Staff at the UAE's floating hospital docked at the city of Al Arish in northern Egypt organised a day of fun activities for the children of Gaza on Friday.
It was aimed at improving their psychological and social well-being using arts and entertainment, while creating a safe space for the children to express themselves, state news agency Wam reported.
Mona Talib Ahmed, a nurse at the hospital, said competitions – based around drawing, henna and the Quran – helped “ease their distress”, amid the Israeli strikes and ground offensive in the Palestinian enclave.
Hospital staff host weekly events to keep the children entertained, she said.
The 100-bed floating hospital was set up as part of the UAE's Gallant Knight 3 campaign, to provide a lifeline to the people of Gaza.
The ship, which sailed from Khalifa Port in Abu Dhabi, is fitted with operating theatres, intensive care units, radiology facilities, a laboratory, a pharmacy and medical warehouses.
It also has an evacuation aircraft and boat, together with fully equipped ambulances to transport patients.
According to the UN children's fund, the levels of stress and pressure found in children in Gaza is higher than seen in most other conflicts.
Adele Khodr, Unicef Middle East and North Africa regional director, wrote in The National this year that “the intensity and the frequency of what we have seen in Gaza in terms of the mental stress on children and the psychological pressure is something we have rarely seen”.
“There is nowhere safe in Gaza,” she said.
Many children in Gaza have been forced to keep moving to avoid bombing. They “remain sort of stuck in a constant cycle of being exposed to violence and fear”.
The war has also impacted the education of thousands of children, with a group of UN experts calling the crisis “scholasticide”. The systematic destruction of educational facilities in the strip, means that “at least 625,000 students have no access to education”, said the experts.
UAE aid drops into Gaza – in pictures
Landfill in numbers
• Landfill gas is composed of 50 per cent methane
• Methane is 28 times more harmful than Co2 in terms of global warming
• 11 million total tonnes of waste are being generated annually in Abu Dhabi
• 18,000 tonnes per year of hazardous and medical waste is produced in Abu Dhabi emirate per year
• 20,000 litres of cooking oil produced in Abu Dhabi’s cafeterias and restaurants every day is thrown away
• 50 per cent of Abu Dhabi’s waste is from construction and demolition
MATCH DETAILS
Barcelona 0
Slavia Prague 0
OPTA'S PREDICTED TABLE
1. Liverpool 101 points
2. Manchester City 80
3. Leicester 67
4. Chelsea 63
5. Manchester United 61
6. Tottenham 58
7. Wolves 56
8. Arsenal 56
9. Sheffield United 55
10. Everton 50
11. Burnley 49
12. Crystal Palace 49
13. Newcastle 46
14. Southampton 44
15. West Ham 39
16. Brighton 37
17. Watford 36
18. Bournemouth 36
19. Aston Villa 32
20. Norwich City 29
Results
Women finals: 48kg - Urantsetseg Munkhbat (MGL) bt Distria Krasniqi (KOS); 52kg - Odette Guiffrida (ITA) bt Majlinda Kelmendi (KOS); 57kg - Nora Gjakova (KOS) bt Anastasiia Konkina (Rus)
Men’s finals: 60kg - Amiran Papinashvili (GEO) bt Francisco Garrigos (ESP); 66kg - Vazha Margvelashvili (Geo) bt Yerlan Serikzhanov (KAZ)
Groom and Two Brides
Director: Elie Semaan
Starring: Abdullah Boushehri, Laila Abdallah, Lulwa Almulla
Rating: 3/5
The Energy Research Centre
Founded 50 years ago as a nuclear research institute, scientists at the centre believed nuclear would be the “solution for everything”.
Although they still do, they discovered in 1955 that the Netherlands had a lot of natural gas. “We still had the idea that, by 2000, it would all be nuclear,” said Harm Jeeninga, director of business and programme development at the centre.
"In the 1990s, we found out about global warming so we focused on energy savings and tackling the greenhouse gas effect.”
The energy centre’s research focuses on biomass, energy efficiency, the environment, wind and solar, as well as energy engineering and socio-economic research.
