives since the 1980s.
In the latest development, “a group of guerrilla fighters will come down from the mountains and will bid farewell to their arms in an effort to declare their good will for peace and democratic politics,” the PKK said in a statement Thursday.
The ceremony, which is expected to take place between July 10 and July 12 in the city of Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, will be the first concrete move toward disarmament.
Zagros Hiwa, a PKK spokesperson, said the fighters will destroy their weapons “under the supervision of civil society institutions and interested parties.” The number of fighters who will take part has not yet been determined but might be between 20 and 30, he said.
For the PKK to take further steps toward disarmament, he said “the regime of isolation” imposed on Öcalan in prison “has to be abolished” and “constitutional, legal and political” must be taken to “ensure that the guerrilla who have abandoned the strategy of armed struggle could be reintegrated into democratic politics in Turkiye.”
An Iraqi Kurdish official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the PKK members are expected to hand over their light weapons to the regional government.
The regional government is dominated by two parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, with the KDP overseeing the regional capital, Irbil, and the city of Dohuk. The PUK governs Sulaymaniyah.
The KDP has good relations with Türkiye and has been at odds with the PKK, while the PUK is closer to the PKK.
In Türkiye on Monday, Omer Celik, a spokesperson for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or AKP, said the PKK could begin handing over arms “within days,” but did not provide details. Celik added that Erdogan would meet with members of the pro-Kurdish party next week to discuss the peace effort.
There was no immediate statement from Türkiye’s government on Thursday’s announcement.
The PKK has long maintained bases in the mountains of northern Iraq. Turkish forces have launched offensives and airstrikes against the PKK in Iraq and have set up bases in the area. Scores of villages have emptied as a result.
The Iraqi government in Baghdad last year announced an official ban on the separatist group, which has long been prohibited in Türkiye.
Killings rise when Gaza Health Foundation distributes aid: Analysis

- Sky News finds correlation between aid drops, increased fatalities
- UN labels GHF sites ‘death traps,’ amid claims Israeli soldiers deliberately fire at civilians
LONDON: An investigation has found an increase in deaths in Gaza correlated with aid distribution overseen by the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Health Foundation.
The GHF took over humanitarian supply systems in the Palestinian enclave in May, replacing around 400 distribution sites run by other charities and NGOs with four designated facilities, called Secure Distribution Sites.
They were meant to ensure that aid did not fall into the hands of Hamas or other armed groups, which Israel alleges frequently happened under the previous UN-backed system.
However, Gaza’s health authorities say more than 600 Palestinians have been killed trying to access aid at the sites, which the UN has labeled “death traps.” Israeli soldiers have been accused of opening fire directly at civilians.
Analysis conducted by Sky News suggests that killings rise when aid is distributed by the GHF.
Sky’s Data & Forensics Unit found that an average of 48 deaths and 189 injuries are reported when the GHF operates two or fewer aid distributions. That number rises almost threefold when it runs five to six aid drops.
Sky reported that between June 5 and July 1, 77 aid distributions were conducted by the GHF. Of those, 23 — or 30 percent of the total — resulted in reports of violence, and at SDS4 half of all drops saw bloodshed.
A recent report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz interviewed Israeli soldiers who said they were ordered to fire at crowds of unarmed Palestinians at the GHF sites.
The Israeli military denies the allegations, but said it is investigating incidents where civilians have been harmed.
The UN, in its most recent update on June 24, put the number of casualties at GHF sites at 410, citing data available from nearby hospitals.
The GHF has been severely criticized for the manner in which aid is distributed, with footage obtained by Sky on June 15 showing Palestinians at SDS1 crowding and rummaging among hundreds of scattered aid packages discarded on the floor.
Sky’s analysis found that aid is often delivered in significantly smaller quantities than required, with supplies running out on average after just nine minutes. At 23 percent of aid drops, supplies were exhausted before the official opening time.
Sky reported that 86 percent of distributions were announced to people in the area less than 30 minutes in advance, and that maps and instructions distributed to locals to navigate and access the sites were inaccurate or dangerous, including telling civilians trying to reach SDS2, 3 and 4 to congregate inside areas labeled live combat zones by Israel.
In addition, the congregation areas are typically some distance from the sites, causing surges when they open as people attempt to cover the open ground to access the aid.
The shortest distance from a waiting point to an SDS is 689 meters, at SDS4, approximately 10 minutes away on foot — more than the average time before supplies run out.
Sam Rose, director of operations in Gaza for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, called the GHF’s system a “free-for-all.”
He told Sky: “What they’re doing is, they’re loading up the boxes on the ground and then people just rush in.”
Rose added: “They (the GHF) don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t have anyone working on these operations who has any experience of operating, of administering food distributions because anyone who did have that experience wouldn’t want to be part of it because this isn’t how you treat people.”
A group of charities and humanitarian groups on Tuesday condemned the GHF’s operations, saying they violate international principles.
More than 200 groups have called for the reinstatement of the previous aid distribution system overseen by the UN.