In the final minutes spent with his baby girl, Leila, Anwar Ghandour clasped her tiny body to his, crying and speaking to her as if she was still alive.
"Why did you leave me?" the 25-year-old father wailed, draping her in the Palestinian tricolor and red triangle.
It was the news that every parent dreads. Just eight-months-old, Leila died on Monday, asphyxiated by tear gas fired from the Israeli side of the border during mass protests against the United States embassy move to Jerusalem.
Israeli snipers shot and killed 59 protesters, marking the deadliest day here since 2014. But Leila became the 60th victim, and the youngest, by 13 years. While tear gas burns the eyes of adults, it can maim infants.
Leila would die in the arms of her aunt, east of Gaza City, several hundred metres from the Israeli border during the clashes.
Falsteen Al Jamal, 36, told The National: "Israeli soldiers fired a lot of tear gas. I was far away from the fences. I started to run I was so afraid."
Leila turned blue. She was pronounced dead before she had even reached the hospital. "They couldn't save her," said Ms Al Jamal.
A day later, the scene at the Old Gaza Cemetery in the middle of this thronging city was one of sheer grief.
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Israel violence in Gaza sparks worldwide condemnation
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Ten women surrounded Leila's mother Mariam Abu Ghandour, crying in despair.
Wrapped in black, she sat near a tiny hole where Leila's body will be laid to rest. Male relatives prayed for her soul at a nearby mosque before her father arrived at the burial ground with her in his arms.
The couple lost another baby two years earlier, a boy who choked on his mother’s breast milk. Rocking back and forth, Anwar tells Leila she will see her brother in heaven. "Take care of him. Give him water."
The mother remained in shock at the loss of her child.
"I don't know what to say. My brother took Leila to the border area without telling me. When I found out, I went as quickly as I can. I found her dead in the ambulance. They were trying to save her but they told me she is dead."
A series of decisions would lead to Leila being close to the border, with her 13-year-old uncle taking her there on a bus as he believed other family members were there. Her mother had a dentist appointment. The confluence of events came on a day of bloodshed that Palestinian leaders decried as a "massacre".
Tragedy was not limited to the Ghandour family on Monday. Thousands of mourners poured into funerals across Gaza on Tuesday.
Eyewitness accounts, like those of Leila's aunt, said many were a long distance from the barrier.
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Read more:
US embassy opens in Jerusalem amid Palestinian deaths in Gaza
Israel kills dozens in Gaza as US moves embassy to Jerusalem
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The mourning took place on the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, the day Palestinians say is their day of "catastrophe", when hundreds of thousands of Arabs were expelled from their homes during the founding of Israel in 1948.
The gunfire and tear gas on Monday wounded more than 2,200 Palestinians. Another two were killed by Israeli fire on Tuesday.
Surgeons are overwhelmed by the bloodshed. Marie-Elisabeth Ingres, head of mission for the aid group Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in the Palestinian Territories, said the casualties resembled the carnage hospitals witnessed in the seven-week Gaza conflict between Hamas and Israel four years ago.
The aid group’s youngest victim, out of 1,300, was an 8-year-old boy who was shot in the leg. More than 90 per cent of casualties treated by MSF across three hospitals since protests began on March 30 have been shot by live fire to the lower limbs, a tactic used to incapacitate or maim protesters for years, if not life.
"I don't know how we'll be able to manage," she said of the wave of casualties, adding that surgeons are having to decide who has the most serious injuries for the limited operations they can do. "It's not a question of hours and days, but a question of months and years."
International rancour over the Israeli barrage of gunfire on largely unarmed protesters, as aides of US President Donald Trump and Israeli officials celebrated the embassy opening in Jerusalem, continued on Tuesday.
Germany and Belgium said they supported an independent investigation into the killings and Ireland summoned the Israeli envoy. The UN human rights office said Israel had violated international law by using lethal force, calling on the military to arrest anyone who breaches the fence.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
The biog
Age: 32
Qualifications: Diploma in engineering from TSI Technical Institute, bachelor’s degree in accounting from Dubai’s Al Ghurair University, master’s degree in human resources from Abu Dhabi University, currently third years PHD in strategy of human resources.
Favourite mountain range: The Himalayas
Favourite experience: Two months trekking in Alaska
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The alternatives
• Founded in 2014, Telr is a payment aggregator and gateway with an office in Silicon Oasis. It’s e-commerce entry plan costs Dh349 monthly (plus VAT). QR codes direct customers to an online payment page and merchants can generate payments through messaging apps.
• Business Bay’s Pallapay claims 40,000-plus active merchants who can invoice customers and receive payment by card. Fees range from 1.99 per cent plus Dh1 per transaction depending on payment method and location, such as online or via UAE mobile.
• Tap started in May 2013 in Kuwait, allowing Middle East businesses to bill, accept, receive and make payments online “easier, faster and smoother” via goSell and goCollect. It supports more than 10,000 merchants. Monthly fees range from US$65-100, plus card charges of 2.75-3.75 per cent and Dh1.2 per sale.
• 2checkout’s “all-in-one payment gateway and merchant account” accepts payments in 200-plus markets for 2.4-3.9 per cent, plus a Dh1.2-Dh1.8 currency conversion charge. The US provider processes online shop and mobile transactions and has 17,000-plus active digital commerce users.
• PayPal is probably the best-known online goods payment method - usually used for eBay purchases - but can be used to receive funds, providing everyone’s signed up. Costs from 2.9 per cent plus Dh1.2 per transaction.
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
Scoreline
Liverpool 4
Oxlade-Chamberlain 9', Firmino 59', Mane 61', Salah 68'
Manchester City 3
Sane 40', Bernardo Silva 84', Gundogan 90' 1
Company Profile
Name: Thndr
Started: 2019
Co-founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Sector: FinTech
Headquarters: Egypt
UAE base: Hub71, Abu Dhabi
Current number of staff: More than 150
Funds raised: $22 million
Yemen's Bahais and the charges they often face
The Baha'i faith was made known in Yemen in the 19th century, first introduced by an Iranian man named Ali Muhammad Al Shirazi, considered the Herald of the Baha'i faith in 1844.
The Baha'i faith has had a growing number of followers in recent years despite persecution in Yemen and Iran.
Today, some 2,000 Baha'is reside in Yemen, according to Insaf.
"The 24 defendants represented by the House of Justice, which has intelligence outfits from the uS and the UK working to carry out an espionage scheme in Yemen under the guise of religion.. aimed to impant and found the Bahai sect on Yemeni soil by bringing foreign Bahais from abroad and homing them in Yemen," the charge sheet said.
Baha'Ullah, the founder of the Bahai faith, was exiled by the Ottoman Empire in 1868 from Iran to what is now Israel. Now, the Bahai faith's highest governing body, known as the Universal House of Justice, is based in the Israeli city of Haifa, which the Bahais turn towards during prayer.
The Houthis cite this as collective "evidence" of Bahai "links" to Israel - which the Houthis consider their enemy.
From Zero
Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
The five pillars of Islam
The five pillars of Islam
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
Defence review at a glance
• Increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 but given “turbulent times it may be necessary to go faster”
• Prioritise a shift towards working with AI and autonomous systems
• Invest in the resilience of military space systems.
• Number of active reserves should be increased by 20%
• More F-35 fighter jets required in the next decade
• New “hybrid Navy” with AUKUS submarines and autonomous vessels
