Two of the women in this birthday photo are now dead, the rest displaced – how life changed in a year
Dunya is holding a photo. Seven smiling faces look back at her, a snapshot of the lives of friends who worked and socialised with each other.
She is in the middle of the picture, beaming. Now, her smile has gone. This photo was taken just over a year ago, at a birthday party towards the end of September 2023. Just days before the world changed.
The seven women all worked on the nursing staff at al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the biggest medical complex in Gaza but also a site suspected by Israel of housing a Hamas command centre. When the war started, al Shifa was attacked.
Two of the women in the photo are dead.
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‘Traumatised survivors’ left behind in Gaza
Rawan Abu Zbeidah, who is second from the left, wearing a black headdress, was killed on 11 November, along with members of her family. She was pregnant. Anwaar Yassin, who is third from the right, was killed at the start of December, along with her husband and children, in Nuseirat, central Gaza.
All the other women in the photograph have been displaced and dispersed.
Al Shifa Hospital was once the largest and most advanced medical facility in Gaza. Pic: Reuters
“That last time we gathered together was a sweet day,” Dunya says. “It was beautiful. A week before 7 October. We never imagined it would be our last. All that’s left now are the pictures we have together, our memories. Our lives just disappeared.”
Dunya fled Gaza City and now works further south at a hospital in Deir al Balah.
“Currently we’re scattered in different places,” she says of her friends who are still alive. “One of us is in the north, there’s no way for me to reach her. She can’t come here, I can’t go there.
“A few of them are displaced in the south. We try our best to keep in touch. We try to see each other if it’s possible. We get on video calls, we try to stay as close as possible.”
‘We can’t bring ourselves to accept this reality of losing her’
Houssam’s daughter, Dareen (pictured below) was killed in an airstrike
Gaza is a place of ruined buildings and shattered lives.
In Gaza City, Houssam is sheltering in the ruined structure of Abdallah Al Dayhan School, where his young daughter, Dareen, used to study. The school has been battered, but it’s still just about standing, just about safe.
Dareen fled to the south in the early stages of the war, assured the city of Khan Younis would be safer. Instead, she was killed, along with four of her relatives, in an Israeli air strike.
Houssam, who stayed in Gaza City along with Dareen’s brothers, is haunted, his eyes hollow.
“Dareen was like any other teenager,” he says. “She was safe and she had ambitions. She dreamed of graduating to become a doctor. We can’t bring ourselves to accept this reality of losing her. We wanted to be there for her.”
Read more:
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Roula continues to teach in Gaza, despite losing her home
Not far away, Dareen’s former teacher, Roula, also shelters. She used to live across the road, but her home was blown up.
“It’s a challenge for students who want to learn,” she says. “I lost a lot. I lost my home, my family. Some of my students who are very dear to me.“
She still teaches local children and tries to preserve a sense of normality.
But how to be normal when the world outside is rubble?
“There is no safe space for students,” she says. “Schools have been targeted but we have no choice but to carry on teaching, despite being in a constant sense of fear. This is no environment for learning – we have no chairs, no tables, no whiteboard. No classroom.”
A year on from the Hamas attacks on 7 October and the outbreak of war, Gaza is a shellshocked place full of shellshocked people – a land of ruined buildings and wrecked lives.
In mid-May, the World Health Organisation assessed that there were “nearly half a million people in a catastrophic situation of hunger, acute malnutrition, starvation, illness and death”.
“This is one of the world’s worst hunger crises, unfolding in real time,” its report concluded.
Warning: This article contains images of an emaciated child which some readers may find distressing
Israel‘s decision this week to reverse the siege and allow “a basic level of aid” into Gaza should help ease the immediate crisis.
But the number of aid trucks getting in, so far fewer than 100 per day, is considered dramatically too few by aid organisations working in Gaza, and the United Nations accuses Israel of continuing to block vital items.
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“Strict quotas are being imposed on the goods we distribute, along with unnecessary delay procedures,” said UN secretary general Antonio Guterres in New York on Friday.
“Essentials, including fuel, shelter, cooking gas and water purification supplies, are prohibited. Nothing has reached the besieged north.”
Nineteen of Gaza’s hospitals remain operational, all of them are overwhelmed with the number of patients and a lack of supplies.
Baby Aya at Rantisi hospital in northern Gaza is dangerously thin
“Today, we receive between 300 to 500 cases daily, with approximately 10% requiring admission. This volume of inpatient cases far exceeds the capacity of Rantisi hospital, as the facility is not equipped to accommodate such large numbers,” Jall al Barawi, a doctor at the hospital, told us.
At least 94% of the hospitals have sustained some damage, some considerable, according to the UN.
Jall al Barawi, a doctor at Rantisi hospital
Paramedic crews are close to running out of fuel to drive ambulances.
The lack of food, after an 11-week blockade, has left thousands malnourished and increasingly vulnerable to surviving injuries or recovering from other conditions.
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Children are the worst affected.
Our team in Gaza filmed with baby Aya at the Rantisi hospital in northern Gaza. She is now three months old and dangerously thin.
Her skin stretches over her cheekbones and eye sockets on her gaunt, pale face. Her nappy is too big for her emaciated little body.
Aya’s nappy is too big for her emaciated little body.
Lethal spiral
Her mother Sundush, who is only 19 herself, cannot get enough food to produce breastmilk. Baby formula is scarce.
Aya, like so many other young children, cannot get the vital nutrition she needs to grow and develop.
It’s a lethal spiral.
This is what Aya looked like shortly after she was born
“My daughter was born at a normal weight, 3.5kg,” Sundush tells us.
“But as the war went on, her weight dropped significantly. I would breastfeed her, she’d get diarrhoea. I tried formula – same result. With the borders closed and no food coming in, I can’t eat enough to give her the nutrients she needs.”
“I brought her to the hospital for treatment, but the care she needs isn’t available.
“The doctor said her condition is very serious. I really don’t want to lose her, because I lost my husband and she’s all I have left of him. I don’t want to lose her.”
Read more:
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Aya and her mother Sundush
Some of the aid entering Gaza now is being looted. It is hard to know whether that is by Hamas or desperate civilians. Maybe a combination of the two.
The lack of aid creates an atmosphere of desperation, which eventually leads to a breakdown in security as everyone fights to secure food for themselves and their families.
Only by alleviating the desperation can the security situation improve, and the risk of famine abate.
World
Police launch ‘major operation’ after 12 people injured in knife attack at Hamburg train station
Twelve people are reported to have been injured after a knife attack at Hamburg’s central train station.
A “major operation” has been launched and a suspect was arrested, police said in a post on X.
The identity of the suspect has not been revealed.
Reports in Germany said the suspected attacker was a woman.
The fire service said six of the injured were in a life-threatening condition, three others were seriously hurt, and another three sustained minor injuries, news agency dpa reported.
Bild newspaper said the motive for the attack was so far unknown.
Hamburg is Germany’s second biggest city, with the train station being a hub for local, regional and long-distance trains.
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The man suspected of shooting dead two Israeli embassy workers in Washington DC leaned over and fired at them repeatedly after they fell to the ground, the FBI has said.
Elias Rodriguez, 31, has been charged with murdering Sarah Milgrim and her boyfriend Yaron Lischinsky, after they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum on Wednesday night.
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Footage has showed Rodriguez, from Chicago, chanting “free, free Palestine” as he was arrested.
It later emerged Mr Lischinsky had bought a ring and planned to propose to Ms Milgrim.
Authorities are investigating the killings as both a hate crime against the Jewish community and terrorism.
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Shootings suspect shouts ‘free Palestine!’
‘I did it for Gaza’
It comes as the FBI has said in a charging document on Thursday that surveillance footage shows how Ms Milgrim and Mr Lischinsky died.
Rodriguez is allegedly seen passing the couple after they left the museum before shooting them in the back.
The FBI says the footage then shows him leaning over the couple and firing at them several more times after they fell to the ground.
The video then shows Ms Milgrim attempting to crawl away before “(Rodriguez) followed behind her and fired again”, the charging document says.
The suspected gunman is then accused of reloading his weapon and firing at Ms Milgrim as she sat up.
According to the charging document, Rodriguez then jogged to the museum and once inside asked to speak to a police officer before stating that he “did it” and that he was unarmed.
He is then said to have told police: “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza, I am unarmed.”
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DC shooting: Father pays tribute to ‘perfect’ daughter
Suspect ‘expressed admiration’ for fatal protest
The court document also states that 21 expended 9mm bullet cases were found at the scene and the gun was slide-locked – meaning it was empty of ammunition.
An empty gun magazine was also recovered from the scene.
The FBI says it has obtained travel records which show Rodriguez flew from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport to the Reagan National in Washington DC on Tuesday with the gun in his checked baggage.
Rodriguez had bought the weapon in the state of Illinois on 6 March 2020, according to the charging document.
The FBI has said that while Rodriguez was in custody he “expressed admiration” for a US Air Force member who set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC on 25 February 2024.
Aaron Bushnell died in the apparent act of protest against the war in Gaza.
Rodriguez also told police he bought a ticket to the museum around three hours before the event that was attended by Ms Milgrim and Mr Lischinsky.
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During a brief court appearance at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse in Washington DC today, Rodriguez was charged with two counts of first degree murder and with the murder of foreign officials.
He has also been charged with causing the death of a person through the use of a firearm and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence.
Rodriguez was told he could face life in prison or the death penalty if he is found guilty.
He remained calm throughout the hearing, paying attention to the proceedings throughout and confirmed that he is asking the court to appoint an attorney on his behalf.
He will next appear at a federal court in Washington DC on 18 June.
Murdered couple ‘were perfect for each other’
Meanwhile, Ms Milgrim’s father, Robert, says he feared his daughter might be in danger when he saw news alerts of a fatal shooting in Washington DC.
Ms Milgrim’s mother Nancy opened a phone locator app and saw Ms Milgrim was at the Capital Jewish Museum.
“Shortly after that, the Israeli ambassador called us on my wife’s phone,” Mr Milgrim told Sky News’ partner network NBC News, fighting back tears.
He added that it was the ambassador who told them Mr Lischinksy had bought a ring and was planning to propose to Ms Milgrim.
“They were perfect for each other, he said.
Mr Milgrim continued: “They just brought us joy, and her memory, which is a blessing, will continue to bring us joy – but it’s not the same as her not being here.”
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