After 10 years of trying, a Palestinian woman had twins. An Israeli strike killed them both

After 10 years of trying, a Palestinian woman had twins. An Israeli strike killed them both
Rania Abu Anza (L) the mother of twin babies Naeem and Wissam, killed in an overnight Israeli air strike, mourns their death ahead of their burial in Rafah on March 3, 2024. (File/AFP)
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Updated 04 March 2024
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After 10 years of trying, a Palestinian woman had twins. An Israeli strike killed them both

After 10 years of trying, a Palestinian woman had twins. An Israeli strike killed them both
  • An Israeli strike hit the home of her family in Rafah, killing her children, her husband and 11 other relatives

RAFAH: It took 10 years and three rounds of in vitro fertilization for Rania Abu Anza to become pregnant, and only seconds for her to lose her five-month-old twins, a boy and a girl.
An Israeli strike hit the home of her extended family in the southern Gaza city of Rafah late Saturday, killing her children, her husband and 11 other relatives and leaving another nine missing under the rubble, according to survivors and local health officials.
She had woken up at around 10 p.m. to breastfeed Naeim, the boy, and went back to sleep with him in one arm and Wissam, the girl, in the other. Her husband was sleeping beside them.
The explosion came an hour and a half later. The house collapsed.
“I screamed for my children and my husband,” she said Sunday, as she sobbed and cradled a baby’s blanket to her chest. ”They were all dead. Their father took them and left me behind.”
She closed her eyes, leaned her head against the wall and patted the bundle in a calming gesture that, finally, she’d had the chance to give.
Israeli airstrikes have regularly hit crowded family homes since the start of the war in Gaza, even in Rafah, which Israel declared a safe zone in October but is now the next target of its devastating ground offensive.
The strikes often come without warning, usually in the middle of the night.
Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on the Hamas militant group because it positions fighters, tunnels and rocket launchers in dense residential areas. But the military rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children.
The military on Sunday didn’t comment on this attack but said it “follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm.”
Of the 14 people killed in the Abu Anza house, six were children and four were women, according to Dr. Marwan Al-Hams, director of the hospital where the bodies were taken. In addition to her husband and children, Rania also lost a sister, a nephew, a pregnant cousin and other relatives.
Farouq Abu Anza, a relative, said about 35 people were staying at the house, some of whom had been displaced from other areas. He said they were all civilians, mostly children, and that there were no militants among them.
Rania and her husband, Wissam, both 29, spent a decade trying to get pregnant. Two rounds of IVF had failed, but after a third, she learned she was pregnant early last year. The twins were born on Oct. 13.
Her husband, a day laborer, was so proud he insisted on naming the girl after himself, she said.
“I didn’t get enough of them,” she said. “I swear I didn’t get enough of them.”
Less than a week earlier, Hamas-led militants had stormed into southern Israel in a surprise attack, rampaging through communities, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and taking around 250 hostages, including children and a newborn.
Israel responded with one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history. The war has killed over 30,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Around 80 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have fled their homes, and a quarter of the population faces starvation.
The ministry said last month that more than 12,300 Palestinian children and young teens had been killed in the war, about 43 percent of the overall toll. Women and children together make up three quarters of those killed. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its tallies.
Israel claims to have killed over 10,000 Hamas fighters but has not provided evidence.
For the children who survive, the war has made life hellish, humanitarian workers say, with some in northern Gaza beyond the reach of care.
“The sense of helplessness and despair among parents and doctors in realizing that lifesaving aid, just a few kilometers away, is being kept out of reach, must be unbearable, but worse still are the anguished cries of those babies slowly perishing under the world’s gaze,” UNICEF regional director Adele Khodr said in a statement Sunday.
Until Saturday, the Abu Anza family had been relatively fortunate. Rafah has been spared the immense destruction of northern Gaza and the southern city of Khan Younis, where Israeli tanks and ground troops have fought militants block by block after waves of airstrikes.
Rafah is also in the shrinking area of Gaza where humanitarian aid can still be delivered.
But Israel has said Rafah will be next, and the roughly 1.5 million people who have sought refuge there will be relocated, without saying where.
“We have no rights,” Rania said. “I lost the people who were dearest to me. I don’t want to live here. I want to get out of this country. I’m tired of this war.”


Palestinian security forces clash with militants in West Bank

Palestinian security forces clash with militants in West Bank
Updated 49 sec ago
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Palestinian security forces clash with militants in West Bank

Palestinian security forces clash with militants in West Bank
  • Gunshots and explosions could be heard in the city, where friction has risen in recent days between militant factions and the Palestinian Authority
  • Residents identified the man who was killed as a militant though none of the factions immediately confirmed his affiliation
JENIN, West Bank: At least one person was killed as Palestinian security forces clashed with Palestinian militants and set up checkpoints on Saturday in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, residents and medics said.
Gunshots and explosions could be heard in the city, where friction has risen in recent days between militant factions and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas following raids by the PA.
Residents identified the man who was killed as a militant though none of the factions immediately confirmed his affiliation.
The PA’s security branch said in a statement that its forces were undertaking a security operation to restore law and order to Jenin’s historic refugee camp suburb, a stronghold of Palestinian militants alienated from the Palestinian leadership.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which has been fighting Israeli forces in Gaza for more than a year, condemned the PA for the Jenin operation and its allied group Islamic Jihad called for a day of protests.
Jenin has also been a hotbed of conflict between the Palestinian militant groups and the Israeli military in recent years. Since March 2022, Jenin and outlying areas in the north of the West Bank have drawn intensified Israeli raids after a spate of Palestinian street attacks.

Seven Palestinians killed in Israeli strike on Gaza school, civil emergency says

Seven Palestinians killed in Israeli strike on Gaza school, civil emergency says
Updated 17 min 14 sec ago
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Seven Palestinians killed in Israeli strike on Gaza school, civil emergency says

Seven Palestinians killed in Israeli strike on Gaza school, civil emergency says
  • The dead include a woman and her baby, according to medics

CAIRO: At least seven Palestinians were killed and 12 wounded after an Israeli strike on a former school that was sheltering displaced people in Gaza City, the civil emergency service said on Saturday.
The Israeli military is looking into the report, a spokesperson said.
Earlier on Saturday the Israeli military said it had targeted Hamas militants who were operating within a school compound in Gaza City and that it had taken measures to reduce harm to civilians.
The dead include a woman and her baby, according to medics. It was unclear whether the other fatalities were Hamas fighters.
The Palestinian Islamist group denies embedding its fighters among civilians in Gaza


Turkiye to reopen embassy in Syria as diplomats gather for talks

Turkiye to reopen embassy in Syria as diplomats gather for talks
Updated 38 min 10 sec ago
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Turkiye to reopen embassy in Syria as diplomats gather for talks

Turkiye to reopen embassy in Syria as diplomats gather for talks
  • Move comes as Middle Eastern and Western diplomats gathered in Jordan for high-level talks on Syria

DAMASCUS: Turkiye was set to reopen its embassy in Damascus on Saturday, nearly a week after president Bashar Assad was toppled by forces backed by Ankara, and 12 years after the diplomatic outpost was shuttered early in Syria’s civil war.
The move came as Middle Eastern and Western diplomats gathered in Jordan for high-level talks on Syria, and a day after nationwide celebrations at Assad’s ouster.
Ankara has been a major player in Syria’s conflict, holding considerable sway in the northwest and financing armed groups there, and maintaining a working relationship with the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which spearheaded the offensive that brought down Assad.
Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the new charge d’affaires, Burhan Koroglu, left for Syria on Friday, with the embassy expected to be “operational” the following day.
Fidan also said Ankara had urged Assad backers Russia and Iran not to intervene as the Islamist-led militants mounted their lightning advance last week.
“The most important thing was to talk to the Russians and Iranians to ensure that they didn’t enter the equation militarily... They understood,” Fidan told private television network NTV.
Turkish diplomats joined counterparts from the European Union, the United States and the Arab world on Saturday for talks in the Jordanian city of Aqaba.
A day before the meetings in Jordan, Syrians had celebrated what they called the “Friday of victory,” with fireworks heralding the fall of the Assad dynasty.
Celebrations continued into the night on the first Friday — the Muslim day of rest and prayer — since Assad was ousted.
Umayyad Square in Damascus was jammed with vehicles, people and waving flags as fireworks shot into the air, AFPTV footage showed.
Crowds also gathered in the squares and streets of other Syrian cities, including Homs, Hama and Idlib.


Syria war monitor reports Israeli strikes on military sites

Syria war monitor reports Israeli strikes on military sites
Updated 14 December 2024
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Syria war monitor reports Israeli strikes on military sites

Syria war monitor reports Israeli strikes on military sites

Beirut: A Syria war monitor said Israel launched strikes early Saturday targeting military sites in Damascus and its countryside, in the latest such raids since rebels brought down Bashar Assad almost a week ago.
“Israeli strikes destroyed a scientific institute” and other related military facilities in Barzeh, in northern Damascus, and targeted a “military airport” in the capital’s countryside, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Strikes also targeted “Scud ballistic missile warehouses” and launchers in the Qalamun area, as well as “rockets, depots and tunnels under the mountain,” according to the Britain-based Observatory, which has a network of sources inside Syria.
The Observatory said several rounds of bombardment targeted “military sites of the former regime forces, as part of destroying what is left of the future Syrian army’s capabilities.”
Israel air strikes on Friday targeted “a missile base at the top of Damascus’s Mount Qasyun,” the group said, as well as an airport in southern Sweida province and “defense and research labs in Masyaf,” in Hama province.
Since Assad’s fall, Israel has launched hundreds of strikes against Syrian military sites, targeting everything from chemical weapons stores to air defenses.
In a move that has drawn international condemnation, Israel also seized a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone on the Syrian Golan Heights just hours after the rebels, led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, took Damascus.
On Thursday, UN chief Antonio Guterres expressed concern over “extensive violations” of Syrian sovereignty and the Israeli strikes in the country, his spokesman said.


Iran will not impede IAEA access, head of its atomic organization says

Iran will not impede IAEA access, head of its atomic organization says
Updated 14 December 2024
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Iran will not impede IAEA access, head of its atomic organization says

Iran will not impede IAEA access, head of its atomic organization says
  • IAEA reported that Iran had multiplied the pace of its enrichment to up to 60 percent purity, close to the 90 percent of weapons-grade

Iran will not impede UN nuclear watchdog’s access and inspection of its sites, the head of the country’s Atomic Energy Organization said on Saturday.
According to a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) earlier this week, Iran has agreed to tougher monitoring by the agency at its Fordow site after it greatly accelerated uranium enrichment to close to weapons grade there.
Last week, the IAEA reported that Iran had multiplied the pace of its enrichment to up to 60 percent purity, close to the 90 percent of weapons-grade, at Fordow.
“We have not created and will not create any obstacles for the agency’s inspections and access,” Atomic Energy Organization head Mohammad Eslami was quoted as saying by Iranian media.
“We operate within the framework of safeguards, and the agency also acts according to regulations— no more, no less,” he added.