JERUSALEM: As their first birthday approaches, the triplets Gaza-native Hanane Bayouk gave birth to in Jerusalem before the war have seen their mother just once, and she fears she will “die without them.”
The 26-year-old had to return to the Palestinian territory alone after giving birth to Najoua, Nour, and Najmeh on August 24, 2023, because her Israeli travel permit had expired.
Bayouk received a permit to exit Gaza and give birth in annexed East Jerusalem’s Al-Maqased Hospital after seven years of painful IVF procedures.
She caught a glimpse of her children in their incubators, “barely an hour and a half,” before driving back to Gaza after her permit “expired and the hospital told me to leave.”
Bayouk was supposed to return in early October after her daughters had spent several weeks in incubators, which were in short supply in hospitals in Gaza even before the Israel-Hamas war erupted last October.
Two days after she applied for a new exit permit on Oct. 5, Hamas commandos blasted through the Erez terminal, the only entry point from Gaza into Israel.
Once in Israel, the militants carried out an unprecedented attack that left 1,198 people dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed 40,265 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths. The UN rights office says most of the dead have been women or children.
Like Bayouk, Heba Idriss found herself surrounded by war and unable to return to Jerusalem to get her only daughter, Saida, born prematurely at the Maqased two months earlier.
The 27-year-old had hoped to bring her newborn back to her husband Saleh at their home in Shujaiya, in the northern Gaza Strip.
Instead, the couple has been displaced nine times by Israeli air strikes or evacuation orders, and her husband Saleh has only seen pictures of Saida.
“I want to see my daughter. I suffer so much from being separated from her,” she said in tears.
Hanane Bayouk, too, has been forced from her home and now lives in a displacement persons’ camp in the south, sharing a tent with seven of her in-laws.
“It drives me crazy. It took me so long to get pregnant, and now I’m crying all the time,” she said on one of the rare days she was able to get through on Gaza’s struggling phone network.
“Sometimes, I think I’d like for my daughters to return to Gaza before I die because I have never kissed them, but then I get a hold of myself and tell myself they should be safe far from the war,” she said.
Back at the Maqased, neonatal intensive care unit director Hatem Khammach says that in normal times, there would not have been space to keep Nour, Najmeh, and Najoua for so long.
But the number of births at the hospital has fallen sharply as Israel has stopped issuing travel permits to mothers from Gaza and slashed the number given to mothers from the occupied West Bank.
With more checkpoints closed more often, even those with permits struggle to access specialist treatment in Jerusalem.
“Before the war, we had seven or eight Gaza babies in our department, which can host 30 at a time,” Khammach said.
Since October, none have come, “many sick people from the West Bank can’t reach us.”
But the hospital’s health workers keep busy, like those who call Bayouk to let her speak to her three daughters on the phone.
“My husband can’t do it. I do it, and I cry every time we hang up. I’m afraid my daughters will grow up without knowing me,” Bayouk said.
The Gaza mothers separated from their newborns by war
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The Gaza mothers separated from their newborns by war
- “I’m crying all the time,” says Hanane Bayouk, whose children are in the West Bank
Syria unable to import wheat or fuel due to US sanctions, trade minister says
- The sanctions were imposed during Assad’s rule, targeting his government and also state institutions such as the central bank
DAMASCUS: Syria is unable to make deals to import fuel, wheat or other key goods due to strict US sanctions and despite many countries, including Gulf Arab states, wanting to do so, Syria’s new trade minister said.
In an interview with Reuters at his office in Damascus, Maher Khalil Al-Hasan said Syria’s new ruling administration had managed to scrape together enough wheat and fuel for a few months but the country faces a “catastrophe” if sanctions are not frozen or lifted soon.
Hasan is a member of the new caretaker government set up by Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham after it launched a lightning offensive that toppled autocratic President Bashar Assad on Dec. 8 after 13 years of civil war.
The sanctions were imposed during Assad’s rule, targeting his government and also state institutions such as the central bank.
Russia and Iran, both major backers of the Assad government, previously provided most of Syria’s wheat and oil products but both stopped doing so after the rebels triumphed and Assad fled to Moscow.
The US is set to announce an easing of restrictions on providing humanitarian aid and other basic services such as electricity to Syria while maintaining its strict sanctions regime, people briefed on the matter told Reuters on Monday.
The exact impact of the expected measures remains to be seen.
The decision by the outgoing Biden administration aims to send a signal of goodwill to Syria’s people and its new Islamist rulers, and pave the way for improving basic services and living conditions in the war-ravaged country.
At the same time, US officials see the sanctions as a key point of leverage with a new ruling group that was designated a terrorist entity by Washington several years ago but which, after breaking with Islamist militant group Al Qaeda, has recently signalled a more moderate approach.
Washington wants to see Damascus embark on an inclusive political transition and to cooperate on counterterrorism and other matters.
Hasan told Reuters he was aware of reports that some sanctions may soon be eased or frozen.
Libya military says air strikes target smuggling sites
- The Libyan Army said the air strikes “targeted and destroyed fuel trafficking sites in Zawiya, specifically in Asban,” a semi-rural area outside of the city
ZAWIYAH, Libya: Libya’s UN-recognized authorities have launched air strikes targeting drug trafficking and fuel smuggling hubs west of the capital, a military statement said on Monday.
It remained unclear if there were casualties from the strikes in Zawiya, a city on the Mediterranean coast about 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of the capital Tripoli.
Libya was plunged into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed strongman Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, with armed groups exploiting the situation to fund their activities through fuel smuggling and the trafficking of migrants.
The Libyan Army said the air strikes “targeted and destroyed fuel trafficking sites in Zawiya, specifically in Asban,” a semi-rural area outside of the city.
It also called on locals to clear areas it labelled as “strongholds for trafficking and crime.”
In May 2023, the Tripoli-based government carried out drone strikes as part of an anti-smuggling operation, killing at least two people and injuring several others, authorities said at the time.
Those strikes followed clashes between armed groups suspected of involvement in human trafficking and smuggling of fuel and other contraband goods.
Libya’s eastern-based parliament accused the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity of targeting the home of one of its lawmakers, an opponent of the government.
Libya is divided between the Tripoli-based GNU and a rival administration in the east, backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.
Footage posted on the army’s Facebook page showed a military truck smashing into the facade of a small dwelling.
Other footage showed tanks and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns driving through Zawiya.
The city hosts Libya’s second-largest oil refinery, with smugglers trafficking the fuel across the border into neighboring Tunisia.
UN envoy in rare Yemen visit to push for peace
- Grundberg’s office said his visit would also “support the release of the arbitrarily detained UN, NGO, civil society and diplomatic mission personnel”
SANAA: Hans Grundberg, the United Nation’s special envoy for war-torn Yemen, arrived Monday in the rebel-held capital in a bid to breathe life into peace talks, his office said.
Grundberg last visited the capital Sanaa, controlled by the Iran-backed Houthis, in May 2023 for meetings with the rebels’ leaders in an earlier effort to advance a roadmap for peace.
The envoy’s current visit “is part of his ongoing efforts to urge for concrete and essential actions... for advancing the peace process,” Grundberg’s office said in a statement.
Yemen has been at war since 2014, when the Houthis forced the internationally recognized government out of Sanaa. The rebels have also seized population centers in the north.
A UN-brokered ceasefire in April 2022 calmed fighting and in December 2023 the warring parties committed to a peace process.
But tensions have surged during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, as the Houthis struck Israeli targets and international shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, in a campaign the rebels say is in solidarity with Palestinians.
In response to the Houthi attacks, Israel as well as the United States and Britain have hit Houthi targets in Yemen over the past year. One Israeli raid hit Sanaa’s international airport.
Grundberg’s office said his visit would also “support the release of the arbitrarily detained UN, NGO, civil society and diplomatic mission personnel.”
Dozens of staff from UN and other humanitarian organizations have been detained by the rebels, most of them since June, with the Houthis accusing them of belonging to a “US-Israeli spy network,” a charge the United Nations denies.
US says anti-Daesh operation in Iraq kills coalition soldier
- US officials have said Daesh is hoping to stage a comeback in Syria following the fall in December of Syrian President Bashar Assad
WASHINGTON: The US military said on Monday operations against Daesh in Iraq over the past week led to the death of a non-US coalition soldier and wounded two other non-US personnel.
It also detailed operations in Syria against Daesh militants led by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, including one that resulted in the capture of what the US military’s Central Command said was an Daesh attack cell leader.
US officials have said Daesh is hoping to stage a comeback in Syria following the fall in December of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
West Bank camp under fire as Palestinian forces face off militants
- Gunshots occasionally rung out from inside the camp, an AFP correspondent reported this week
JENIN, Palestinian Territories: A month into a crackdown by Palestinian security forces on militants in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the streets of Jenin refugee camp are deserted, except for a few residents briefly checking on their homes.
Shops are closed, and militants have erected metal barricades to block Palestinian forces, in the area where Israeli army raids are more common.
Black military vehicles from the Palestinian Authority (PA), which exercises limited control over the West Bank, are stationed beyond roadblocks at the camp’s entrances.
“I only came back to check on my house,” said Muayyad Al-Saadi, a 53-year-old resident of Jenin camp, riding a bicycle down roads stripped of pavement.
Saadi, one of around 17,000 Palestinians who live in the camp, fled when clashes began in early December, citing a lack of electricity and running water.
The fighting, triggered by the arrests of several militants, has involved Palestinian militant factions affiliated with opponents of the PA’s leadership.
One of these factions, the Jenin Battalion, is largely made up of fighters affiliated with Islamic Jihad or Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered war in Gaza.
Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, is the main political rival of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party, which dominates the PA.
Fourteen Palestinians have been killed, including six security forces, seven civilians, and one gunman in the clashes.
Gunshots occasionally rung out from inside the camp, an AFP correspondent reported this week.
Since bakeries have closed, an unusually long line stretched from a shop that delivers bread from outside the camp.
“I’ve lived through wars since I was eight years old,” said the shopkeeper, Umm Hani, who is in her 70s.
She said there was “never anything like this” since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, when Israel captured the West Bank.
“Let them (the security forces) come and arrest whoever they want. We have nothing to do with it,” said Umm Hani.
Another woman, in her 30s, said: “Everyone wants to speak out, but they’re afraid of repercussions from both sides.”
“We’re suffering. We can’t leave or enter the camp freely.”
The intra-Palestinian clashes erupted amid a major PA raid on the camp after the December 5 arrest of a Jenin Battalion commander on charges of possessing weapons and illicit funds.
Armed factions in Jenin and elsewhere see themselves as more effective resistance to Israeli occupation than the PA, which coordinates security matters with Israel.
“They (the PA) don’t want any resistance against the occupation,” said a fighter carrying an M16 rifle, blocking a road with militants.
The militants accuse the PA of cutting off the water and power supply to the camp, a claim the Ramallah-based authority denies.
“The gunmen fire at electricity and water crews whenever they attempt to repair the networks,” Anwar Rajab, spokesman for the PA forces, told AFP.
He said militants were also shooting at distributors of food aid.
Rajab added that the PA was trying to spare civilians, accusing militants instead of disrupting the lives of residents.
“We’re not besieging the camp. People are entering and leaving the camp normally.”
One gunman said the fighting has been “incredibly difficult for civilians. They have no water, no food, and they’ve stopped working.”
Walls throughout the camp are riddled with bullet holes, some from past Israeli army incursions and others from the recent fighting.
A 19-year-old Hamas fighter, who requested anonymity, said residents of Jenin camp have been exposed to violence long before the current operation.
“Every house here has a martyr, a prisoner or an injured person,” he said.
The fighter accused the PA’s forces of firing indiscriminately.
Both sides have traded blame for the deaths of the seven civilians, including a father and son killed on a rooftop on Friday.
“If they’re targeting us — the resistance factions and the Jenin Battalion — why don’t they come for us directly instead of targeting civilians?” said the young militant.
