Latest news with #Haya
22-07-2025
- Health
'Indescribable' crisis deepens for many mothers, malnourished children in Gaza as IDF expands military operation
LONDON and DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip -- In the children's ward in the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in Deir al Balah, central Gaza, the impact of Gaza's deteriorating humanitarian crisis is on full display. There are around 30 children receiving treatment in the ward, local staff told ABC News, and all of them are suffering from the effects of malnutrition. Nourhan Salha said she took her 5-month-old daughter to the hospital after she fell ill and was unable to gain weight. Haya suffered from complications at birth, her mother said, due to a lack of oxygen. The baby's weak immune system at birth was exacerbated by a lack of baby formula available in Gaza, Nourhan said. "It's a difficult feeling to see my daughter sick," she said. "And I can't do anything for her. It's a really hard thing for a mother to feel like this; it's indescribable." COGAT, the Israel i organization in charge of facilitating aid into the Gaza Strip, says there is no ban on baby formula entering the strip, and they have delivered over 2,000 tons of formula and baby food into Gaza. But Salha said that baby formula is difficult to access, either due to a lack of availability or prohibitively high prices. UNRWA, the UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees, says that "malnutrition has increased amid severe shortages of nutrition supplies" and that one in ten children screened in their medical facilities is malnourished. The United Nations Population Fund has warned that pregnant women are particularly vulnerable in Gaza, with hunger increasing the chance of miscarriages, low birth rate and other complications for newborns. Some of the children at Al Aqsa Martyrs are suffering from other conditions, exacerbated by their underlying malnutrition, doctors said. Om Ismael Abu Zannana, a mother of three, took her 2-year-old daughter to the hospital after they struggled to find food for several days after she said the family had been displaced a week ago. Her daughter fainted, she said, after feeling dizzy. "My daughter wants to eat, and I can't afford to get her or myself anything to eat. Or to my other children at the tent," Zannana told ABC News. In the hospital, Haya is able to drink some of the formula she desperately needs, her mother said. But each day is a struggle for survival. "Sometimes we buy [formula] from the market. It used to be available," she said. "But now it's not. It's too expensive and not available in enough quantities." At the nearby Deir al Balah market, what were once thriving stalls full of produce now look scarce. Shopkeepers and customers complain of both a lack of supply, and the food and basic necessities they do have on offer are prohibitively expensive for many. "Prices are unimaginable, the situation is tragic," Ayed Shaheen, a shopkeeper, told ABC News. Asked about prospective ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, Shaheen's ire seemed to turn towards the Hamas negotiators abroad, who are in talks with Israel. "Find us a solution, what are you negotiating about?" he said. "We are humans, not dogs, we want to eat and live, just like you [negotiators] living abroad eating meat, lamb and fish and living the best way. We want to live like you are living." The World Food Programme warned on Sunday that 90,000 women and children in Gaza now urgently need treatment for malnutrition, but for many there does not appear to be respite from the Israeli military campaign in the near future. Israel denies there is widespread starvation in Gaza, and has accused Hamas of exploiting humanitarian aid deliveries to pay for its "war machine." On Sunday, the IDF issued new evacuation orders for the city of Deir al Balah, although neither the market nor the hospital fall under the latest evacuation orders. The evacuation order has cut off the coastal area of Al Mawasi, where thousands of Palestinians are living in tents, from the city to the rest of central Gaza, where most humanitarian organizations in the Strip are headquartered, according to a visual analysis by ABC News. From the market, smoke can be seen rising in the near distance from the renewed attacks on the city. As the war continues to close in, Nourhan hopes that her family will not be abandoned. "I ask the world to stop the war," she said. "Open the borders and provide milk and diapers for the children. It's not fair what's happening to us." Witnesses have reported a major increase in military activity in the city, which has so far been relatively untouched in over 21 months of war. From the market, smoke from Israel's expanded ground operation there can be seen rising in the near distance.
New Statesman
25-06-2025
- Politics
- New Statesman
The pro-Palestine movement's alternative campus
Photo by Guy Bell/Alamy Live News On 17 June, I visited the Soas Liberated Zone. It is a complex of tents occupied by Soas students, which has existed in multiple forms on and outside the School of Oriental and African Studies campus since 6 May 2024. This makes it the longest held of the student encampments that sprang up in Britain following the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Columbia University, whose occupants were demanding their university divest from Israel. The day of my visit, Israeli forces had opened fire on crowds of Palestinians in Gaza waiting to receive crucial aid. They killed at least 70 people. Al Jazeera called it 'Gaza's deadliest day at aid sites'. Inside the large tent that serves as the living-cum-dining room for the encampment, I met Ayah, a Palestinian Soas alumna who recently completed her masters in comparative literature. We have returned to an attitude of silence, which serves to normalise an ongoing genocide in Gaza, Ayah told me. It has gone on so long that people are becoming numb or even apathetic in the face of the daily roll call of Palestinian people who have died under occupation. 'Encampments are a way of saying this is not normal and we will not go on with our normal lives,' she said. The current encampment has about 20 regular members who take it in turns to sleep outside, between a church and a row of pop-up food stalls, only a few minutes' walk from the university. It's a space that feels lived in and cared for: packs of biscuits and an ashtray on the table, a daily to-do list written on a whiteboard. This is their third location; the first two were on Soas property, the second removed by enforcement agents on instructions from the University of London. Ayah and other members of the encampment whom I would meet once they returned from a protest at BAE Systems Rochester have been here since the start. After the war on Gaza began, Ayah withdrew socially from the university because, she said, it offered her neither the support nor the solidarity she needed. Once the encampments began, she actually felt 'integrated into the community'. Those who had been at the protest outside BAE returned: Haya, a second-year student and political refugee from Egypt; Tara, a third-year student; and a fresher called Qasim who told me he joined the encampment after learning that Soas invests in companies linked to Israel and has a partnership with Haifa University. 'Once you find that out, you really only have two choices,' he said. 'Silence or do something about it.' Both Haya and Tara are suspended and prohibited from entering the campus for the rest of the academic year, at minimum, for their roles in pro-Palestine activity on campus. (A Soas spokesperson said that protest and dissent can take place at the university 'as long as it remains peaceful and does not undermine the safety and security of all within our community'.) Haya and Tara are two of the named defendants on an injunction the University of London had approved by the courts late last year, which has temporarily guaranteed that students cannot hold protests on university property unless they seek permission from the relevant authorities 72 hours in advance. 'But things happen overnight!' Ayah cut in. 'How can Soas continue to declare that it supports free speech and decolonial rhetoric when it's actively suspending students for doing those very things?' Tara asked. For the last year, student encampments like this one have functioned to expose the hypocrisies at the heart of universities as institutions. On Soas's website it says that its undergraduate degree is for 'those who want to re-examine preconceptions and not just accept the status quo'. And yet, it is choosing to suppress student protest unless management first ordains it. I asked Ayah what she now thinks university is for; she replied sardonically, 'A fancy degree!' To Tara, what is beautiful about the encampment is the way it has made free education possible. Not just financially, Tara clarified – they make the seminars and screenings held available for free online as well as free from censorship. What they learn here seems more transformative than what you might discover in the classroom: not just political theories, but the ability to apply them in practice. After the start of the war, Haya told me a lot of students were pro-Palestine but in quite a passive way. 'It's our responsibility to reach out to them, to get them to join us, to provide political education,' she said. This space has provided students with an alternative form of university experience: it is where they come to study, make sense of the world and discover how they might become forces of change – things they ought to have received from inside the university gates. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe In court during the injunction case, the students, as defendants, were reminded that they were still free to protest on social media. To Tara, this illustrated that the university is not threatened by online activism. Suspending its students is a university's attempt to cut them off from community and action. Instead, these Soas students have spent the last year constructing a sustaining, galvanising and educational community. The point of encampments is that they exist as obstructive, disruptive, physical reminders of institutional and societal failures when it comes to Israel's actions in Gaza. The Soas Liberated Zone has seven demands – along with divestment they include an end to the repression of Palestinian solidarity activism on campus. They tell me they will stay here for as long as necessary. [See also: Jeff in Venice] Related
What's On
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- What's On
With love, from Palestine: Haya's Kitchen has a brand new home at KAVE
Who doesn't love a supper-club-to-permanent success story? We've had many of these delicious tales come out of Dubai in the past few years – Neha Mishra's A Story of Food to Kinoya, Gabriela Chamorro's Girl and the Goose, the anonymous-chef-led Hawkerboi, husband-and-wife duo Salam and Tareq's Dukkan El Baba from Birria Tacos, to name a few. The latest entrant to this club is Haya's Kitchen, Palestinian chef Haya Bishouty's culinary baby. What started as Sufra, a Covid-era awakening from corporate slumber, and a series of workshops focused on Palestinian food skills around town, is now a permanent kitchen. Haya's Kitchen Meets KAVE has been operational for about six months, with a grand launch coming up soon, and is located inside KAVE in a quiet lane of Alserkal Avenue. The story Respective founders and friends Haya and Rania Kana'an welcome you with open arms into their space – a space all about creating a community of eco-conscious, kind humans, featuring a cavernous co-working area laid out with communal tables, surrounded by retail pop-ups of sustainable, regional, upcycling brands. Apparel, jewellery, vintage accessories, ceramics, bags and more, and in the corner, the kitchen. The synergy of these two concepts comes from the roots they intend to honour. Haya's Kitchen started as and continues to be Haya's personal journey into discovering, understanding and embracing her heritage. KAVE brings back the practices of the ancestors, the cave people, creating a system of conscious living – take from the Earth, give back to it. Both women are paying tribute to their heritage, their tetas or grandmothers, by reviving this way of life, whether through food or communal belonging. The food The menu at Haya's Kitchen Meets KAVE follows a pattern of seasonal and personal cooking, the core of any cuisine and culture. You can sample dishes like the msakhan and macarona bil'laban, unadulterated versions of the childhood classics. At a time when food was consumed depending on what the Earth was giving us, the tetas used locally-sourced ingredients and passed these recipes down from one generation to the next, as we see in the selection of seasonal salads with bulgur wheat and tomatoes. No food is wasted, no part thrown away, and everything preserved expertly to make sure it doesn't go bad, as in the khweya, a breakfast dish of leftover oven-baked Arabic bread with cinnamon and sugar soaked in warm milk before serving. As we dine, Haya and Rania share their own stories about these dishes, different iterations of the same comfort food they ate across different parts of the country. These are their shared memories, not in consciousness, but in heritage. Haya's Kitchen Meets KAVE, KAVE, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai, weekdays, 10am to 7pm, weekends, 11am to 8pm, closed on Mon, @hkmeetsk, @ haya sktchn, @kavepeople. Images: Supplied > Sign up for FREE to get exclusive updates that you are interested in
Business Recorder
23-05-2025
- Business Recorder
‘Safe Children, Safe Punjab': Home Dept launches ‘Good Touch Bad Touch Awareness Campaign'
LAHORE: The Punjab Home Department has launched an awareness campaign for younger children under the vision "Safe Children, Safe Punjab". The Home Department has developed a special animated series to raise awareness about "Good Touch and Bad Touch," and its first episode is released on Thursday. The animated series introduces two lead characters "Haya" and "Bahadur", the young children who will spread awareness and will educate all the children on how to protect themselves from any kind of sexual abuse. Haya and Bahadur will guide children in understanding appropriate and inappropriate physical behavior. A powerful message aimed at empowering children has been promoted as part of the campaign: 'We won't fear those who attempt a bad touch; we'll confront them.' The spokesperson for the Home Department Punjab said that the campaign will play a vital role in protecting children from abuse and sexual exploitation. 'After proper education and awareness, children can recognize inappropriate behavior and report it in time,' the spokesperson added. Punjab Home Secretary Noor ul Amin Mengal directed the Child Protection & Welfare Bureau to actively lead the awareness drive for children protection. The department has previously recommended the inclusion of content on "Good Touch, Bad Touch" in the school curriculum, a move that emphasizes the government's commitment to long term child safety. It stressed the urgent need to educate children about personal safety and called upon parents, teachers and all segments of the society to take part in this critical effort. 'Victims of child sexual abuse often suffer lifelong trauma, making immediate awareness initiatives a necessity,' he added. The campaign also appeals to the public to engage actively and help make children safer while ensuring that perpetrators of abuse are held accountable by the law. Parents and educators are being encouraged to use the materials from the campaign to teach children how to recognize and report abuse, whether it occurs at home or outside. Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
Express Tribune
22-05-2025
- Express Tribune
Animated series on child protection launched
The Punjab Home Department has initiated a province-wide child protection awareness campaign titled 'Safe Children, Safe Punjab'. As part of the initiative, am animated series focusing on the concept of 'Good Touch and Bad Touch' has been developed, with the first episode released on Thursday. The series features two main characters, Haya and Bahadur — young, relatable protagonists who educate children about identifying and responding to inappropriate physical behaviour. The campaign delivers a message, "We won't fear those who attempt a bad touch; we'll confront them." According to a spokesperson, the campaign is a step in equipping children with the knowledge they need to protect themselves from abuse and sexual exploitation. "Through education and awareness, children will be able to recognise inappropriate conduct and report it in a timely manner." The spokesperson called upon parents, educators and all segments of society to actively support the initiative. "Child victims of sexual abuse often endure trauma for life. Early awareness is not optionalit is essential," the spokesperson added.
