GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip: Afaf Al-Najar had found a way out of Gaza.
The 19-year-old won a scholarship to study communications in Turkey, secured all the necessary travel documents and even paid $500 to skip the long lines at the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
But when she arrived at the border on Sept. 21 she was turned back — not by Israel or Egypt, which have imposed a 14-year blockade on the Gaza Strip — but because of a male guardianship law enacted by the Hamas group, which rules the territory.
“I honestly broke down,” she said, describing the moment border officials removed her luggage from the bus. “My eyes started pouring, I could not even stand up. They had to bring a chair for me... I felt my dream is being robbed.”
Travel in and out of Gaza, a coastal territory that is home to more than 2 million Palestinians, has been severely restricted since 2007, when Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces. Israel, which has fought four wars with Hamas, most recently in May, says the blockade is needed to keep the militants from rearming. Critics view it as a form of collective punishment.
Hamas has repeatedly demanded the lifting of the blockade. But in February, an Islamic court run by Hamas issued a notice saying that unaccompanied women must get permission from a male “guardian” — a husband, relative, or even a son — to travel outside the territory.
After a backlash led by human rights groups, Hamas authorities amended the ruling to drop the requirement. Instead, it said that a male relative can petition a court to prevent a woman from traveling if it would result in “absolute harm.” Women cannot prevent men from traveling.
Hamas has only taken sporadic steps over the years to impose Sharia, or Islamic law, on already conservative Gaza, and even then has usually backed down in the face of criticism. It does not share the extreme ideology of more radical factions such as the Daesh group.
But the amended law has remained in effect.
Al-Najar’s father filed a petition, and the court prevented her from traveling so that it could consider it. She lives with her mother, who is separated from her father, and says he cut off all contact with her in May. He could not be reached for comment.
Hamas officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Human Rights Watch, a New York-based group that is deeply critical of the blockade, called on Hamas to lift its restrictions.
“Hamas’s authorities should lift the travel ban on Afaf Al-Najar and the Supreme Judicial Council should withdraw its notice, so that women in Gaza can travel without discriminatory restrictions,” it said.
After being turned back at the border, Al-Najar appealed to a number of local human rights groups, but said they appeared reluctant to assist her, fearing reprisal from Hamas. Eventually, she filed a petition against the ban.
Her father failed to show up at the first hearing, causing it to be postponed. Before it adjourned, the judge asked her why she was going abroad and suggested she could just as easily study in one of Gaza’s universities.
Al-Najar, who speaks fluent English and teaches the language, aspires to be a journalist. She says a multi-cultural country like Turkey provides opportunities that don’t exist in Gaza, which is largely cut off from the outside world.
The hearing was postponed a second time because her father’s attorney was sick. It was postponed a third time on Wednesday because his new lawyer said he needed time to study the case.
The scholarship’s validity was extended until the end of the year, but if Al-Najar does not make it to Turkey by then, she will lose it.
But she’s not giving up.
“I realized no one is going to help me but myself, and I realized that I have to be strong now to fight for my rights,” she said. “Instead of crying in my room and letting myself down, I decided to fight. I chose to fight for the first time in my life.”
Hamas ‘guardian’ law keeps Gaza woman from studying abroad
https://arab.news/9829c
Hamas ‘guardian’ law keeps Gaza woman from studying abroad
- When Afaf al-Najar arrived at the border on Sept. 21 she was turned back — not by Israel or Egypt, but because of a male guardianship law enacted by Hamas
- "My eyes started pouring, I could not even stand up. I felt my dream is being robbed,” she said
Qatar reiterates support for two-state solution after Trump calls for moving Gazans
- “Our position has always been clear to the necessity of the Palestinian people receiving their rights, and that the two-state solution is the only path forward,” Ansari said
DOHA: Qatar reaffirmed its support for a two-state solution on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump repeated his call to move Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt or Jordan.
Foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari did not reveal details of conversations with US officials, but said Qatar often didn’t see “eye to eye” with its allies.
“Our position has always been clear to the necessity of the Palestinian people receiving their rights, and that the two-state solution is the only path forward,” Ansari told a regular media briefing when asked about Trump’s comments.
“We don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things with all our allies, not only the United States, but we work very closely with them to make sure that we formulate policy together,” he added.
Qatar, the US and Egypt jointly mediated the Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal that went into effect a little over a week ago, halting more than 15 months of fighting sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
On Monday, Trump repeated his wish to move Gazans to another country, after earlier saying he wanted to “clean out” the devastated Palestinian territory.
The US president told reporters he would “like to get them living in an area where they can live without disruption and revolution and violence so much.”
Ansari said Qatar, which hosts the region’s biggest US military base, was “engaging fully with the Trump administration and with envoy (Steve) Witkoff,” the president’s special representative for the Middle East.
“I’m not going to comment on the type of discussions we are having with them right now, but I would say that it is very productive,” Ansari said.
“We have been working very closely with the Trump administration over the regional issues as a whole, including the Palestinian issue.”
Turkiye says it killed 15 Kurdish militants in Syria and Iraq
ISTANBUL: Turkiye said on Wednesday it had killed 13 Kurdish militants in northern Syria and two in Iraq, a sign that Ankara has pressed on with its campaign against fighters, some with possible links to US allies, since Donald Trump took office in the White House last week.
The Turkish defense ministry said the Kurdish fighters it had “neutralized” in Syria belonged to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.
Turkiye considers the PKK and YPG to be identical; the United States considers them separate groups, having banned the PKK as terrorists but recruited the YPG as its main allies in Syria in the campaign against Islamic State.
Turkiye has long called on Washington to withdraw support for the YPG, and has expressed hope that Trump would revise the policy inherited from the previous administration of President Joe Biden.
Tuesday’s report of major clashes was the second within days: Turkiye also reported having killed 13 Kurdish militants on Sunday.
Turkish forces and their allies in Syria have repeatedly fought with Kurdish militants there since the toppling of Syrian President Bashar Assad last month.
Turkiye has said that the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed umbrella group that includes the Kurdish YPG, must disarm or face a military intervention.
Under the Biden administration the United States has had 2,000 troops in Syria fighting alongside the SDF and YPG.
Israeli, US strike on Iran nuclear program would be ‘crazy’: FM
- Abbas Araghchi: Such an attack ‘would be faced with an immediate and decisive response’
- ‘Lots of things should be done’ by Washington to bring Tehran to negotiating table
LONDON: Israel and the US would be “crazy” to strike Iran’s nuclear program, the latter’s foreign minister has said.
“We’ve made it clear that any attack to our nuclear facilities would be faced with an immediate and decisive response,” Abbas Araghchi told Sky News in his first interview since the inauguration of US President Donald Trump.
“I don’t think they’ll do that crazy thing. This is really crazy. And this would turn the whole region into a very bad disaster.”
In the interview, Araghchi addressed concerns over his country’s nuclear program. Trump’s first term as president saw the US pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, which had eased sanctions on Tehran in exchange for limited uranium enrichment.
Iran claims that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes, but its return to high levels of enrichment in recent years has alarmed Western governments.
Trump has said he prefers a diplomatic solution, and a new deal with Iran would be “nice.” But Araghchi said credible US guarantees would need to be provided to Iran for negotiations to begin.
“The situation is different and much more difficult than the previous time,” he added. “Lots of things should be done by the other side to buy our confidence … We haven’t heard anything but the ‘nice’ word, and this is obviously not enough.”
Russian delegation arrives in Syria: state media
DAMASCUS: A Russian government delegation has arrived in Damascus for the first time since Moscow's ally President Bashar al-Assad was toppled, Russia's TASS state news agency reported on Tuesday.
The delegation, which is expected to hold talks with Syria's new rulers, includes Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and Alexander Lavrentiev, the Kremlin's special envoy for Syria.
Russia was a longtime Assad ally and intervened militarily to help him recapture territory from rebels during the more than decade-long war that erupted in 2011 after his crackdown of protests against his rule.
But a lightning rebel offensive late last year pushed Assad to flee Damascus in December — first to the Russian-run Hmeimim Air Base in northern Syria then to Moscow.
Days later, Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted Bogdanov as saying that Russia’s contacts with Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham — the Islamist rebel group that spearheaded the offensive that ousted Assad — were “proceeding in constructive fashion.”
Bogdanov said Russia hoped to maintain its two bases in Syria — a naval base in Tartous and the Hmeimim base near the port city of Latakia.
But this month, Syria’s new administration canceled a contract with Russian firm STG Stroytransgaz to manage and operate the Tartous port, according to three Syrian businessmen and media reports.
The contract had been signed under Assad.
Syria’s interim defense minister, Murhaf Abu Qasra, told Reuters in an interview in Damascus this month that negotiations were under way with Russia to determine the nature of the future relationship between the two states.
“We as a state are committed to the agreements that were present in the past but there may be some amendments in the negotiations that would achieve Syria’s interests,” Abu Qasra said.
Turkiye arrests talent manager over trying to overthrow the government
- In 2013, small demonstrations against plans to build a shopping mall in Gezi Park, in Istanbul’s central Taksim Square, swelled into hundreds of thousands of people protesting against the government nationwide
- According to the court, Barim had “intensive communication” with defendants in the Gezi Park trial at the time of the protests
ISTANBUL: A Turkish court arrested a well-known talent manager over the charge of attempting to overthrow the government in an investigation connected to nationwide protests in 2013, a court document seen by Reuters showed.
Ayse Barim was initially detained on Friday and eight actors were summoned to give statements to the court as witnesses in her file.
According to her statement to the prosecutor, Barim denied the charges and said she had been to the area of the 2013 protests a few times individually as an observer and to accompany the people she worked with.
Barim denied the charges and said she did not coordinate actors she is working with or request them to support the protests, the court document showed.
“My job as a manager is to manage the career of the actors I work with and represent them in the best possible way. These artists have their own ideas, wills and decisions. I did not organize anything by directing their ideas,” Barim said, according to transcript of her statement.
In 2013, small demonstrations against plans to build a shopping mall in Gezi Park, in Istanbul’s central Taksim Square, swelled into hundreds of thousands of people protesting against the government nationwide — and prompted a harsh crackdown.
According to the court, Barim had “intensive communication” with defendants in the Gezi Park trial at the time of the protests. These defendants include businessman Osman Kavala, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole in April 2022.
Kavala has faced various charges, including espionage, financing the Gezi Park protests and involvement in a failed coup against Erdogan’s government in 2016. He has been in prison since November 2017.
Human rights groups say 11 people were killed and more than 8,000 injured in the state response, and more than 3,000 were arrested.
President Tayyip Erdogan’s government said the crackdown was warranted given threats to the state, and he has called the protesters “looters” who were partly funded from abroad, a claim denied by defendants and civil society groups.
