Latest news with #Marwan
Al-Ahram Weekly
11-07-2025
- General
- Al-Ahram Weekly
Understanding Generation Z — offline at home? - Living - Al-Ahram Weekly
They may share their deepest thoughts with strangers online, but they say little at the family dinner table. What does Generation Z's emotional distance at home mean for Egyptian families, asks Omneya Yousry It's a paradox of the modern household: a teenager laughs loudly at a phone screen, fingers tapping out clever replies on Instagram, only to turn silent when asked how their day went. In many Egyptian families today, the sound of silence between Generation Z teenagers and their parents is more common than many will admit. The same young people who freely post about emotions, values, and even personal struggles online often offer only one-word answers when talking to other family members. It's not rebellion – it's retreat. And for many families, it feels like quiet heartbreak. 'I say more in my Instagram captions than I say to my parents all week,' said Rana, 19, a university student in Cairo. 'It's not that I don't love them. I just don't feel they'd get it. Or worse, they'll make it about them.' She admitted that when she once told her mother she felt mentally drained, she was met with confusion. 'My mother said, 'you're too young to be tired.' After that, I stopped trying to communicate with her.' The tension isn't always dramatic. Often, it's a quiet emotional distance, one made more visible by the contrast between digital presence and home absence. Many Generation Z'ers, raised in a global village online, may now struggle to find language that fits within their local family dynamics. Marwan, 22, an Alexandria resident, says he's 'two different people.' One online, where he writes poetry and posts about mental health, and another at home, where he stays quiet to avoid conflict. 'My dad saw a post once and asked why I was writing 'weird things' online,' he said. 'He didn't mean any harm. He just doesn't get the language I use.' Marwan shrugged and looked away for a moment. 'It's easier to just keep that part of me away from them,' he said. And it's not just about mental health or deep emotional talk. Sometimes it's about identity, politics, or even humour. What feels completely normal and expressive to a Generation Z teen might sound like sarcasm or disrespect to a parent. The cultural gap is real. This phenomenon of digital expression versus emotional disconnection has become part of a pattern, especially in Egyptian households that still value restraint over vulnerability. And while some see it as a phase that all teenagers go through, others fear it's creating a lasting gap between the generations. Mona Al-Zayat, a 45-year-old mother from Cairo, said she often feels as if she's 'living with strangers.' She laughed softly, but there was a weight behind her words. 'I used to know everything – what they liked, who they talked to, what they were worried about. Now I ask, and they just say, 'nothing.'' She tried to keep up by creating a TikTok account and following them on Instagram but found that she was met with resistance. 'My daughter blocked me,' she said, managing a smile. 'She said that it's 'my space.' I thought I was being supportive.' For many parents, the shift isn't only emotional. It's deeply personal. It's a feeling of loss or of being left behind by their own children. And unlike past generations, today's parents are navigating a parenting experience that has no blueprint, especially as the pace of social change accelerates. This isn't just a family issue. It's a social one. Emotional fluency, self-expression, and mental health conversations are all happening more freely online, and Generation Z is leading the charge. But when those conversations are met with confusion or dismissal at home, many simply redirect their words to digital spaces. Laila Sherif, a clinical psychologist in Cairo, sees patterns like this on a daily basis. 'This generation is not emotionally detached. They're emotionally displaced,' she explained. 'They are speaking, but in environments where they feel they can express themselves without correction. She noted that Egyptian family structures, rooted in respect and modesty, often unintentionally discourage emotional dialogue. 'If a teen says, 'I'm anxious,' and the response is 'you'll be fine, don't overthink things,' then that teen won't try to communicate again,' Sherif said. The emotional risks aren't always visible, but they're there: loneliness, internalised pressure, and a growing sense of isolation inside one's own home. 'We need to stop asking, 'why don't they talk to us?' and start asking, 'what do they need to feel safe talking to us?'' Sherif added. Back in Cairo, Nada, 17, said she wishes things could be different. 'Sometimes I just want to tell my mom about my day, or my thoughts, or even show her something I posted. But I stop myself. I think 'she'll just say it's silly.'' She paused. 'She's not mean. I just don't think she knows how to meet me where I am,' Nada said. She shared that she sometimes feels more connected to strangers online than to people at home. 'I get messages from people saying, 'I feel this too.' That's all I want. Just someone to say, 'I get it.'' But not all stories end in silence. In Alexandria, Ahmed, the father of a 20-year-old son, said a health scare last year had changed the way he parented. 'Before, I used to ask questions like a policeman. 'Where were you? What are you doing on your phone?' But now, I just sit next to him. Sometimes I ask, 'are you okay?' and then I wait.' The results surprised him. 'He didn't open up right away. But after a while, he started talking. Not everything, but enough.' He added thoughtfully that 'I realised I don't have to know everything. I just need to make him feel like I'm safe to talk to.' And that seems to be the real bridge: not grand gestures or forced conversations, but a quiet, patient presence. A kind of love that doesn't demand, but invites. For many families, that may be the starting point – not fixing the emotional distance, but simply acknowledging it, gently, without shame. It's about making room for the quiet, for the awkward moments, for the chance that one day, the silence might break. Because the truth is that Generation Z isn't silent. They're just choosing when and where to speak. And maybe, just maybe, the home can become one of those places again. * A version of this article appears in print in the 10 July, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
Asia News Network
04-07-2025
- Health
- Asia News Network
Director of Indonesia Hospital in Gaza killed in Israeli airstrike
July 4, 2025 JAKARTA – The government and volunteer organizations have condemned the attacks that led to the death of Dr. Marwan al-Sultan, director of the Indonesia Hospital in Gaza, who was killed along with his wife and children by an Israeli airstrike that hit their house in the western part of the enclave. 'Our hearts are filled with sorrow, and words cannot express the magnitude of this loss,' a local volunteer of the Medical Emergency Rescue Committee (MER-C) in Gaza said in a post uploaded by the group on its Instagram account on Wednesday. The volunteer group funds the operation of the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza. 'May Allah have mercy on their souls, grant them the best place in heaven and give fortitude to all who knew and loved them,' he went on to say. Marwan, an interventional cardiologist, and his family were among the casualties of a bombing by the Israeli military targeting residential areas and a school in Gaza on Wednesday, as reported by the Palestinian news agency WAFA. At least seven Palestinians were killed in the airstrike, with all casualties brought to Al-Shifa Medical Complex. Marwan has been working as a doctor at the Indonesia Hospital in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza since 2016, tending to the sick and wounded in the city. The hospital itself has been bombarded several times during Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip that also targeted medical facilities in the area. In May, drone assaults inflicted severe structural damage to the hospital and disrupted critical medical services in its intensive care units. Despite Israel's continuous attacks and resources shortage, Marwan 'relentlessly led the Indonesia Hospital under grave circumstances' to provide essential medical services to the Palestinians, MER-C wrote in a statement. The group worked with Marwan to restore emergency services and full operations of the hospital between January and March. The volunteer group condemned the killing of the doctor and his family, calling the act 'a flagrant violation of humanitarian principles and a grave act of injustice that must be held accountable,' MER-C wrote. Responding to the death, the Foreign Ministry extended its condolences over Marwan's death and condemned the Israeli military's attack on the hospital director and his family. 'Indonesia appreciates [Marwan's] service, commitment and struggle for the sake of humanity and peace in Palestine,' the ministry wrote on its official X account on Thursday. It added that Indonesia would continue to repeat its call for the end of Israel's atrocities and a ceasefire in Palestine, while continuing to closely monitor the situation around the operation of the Indonesia Hospital in Gaza. Indonesia has been a fervent ally of the Palestinian cause, with President Prabowo Subianto stating that the country would 'continue to stand with Palestine' during a Parliamentary Union of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Member States (PUIC) in Jakarta in May. The President reiterated his support during a visit to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, where he and Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Muhammad bin Salman condemned Israel's policy of using humanitarian aid blockades and hunger as weapons against civilians in the Gaza Strip. Both leaders also rejected in a joint statement the forced relocation of Palestinians inside and outside their homeland, asserting that peace and stability in Palestine could only be reached through the two-state solution approach. Israel has recently expanded its military operations in the Gaza Strip, where the war since October 2023 has created dire humanitarian conditions and displaced nearly all of the territory's population of more than two million. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday vowed to eradicate Hamas, whose 2023 attack on Israel triggered the war, even after the Palestinian militant group said it was studying new proposals for a ceasefire from mediators, AFP reported.
Sinar Daily
03-07-2025
- Health
- Sinar Daily
Director of Indonesia hospital in Gaza and family killed in Israeli airstrike
The Medical Emergency Rescue Committee (MER‑C), a Jakarta-based non-governmental organisation that operates the hospital, confirmed the deaths in a statement citing information from its local team in Gaza. 03 Jul 2025 01:30pm This picture shows the rubble of a residential house in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on July 1, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP) JAKARTA - The director of the Indonesia Hospital in Gaza, Dr Marwan Al-Sultan, was killed along with members of his family in an Israeli airstrike on their home in Tal al-Hawa, southwest Gaza City, on Wednesday, according to an Indonesian humanitarian organisation. The Medical Emergency Rescue Committee (MER‑C), a Jakarta-based non-governmental organisation that operates the hospital, confirmed the deaths in a statement citing information from its local team in Gaza. This picture shows the rubble of a residential house in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on July 1, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP) "With deep sorrow, we announce the death of Dr Marwan and members of his family, following a direct airstrike on their residence,' a local MER‑C volunteer said. At least nine Palestinians were killed and several others injured in the attack, the organisation said. Dr Marwan, a Palestinian, was described as a "highly dedicated medical professional' who had served the people of Gaza for many years, particularly during repeated crises and armed conflicts. "His passing is a profound loss, not only to his colleagues but also to his patients and the wider Gaza community who knew him. May he and his family be granted the best place in the hereafter,' MER-C added. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza condemned the attack, calling it a "heinous crime' against medical personnel. "Every crime against medical and humanitarian personnel confirms the bloody methodology and the premeditated insistence on directly and deliberately targeting them,' the ministry stated in a statement. The Indonesian government also expressed its condolences and strong condemnation. "Indonesia expresses its deep condolences over the passing of Dr Marwan along with his family on July 2, and strongly condemns the Israeli attack,' the Foreign Ministry posted on X. The statement praised Dr Marwan's "service, commitment, and struggle in the name of humanity and for peace in Palestine,' and said Indonesia was continuing to closely monitor developments at the hospital. Indonesia reiterated its call for an immediate ceasefire and an end to what it described as "Israel's atrocities'. The Indonesia Hospital in northern Gaza, funded by Indonesian civil society, has provided critical trauma care since 2016, with Dr Marwan playing a central role in sustaining its operations amid ongoing conflict. - BERNAMA More Like This
Yomiuri Shimbun
30-06-2025
- Health
- Yomiuri Shimbun
In Sudan, Where Children Clung to Life, Doctors Say USAID Cuts Have Been Fatal
QUAZ NAFISA, Sudan – The 3-year-old boy darted among the mourners, his giggles rising above the soft cadence of condolences. Women with somber faces and bright scarves hugged his weeping mother, patting her shoulders as she stooped to pick up her remaining son. Marwan didn't yet know that his twin brother was dead. Omran shouldn't have died, doctors said. The physician at his clinic outside the Sudanese capital said basic antibiotics probably would have cured his chest infection. The International Rescue Committee, which received a large amount of its funding from the United States, had been scheduled to deliver the medicines in February. Then the new U.S. administration froze foreign aid programs, and a stop-work order came down from Washington. Omran died at the end of May. As his health declined, his frantic mother had carried him in ever-widening circles to 11 health facilities. None had the medicine he needed. 'He was just in my arms whimpering, 'I'm so sick, Mom,'' said 24-year-old Islam al Mubarak Ibrahim. 'I was holding him and trying to comfort him, and I prayed to God to save him.' Her boys were inseparable. Marwan thinks Omran is still in the hospital. 'One day, I will just tell him, 'Your brother went to Paradise,'' she said. After more than two years of ferocious civil war, Sudan is home to the world's largest humanitarian crisis, the United Nations says. Both sides have attacked hospitals. The military often delays or denies aid access; the paramilitary it is fighting has kidnapped relief workers and looted aid facilities. Disease and famine are spreading unchecked. More than half the population, some 30 million people, need aid. More than 12 million have fled their homes. For so many families barely hanging on, programs funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) were a lifeline – providing food to the hungry and medical care for the sick. While the Trump administration's cuts to USAID this year have been felt deeply across the world, their impact in Sudan was especially deadly, according to more than two dozen Washington Post interviews with civilians, clinicians and aid officials in the capital, Khartoum, and surrounding villages. When U.S.-supported soup kitchens were forced to close, babies starved quietly, their mothers said, while older siblings died begging for food. Funding stoppages meant that critical medical supplies were never delivered, doctors said. The lack of U.S.-funded disease response teams has made it harder to contain cholera outbreaks, which are claiming the lives of those already weakened by hunger. The World Health Organization says an estimated 5 million Sudanese people may lose access to lifesaving health services as a result of the U.S. cuts. In a response to questions from The Post, the State Department press office said it was 'reorienting our foreign assistance programs to align directly with what is best for the United States. … We are continuing lifesaving programs and making strategic investments that strengthen other nations and our own country.' 'Americans are the most charitable and humanitarian-minded people in the world,' the statement continued. 'It's time for other countries to step up in providing lifesaving aid.' For now, no one has filled the void left by Washington. European countries, including Germany, France and Britain, have also slashed funding for international relief or announced their intention to do so. Russia and China rarely fund humanitarian work; wealthy Persian Gulf countries tend to work outside established foreign aid systems. On the ground in Sudan, volunteers are appealing to members of the diaspora, many of whom lost their homes and savings when they fled the war. As Tom Fletcher, a top U.N. relief coordinator, put it this month: 'We have been forced into a triage of human survival.' Empty shelves The health center in Omran's village of Quaz Nafisa, about 35 miles north of Khartoum, is supposed to serve 60,000 people, physician Amira El Sadig said, but its entire stock of medicines now fits on a single shelf of a filing cabinet, with room to spare. Sadig, 41, was delighted last year when the International Rescue Committee announced it would provide the clinic with medications, solar panels to cool vaccines, oxygen tanks, simple medical devices, and lab tests for malaria and other diseases. A referrals system set up by the IRC would help patients needing more-specialized care. When President Donald Trump took office in mid-January, he signed an executive order calling for an immediate freeze to foreign aid programs and vowing no further assistance 'that is not fully aligned with the foreign policy of the President of the United States.' In February, billionaire Elon Musk proclaimed that his newly created U.S. DOGE Service was 'feeding USAID into the wood chipper.' Sweeping global cuts soon followed. As the fatal consequences became clear, and political backlash intensified, the administration said it would restore funding for essential, lifesaving programs. But in many places, including Sudan, vital staffers had already been fired and payment systems disabled, aid workers said. Initially, the IRC project in Quaz Nafisa was frozen by the stop-work order. Then it was terminated on Feb. 27, the organization said. It was partly reactivated March 3, but the disbursement of funds was delayed. Five months later, the clinic is due to begin receiving the help it was promised at the beginning of the year. Sadig listed a handful of what she said were preventable deaths between February, when the medications were due to arrive, and the end of May. They included a man with a scorpion bite. A woman with cholera. A diabetic who needed insulin. And Omran, the dimpled 3-year-old. 'There are other deaths in the villages around here that we don't even know about,' Sadig said. 'Most people don't bother to come here because it is not equipped.' Sadig wishes that she could solve the problem with her 'own hands,' that her country could stand on its own. 'We say thank you to the American people for helping with our suffering,' she said. Kitchens closed In the desert outside the city of Omdurman, just to the northwest of the capital, Fatma Swak Fadul lives in a sweltering adobe slum. She used to have seven children; now she has five. For more than a year, they survived on a single daily meal from local soup kitchens. They were run by volunteers from the local Emergency Response Rooms, which formed in 2019 during the pro-democracy protests that helped topple military dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir. The two years following his ouster were a heady era of hope, until two generals – the head of the military and the leader of the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary – joined forces to overthrow the fledgling government. Two years later, their rivalry spilled into all-out war, and the young demonstrators mobilized again. They smuggled food and medicine across front lines and cooked provisions donated by charities in vast pots, trying to keep the hungriest alive. Last year, USAID gave the Emergency Response Rooms $12 million, which accounted for 77 percent of the soup kitchens' funding, said Mohamed Elobaid, who manages the group's finances. When the stop-work order came in January, Fadul said, almost all the soup kitchens in her neighborhood shut down overnight. So her children starved. Her daughter Nada, only 18 months old, starved to death in February, she said, and was often too weak to cry. Three-year-old Omer, who loved to wrestle with his siblings and dreamed of owning a bike, lingered longer. First, his mother said, he began to lose his vision, which can be a side effect of malnutrition. Then he began asking fretfully for an absent brother. In his last days in March, he curled up on a mat, she said, begging her for porridge. 'I told him we don't have any wheat to make that,' Fadul said. 'He was suffering a lot and then he died around midnight.' His mother wept, she recalled, then asked the neighbors to help bury him. She had done her best to keep them alive, she said, walking 10 hours each day to collect small bundles of firewood she could sell for about a dollar. Sometimes it was enough to buy wheat to boil in water; never enough for all the children, but the older ones could live on less. The daily meal from the soup kitchen was a godsend, she said. Often the family would share a single bowl. 'You can't ask your neighbors for anything because we are all in the same situation,' Fadul said. 'We have nothing.' In mid-May, the soup kitchen reopened, buoyed by funds from the Sudanese diaspora and the U.N. World Food Program. But many children are now so malnourished, doctors say, their stomachs cannot handle normal food. To survive, they need a special high-calorie supplement, and that, too, is hard to find. Stuck in the warehouse Hundreds of thousands of doses of the lifesaving supplement – a peanut paste called Plumpy'Nut – have been paid for by the U.S. government and are sitting in a warehouse in Rhode Island, said Navyn Salem, the founder and CEO of Edesia Nutrition, which manufactures the paste. About 122,000 doses were due to go out in February to the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Sudan, Salem said, but their shipping contract was canceled amid the wave of USAID cuts. The supplies began moving again at the beginning of June, she said, but it will take more than a month to ship them all out. Now, more stocks are piling up – 185,000 doses from the past fiscal year – but Salem said her factory has received no new orders. 'No business can survive this amount of uncertainty, and many children will not survive either,' she said. 'The financial losses and the losses of human life are unimaginable and unacceptable.' The small nutritional packets are desperately needed at the Almanar feeding center in the Mayo Mandela district of Khartoum, where mothers lined up last month carrying their starving children. Rahma Kaki Jubarra's 9-month-old son, Farah, weighs just 12 pounds. Her other son, 3½-year-old Jabr, is down to just 21 pounds. The tape the medics wrap around their arms to measure their body fat slides far into the red, signaling an emergency. Before the war, Jubarra said, she scraped by, selling falafel while her husband was a trader at the local market. When RSF fighters took over their neighborhood, they burned 200 homes, including hers, she said, and beat her husband, brother and eldest son so badly they fled. Jubarra and her two children now live in the ruins of their former home; a blanket draped over the charred walls is all that shields them from the merciless sun. Jubarra scavenged fish bones from restaurants and boiled them to feed her children. Her elderly father, who was also beaten, was too ill to flee and stayed with her, which meant another mouth to feed. But the soup kitchens were closed, she said, and the price of wheat had quadrupled. 'Sometimes I boiled water on the fire and told them I am cooking and just to wait,' she said. She'd continue poking at the pot, she recounted, hoping her children would fall asleep before they realized no meal was coming. She rattled off the names of children she knew who didn't make it. Old people died. Her uncle died. Her father died. People went to Bashair, the nearest hospital, but Doctors Without Borders had pulled out after the facility was shot up by the RSF. As the fighting raged, no aid made it in. Last month, UNICEF was able to deliver peanut paste to the Almanar feeding center. Liana Ashot Chuol, just 7 years old, showed up by herself on a recent morning. She was carrying her starving 3-year-old sister and pushing her 5-year-old brother. Her mother had disappeared, she whispered, her father was dead and her grandmother had gone looking for firewood to sell. None of the children had eaten for two days, Liana said. Almanar director Amna Kornlues said that deaths have skyrocketed since the soup kitchens closed but that there is no way to know the true toll. Many children died at home, she said, and families stopped coming when the center ran out of aid to distribute. She asked for the U.S. to continue its support: 'All we need is a little, and we will share together,' Kornlues said. If U.S. funding is not preserved, UNICEF could run out of Plumpy'Nut within a few months, it says, with dire consequences for those who depend on the nearly 2,000 feeding centers the agency supports across Sudan. The U.S. cuts 'force us to make extremely difficult decisions,' said Kristine Hambrouck, the acting U.N. representative in Sudan. Aid workers must choose between buying vaccines for babies or nutrition products for starving children, she said, and all could die without help. Cholera spreads Sickness here is just as dangerous as hunger. Cholera, a waterborne disease that can kill within hours, swept across the capital in the past month after RSF drones attacked the filtration plant and electricity grid, knocking out the city's water pumps. People are drinking from polluted rivers or contaminated wells, along streets where charred and bloated bodies have decomposed. Soup kitchen manager Waleed Elshaikh Edris told The Post that dozens of people had died of cholera in a single day last month in his neighborhood of Al Fitehab, including his uncle and his cousin, who he said died only eight hours after she began to show symptoms. 'When artillery shelling was intense, we had solutions – we would go under buildings,' he said. 'But this infection suddenly sneaks into your body without your knowledge.' The World Health Organization said that its partner organizations are missing 60 percent of their medical supplies and that tracking and containing the outbreak have become all but impossible. 'Supplies for cholera response were largely funded by USAID,' said Loza Mesfin Tesfaye, a WHO spokeswoman, adding that 'the cuts have reduced the number of disease surveillance teams [and] reduced our ability to distribute water-purifying supplies.' At a mobile health clinic run by volunteers in the Salha district of Omdurman, elderly men were treated with bags of intravenous fluids hung from a mosque window. In what was once an upmarket restaurant in Omdurman, a young man curled up on a table, an intravenous tube sticking out from his hand. Much of the cholera response has fallen to locals like Momen, a dreadlocked 33-year-old who slips out his front door on a bike every day at 5 a.m., carrying chlorine tablets – the most common way to disinfect water supplies – along with information leaflets and dreams of a different Sudan. Momen gives the tablets to the tea ladies fanning battered pots on charcoal fires, to mothers with jerricans lining up at water wells, and drops them in the round blue communal tanks. As a pro-democracy activist during the 2019 uprising, he was arrested more than 40 times and shot in the arm, he said. Momen spoke to The Post on the condition he be identified by his first name for fear of being targeted by armed groups. 'When support was coming from USAID, we were able to respond and carry out emergency interventions much more quickly,' he said. Now, the volunteers have to design their own solutions and fundraise online, he said, which slows their work. But he said nothing will stop them. 'Our country needs us,' he said. 'We are going to change Sudan.'
Washington Post
29-06-2025
- General
- Washington Post
In Sudan, where children clung to life, doctors say USAID cuts have been fatal
QUAZ NAFISA, Sudan — The 3-year-old boy darted among the mourners, his giggles rising above the soft cadence of condolences. Women with somber faces and bright scarves hugged his weeping mother, patting her shoulders as she stooped to pick up her remaining son. Marwan didn't yet know that his twin brother was dead.
