BEIRUT: Five-year-old Adam Afana dreamt of being a police officer “to keep people safe,” his uncle said, before losing his father, his siblings and cousins, and nearly all of his left arm in an Israeli strike seven months ago on Gaza.
Now, Adam is the first Palestinian child wounded in Israel’s war in Gaza to land in Lebanon, where he has been receiving care since Monday at the American University of Beirut’s Medical Center with help from the Ghassan Abu Sittah Children’s Fund.
In a sunlit room in the hospital, Adam plays with superhero action figures and watches videos on an iPad. He laughs, pokes fun at his uncle and the nurses, but only has stilted answers when asked about his journey to safety in Beirut.
“He remembers how he was wounded, his sister and his father — how they were all together. And he starts crying — it’s difficult for him psychologically,” said his uncle Eid Afana, 29, his caregiver in Beirut.
Getting him to Lebanon was no easy task: Adam spent more than six weeks in Gaza after he was wounded, sheltering from bombing and undergoing one emergency surgery on his arm without anaesthesia.
In early December, his uncle managed to enter Gaza City for just two days from Egypt to bring Adam and his mother out via the Rafah crossing. “It was my city and I couldn’t even recognize it. The European hospital was full of people being treated on the floor... The floor was a lake of blood, just body parts. It was a disaster,” said Afana.
They were lucky: Israel’s attack this month on Rafah has cut off the main crossing into Egypt, constricting aid and stopping what had been a trickle of people leaving for medical help.
The family spent nearly six months in Egypt, but Adam’s arm needed specialized care. Thus began the campaign to get him to Lebanon, a country with a precarious sectarian balance and complex history with Palestinian refugees, with severe restrictions on which can enter.
AUB President Fadlo Khoury told reporters earlier this week the university had “extensive discussions” with Lebanese authorities to allow Adam entry — and that they hoped he would be the first of more Palestinian children to benefit from the hospital’s expertise in treating war trauma.
Dania Dandashli from the Ghassan Abu Sittah Children’s Fund told Reuters the organization hoped to treat a total of 50 war-wounded Palestinian children in Lebanon over the next year.
Israel’s ground and air campaign in Gaza has killed more than 36,000 people, including thousands of children, and wounded more than 81,000, health authorities in Gaza say.
The war was triggered by an attack by Hamas militants on Israeli that killed 1200, with more than 250 hostages taken, by Israeli tallies.
Lebanon hospital treats Adam, first wounded Gazan to arrive in Beirut
https://arab.news/gjy63
Lebanon hospital treats Adam, first wounded Gazan to arrive in Beirut
- Adam is the first Palestinian child wounded in Israel’s war in Gaza to land in Lebanon
- Getting him to Lebanon was no easy task
Syrian girls’ right to schooling unrestricted, new education minister says
Half of Syria’s schools destroyed or damaged, Qadri says
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Education minister assures girls’ right to education remains unchanged
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New rulers promise equal treatment for all minority groups
DAMASCUS: Syria will remove all references to the former ruling Baath party from its educational system as of next week but will not otherwise change school curricula or restrict the rights of girls to learn, the country’s new education minister said.
“Education is a red line for the Syrian people, more important than food and water,” Nazir Mohammad Al-Qadri said in an interview from his office in Damascus.
“The right to education is not limited to one specific gender. ... There may be more girls in our schools than boys,” he said.
The secular, pan-Arab nationalist Baath Party governed Syria since a 1963 coup d’etat, seeing education as an important tool for instilling life-long loyalty among the young to the country’s authoritarian ruling system.
President Bashar Assad was toppled on Dec. 8 by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist rebel group that some Syrians fear may seek to implement a conservative form of Islamist governance.
But Qadri’s plans reflect their wider management approach and moderate messaging so far.
Syria has long been seen to have one of the Arab world’s strongest education systems, a reputation that has largely survived 13 years of civil war.
Qadri said religion — both Muslim and Christian — will continue to be taught as a subject in school.
Primary schools will remain mixed between boys and girls, while secondary education will stay largely segregated, he said.
“After primary school, there were always schools for females and schools for males. We won’t change that,” said Qadri, who had taken to his ornately-furnished office so recently that he had not yet procured Syria’s new green, white and black flag.
Syria’s new rulers, who have long-since disavowed their former Al-Qaeda links, have said that all of Syria’s minority groups including Kurds, Christians, Druze and Alawites will be treated equal as the new government focuses on rebuilding.
They face a formidable challenge.
Syria remains under tight Western sanctions.
Entire cities were levelled in 13 years of war that Qadri said had also left about half the country’s 18,000 schools damaged or destroyed.
But the rebels have moved into government fast, extending a hand to former state employees who have shown up to work in droves.
Most of the new ministers are young — in their 30s or 40s — making 54-year-old Qadri among the oldest in government.
Born and raised in Damascus, he was imprisoned by the Assad regime in 2008 on what he said were spurious charges of inciting sectarian strife, preventing him from finishing his bachelor’s degree.
He was released a decade later and fled to northern Idlib, then under the control of HTS, becoming education minister in its Salvation Government in 2022.
He is currently finishing his masters thesis in Arabic language.
With the political and social contours of the new Syrian state still being drawn, Qadri said students would not be tested on their mandatory “nationalist studies” — previously a vehicle for teaching Baathism and Assad family history — this year.
Palestinian health ministry says 4 killed in Israeli West Bank strike
RAMALLAH: The Palestinian health ministry said Thursday that an Israeli air strike on a car killed four Palestinians and wounded three near the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarem.
The ministry announced that the Palestinians were killed “as a result of the (Israeli) bombing of a vehicle in Tulkarem camp,” which the Israeli army did not immediately confirm to AFP.
Turkiye, Iran leaders at Muslim summit in Cairo
- Relations between Egypt and Iran have been strained for decades, but diplomatic contacts have intensified since Cairo became a mediator in the war in Gaza
CAIRO: The leaders of Turkiye and Iran were in Egypt on Thursday for a summit of eight Muslim-majority countries, meeting for the first time since the ouster of Syria’s president Bashar Assad.
Turkiye historically backed the opposition to Assad, while Iran supported his rule.
The gathering of the D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation, also known as the Developing-8, was being held against a backdrop of regional turmoil including the conflict in Gaza, a fragile ceasefire in Lebanon and unrest in Syria.
In a speech to the summit, Turkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for unity and reconciliation in Syria, urging “the restoration of Syria’s territorial integrity and unity.”
He also voiced hope for “the establishment of a Syria free of terrorism,” where “all religious sects and ethnic groups live side by side in peace.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian urged action to address the crises in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, saying that it is a “religious, legal and human duty to prevent further harm” to those suffering in these conflict zones.
Pezeshkian, who arrived in Cairo on Wednesday, is the first Iranian president to visit Egypt since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who visited in 2013.
Relations between Egypt and Iran have been strained for decades, but diplomatic contacts have intensified since Cairo became a mediator in the war in Gaza.
Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi visited Egypt in October, while his Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdelatty traveled to Tehran in July to attend Pezeshkian’s inauguration.
Ahead of the summit, the Iranian top diplomat said he hoped it would “send a strong message to the world that the Israeli aggressions and violations in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria” would end “immediately.”
Erdogan was in Egypt earlier this year, and discussed with President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi economic cooperation as well as regional conflicts.
Established in 1997, the D-8 aims to foster cooperation among member states, spanning regions from Southeast Asia to Africa.
The organization includes Egypt, Turkiye, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia as member states.
Iraq begins repatriating Syrian soldiers amid border security assurances
DUBAI: Iraq has begun the process of returning Syrian soldiers to their home country, according to state media reports on Wednesday.
Lt. Gen. Qais Al-Muhammadawi, deputy commander of joint operations, emphasized the robust security measures in place along Iraq’s borders with Syria.
“Our borders are fortified and completely secure,” he said, declaring that no unauthorized crossings would be permitted.
Muhammadawi said that all border crossings with Syria are under tight control, stating: “We will not allow a terrorist to enter our territory.”
Turkiye won’t halt Syria military activity until Kurd fighters ‘disarm’
ISTANBUL: Turkiye will push ahead with its military preparations until Kurdish fighters “disarm,” a defense ministry source said Thursday as the nation faces an ongoing threat along its border with northern Syria.
“Until the PKK/YPG terrorist organization disarms and its foreign fighters leave Syria, our preparations and measures will continue within the scope of the fight against terrorism,” the source said.
