Latest news with #Maryam


CNN
3 hours ago
- CNN
‘We don't want you to die': Palestinian mom's children fear for her life as she sets out to get food
It's a long and dangerous walk to the point through which trucks carrying aid into Gaza are expected to pass. Um Khader and other women who live in the tents neighboring hers are huddled next to a car in the dark, surrounded by a large crowd of men. Not many women can be seen around the bonfires dotting the horizon near Gaza City on this night in June, captured on video. The sole providers for their children, this group of mothers sticks together for protection. The most dangerous part of their journey is yet to start. They could come under Israeli fire and, once the aid trucks arrive, they will have to jostle their way through thousands of men if they hope to get their hands on a bag of flour and keep it. 'Everything around us is a risk to our lives, whether it's thieves, Israeli soldiers, rockets or drones. Everything,' says Um Khader, a mother of three. Her friend Walaa recounts what happened the previous day, when she managed to get a bag of flour after waiting 10 hours from dawn to dusk. 'Then a young man with a knife said, 'drop the flour or I'll kill you,'' she says. She handed it over. Their feet are aching and they had to take frequent rests on the up to 2-hour walk to the spot where the aid trucks might pass. Their friend Maryam gave birth just three weeks earlier but she's been doing the same journey every day for the past week, hoping to secure food for her three older children. There's little hope of formula to help feed her newborn. That night ended in disappointment. No aid trucks passed through, and they all went back empty-handed. The trickle of aid allowed into Gaza, the breakdown of law and order and the dismantling of United Nations-led delivery systems have created new levels of desperation, according to aid groups. The fittest struggle to survive and the most vulnerable are left with nothing. Over the course of several weeks in June and July, CNN followed a group of Palestinian women facing an awful choice between risking their own lives, which could deprive their families of their only remaining provider, or watching their children starve. 'My children tell me: 'Don't go, Mama, don't go to the aid centers, we don't want you to die, Mama. Who will take care of us if something happens to you?' Um El-Abed said. Her husband was killed in an Israeli airstrike and she is now caring for her family alone, she told CNN. The pot of soup she could secure from a crowded charity kitchen was hardly enough for her eight hungry children. So, like many Palestinians in Gaza, Um El-Abed eventually tried her luck with aid trucks, making the trek at night while her children slept. And, like most of the women on that route, she came back empty-handed, she said. The threat facing their children is real. Famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption levels in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition rates in Gaza City, where the women live, according to the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. Sixty-three people have died of starvation in July alone, including 25 children, all but one of those aged under 5, according to the World Health Organization. Over 11,500 children sought treatment for malnutrition in Gaza's barely functioning hospitals and clinics in June and July, the UN agency said Sunday. Nearly one in five of them had severe acute malnutrition, the most life-threatening form, it added. The crisis is also exacting a heavy toll on pregnant and breastfeeding women, WHO said, with recent data showing that over 40% were severely malnourished. Israel announced over the weekend that it would pause fighting in certain areas and establish corridors for humanitarian deliveries on the ground. But far too little food is making its way in to meet the needs of Gaza's 2.2 million people, thrust into a crisis that the United Kingdom, France and Germany last week described as 'man-made and avoidable.' Israel imposed an 11-week blockade on all aid into the strip beginning in March, finally restarting distribution in late May through the controversial US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Instead of the 400 aid distribution points the UN managed in the past, Palestinians can only get food through four GHF sites, at over-crowded soup kitchens, or by stopping and overpowering aid trucks as they drive through the territory. Looted sacks of flour are sold in the market for exorbitant prices, unaffordable for these women and their children. After numerous failed attempts in June to get food from aid trucks, Um Khader received a donation from a sympathetic stranger along the way. She shared the bag of flour with her neighbor Um Bilal, who was struggling to feed her five children. Their friendship and camaraderie hit a rare tender note in a cacophony of suffering. The screams of their hungry children are often unbearable. Um Bilal said her youngest daughter sometimes pulls her hair out as she screams in pain. Both women said they often go without food for days on end so that their children can have every single drop of the soup they get, yet the children always go to sleep hungry. Over the weeks, their desperation has deepened. They decided to try their luck at the GHF distribution sites, where the majority of the 1,100 aid-related killings have occurred since May, according to the UN and the Palestinian health ministry. Israel admits to firing warning shots but denies responsibility for the heavy death toll, while the GHF rebuffs accusations, saying the statistics are exaggerated. 'The American aid points are death zones. I reached one and spent the night there. A sniper fired above my head. The bullet missed me by mere centimeters,' Um Khader recalled as the two women spoke to CNN on Friday. She hasn't gone back since. She dissolves salt in water to give her children between their sporadic meals. This isn't the first time she's experienced hunger during the war that has followed the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks. 'We used to eat animal feed. A year ago, our bodies could handle it, but now, it's famine on top of famine, our bodies can't take it anymore,' she said. Now she has become too weak to make those long treks. Um Bilal is unrelenting. She has come across tanks, dodged gunfire, and fainted from sunstrokes and fatigue as she's tried to get food from moving UN trucks or at GHF sites. But her desperate efforts to feed her children often go unrewarded. 'My mother is not like the young men, she goes and comes back empty-handed,' her 10-year-old daughter Dalia said. 'She asks me what we'll eat for lunch or dinner, and I tell her 'it's okay, don't cry, Mom.''


CNN
4 hours ago
- CNN
‘We don't want you to die': Palestinian mom's children fear for her life as she sets out to get food
It's a long and dangerous walk to the point through which trucks carrying aid into Gaza are expected to pass. Um Khader and other women who live in the tents neighboring hers are huddled next to a car in the dark, surrounded by a large crowd of men. Not many women can be seen around the bonfires dotting the horizon near Gaza City on this night in June, captured on video. The sole providers for their children, this group of mothers sticks together for protection. The most dangerous part of their journey is yet to start. They could come under Israeli fire and, once the aid trucks arrive, they will have to jostle their way through thousands of men if they hope to get their hands on a bag of flour and keep it. 'Everything around us is a risk to our lives, whether it's thieves, Israeli soldiers, rockets or drones. Everything,' says Um Khader, a mother of three. Her friend Walaa recounts what happened the previous day, when she managed to get a bag of flour after waiting 10 hours from dawn to dusk. 'Then a young man with a knife said, 'drop the flour or I'll kill you,'' she says. She handed it over. Their feet are aching and they had to take frequent rests on the up to 2-hour walk to the spot where the aid trucks might pass. Their friend Maryam gave birth just three weeks earlier but she's been doing the same journey every day for the past week, hoping to secure food for her three older children. There's little hope of formula to help feed her newborn. That night ended in disappointment. No aid trucks passed through, and they all went back empty-handed. The trickle of aid allowed into Gaza, the breakdown of law and order and the dismantling of United Nations-led delivery systems have created new levels of desperation, according to aid groups. The fittest struggle to survive and the most vulnerable are left with nothing. Over the course of several weeks in June and July, CNN followed a group of Palestinian women facing an awful choice between risking their own lives, which could deprive their families of their only remaining provider, or watching their children starve. 'My children tell me: 'Don't go, Mama, don't go to the aid centers, we don't want you to die, Mama. Who will take care of us if something happens to you?' Um El-Abed said. Her husband was killed in an Israeli airstrike and she is now caring for her family alone, she told CNN. The pot of soup she could secure from a crowded charity kitchen was hardly enough for her eight hungry children. So, like many Palestinians in Gaza, Um El-Abed eventually tried her luck with aid trucks, making the trek at night while her children slept. And, like most of the women on that route, she came back empty-handed, she said. The threat facing their children is real. Famine thresholds have been reached for food consumption levels in most of the Gaza Strip and for acute malnutrition rates in Gaza City, where the women live, according to the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. Sixty-three people have died of starvation in July alone, including 25 children, all but one of those aged under 5, according to the World Health Organization. Over 11,500 children sought treatment for malnutrition in Gaza's barely functioning hospitals and clinics in June and July, the UN agency said Sunday. Nearly one in five of them had severe acute malnutrition, the most life-threatening form, it added. The crisis is also exacting a heavy toll on pregnant and breastfeeding women, WHO said, with recent data showing that over 40% were severely malnourished. Israel announced over the weekend that it would pause fighting in certain areas and establish corridors for humanitarian deliveries on the ground. But far too little food is making its way in to meet the needs of Gaza's 2.2 million people, thrust into a crisis that the United Kingdom, France and Germany last week described as 'man-made and avoidable.' Israel imposed an 11-week blockade on all aid into the strip beginning in March, finally restarting distribution in late May through the controversial US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Instead of the 400 aid distribution points the UN managed in the past, Palestinians can only get food through four GHF sites, at over-crowded soup kitchens, or by stopping and overpowering aid trucks as they drive through the territory. Looted sacks of flour are sold in the market for exorbitant prices, unaffordable for these women and their children. After numerous failed attempts in June to get food from aid trucks, Um Khader received a donation from a sympathetic stranger along the way. She shared the bag of flour with her neighbor Um Bilal, who was struggling to feed her five children. Their friendship and camaraderie hit a rare tender note in a cacophony of suffering. The screams of their hungry children are often unbearable. Um Bilal said her youngest daughter sometimes pulls her hair out as she screams in pain. Both women said they often go without food for days on end so that their children can have every single drop of the soup they get, yet the children always go to sleep hungry. Over the weeks, their desperation has deepened. They decided to try their luck at the GHF distribution sites, where the majority of the 1,100 aid-related killings have occurred since May, according to the UN and the Palestinian health ministry. Israel admits to firing warning shots but denies responsibility for the heavy death toll, while the GHF rebuffs accusations, saying the statistics are exaggerated. 'The American aid points are death zones. I reached one and spent the night there. A sniper fired above my head. The bullet missed me by mere centimeters,' Um Khader recalled as the two women spoke to CNN on Friday. She hasn't gone back since. She dissolves salt in water to give her children between their sporadic meals. This isn't the first time she's experienced hunger during the war that has followed the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks. 'We used to eat animal feed. A year ago, our bodies could handle it, but now, it's famine on top of famine, our bodies can't take it anymore,' she said. Now she has become too weak to make those long treks. Um Bilal is unrelenting. She has come across tanks, dodged gunfire, and fainted from sunstrokes and fatigue as she's tried to get food from moving UN trucks or at GHF sites. But her desperate efforts to feed her children often go unrewarded. 'My mother is not like the young men, she goes and comes back empty-handed,' her 10-year-old daughter Dalia said. 'She asks me what we'll eat for lunch or dinner, and I tell her 'it's okay, don't cry, Mom.''


ITV News
5 days ago
- Politics
- ITV News
Why Afghan refugees are being deported from Iran to face Taliban rule
More than a million Afghan refugees have been thrown out of Iran and sent back to their own country, where many face an uncertain fate. ITV News International Affairs Analyst Rageh Omaar reports on the world's unseen refugee crisis. Iran has hosted millions of Afghan refugees for decades. Many of them have known nothing else, other than their lives in Iran. In the past few weeks, this all came to an end. First came the formalities of the paperwork - sending them back to the country they or their parents fled. Then came the shock of confronting the emotional reality of being forcibly deported. Deportations of illegal migrants are a global topic - especially in the West. However, the stark number of Afghans being deported from Iran is startling: 1.5 million sent back so far this year. So why is Iran doing this now? In June this year, Israel conducted a devastating strike on Iran's critical military and nuclear facilities and assassinated senior Iranian military officials. Iran's suspicion is that Israeli intelligence recruited desperate and poor Afghan refugees to be agents, and guide Israeli strikes to their targets. A video produced by the Iranian military shows what they say is a bunker near a military site - with Afghans hiding inside it. So now many, like Maryam, are being forced to return to a country ruled by the Taliban. Mayram told ITV News that Iranian security forces were not allowing Afghans to live or work there. She has returned to Afghanistan and is searching for a home for her family. Her story is the same for millions of Afghans, especially women, returning to a country where there are virtually no humanitarian agencies. And many female returnees are not allowed to be educated or go outside unaccompanied by a male relative. This came after years of Western intervention in Afghanistan to be rid of the Taliban so that refugees could return safely, and not under duress.


The Star
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Star
China's pavilion captivates crowds at Jordan's Int'l City Festival
AMMAN, July 24 (Xinhua) -- China's pavilion has emerged as one of the main attractions at the 18th International City Festival, held Thursday at the Zaha Cultural Center in Jordan's capital, Amman. The festival, a summer highlight on Jordan's cultural calendar, features pavilions from 12 countries, including Bahrain, China, France, Malaysia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Türkiye. Organized by the China Cultural Center in Amman, the Chinese presence includes a cultural pavilion, a food pavilion, and a tourism pavilion, together showcasing traditional Chinese clothing, cuisine, calligraphy, and travel experiences. "Our participation in cultural events promotes the Chinese language and traditions among Jordanians, as both countries enjoy strong ties," said Randa Al-Yabroudi, deputy manager of the Talal Abu-Ghazaleh (TAG) Confucius Institute, which also contributed to the event. "Jordanians show great interest in Chinese customs, and we always see enthusiastic participation during our activities." The pavilion's culinary offerings drew particular interest. "I'm used to seeing Chinese culture in movies, but today I got to experience the real taste of Chinese cuisine and culture. It was sensational," said Maryam, a visitor in her 20s. The event also featured live performances by each participating country. The Chinese performance, presented by the delegation from China's North Minzu University, was a crowd favorite. Through captivating music and graceful dance, it offered a glimpse into China's rich cultural legacy.


Muscat Daily
21-07-2025
- General
- Muscat Daily
Dar al Atta'a charity programmes focus on sustainability, innovation
Muscat – The charity Dar al Atta'a continues to expand its reach and impact through a wide range of assistance programmes and sustainable housing initiatives aimed at supporting vulnerable families across the sultanate. Founded in 2002 and formally recognised in 2006, the charity has played a key role in improving the lives of underprivileged families across Oman. Its work focuses on rehabilitation and empowerment to ensure long-term stability. Maryam bint Issa al Zadjali, founder and chairperson of Dar al Atta'a, said the charity provides support through multiple initiatives, including its Family Care Programme, Distress Relief Programme, Education Programme, Relief and Disaster Management, Safe Housing Programme, Empowerment Programme, Islamic Values Programme and the Let's Read Programme. She stated that Dar al Atta'a spent more than RO4.094mn on these programmes in 2024, supporting basic needs and offering livelihood assistance. In the first half of 2025, spending exceeded RO2.038mn. It is also adopting new approaches to charitable work, having launched a department dedicated to social innovation. The unit aims to apply modern technology to improve services, streamline procedures and enhance overall programme delivery. As part of ongoing projects, work is currently underway on the second phase of the Al Atta'a neighbourhood in Khabourah. The development includes a mosque, community centre and commercial facilities, alongside 36 model homes each measuring 274sqm. The housing units will be equipped with solar power and water purification systems in line with the charity's focus on sustainability. To date, Dar al Atta'a has delivered 175 homes to families across Oman and carried out maintenance on over 2,500 units. Maryam stated that the charity will continue to expand its support and programmes while enhancing collaboration with public and private sector partners to further community development and advance Oman's charitable sector.