AL-ARISH, Egypt: On a floating hospital near Gaza, doctors aren’t just treating physical wounds — they’re providing emotional support too for children and adults haunted by months of terrifying war.
Child amputees and elderly people in wheelchairs are among the patients on the converted ship off Arish, northern Egypt, funded and operated by the United Arab Emirates.
About 2,400 people have been treated at the temporary facility, whose rows of tents below deck hold about 100 patients at a time, says deputy medical director Abdullah Al-Zahmi.
If that only scratches the surface of the needs of Gaza, it reflects the difficulty of providing aid for the sealed and bombarded territory.
More than 38,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in Gaza since the Israel-Hamas war broke out nearly nine months ago, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, also mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Nine-year-old Yazan is one of those traumatized by the war, after being brought to the hospital about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Gaza without his parents and having a leg amputated because of his wounds.
Zahmi jokes with the boy, asks how his parents are doing in Gaza and assures him he will soon have a prosthetic leg fitted.
“The traditional relationship between the patient and the doctor” has dissolved, the doctor tells AFP.
“Every day we see each other, we speak comfortably, and we care about their needs, problems, and psychological pain.”
Yazan’s parents were not allowed to accompany him through the Rafah crossing into Egypt, Zahmi says, without giving further details. The route was closed by Israeli forces in early May.
The boy’s condition “was initially a concern for us, as dealing with him was difficult because he was emotional and in need of his mother and father.”
“But as days passed, we began to include Yazan as one of our family... and now he has become an icon for us because of his clinging to life, his constant smile, and everyone’s love for him,” Zahmi says.
The child is undergoing psychological and social rehabilitation and communicates daily with his family, Zahmi adds.
Smiling as he sits inside one of the tents, Yazan shows the doctor a picture of him with his father before the outbreak of war last October.
After his artificial leg is fitted, Yazan says he wants to “walk and play football,” adding that his “favorite player is (Cristiano) Ronaldo.”
“I would like to return to Gaza and live with my father and mother,” he says.
Zahmi says more than 840 operations have been carried out at the hospital, which has a surgical department, an intensive care and anaesthesia unit, X-ray facilities, a pharmacy and laboratory.
Its 60 staff span specialities including orthopaedics, internal care, neurosurgery and dentistry.
The hospital also provides communal spaces and communications with relatives in Gaza or elsewhere, Zahmi says.
“We provide them with high-speed Internet, outdoor areas for playing and resting, and a place for prayer,” he says.
In the main loading area of the 200-meter ship, ambulances are preparing to transfer patients to a plane to the UAE, where they will receive further treatment.
According to Zahmi, they are among those chosen as part of a UAE initiative to receive 1,000 wounded children and 1,000 cancer-sufferers from the Gaza Strip.
Other patients discharged from the hospital are taken to housing designated for them by Egyptian authorities.
For any patients who need further treatment but who are not being flown to the UAE, the Emirates Red Crescent will cover their costs at an Egyptian hospital.
Fadia Al-Madhun, 44, is on the floating hospital with her husband, who was injured in a bombing that targeted their Gaza home.
“We left the house. It was bombed. We did not take clothes or anything else,” says Madhun, wearing a floral hijab.
“They gave us everything (including) psychological support for our children,” she adds.
Zahmi says the hospital staff have seen “many families who lost their children and people who lost their fathers and mothers, and therefore we understand the tragedies.”
“We listen a lot and try to accept, but in the end, no matter how much we console them, the wound runs deep and remains in the memory,” he adds.
Psychological wounds hard to heal for Gaza war victims
https://arab.news/vsuvb
Psychological wounds hard to heal for Gaza war victims
- Child amputees and elderly people in wheelchairs are among the patients on the converted ship off Al-Arish funded and operated by the UAE
- If that only scratches the surface of the needs of Gaza, it reflects the difficulty of providing aid for the sealed and bombarded territory
UN-backed experts focusing on Palestinian rights quit
- Council spokesman Pascal Sim said the move marked the first joint resignations of Commission of Inquiry members since the council was founded in 2006
GENEVA: A team of three independent experts working for the UN’s top human rights body with a focus on Israel and Palestinian areas say they are resigning, citing personal reasons and a need for change, in the panel’s first such group resignation.
The resignations, announced Monday by the UN-backed Human Rights Council that set up the team, come as violence continues in Palestinian areas with few signs of letup in the Israeli military campaign against Hamas and other militants behind the Oct. 7 attacks.
The Israeli government has repeatedly criticized the panel of experts, known as the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, and denied their repeated requests to travel to the region or otherwise cooperate with the team.
Council spokesman Pascal Sim said the move marked the first joint resignations of Commission of Inquiry members since the council was founded in 2006.
The team said in a statement that the resignations had “absolutely nothing to do with any external event or pressure.”
Navi Pillay, 83, a former UN human rights chief who has led the commission for the last four years, said in a letter to the council president that she was resigning effective Nov. 3 because of “age, medical issues and the weight of several other commitments.”
Survivors bury dead after RSF attack devastates Sudan village
- The Emergency Lawyers reported on Monday that nearly 300 people were killed in North Kordofan villages
- The area is home to several armed tribes that have refused to pledge allegiance to the RSF
PORT SUDAN: It took a full day for the villagers of Shaq Al-Nom, in Sudan’s North Kordofan state, to bury their dead after an attack by paramilitary fighters that left the village in ruins, a survivor told AFP on Tuesday.
The Saturday attack by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — the paramilitary force at war with the regular army since April 2023 — was part of a series of raids in recent days on villages in North Kordofan, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) southwest of the capital Khartoum.
“On Sunday, we collected the bodies from the village streets and inside the houses, and we buried 200 bodies,” Saleh Abdel Rahim, 34, told AFP.
The Emergency Lawyers, a group that documents atrocities by both sides in the war, reported on Monday that nearly 300 people were killed in North Kordofan villages between Saturday and Sunday.
Tolls are nearly impossible to independently verify in Sudan, with many medical facilities forced out of service and limited media access.
“It was indescribable,” Abdel Rahim said, using a pseudonym for fear of retaliation because he had fled to an area close to RSF positions.
“Under artillery shelling, houses burned with their families inside,” he told AFP via satellite Internet connection to circumvent a communications blackout.
Since it began, the war has killed tens of thousands and created the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises, with 14 million Sudanese currently displaced inside the country and across borders.
The Emergency Lawyers reported on Monday that paramilitaries had killed women and children, abducted civilians and looted livestock in the villages surrounding the RSF-controlled city of Bara.
In Shaq Al-Nom, “RSF vehicles arrived in the village, in an attempt to storm it” on Saturday under a hail of machine gun fire and drone strikes, according to Abdel Rahim.
“We had no choice but to resist in defense,” he said, adding that “all of the villagers of the Bara countryside have fled.”
The area is home to several armed tribes that have refused to pledge allegiance to the RSF.
North Kordofan, key to the RSF’s fuel smuggling route via Libya, has been an important battleground between the army and the paramilitaries for months.
The RSF has tried to encircle the North Kordofan state capital of El-Obeid — the only road link between Khartoum and the vast western region of Darfur, which the RSF has all but conquered.
It has been unable, however, to seize the North Darfur state capital of El-Fasher despite an ongoing siege for more than a year.
Sudanese analyst Kholood Khair told AFP that “they want to consolidate that road that links El-Fasher to El-Obeid and other parts of Kordofan, so effectively they’re in a race against time to consolidate in the west before the rains come.”
Sudan’s rainy season, which peaks in August, renders much of the country’s roads inaccessible, making it impossible for either side to capture territory until the floods start clearing in September.
Can Beirut’s new bus network succeed where past reform efforts in Lebanon failed?
- Sleek new AC buses equipped with GPS and modern fare systems offer a welcome glimpse of efficiency
- World Bank warns that dependence on private vehicles is unsustainable amid rising poverty and costs
LONDON: On Beirut’s congested roads, where traffic crawls and crumbling infrastructure testifies to decades of neglect, a new rhythm is quietly taking shape.
Sleek, navy-blue buses — equipped with GPS, air conditioning and modern fare systems — now trundle through the city’s chaos, offering a welcome glimpse of efficiency. Whether they can truly deliver long-term impact, however, remains uncertain.
For decades, Lebanon’s public transportation system has been an informal patchwork dominated by private minibuses and shared taxis. Now, the government is attempting to reassert control through a partnership with a private company aimed at modernizing the daily commute.
The new fleet operates on 11 routes, primarily across Greater Beirut, but also extending to parts of northern, southern and eastern Lebanon. A private logistics firm, Ahdab Commuting and Trading Co., manages day-to-day operations under a public-private partnership model.
FASTFACTS
• France donated 50 of the buses currently in use across Greater Beirut and beyond.
• A network of private vans and minibuses run fixed routes without schedules or stops.
• The 2024 Israel-Hezbollah conflict damaged Lebanon’s transport infrastructure.
While the initiative shows promise, commuters are aware of its limitations.
“Overall, you’ll mostly notice the impact of public transit inside the major cities, but even there, the system still heavily relies on taxis,” Mohammed Ali Diab, a Beirut-based journalist, told Arab News.
“Most taxis operate on a shared-ride basis unless a passenger specifically requests a private ride.”
Passengers typically say “service” to request a shared taxi, paying a flat fare — usually around 200,000 Lebanese pounds, or $2 — while the driver continues picking up others along the same route.
“In Beirut, there are also vans, but their routes are limited and fixed,” Diab added. “They don’t operate citywide.”
These vans and buses, he noted, are primarily used by working-class commuters and students, largely due to their affordability.
Beyond Beirut, shared taxis and buses connect major cities such as Tripoli, Tyre and Sidon. But in rural and mountainous regions, Diab said, residents still depend on private cars.
That dependence is becoming increasingly unviable. The World Bank’s Beirut office recently warned that Lebanon’s “reliance on private vehicles is increasingly unsustainable,” particularly amid rising poverty rates and vehicle-operation costs.
Lebanon is reeling from one of the world’s worst economic crises since 1850, according to the World Bank. Since 2019, currency collapse and high inflation have wiped out savings, shrunk incomes and pushed millions of people into poverty.
A 2024 World Bank report revealed that poverty has more than tripled over the past decade, now affecting 44 percent of the population. A separate study by Walid Marrouch, an economics professor at the Lebanese American University, found that at least 60 percent of citizens live below the poverty line.
Against this economic backdrop, the government’s partnership with ACTC represents a promising policy shift.
In 2023, the company won a competitive bid launched by the Ministry of Public Works to operate the bus system under specific contractual conditions. As part of the deal, ACTC contributes 10 percent of its revenues to the ministry.
Despite the financial risks, ACTC leaders believe in the project’s potential. “We took a risk during a difficult time and invested in a project that’s close to our hearts — one we believe adds real value to the country,” Aoni Ahdab, the ACTC CEO, told Lebanese media. “We’re hopeful it will succeed.”
The service officially launched in July 2024, despite regional instability and periodic hostilities between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah that temporarily disrupted routes. Israel’s escalation of attacks from September through late November did not halt the project.
The 2024 conflict caused heavy damage to Lebanon’s transport infrastructure. The World Bank estimates $1 billion is needed for infrastructure sectors, including transport, within an $11 billion national recovery plan.
Much of the new fleet’s foundation was laid earlier. In 2022, France donated 50 buses to Lebanon, with more expected. Meanwhile, the Railway and Public Transport Authority refurbished 45 vehicles locally, raising the operational fleet to 95 — a modest but tangible effort to ease the transportation burden.
Although the ACTC contract did not mandate fleet upgrades, the company voluntarily refurbished and standardized the buses, repainting them in navy blue for easy identification and installing safety and tracking technologies.
To test viability, a pilot phase launched in April. Buses operated from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily to assess travel times, stop durations and operational needs. The goal was to ensure departures every 25 minutes.
Pricing was designed to be accessible. Fares vary by distance: 70,000 Lebanese pounds within Beirut, 100,000 to Baabda, and 150,000 to Tripoli, according to local passengers.
Riders can purchase single-use tickets or opt for rechargeable cards. For now, those without cards can still pay drivers directly and receive a scannable paper ticket.
As Beirut confronts long-standing infrastructure challenges, this initiative is viewed as cautious progress. Yet its success will depend on earning public trust and expanding service sustainably.
Initial data is encouraging. Ziad Nasr, head of Lebanon’s public transport authority, told AFP last month that daily ridership has risen to around 4,500 passengers, up from just a few hundred at launch.
Authorities hope to expand service further, including routes to Beirut’s airport, but additional buses and international support will be needed.
However, the rollout has not been smooth. Resistance from private transport operators, who view the initiative as a threat to their livelihoods, has been fierce.
According to local media, several buses were vandalized and drivers, especially on the Adlieh–Hadath University Campus route, faced threats and harassment toward the end of 2024. The Ministry of Public Works and security forces intervened to keep services running.
These tensions are symptomatic of deeper, long-standing issues. Lebanon’s public transport sector has suffered for decades from weak oversight, overlapping private interests, chronic underfunding, and lack of strategic planning — all of which have repeatedly hindered reform efforts.
The roots of dysfunction stretch back to the civil war of 1975–1990, which devastated infrastructure and governance. In the years that followed, a car-dependent culture took hold. Even before the 2019 economic collapse, Lebanon was already struggling with failing power grids, unsafe roads and limited water access.
Beyond reducing congestion and improving mobility, public transportation could also play a key role in environmental reform — an often overlooked priority in Lebanon. A World Bank climate and development report noted that the transport sector is the country’s second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, second only to the energy sector.
Indeed, in cities like Beirut, poor air quality is a growing concern. Frequent traffic jams and widespread use of diesel-powered generators — especially during routine blackouts — have worsened pollution and related health risks.
On the upside, there are signs of innovation. In Zahle, east of Beirut, four hybrid buses are already operating, Nabil Mneimne of the UN Development Program told AFP in June.
More progress is expected this year. Lebanon’s first fully electric buses, powered by a solar charging system, are set to launch between Beirut and the northern city of Jbeil.
A longer-term roadmap for reform has also been laid out. A 2022 World Bank report on improving public transport in Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq outlined key recommendations. These included unifying bus operators, creating a fund to buy back public licenses, implementing intelligent transport systems, and developing a national road safety strategy.
The report also urged the government to adopt “quick-win” solutions to improve the user experience — such as reliable schedules, journey-planning apps, real-time tracking, and updated data to enable effective planning.
Together, these steps could help Lebanon transform its transportation landscape — if the political will and public support can be sustained.
Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 93 Palestinians, including several families, health officials say
- Strike in Gaza City’s Tel Al-Hawa district Monday evening kills 19 members of same family
- Gaza’s Health Ministry says bodies of 93 people killed by Israeli strikes brought to hospitals over the past 24 hours
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Israeli strikes overnight and into Tuesday killed more than 90 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip, including dozens of women and children, health officials said.
One strike in the northern Shati refugee camp killed a 68-year-old Hamas member of the Palestinian legislature, as well as a man and a woman and their six children who were sheltering in the same building, according to officials from Shifa Hospital, where the casualties were taken.
One of the deadliest strikes hit a house in Gaza City’s Tel Al-Hawa district on Monday evening and killed 19 members of the family living inside, according to Shifa Hospital. The dead included eight women and six children. A strike on a tent housing displaced people in the same district killed a man and a woman and their two children.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strikes.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said in a daily report Tuesday afternoon that the bodies of 93 people killed by Israeli strikes had been brought to hospitals in Gaza over the past 24 hours, along with 278 wounded. It did not specify the total number of women and children among the dead.
The Hamas politician killed in a strike early Tuesday, Mohammed Faraj Al-Ghoul, was a member of the bloc of representatives from the group that won seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council in the last election held among Palestinians, in 2006.
Hamas won a majority in the vote, but relations with the main Fatah faction that had long led the Palestinian Authority unraveled and ended with Hamas taking over the Gaza Strip in 2007. The legislative council has not formally convened since.
The Israeli military says it only targets militants and tries to avoid harming civilians. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in densely populated areas. But daily, it hits homes and shelters where people are living without warning or explanation of the target.
The latest attacks came after US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held two days of talks last week that ended with no sign of a breakthrough in negotiations over a ceasefire and hostage release.
Israel has killed more than 58,400 Palestinians and wounded more than 139,000 others in its retaliation campaign since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Just over half the dead are women and children, according to the ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its tally.
The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, is led by medical professionals. Its count, based on daily reports from hospitals, is considered by the United Nations and other experts to be the most reliable.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after its attack 20 month ago, in which militants stormed into southern Israel and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians. They abducted 251 others, and the militants are still holding 50 hostages, less than half of them believed to be alive.
Israel’s air and ground campaign has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and driven some 90 percent of the population from their homes. Aid groups say they have struggled to bring in food and other assistance because of Israeli military restrictions and the breakdown of law and order, and experts have warned of famine.
UN’s Syria commission urges deescalation amid Suwayda clashes, warns against Israeli airstrikes
- Clashes in southern region between Bedouin tribal forces and Druze-affiliated armed groups have killed dozens, including women and children
- Ministry of Defense says at least 18 soldiers have been killed; residents describe widespread killings, abductions, arson, looting, and surge in hate speech
NEW YORK CITY: The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic expressed grave concern on Monday about escalating violence in Suwayda Governorate in the south of the country.
Clashes there between Bedouin tribal forces and Druze-affiliated armed groups have left dozens dead, including women and children.
More than 100 people have reportedly been injured in recent days, as fighting intensifies and the Syrian Interim Government deploys security and military forces to the area. The Ministry of Defense said at least 18 soldiers had been killed. Local residents describe widespread killings, abductions, arson, looting, and a surge in hate speech, both online and in public.
The UN commission urged all parties to immediately cease hostilities and engage in dialogue to deescalate the situation. It emphasized the obligation of the government to uphold human rights and protect all civilians, without discrimination, and called for the provision of safe passage for those attempting to flee the violence, along with access for humanitarian aid efforts.
The commission also expressed alarm over reports of Israeli airstrikes in the region, warning that any third-party interventions risked expanding the conflict and compounding the suffering of the Syrian population.
It said it was investigating alleged violations of international human rights and humanitarian laws linked to the recent unrest, and its findings would be published in a forthcoming report.
