THE HAGUE: The Netherlands must actively help repatriate the young children of women who joined Daesh in Syria, a court in The Hague ruled on Monday.
The mothers themselves do not need to be accepted back in the Netherlands, the court said.
Lawyers for 23 women who joined Daesh from the Netherlands had asked a judge on Friday to order the state to repatriate them and their 56 children from camps in Syria.
The women and children were living in “deplorable conditions” in the Al-Hol camp in Northern Syria, their lawyer had argued.
Judge Hans Vetter said that while the women did not need to be repatriated the state must make “all possible efforts” to return the children, who have Dutch nationality and are under 12 years old. Most are younger than six.
“The children cannot be held responsible for the actions of their parents, however serious these may be,” the court said in a statement. “The children are victims of the actions of their parents.”
The women, however, “were aware of the crimes being committed by Daesh and must be tried,” it said.
The Dutch government has always insisted it was too dangerous for Dutch officials to go into the camps and find the women and children to return them to the Netherlands.
Around 68,000 defeated fighters of Daesh and their families are being held in the camp, according to the Red Cross. They are under the custody of Syrian Kurdish forces after they took the jihadist group’s last enclave.
According to figures from the Dutch intelligence Agency, as of Oct. 1 there were 55 Daesh militants who traveled from the Netherlands and at least 90 children with Dutch parents, or parents who had lived for a considerable time in the Netherlands, in Northern Syria.
Turkey announced last week it would start to repatriate captured Islamic State fighters to their countries of origin even if their citizenship had been revoked.
The Netherlands enacted a law in 2017 that allowed the state to revoke Dutch citizenship for people who joined Daesh. Dutch media reported that the state has revoked the Dutch nationality of 11 jihadist fighters and is considering the same for 100 others.
Dutch state must repatriate children of Daesh mothers, court rules
Dutch state must repatriate children of Daesh mothers, court rules
- Lawyers for 23 women who joined Daesh from the Netherlands had asked a judge to order the state to repatriate them and their 56 children
- The women and children were living in “deplorable conditions” in the Al-Hol camp in Northern Syria
Electrical generator explosion at Beirut’s Hamra district torches cars, building
- Video footage showed some parked cars engulfed in flames as the blaze intensified
CAIRO: A large explosion on Beirut’s Hamra district on Saturday sparked a fire that engulfed several cars at a parking lot and caused smoke to spread massively across the area, local media reported.
Video footage showed some parked cars engulfed in flames as the blaze, which resulted from the electrical generator explosion, intensified.
The fire also spread to a nearby building, the Lebanese National News Agency (NNA) said.
The incident triggered panic as firefighting teams rushed to the scene, battling the blaze that remained out of control.
Civil defense teams were working to extinguish the blaze and evacuate adjacent buildings, NNA added.
Famine looming in north Gaza: UN-backed report
- UN projects the number of people in Gaza facing ‘catastrophic’ food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000
- Vast areas of the Gaza Strip have been devastated by Israel’s retaliatory assault
ROME: Famine is looming in the northern Gaza Strip amid increased hostilities and a near-halt in food aid, a UN-backed assessment said Saturday.
The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of “an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip.”
“Famine thresholds may have already been crossed or else will be in the near future,” said the alert.
On October 17, the body projected that the number of people in Gaza facing “catastrophic” food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000, or 16 percent of the population.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report classified that as IPC Phase 5 — a situation when “starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident.”
Since that report, conditions have worsened in the north of Gaza, with a collapse of food systems, a drop in humanitarian aid and critical water, sanitation and hygiene conditions, the committee said.
“It can therefore be assumed that starvation, malnutrition, and excess mortality due to malnutrition and disease, are rapidly increasing in these areas,” it read.
Vast areas of the Gaza Strip have been devastated by Israel’s retaliatory assault launched after the October 7 attack last year by Hamas.
Israeli forces have intensified their operations in large swathes of the Gaza Strip’s north since early October, where evacuation orders are in place.
Aid shipments allowed to enter the Gaza Strip were now lower than at any time since October 2023, said the report.
Access to food continues to deteriorate, with prices of essentials on the black market soaring. Cooking gas rose by 2,612 percent, diesel by 1,315 percent and wood by 250 percent, it said.
“Concurrent with the extremely high and increasing prices of essential items has been the total collapse of livelihoods to be able to purchase or barter for food and other basic needs,” said the alert.
The body expressed concern over Israel’s cutting ties last month with the UN aid agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), warning of “extremely serious consequences for humanitarian operations” in Gaza.
Gaza rescuers say 14 killed in Israeli strikes
GAZA STRIP: Gaza’s civil defense agency said on Saturday that Israeli air strikes killed at least 14 Palestinians overnight, including women and children.
An air strike hit tents housing displaced Palestinians in the southern area of Khan Yunis, killing at least nine people, including children and women, civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
The Palestinian Red Crescent also confirmed the toll, saying 11 others were wounded in the strike and were taken to Nasser Hospital.
A second air strike killed five people, including children, and injured about 22 when “Israeli warplanes hit Fahad Al-Sabah school,” which had been turned into a shelter for “thousands of displaced people” in the Al-Tuffah district of Gaza City, Bassal said.
The dead and injured were taken to Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, he added.
In recent months, the military has struck several schools-turned-shelters where Israel has said Palestinian militants are operating.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said its troops killed “dozens of terrorists” in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, where it has been conducting a sweeping air and ground operation for more than a month to prevent Hamas from regrouping.
Israeli forces also killed several militants in the area of Rafah in the territory’s south, the military added.
The military is currently engaged in a two-front war, with troops fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
“Over the past day, the IAF (air force) struck over 50 terror targets in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip,” the military said in a statement.
“Among the targets struck were military structures, weapons storage facilities and launchers,” it added.
Israel’s war in Gaza broke out after Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7 last year, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people on Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which included those who died and were killed in captivity.
During the attack, militants abducted 251 people, 97 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 43,508 people, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers to be reliable.
South Sudan floods affect 1.4 million, displace 379,000: UN
- The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said about 1.4 million people were affected by floods in 43 counties
Nairobi: Devastating flooding in South Sudan is affecting around 1.4 million people, with more than 379,000 displaced, according to a United Nations update that warned about an upsurge in malaria.
Aid agencies have said that the world’s youngest country, highly vulnerable to climate change, is in the grip of its worst flooding in decades, mainly in the north.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said about 1.4 million people were affected by floods in 43 counties and the disputed Abyei region, which is claimed by both South Sudan and Sudan.
“Over 379,000 individuals are displaced in 22 counties and Abyei,” it added in a statement issued late on Friday.
A surge in malaria has been reported in several states, it said, “overwhelming the health system and exacerbating the situation and impact in flood-hit areas.”
Since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, the world’s youngest nation has remained plagued by chronic instability, violence and economic stagnation as well as climate disasters such as drought and floods.
The World Bank said last month that the latest floods were “worsening an already critical humanitarian situation marked by severe food insecurity, economic decline, continued conflict, disease outbreaks, and the repercussions of the Sudan conflict,” which has seen several hundred thousand people pour into South Sudan.
More than seven million people are food insecure in South Sudan and 1.65 million children are malnourished, according to the UN’s World Food Programme.
The country also faces another period of political paralysis after the president’s office announced in September yet another extension to a transitional period agreed in a 2018 peace deal, delaying elections by two years to December 2026.
Key provisions of the transitional agreement remain unfulfilled — including the creation of a constitution and the unification of the rival forces of President Salva Kiir and his foe Reik Machar.
The delay has left South Sudan’s partners and the United Nations exasperated, with UN envoy Nicholas Haysom on Thursday describing it as a “regrettable development.”
All local and international parties involved “must collectively seize the opportunity to make this extension the last, and deliver the peace and democracy that the people of South Sudan deserve,” added Haysom.
South Sudan boasts plentiful oil resources but the vital source of revenue was decimated in February when an export pipeline was damaged in neighboring war-torn Sudan.
Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon's Tyre kill 7, Lebanon says
- The strikes targeted three buildings in the city
- Israel had issued no evacuation warning ahead of the strikes
BEIRUT: At least seven have been killed and 46 others injured in an initial toll following Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon's coastal city of Tyre, Lebanon's health ministry said on Saturday.
The official National News Agency said the strikes targeted three buildings in the city and caused heavy damage to neighboring apartment blocks.
It said Israel had issued no evacuation warning ahead of the strikes.
Israel has been at war with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah since late September, when it broadened its focus from fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip to securing its northern border, even as the Gaza war continues.
Hezbollah began low intensity strikes on Israel in support of Hamas following its Palestinian ally’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the Gaza war.
