Two women's stories behind the war in Gaza
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Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Our people are bound together. My father is being held by people in Gaza. I know that their situation is bad, and we both need a better option for this winter. They said he will start a war. I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars. I recognize the challenges from Ukraine to Gaza to Sudan and beyond.

War, hunger, terrorism. I just find bombs and I find dead people, but it's a really scary thing for me. I'm Venetia Rainey and this is Battle Lines. It's Monday, 25th of November, 2024.

Today I'm just going to give you some brief news updates because we have two very powerful interviews to share with you. One is with an Israeli filmmaker whose elderly father was kidnapped on October 7th and is still being held hostage by Hamas. It's now been a year since the last hostage deal, if you can believe it. I asked her what she thinks needs to happen to strike another one. And the other interview is with a Palestinian academic, a mother of three. She was studying in Edinburgh when the war began and she told me the extraordinary story of how she got her children out to safety with the help of a charity.

Let's begin with a catch up of the latest death tolls, both civilian and military, since October 7th, 2023. Gaza's death toll is 44,179 people. The West Bank's is 733 people. Lebanon's is 3,754 people. And Israel's is 1,795 people. Now, as I mentioned, some brief news updates.

The biggest news from the past week is the ICC's decision to issue arrest warrants for the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Defence Minister Yoav Galant and the military commander of Hamas, Mohammed Daif. Obviously, Israel said Daif was killed in an airstrike back in July, but the ICC said it's not had independent confirmation of that, unlike with Yahya Sinwa, so the warrants stands.

Now, the judges said that there were reasonable grounds that three men bore criminal responsibility for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war between Israel and Hamas. Both Israel and Hamas have rejected the allegations, as has the U.S. Netanyahu has called the decision anti-Semitic.

Obviously, the efficacy of these arrest warrants relies a lot on whether Western countries are willing to arrest these people if they come to them. Downing Street has indicated that it would. A number 10 spokesperson refused to comment on this specific case, but said the government would fulfill its legal obligations. One to keep an eye on.

Meanwhile, in Lebanon, we had a major strike in the Bastar neighborhood of central Beirut early on Saturday morning that killed 29 people. The strike happened without warning at about 4 a.m. And according to Israeli media, it was an attempt to assassinate senior Hezbollah official Mohammed Abu Ali Hadar.

Haider is head of operations in the terror organisation's military wing, but apparently he survived, according to local reports. As I mentioned, 29 people did not. Around 80 people were injured. The attack was heard and felt across the city and destroyed at least one eight-storey residential building in the densely populated district. Lebanon's national news agency said a so-called bunker buster bomb was used. That's the same type of weapon that was used to kill former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Hezbollah responded by firing at least 240 rockets at northern and central Israel, including the Tel Aviv area, one of the heaviest bombardments of Israel since September, and several people were injured and buildings were destroyed. Down in the south of Lebanon, Lebanese media have reported continuing advances by Israeli troops. Local reports suggest the IDF is trying to seize mountain areas that overlook the Latani River from the south. The Latani River is the one you keep hearing about. That's where Israel would like to draw the border of a new buffer zone.

It appears to all be part of an intensification of the campaign against Hezbollah in order to secure the best possible conditions for Israel amid international negotiations for a peace deal. And these talks do appear to be on the cusp of a breakthrough. We had CNN reporting that Netanyahu has, quote, in principle, approved a ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah and there's supposed to be an Israeli Security Council vote on it tonight. So we'll see what happens and we'll obviously keep you abreast of all of that. And

And just finally in Gaza, the Israeli military has ordered the evacuation of a new area in the north, setting off a fresh wave of civilian displacements. Residents of Shujaya, a suburb of Gaza City, have already started to leave. It comes as the Israeli army continues its blockade of the three northern Gaza towns that we've been following closely, Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun. Israel says its military operation is aimed at preventing Hamas from regrouping in the north.

Now, the other big development in Gaza is that over the weekend Hamas claimed that a female hostage was killed by Israeli bombs. We have no way to verify that, but it's been another knife in the heart of Israelis who are pushing for a ceasefire deal in order to get the 97 remaining hostages released. It's now been a year since the last hostage deal and fears for the fate of the 60 or so believed to still be alive are growing.

One of those stuck in that hellish limbo is Sharon Lifshitz, whose elderly parents were both abducted from near-Oz kibbutz during Hamas's brutal assault on October 7th last year. Her mother, Yochved, now 86, was released 17 days later on medical grounds. But her father, Aded, is still in captivity. He's now 84. Sharon grew up in near-Oz and regularly went to peace protests with her father.

He worked as a journalist covering the Sabran Shatila massacre in Beirut in 1982. He spoke Arabic and he was heavily involved with the Peace Now movement, which advocates for a two-state solution. Sharon is now a filmmaker living in London. I started by asking her to tell me a bit more about her dad and a warning that this was quite an emotional interview. My dad was a tall, skinny man, big hands, amazing capacity to speak.

play the piano, strong-headed, true believer in making the world a better place, true believer in doing what it takes, being the difference, true believer in working towards the greater good. He really loved grandchildren, he really loves people, he really is a wonderful, wonderful grandfather.

He really was the person you will be first talking to about a crisis or something that happened in the world. He was very well informed, he was very solid in his thinking and creative in his thinking. He was getting older, he was less agile than he used to be, still very sharp.

The last time I saw him, he said to me, you know, I'm not always going to be here. So we are not always going to be here. So make use of us while we are here. And I bought another flight to Israel in early December. It's amazing how much we miss him.

Have you had any sorts of updates on his condition, his whereabouts? Do you know anything? Well, a year ago exactly, the first hostages that came back came the news that he survived the 7th of October. We did not expect him to survive. And we found out that he was in the same room with a hostage, another hostage, that he was seen on the first day with two other women.

We have no update since then. So it's a year since we had an update that was about two weeks old then. I'm so sorry, Sharon, that must be really difficult. You mentioned that the last hostage deal was a year ago. Your mum, Jochwed, had already been released by then, right? Can you tell me a bit more about that?

So my mom was actually released without a deal after 17 days on humanitarian grounds. And actually we worked a lot towards the deal in the sense that my mom was interviewed by various bodies and hospitals that were placed with the duty of receiving the hostages. And my mom was very involved in

in learning from what she has been through coming back,

into a system that was not prepared to her and how to prepare for the hostages. The hostages, you know, amongst them were teachers of mine, mothers of friends of mine. There were people I knew all my life. It was elated. That's how I felt. We were just waiting the whole day. We were trying to figure out the list of who is being released every day.

From Nir'oz, my kibbutz, 40 members, children and adults were released. It was an incredibly, incredibly hopeful moment. Seeing those people emerging again from underground was incredible. And why do you think it's taken so long for another deal to be released? How has it been a year?

I think other things took precedence. I think that it was possible to do a deal. I think this idea of the post-truth is also something that, you know, we go and speak to one person and he said one thing and then another person say another thing. It's quite clear to me that the government in Israel saw other elements of the conflict as taking precedence over the hostages.

It's quite clear to me that other partners did not press on the Israeli and on Hamas to reach a deal. And so we are here. It's devastating because we know that many of our loved ones are no longer alive.

And how do you feel about how the Israeli government has handled not just the sort of negotiations to try and get the hostages out, but the hostages' families like yourself and your mother and everyone else left behind waiting? Are they in contact with you? Does it feel like it's handled in a way that you are abreast of things and you're being taken care of?

It's murky. I don't feel it's only against us. There's a lot of goodwill within the system, but I think that in some ways they have given up on the hostages. We heard today that President-elect Trump was kind of saying, well, I thought they're all dead by now or mostly dead.

You know, there's so many rumors and things. And somehow within all that, we hold on to this, you know, little shreds of hope and diminishing hope. I think winter is coming. I think today is a cold day. There was a lot of rain. Conditions in Gaza are horrific. You know, if there's one pita bread, the hostage holder gets it, not the hostage.

It's very hard to explain how it turns your tummy and how it makes you just... Because, you know, when it's cold, my shoulders get cold and I got it from my dad. So I know his shoulders are cold. It's very physical when it's a loved one. There's young people, there's the children of our friends, but there's also very elderly people. I don't know if my father survived.

I don't know. I know that the level of pain and the fact that in old age he needs to be away from his loved ones, it's unimaginable. I can't imagine and I guess the vacuum of news must make it harder but perhaps in some ways also allows some sort of hope as you say to remain. I know we had news over the weekend of

Potentially one of the female hostages, Hamas said, had been killed by an Israeli airstrike. There's no way to verify that. It's all allegedly. But that news, Israel calls it psychological terrorism, some cruel tricks that they play. That must be hard to hear as well for the whole hostage relative community.

We all, we all real. There's no good options, you know. There's rumors about who it is and we know who it is not probably, but it doesn't mean the others are in any better way.

Sasha Trupanov's video a week ago, I was with his mom in the Vatican. We just arrived in Rome when the first one came out. We were on the flight back when the game, you know, Sasha is a only son to his mom. His father was murdered on that day. And, you know, when I met with his mom, Lena, she told me that

On the 7th of October, they were both, she and her husband watched through the window and they saw 10 Hamas terrorists walking into his son's, only son's house. And she just heard the shots and then she just assumed he was dead. And she said she didn't even, she didn't do anything. They just sat on the bed. She didn't see a point of continuing to live.

and then they came and took her husband and he was murdered and they took her and she was hostage. On the last day when she was released, she found out that her mom that also lived in the kibbutz was also a hostage. And since then they're sitting and they're waiting and they're waiting to see if there's a point in leaving. I think, you know, everything is political nowadays and yet

I think people have to remember to put themselves in our shoes and to fight for the fight we are having for our loved ones. It's because it's sitting in the pit of our stomachs and it's just, you know, I just need to think of Helena to remember what is the scale of it. I have one son, my own, myself, and

It's just a reason to leave somehow. And of course, Trump's wrong. They're not all dead. We believe more than 60 of them are still alive out of the 97 who were taken on October 7th. There are another four hostages taken previously.

What do you feel, what would you like to see done? We know things are starting to shift now that Trump has been elected. It looks like there are ceasefire talks in Lebanon that seem to have some kind of momentum, but not much shifting in Gaza. What would you like to see change? What do you think needs to be done to overcome the obstacles? I think that the president and the president-elect should work together, should get above politics,

There's a decisive win for Trump. He doesn't need to show off. He can just work with the current president and get them out. Do what it takes and sort it out. There's winter coming. Conditions are really bad there. The people of Gaza deserve better than that. They need to get the hostages back.

They need to create a ceasefire. They need to tie what is happening up north in Israel with Hezbollah to what's happening there. They need to, you know, Iran is, Hamas has...

Hamas has to give up the keys, basically, and find a way to come out and let other people, other Palestinian people take over so that the people of Gaza can survive this winter too. Our people are bound together. My father is being held by people in Gaza.

I know that their situation is bad and it definitely doesn't make the situation of the people, of our people, better. So we are bound together and we both need a better option for this winter. Thank you so much, Sharon. I really appreciate your time and I'm sorry, I know it's a really hard subject to talk about, so thank you for sharing that with us. That was Sharon Lefschitz talking to us from Israel.

Coming up after the break, we'll be hearing from a Palestinian academic who managed to get her three children and husband out of Gaza. A rare story of hope amid all the misery. Do stay with us. Welcome back. Now, I wanted to end this episode with a little bit of hope and light, which is obviously in short supply in the Middle East at the moment. Amani Ahmed is a PhD student from Gaza. She was studying in the University of Edinburgh when the war broke out.

Stuck in Scotland, she was forced to watch from afar as her three children and husband were pushed from one place to another as they tried to find somewhere safe to stay. But she didn't stay doing nothing. She reached out to the Council for At-Risk Academics, known as CARA, for help.

Cara helps academics and their families who are in immediate danger and is currently helping around 15 people from Gaza. I know that may sound like a small number, but they run quite a low-key but highly effective approach. And their aim is essentially to ensure that highly trained academics from war zones can continue to make vital contributions to society, and particularly to the future of their own countries when things are safe again for them to go back. I started by asking Amani what her life was like in Gaza before the war.

I was working at the university, at the Islamic University. I have my family, I have my home and I have my work. My husband has his work. My children go to school. We have our car. How many children do you have? Back in Gaza, I have three, but now I have four because I have a new baby here in Scotland. Mabrouk, congratulations. Thank you so much. Thank you. How old are your children?

Now I have Hala, she is 16, Nada is 14, Ayham is 9 now, and my baby is 5 months. Who we can hear in the background, right? Yes, exactly. Nice to have you with us on the show. Yeah.

And yeah, it was a normal life. But when I got the scholarship to study at University of Edinburgh, the scholarship is only for me as an individual. So because my children are already old enough to take care of themselves and I have my family to support them and my husband, so I decided to start my PhD at University of Edinburgh. The plan was to start my fieldwork in Gaza from October 2020.

But I just came here for one month to Edinburgh on the 2nd of October. 2nd of October 2023? Yes. So the plan was to come here only for one month and then to go back to start the fieldwork. And what was the fieldwork supposed to be in? My research title is Investigating the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem and specifically to understand the expertise of women digital entrepreneurs.

in conflict context and the case study was Gaza Strip. What kind of people were you going to be interviewing? Can you give us some examples? Yeah, there are a few who are working on psychosocial support platforms, which is to have the service online instead of having it face-to-face because this makes people more comfortable to do that.

Others working on legal aspects and how to support women legally, but using an app. Because sometimes women cannot go and access these legal support services by themselves. And sometimes it's costly.

So that venture is just to understand or to support those women with legal services to gain their rights, but without paying anything. So it's plenty of these things. Other as for luxury things, like I remember one who was loving the nail polish.

and there is a problem that she cannot locate the artist where she wants to do that. So her application is to locate those nail polish artists. Others are working on platforms to support women who are freelancers to gain jobs. So it's plenty of ideas.

Because, you know, they are highly educated. Women are highly educated in Gaza and Palestine in general. So on the 2nd of October 2023, you returned from Gaza to Edinburgh. And then what happened? My family, my children, my husband, my mum and father, siblings are all in Gaza. And 7th of October, I wake up with the...

this start of the war and after three days of war starting my family was telling me this is different this is not the same as previous escalations

And after three days, my husband sent me a video that the windows of our flat just collapsed because there is a bombing surrounding the house. Where in Gaza do they live? Where in Gaza do you live? I used to live in Gaza in the city itself, in Palestine Square, just in front of the mosque. So my husband, because the children were panicked and everyone in the building just left the building,

And they were crying and shouting, we don't want to die. So he took them by our car to a friend's house. And after a week of being at friend's house, where there is bombing everywhere, there was an evacuation order to evacuate the north of Gaza and go to the south. My family, my mom, my father and siblings are living in the south in Gaza.

and the middle camps. So he took them to the family house. It wasn't safe, but at least it's in the south. And then after around 70 days, there were another order for al-Nusayrat to leave al-Nusayrat. And there is a lot of bombing surrounding as well. He took them to Rafah.

where his family is there. And after around 50 days, Rafah had been ordered to evacuate. So he took them to the Al-Mawasi area. And it's around eight times they were displaced.

the family and the children. And during that time, my husband was taking care of bringing goods from outside. I mean, food, fetching water because there were shortage of water supplies, no electricity. So they need to bring in solar panels or batteries to have at least charge the mobiles.

There is no internet and there is this internet connectivity to be cut down. For example, I have spent around 10 days for once or two weeks. I couldn't reach them and I don't know anything about them. That must have been so hard. How did you handle having to watch all of this from afar?

I can't do anything. I mean, I was sending emails everywhere to the UK embassy, to the MBEs, to everyone. I was sending emails about to just to bring them out of Gaza. And my thoughts is that I will wake up with news that they are under the rubble. The idea is that I may not be able even to hug them for the last time and leave.

and for my children it wasn't easy actually i usually feel guilty because i am not with them but i can't do anything i can't be with them i'm trying to get them out but i'm not there to calm them i'm not there to to be like a shield they they were living with their aunts and my mom and they are taking care of them but

You know, when it is in war, it's not only the family. My children were living in a house, my family and my siblings, all of them in a house that has hosting 30 people.

And it's not a big house. It's a small flat, small house. So how did you, I guess you were having phone calls with your children. How were you sort of explaining what was going on? Or did you try not to talk about it and just stick to family life? Or how did you deal with that? Actually, we were not discussing what is happening. It's just only when there is high escalation. My sisters were telling me that they can't sleep well.

And they even scared to go to the bathroom. And even my son just took my mum's mobile and he suddenly threw it in the toilet because there is no lights and it's midnight. Because he was scared that the light would attract bombs? Yes, yes, exactly.

So, actually, no words can describe the situation back there. And if you talk with me back when they are in Gaza and I'm here, I don't think that you will have me talking in this sounds and this is strange. But when I have them with me, I just like, even though my family is there, but still the children is something else, something different. As a mother, it's not easy. It's not easy responsibility being a mother and child.

and seeing everything happening surrounding them and then you can do anything to help. I can recall myself crying when I called the UK Foreign Affairs Office, Coordination Office, when they extended their support to evacuate people who have visa. So I called them to evacuate. I'm telling them my husband has a visa. And then they were, the officer said, "Okay, do you have children?"

And I said, yes. And he asked me, did they have visa? I told him, no, they don't have visa, but only my husband had. And then he said, okay, who will take care of them? And then I started to cry. I'm telling them, you are not going to give me anything. You are not extending the support for the children. What can I do? At least bring someone out of this war, of this, like, you know, it's killing everywhere. You can't, you can't, you can't predict what is happening.

And then he said, okay, let me check because they are dependent and children, if we can extend our support for them.

And they managed to extend the support because of the children. So the FCDO, the foreign office here, they helped grant visas for your children. OK. And when did you get involved with CARA, the academic charity? Yeah, I started contacting CARA as well as my university in November, asking their support. I approached them with no hope, actually, that they will be able to help me.

But the university called me down and they told me that we will support your application. And Cara were also sending me inquiries. And I started to feel that it's just coming true, like my application could be successful.

And yes, I started in November and they started contacting me. Where are the family now? Will you be able to bring them out? And when I managed to get them out in April,

CARA started the process of bringing them here by providing the support to get the visa and the support letter and everything else. So what was that process like of them being evacuated? So it's your husband and three children, right? Yeah, actually, it's a nightmare process because the FCDO sent the four names to the list of

who will be evacuated. But around January, my two daughters were cleared to leave, even though they are less than 16. Whereas my husband and my son, who is nine years old, were bending. We said, okay, they may take a little time. So it become February, March. And then I realized that they are not going to allow any male children

adult or a child to leave. So I went to coordinate through Yahela, which is a private company, an Egyptian private company that coordinates leaving Gaza of people. You have to pay a large amount of money and somehow through the Egyptian authorities, it manages to sort of get some people out, right? I paid 7,500 to the

And that was for your husband and your son? Yes. And because the FCDO couldn't help in bringing my two daughters alone out,

because they are less than 16 and they are not a UK residence. So I have to have this coordination between the time where my husband and my son will be out and to ask the FCDO to coordinate with the British embassy in Egypt to bring my two daughters on time with that.

So after that, the FCDO told me, okay, if you come to Egypt, we can bring the girls out and deliver them to you in Cairo. So it wasn't easy, and I couldn't actually believe myself when they told me that they crossed the border. I saw it, it's like delivering a baby. You can't do anything. It's just you are waiting. No one can help you.

Just waiting. So you're pregnant in Cairo, waiting on your own for the family to arrive. And what was that like when you eventually saw them? I don't know how to describe it. I want to put them inside my chest, you know. I want to open my chest and just put them there to keep them safe. And finally, I mean, maybe sometimes we don't know how we love our children unless we are at the edge of...

there is a possibility to lose them. It's mixed emotions of feeling guilty, feeling not good mother enough to be with them, but at the same time feeling good that you are out, so there is a possibility that you can bring them out. But you are not there. You feel just helpless and...

I mean, it's one of our identities as a woman. When you have children, it's one of your identity that you need to calm them, to keep them safe and to bring them that feeling that everything will be okay. But actually, I wasn't being able to do that for them.

But you did, you got them out of money. It's an amazing thing to have done for your children and your family. Yeah, alhamdulillah. What's life been like for you guys in Edinburgh? How has everyone been settling in? What do the kids and your husband make of life in Scotland? Actually, for my husband, it's not first time actually to be in the UK. He was a Chevening scholar and he studied at Sheffield University. A family of scholars. Yeah, yes.

And for the children, yes, I thought that they will be super happy, actually. But it looks like that the trauma is there. And it's not easy. Yes, it's nice nature and everything. But now they have the language barrier, even though they are good in English back in Palestine.

It's a totally different experience. I'm still seeing them unhappy, pale. And I think it's the trauma. It's one year of war and I wasn't there. And I lost my father and they lost their grandfather during war. It's a multilevel trauma that they went through. How do you talk to them about it now? How do you deal with the ongoing war in Gaza as a family?

Like me and my husband are, because we are watching the news every time. And we are, it's there, it's everywhere. It's on WhatsApp, it's on Instagram. My two daughters, because they have friends there, they are following each other on Instagram. And so they are following with everything. They are seeing everything. And there is that

in our feeling of guilty, we are not on the group. Yeah, of course. I imagine survivor's guilt must be awful to grapple with.

Is there anything else that you want to say on this podcast? I would say that actually I highly appreciate the support of my university and Cara's support. Actually, without those two things, I would not have my family with me. I really appreciate the support of my friends from different nationalities. And I hope that there will be a ceasefire soon.

Thank you so much for joining us, Amani. I really appreciate you sharing your time and your experiences. Thank you so much. That was Amani Ahmed. Thank you very much to her and to the Council for At-Risk Academics for helping to set up that interview. Battle Lines is an original podcast from The Telegraph created by David Knowles. The producer is Yolaine Goffin.

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