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Gaza’s children mourn parents killed by Israeli bombardment
© Reuters. Laila Al-Sultan, a displaced Palestinian girl who was wounded in an Israeli strike that killed her father, plays with her brother Khaled inside their makeshift shelter, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, January 8, 2024. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
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By Saleh Salem
RAFAH, Gaza (Reuters) – When 7-year-old Laila al-Sultan wakes up at night she shouts for her father, killed in the same Israeli air strike that injured her leg in a Gaza war thought to have deprived thousands of Palestinian children of one or both parents.
She and her brother Khaled, 4, roll around on the floor of the shanty they now live in amid a tent city of homeless people, facing up to a life with no father as their mother struggles to cope in the rubble of a ruined enclave.
“The house collapsed on us and Daddy went to heaven and he is very happy,” said Khaled, bouncing up and down on Laila’s lap as they sat.
Three months of war have been devastating for the children of Gaza. Health authorities in the Hamas-run territory have estimated that about 40% of those confirmed killed, a figure they now put at 23,357, were aged under 18.
Most of those who survive have lost their homes. They live in shelters in schools, in tents or shanties, or crammed into still-standing houses, whole families living in single rooms. With very little food in Gaza, children are always hungry.
“We are still unable to count the numbers, but we have initial estimates of thousands of orphans. The figures are high and the challenges are big,” said Ahmed Majdalani, the Palestinian Social Development Minister in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Laila has an ungainly metal brace attached to her injured leg and scars on her face and foot. The children play among the lines of laundry strung between tents on the sand of Rafah.
The hardship – and fear in a conflict where intense Israeli bombing of civilian areas continues – is made worse by their sadness. Laila described a father she loved “as much as there are fish and skies and everything”, and who used to take her to the park and the zoo.
“My father was martyred… my uncle Awad was martyred as well as my uncles Ibrahim, Suhaib and Baha. All of us were injured, and here I am, with a leg injury,” she said.
In another tent in Rafah, Ahmed al-Saker, 13, cried as he stoked a fire under a cooking pot and recalled his father, killed in a strike on their house. “He used to sing to me at bed time and hug me and hold me before I slept,” he said, wiping away tears.
“My mother cannot bear all these worries and burdens and she can’t carry my injured brother on her own,” he said.
DARK FUTURE
Fears for the future especially mark Gazan children who lost a parent. Already forced to grow up by war, they now have to bear an extra burden of work in their hard new life in the rubble.
“My father is gone. He used to always help my mother. He used to help her in cooking and would help us study. Now he is gone, God bless his soul, and at this age I will have to bear more responsibility to help my younger siblings,” said Raghad Abu Nadi, 14.
She walked among the tents with her little brother Osama, 9, who dreams of their dead father. “I used to love him so much,” Osama said.
Yet still bombs keep falling. On Tuesday night an air strike in Rafah’s Tal al-Sultan district killed several people including children, survivors said.
Israel’s stated war aim is the destruction of Hamas, whose fighters rampaged across the border in a surprise attack on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,200 people, mainly civilians and seizing 240 hostages.
The Israeli military says it does what it can to limit harm to civilians and accuses Hamas of trying to increase the death toll by sheltering among ordinary people, something the militant group denies. Israel says the war will last months longer.
Ahmed Jarbou, sitting with his mother, clearly remembers the moment he lost his father. The family had sought shelter at his uncle’s home on the fourth storey of a five-floor building when an Israeli missile struck lower down.
“My cousin was martyred. He flew out from the window of the fourth floor and crashed onto the ground. My brother’s legs were amputated… and my father fell kneeling to the floor and he was martyred,” 12-year-old Jarbou said.
(Reuters) -Private equity firm Insight Partners is on the brink of closing a new $10 billion-plus fund, roughly half the amount originally targeted, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing five people with knowledge of its plans.
Insight will not formally close its 13th fund until early next year, the report said, adding that the final figure may be closer to $12 billion.
Insight Partners declined to comment on the report.
The report said Insight is using a private equity-style structure to sell more than $1 billion worth of stakes in start-ups and to free up cash to return to investors.
One of the start-ups is Israeli cybersecurity firm Wiz, which had called off a $23 billion deal with Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:) in July, the report said.
New York-based Insight raised $20 billion for its 12th flagship fund in 2022, aiming to ramp up investments in software and technology companies.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would inflict a “heavy price” on the Iran-aligned Houthis who control northern Yemen, after they reached central Israel with a missile on Sunday for the first time.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said the group struck with a new hypersonic ballistic missile that travelled 2,040 km (1270 miles) in just 11 1/2 minutes.
After initially saying the missile had fallen in an open area, Israel’s military later said it had probably fragmented in the air, and that pieces of interceptors had landed in fields and near a railway station. Nobody was reported hurt.
Air raid sirens had sounded in Tel Aviv and across central Israel moments before the impact at around 6:35 a.m. local time (0335 GMT), sending residents running for shelter. Loud booms were heard.
Reuters saw smoke billowing in an open field in central Israel.
At a weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said the Houthis should have known that Israel would exact a “heavy price” for attacks on Israel.
“Whoever needs a reminder of that is invited to visit the Hodeida port,” Netanyahu said, referring to an Israeli retaliatory air strike against Yemen in July for a Houthi drone that hit Tel Aviv.
The Houthis have fired missiles and drones at Israel repeatedly in what they say is solidarity with the Palestinians, since the Gaza war began with a Hamas attack on Israel in October.
The drone that hit Tel Aviv for the first time in July killed a man and wounded four people. Israeli air strikes in response on Houthi military targets near the port of Hodeidah killed six and wounded 80.
Previously, Houthi missiles have not penetrated deep into Israeli air space, with the only one reported to have hit Israeli territory falling in an open area near the Red Sea port of Eilat in March.
Israel should expect more strikes in the future “as we approach the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 operation, including responding to its aggression on the city of Hodeidah,” Sarea said.
The deputy head of the Houthi’s media office, Nasruddin Amer, said in a post on X on Sunday that the missile had reached Israel after “20 missiles failed to intercept” it, describing it as the “beginning”.
The Israeli military also said that 40 projectiles were fired towards Israel from Lebanon on Sunday and were either intercepted or landed in open areas.
“No injuries were reported,” the military said.
PARIS (Reuters) – Eight people have died trying to cross the Channel from France to England, French authorities said on Sunday, confirming earlier media reports.
This latest incident follows the deaths of 12 people earlier this month when their boat capsized in the Channel on its way to Britain and highlights the pressure on the British and French governments to find ways to tackle the boat crossings.
Jacques Billant, the Prefect of the Pas-de-Calais region, said that rescue crews were alerted that a boat with 59 people onboard was in difficulty in waters off the coast of Ambleteuse in the Pas-de-Calais area.
“A new drama took place around one in the morning and we deplore the death of eight people,” he told a news conference, adding that the other 51 onboard were now in the care of rescue and medical crews.
The dead were men from Eritrea, Sudan, Syria, Egypt, Iran and Afghanistan, he added.
The Channel is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes and currents are strong, which makes crossing on small boats dangerous.
The latest incident brings to 46 the number of people who have died trying to cross the Channel from France since the start of the year, Billant said.
On September 14 alone there were eight attempts to cross the Channel from France and some 200 migrants were rescued, he said.
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