Latest news with #Wafaa
Al Etihad
15 hours ago
- Sport
- Al Etihad
UAE Para Dressage programme puts two riders in the saddle for LA2028
26 June 2025 22:37 ABU DHABI (ALETIHAD)The Royal Stables in Abu Dhabi has achieved a significant milestone in its Para Dressage Performance Programme, launched earlier this year to develop a UAE national team for the 2028 Los Angeles Paralympic Games. Since April, several Emirati athletes have joined the pioneering training pathway, and now, two of them have completed their FEI classifications, putting them firmly on the road to LA Al Bluoshi and Wafaa Aldahmani, both 31 years old and from Ras Al Khaimah, have been undergoing intensive weekly training at The Royal Stables since enrolling in April, alongside their fellow athletes. Their regimen includes riding lessons, theory sessions, simulator training, physiotherapy, and sports psychology. The programme is built on a holistic approach designed to nurture both technical knowledge, athlete fitness and mental the training modules, the athletes are supported by experts in sports physiotherapy, psychology, and nutrition to enhance performance and optimise June, Fatima and Wafaa travelled to Wellington Riding in the United Kingdom, where they undertook their official FEI Para Dressage classification assessments. Fatima, who has lived with spina bifida affecting her lower limbs since birth, wasclassified as Grade III, while Wafaa, who experienced lower limb paralysis following contracting Polio as an infant, was classified as Grade time in the UK also included daily training, attending the Concours Para- Équestre de Dressage International, and connecting with members of TeamGB's multi-gold medal-winning Paralympians. The trip provided invaluable opportunities for technical development and international Russell MacKechnie-Guire, Technical Lead for the UAE Para Dressage Performance Programme, accompanied the athletes on the trip. An internationally recognised expert in equine biomechanics and performance analysis, Dr. MacKechnie-Guire said, "This was a defining moment for the athletes and the programme. The FEI classification is essential for any para dressage rider aspiring to compete internationally, and to see Fatima and Wafaa approach this with such professionalism and determination was exceptional.""The experience of training daily, watching elite competition, and engaging with Team GB's riders gave them, and us, a clear picture of the standards we are working towards. It is the start of an exciting journey, and both athletes have shown they belong on this path."The Para Dressage Performance Programme remains open to aspiring Emirati athletes of determination and continues its talent identification and development efforts, with several other athletes already participating in training sessions at The Royal Stables. Laura Richardson, Performance Manager, said, "Fatima and Wafaa's progress is inspiring, not just for the equestrian community but for the UAE as a whole. This programme was created to break barriers, and in just two short months together, we have already achieved the first key milestone on our exciting journey to LA 2028."
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
At least 35 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza
At least 35 Palestinians were killed and more than 100 others were injured on Wednesday as Israel continues to strike Gaza. Airstrikes targeting residences in the centre of the enclave killed at least 12 people, including children, as reported by Palestinian hospital personnel, who received the deceased. The early morning attacks targeted three residences in the Nuseirat refugee camp. The casualties included three children, two of whom were brothers, with their remains arriving in fragments, according to the morgue staff. Israel has been conducting daily strikes on homes, shelters and public spaces since it moved to resume fighting on 18 March. The blockade has deprived the more than 2 million Gazans of all imports, including essential food and medical supplies, for nearly two months. The United Nations has reported that food reserves have been depleted, and humanitarian organizations indicate that thousands of Palestinian children are suffering from malnutrition. Israel asserts that the blockade is intended to compel Hamas to release hostages taken on 7 October, 2023. Nevertheless, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights cautioned this week that using starvation as a military strategy against civilians constitutes a war crime. The humanitarian office of the United Nations reports critical shortages of food, water, and medical supplies as healthcare services deteriorate and charitable kitchens cease operations. The agency, known as OCHA, announced on Wednesday that it will distribute its final sixty emergency shelter kits in the coming days, which do not include tents. The UN Population Fund has indicated that it has exhausted all of its shelter materials, hygiene products, and menstrual hygiene kits. OCHA further noted that only seven hospitals and four field hospitals continue to offer obstetric and newborn care for families in Gaza, where over 2 million individuals reside. Meanwhile, hospitals are observing a significant increase in cases of malnourished pregnant and breastfeeding women, with a majority of newborns now being birthed underweight. Scores of Palestinians gathered at charity kitchens in Deir al-Balah and Nuseirat to get their only meal for the day as food across the territory runs out. On Wednesday, one kitchen served pasta in a thin tomato sauce, another served just lentils. Crowds of people pushed against each other and yelled as they held their pots and containers up high in the air in a desperate attempt to not leave empty-handed. 'There is starvation. There is no food or thing to drink," said Wafaa, a woman displaced in Nuseirat with eight family members, who gave only her first name. "It would be a significant crisis if the charity kitchens close.' Abu Hamza Fawaz, who works with the charity kitchen in Deir al-Balah, said that the kitchen will close in a few days due to the lack of food and fuel. Ahmed Yassin who works with another charity kitchen in Nuseirat, said that a significant number of small charity kitchens closed a while ago and people had to rely on the main communal kitchens. The war began when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing around 1,200 people, most of them civilians. Hamas took 251 people as hostages, and is currently holding 59, of whom 24 are believed to be alive. A subsequent Israeli offensive has to date killed more than 52,400 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry whose figure does not distinguish between fighters and civilians. According to the Israeli military's latest figures, 850 of its soldiers have died since the start of the war.
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
The Menace in Gaza That's Still Terrifying All of Us Here
Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Gaza has lost the cement houses that would protect its residents from the cold. We have lost the glass windows from which we used to look out at the streets, wet from the rain that marks the season. We had thick blankets, winter clothes in different and distinctive shapes. We used to walk around the streets with cups of hot coffee; we used to have a huge mall where we would meet our friends for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We used to buy hot chestnuts there. Before the war, children ran in the streets carrying bright, colorful umbrellas. Thousands would walk to the sea before going to work, to exercise or just to gain some positive energy from the sight and sound of rain on the water as they ate their breakfast and drank their morning coffee. There are no words to describe the beauty of winter in Gaza. But starting a year and five months ago, the warm houses were destroyed, and we left the sea alone. Now, the rain is dangerous. The ceasefire stopped the war on Jan. 19, but the suffering in Gaza did not end. Two-thirds of Gaza's 2 million citizens lost their homes. The great destruction forced them to put their tents next to their destroyed homes. Hundreds of thousands of families are still living in tents. The basic necessities of life, including water and electricity, are still lacking nearly everywhere, making everything difficult. And neither the cloth tents nor the nylon ones protect children's bodies from the cold. Since the beginning of winter we have been praying that the rain does not fall. Newborn babies have been dying from the severe cold and hundreds of children have gone to hospitals with respiratory problems. The tents are soaked with water, and the cold air has become very humid. My aunt Wafaa, who has been living in a tent for a year after being displaced from Khan Yunis and losing her home, says that the tent is freezing, especially in the evening hours. It does not have a bathroom, and if she needs to use one, she has to walk a few meters. But by that time in the night her body is already frozen, so she has stopped drinking water from the early evening hours onward. She knows that this will harm her health, and at her age may even cause sudden strokes. But she cannot afford to go out into the wet nights. My friend Iman told me about one very cold night when it was raining. She was sleeping in the tent, and she woke up to raindrops falling on her head from the tent window. She was forced to get up from her sleep to prevent herself from getting drenched, but then she could not sleep at all, regardless, because she was frozen. She longs for her bed and her warm blankets. Our friends in a camp in the middle of the Gaza Strip had their tent, bedding, and clothes all flooded. My friend's mother was so sad about this ordeal. She talked to me in a state of despair, telling me that the tent was completely deluged. But she could do nothing but wait for the sun to rise to dry the bedding and the clothes so that they could sleep in them again. This mother has hardly slept since the beginning of winter. The extreme cold now makes it practically impossible. The mass destruction has meant that the city is exposed on all sides. The walls are level with the ground; there is nothing to keep her warm. I have felt it, too. Since the beginning of winter, I have been suffering from body pain due to the injury I sustained last August. I suffered bruises across my body, but I only now started to discover that these pains still existed during the cold. I have pain in my back, my right foot, and my rib cage. I am normally such a fan of winter. But now I am so afraid of the cold nights. I cannot walk around the house, or anywhere. I am lucky enough to have my home to sleep in, but the electrical grid has been destroyed, and our heaters no longer work. The only heating option is to light fires, which is extremely dangerous. What we are experiencing every day is so painful. The saddest scene is seeing children shivering from the cold. There are no longer enough clothes in the markets to buy, and if they are available at all, they are very expensive. My sister Sahar and her husband Adam's children live in their destroyed house, the walls of their rooms fallen and exposed to the street. There are no windows or doors. They have tried to patch the exposed walls so that no one falls from them; the family lives on the fourth floor. Rital, my 5-year-old niece, hates showering in their house because there is no door to the bathroom, and the air coming in is freezing. She is even afraid of the sound of the rain because she worries that it will flood their destroyed house. A few days before writing this I was in Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis with my brother, and I stood in front of the nursery. There was a man who seemed to be the grandfather of a child in the nursery running after the doctor and asking him to keep the child in the hospital because it is warm there. Unfortunately, the doctor told him, he could stay only for a specific stretch of time and then he would have to leave. There are hundreds of cases that come to the hospital daily seeking shelter from the cold. All of these people need medical attention, but there is only so much space. I was looking at the face of that frightened and sad man, desperate for his grandson. We are all helpless in the face of all this tragedy. Winter is for closed houses, sound streets, warm places. But Gaza cannot know that winter. We used to welcome the rain for agricultural reasons; the crops need it. But now our lands are all destroyed and are no longer suitable for farming. The rain, now, is only another source of terror.
