Foreign News
Tears, Laughter on Gaza Beach as Children Get Break from War
Children played on a Gaza beach as displaced families left their cramped shelters for a short break during the truce between Israel and Hamas.
However, amid the laughter their parents could not forget the hardships of war and homelessness.
As children splashed in the shallow water, jumping over small waves, adults in bare feet watched from the shore.
Asmaa al-Sultan, a displaced woman from northern Gaza, sat on the sand with her arm around her mother.
The older woman was crying quietly.More than 30 members of the al-Sultan family are sheltering in a UN school in the town of Deir Al-Balah with hundreds of other displaced people.
“We came to the beach to take a breather, to escape from the feeling of the crowded schools and from the depressing and polluted environment we are in,” said Asmaa.
“People come to the beach to relax, to swim, for their children to have fun, they take food with them. But we are so depressed. We are on the beach but we want to cry,” she added.
Hundreds of thousands of people have left their homes in northern Gaza, which has borne the brunt of Israel’s military assault, to seek refuge in tents, schools, or the homes of friends and relatives in the southern part of the strip.
The gruelling conditions in the tent camps and schools, with overcrowding, a dearth of toilets and showers, and long daily queues for small rations of food and water, have been compounded by the psychological impact of bombardment and displacement.
The beach at Deir Al-Balah has a row of fishermen’s huts at the back, towards the bottom of a slope strewn with rubbish.
Some displaced people had taken up residence in the flimsy huts, clothes hanging on strings outside.
Waleed al-Sultan, one of Asmaa’s younger relatives, was trying to untangle a net near the huts as he prepared to go out fishing in a small boat, hoping the truce would mean he could do so without danger.
“I brought nothing with me when I was displaced, so I thought I would make a living from fishing, but the (Israeli) guards stopped me and started shooting at us,” he said.
The war began when Hamas militants burst out of Gaza on Oct. 7 and rampaged through southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, including babies and children, and seizing 240 hostages.
Israel responded with an all-out assault on Gaza which has killed 14,800 Palestinians, four in ten of them children under 18, according to health officials in the Hamas-controlled territory.
While some displaced people have seized the opportunity of the four-day truce, which began on Friday, to check on their homes, others have been too fearful to return to the north, much of which has been reduced to a wasteland.
“We are afraid about the end of these four days. We don’t know what will happen to us next,” said Hazem al-Sultan, Asmaa’s husband.
He said they and their relatives had not dared to head north for fear of being shot at by Israeli soldiers and had no idea what state their homes might be in.
“We are afraid for our children, for ourselves, and we don’t know what to do,” he said. (Reuters/NAN)
China on Friday congratulated the newly elected Pope Leo XIV and expressed hope for a “steady” improvement in relations with the Vatican.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Lin Jian stated this while speaking with reporters in the Chinese capital.
According to Lin, he hopes that under the new Pope’s leadership, the Vatican will continue dialogue with China in a constructive spirit, deepen communication on international issues of mutual concern.
He also expressed hope that they would continue to work together to steadily advance China-Vatican relations, while contributing to global peace, stability, development, and prosperity.
The Vatican on Tuesday announced that American Cardinal Robert Prevost had been elected as the new Pope, taking the name Leo XIV.
He is the first American-born pontiff in the history of the Catholic Church.
In 2024, Beijing had extended a provisional agreement with the Holy See by four years regarding the appointment of bishops.
The agreement which allows both sides to have a role in selecting bishops for China’s Catholic community, which numbers around 12 million in the world’s second most populous countr. (AA/NAN)
The Vatican on Friday announced that Pope Leo XIV’s inauguration will take place on May 18 with a mass in St. Peter’s Square, following his election to succeed Pope Francis.
The ceremony is to take place at 10a.m (0800 GMT) May 18 at the Vatican.
Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was announced as the first U.
S. pontiff on Thursday after white smoke emerged from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel following four rounds of voting in the papal conclave.The new pope is set to keep Francis’ top employees in the Vatican in place for the time being, the Holy See said.
The first of his weekly general audiences is planned for May 21. (dpa/NAN)
The election of Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost of Chicago, has ignited pride and celebration at St. Rita of Cascia High School, where the new pope once served as a teacher.
The 69-year-old Augustinian cardinal’s historic rise as the first American pope was met with elation across his former school community.
Students and faculty remembered him not just as a religious leader but as a humble and compassionate mentor.
Leo was born in Chicago and graduated with a degree in mathematics from the University of Villanova in Pennsylvania in 1977.
He also studied religion at the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago.
In 1982, he received a doctorate in church law from the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas in Rome before being sent to serve in a Catholic mission in Peru.
In 2023, he became prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, a key Catholic administrative body, based in Rome
He succeeds Pope Francis who died on April 21. The late pontiff made Prevost a cardinal in September 2023.(AA/NAN)(www.nanne
The election of Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost of Chicago, has ignited pride and celebration at St. Rita of Cascia High School, where the new pope once served as a teacher.
The 69-year-old Augustinian cardinal’s historic rise as the first American pope was met with elation across his former school community.
Students and faculty remembered him not just as a religious leader but as a humble and compassionate mentor.
Leo was born in Chicago and graduated with a degree in mathematics from the University of Villanova in Pennsylvania in 1977.
He also studied religion at the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago.
In 1982, he received a doctorate in church law from the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas in Rome before being sent to serve in a Catholic mission in Peru.
In 2023, he became prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, a key Catholic administrative body, based in Rome
He succeeds Pope Francis who died on April 21. The late pontiff made Prevost a cardinal in September 2023.(AA/NAN)
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