Politics
A Gaza mother’s fight to survive
Two years of war, multiple displacements, and the deaths of her husband and father have reduced Lamis Dib’s life in Gaza to a relentless fight for survival.
“It’s indescribable,” the 31-year-old mother of two said of the war that continues to devastate the Palestinian territory.
“Friday, October 6, 2023, the last day before the war, was a beautiful day,” she recalled.
Her oldest daughter, Suwar, five at the time, had just started kindergarten, and Dib would watch her come home every afternoon from the window of their apartment in Sheikh Radwan, a middle-class neighbourhood in the north of Gaza City.
Her son Amin, then three, “was taking up all of my time”, said Dib, who would often bring him to the nearby seaside.
Dib had studied to become a social worker, but could not find a job in Gaza’s impoverished pre-war economy, partly stunted by a strict Israeli blockade since 2007.
But she had built “a happy family” with her husband, an accountant who ensured that she “never lacked anything”.
Their neighbourhood was one of the first to be hit by Israeli strikes in October 2023.
Israel’s military campaign has since killed at least 66,225 Palestinians in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the health ministry, which the United Nations considers reliable.
The destruction in Gaza is vast, with entire neighbourhoods flattened and millions of tonnes of rubble now covering areas where families once lived.
Buildings, hospitals, schools, water and sanitation systems have borne the brunt of Israeli attacks, and the humanitarian consequences for the territory’s more than two million people have been severe.
Hundreds of thousands of homeless Gazans have crowded into shelters, makeshift camps and open areas, lacking even basic protections.
‘Race against death’
When Dib’s area was struck, she and her family fled to a nearby district —the first of a series of displacements — before leaving northern Gaza for the city of Khan Yunis in the south.
“One of the most difficult days of our lives,” Dib said, describing their long expedition along torn-up roads and through military checkpoints.
She and her children have been displaced 11 times as fighting between Israel and Hamas rages.
“Each move was a race against death, under airstrikes. It was as if I was on autopilot, I carried my kids, held them against me, and ran without looking back, without knowing where we were going,” she said.
When the family relocated to the southern city of Rafah for a time, shortages and overcrowding were the norm.
“For six months, in Rafah, 30 of us would sleep in a single room with no toilets. It was hard to express what we felt: confinement, nonstop air strikes, hunger, thirst, lack of hygiene and a total absence of privacy,” she said.
In August 2024, the family was living in the central Gaza refugee camp of Nuseirat when Dib’s life changed again.
“On a Friday at 6pm, my husband and my father were on the rooftop with five young people from the family, when we heard the sound of a missile and saw smoke,” she said.
“I ran towards the rooftop, and the scene was unimaginable; they were all dead.
“My husband’s body seemed intact, I thought he was alive. I tried to wake him up, but he had been struck in the head. And then I found my father’s body […] his hand had been blown off.”
‘A little bit of peace’
From that day on, Dib had to care for her children alone, just when life in Gaza was at its hardest.
She moved into a tent in Al-Zawayda, a camp where thousands of Palestinians share the same harsh daily life, living under tarps that flap in the wind, bake under the summer heat and leak during the winter rains.
“Everything is difficult,” she said from inside her shelter.
While her friends can appeal to their fathers or husbands for help, Dib must weather the unending financial difficulties by herself.
In May 2025, Israel eased a total blockade on supplies that it imposed in March, but the humanitarian aid trickling in since then has not been enough, the UN says.
“Our children were robbed of education, food, and a normal life,” she said as Suwar and Amin studied on her knees.
Sometimes, they look at photos of their father and relatives killed during the war on Dib’s phone.
“We’ll return to our home,” she said. “We will rebuild it, but we just want a little bit of peace.”
Like their mother, Suwar and Amin are mostly preoccupied with survival, tasked with filling up the family’s jerrycans at a temporary water station near the tent.
For them, the war’s consequences may outlast the airstrikes.
The UN’s agency for children, Unicef, estimated in 2024 that every child in Gaza was in need of psychological support.
DUBAI: Set against the backdrop of the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, the Dubai Fountain has once again come to life after a five-month closure, dazzling visitors with its spectacular display.
The iconic attraction reopened to the public with an opening show choreographed to an Arabic melody, drawing large crowds who gathered to witness its grand return.
Mohamed Alabbar, founder of Emaar Properties — the developer behind the Burj Khalifa — said on the occasion that the Dubai Fountain symbolises “the spirit and energy of Dubai”, bringing joy and wonder to all who visit.
The latest upgrades have introduced cutting-edge technology, refreshed choreography, and enhanced sound and lighting systems, designed to offer audiences an even more impressive experience.
Regular shows will now resume, taking place every half-hour between 6 pm and 11 pm daily. Afternoon performances will run at 1pm and 1:30 pm from Saturday to Thursday, and at 2 pm and 2:30 pm on Fridays.
Construction of the Dubai Fountain began in 2005, with its grand opening in 2009.
Renowned as the world’s largest dancing fountain, it can shoot water jets up to 152 metres high, supported by 6,600 lights and 25 colour projectors.
A second phase of renovation is scheduled to commence in the second quarter of 2026.
Donald Trump signaled Thursday that he intends to proceed with mass layoffs of US federal workers, escalating pressure on Democrats to support measures aimed at ending the ongoing government shutdown.
The Republican president announced he would meet with budget chief Russell Vought “to determine which of the numerous Democrat-led agencies most of which he called a political scam should face cuts, and whether those reductions would be temporary or permanent.”
Trump shared the announcement on his Truth Social platform as the government entered its second day of a shutdown, expected to affect 750,000 federal employees, who would be sent home without pay across multiple agencies.
Vought informed House Republicans on Wednesday that many workers could face permanent layoffs in the coming days, echoing Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, who said the firings were “imminent” and could number “in the thousands.”
Trump framed these cuts as a strategy to increase pressure on Democrats, stating, “we can take actions during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are damaging to them and cannot be undone by them.”
However, Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House counterpart Hakeem Jeffries dismissed the threat of mass firings as political intimidation, asserting that such moves would likely not hold up in court.
While two Senate Democrats and an independent aligned with the party broke from their colleagues, the majority continue to oppose a House-passed resolution to fund the government at current levels through November 21.
“This is day two of Donald Trump’s shutdown, but it’s day 256 of the chaos his presidency has inflicted on the American people,” Jeffries told reporters at the US Capitol on Thursday.
He accused Republicans of shutting down the federal government because “they do not want to provide healthcare for working-class Americans,” while emphasizing that Democrats are willing to negotiate “anytime, anywhere”, including with Trump and Vice President JD Vance, to find a resolution.
Weekend votes?
The Senate is not voting on Thursday because of the Jewish Yom Kippur holiday, but another vote is expected on Friday and on most days until the standoff is resolved.
With Democrats expected to block the Republican reopening plan again, Republicans were reportedly mulling whether to send their senators home after the vote — effectively guaranteeing the shutdown drags into next week.
But House Speaker Mike Johnson, whose members have been off all week, told reporters Senate leaders need to stick to an initial plan to work through the weekend in Washington.
“And the House is coming back next week, hoping that they will be sending us something to work on, that we can get back to work and do the people’s business,” he told a news conference at the Capitol.
For now, Democrats are dug in on their demands for extending health care subsidies before they will agree to a funding deal.
Five additional Democratic votes would be needed to reach the 60-vote threshold in the 100-member Senate to green-light the House-passed bill.
As each side seeks to point the finger at the other over the shutdown, polling indicates that Democrats and Republicans may currently be sharing the blame.
A new poll from the Washington Post found that 47 percent of Americans blame Trump and congressional Republicans for the shutdown, while just 30 percent point the finger at Democrats.
But a New York Times/Siena survey showed two-thirds of respondents said Democrats should not shut down the government if Republicans do not agree to their demands.
Adding to pressure on Democrats to relent and provide votes to reopen the government, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC Thursday that the shutdown could hurt US economic growth.
“This isn’t the way to have a discussion, shutting down the government and lowering the GDP,” he said.
A Texas woman was sentenced to five years in prison for attempting to drown a 3-year-old Palestinian-American Muslim girl in a May 2024 incident that local police said was motivated by racial bias.
Court records and proceedings cited by CBS News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram showed Judge Andy Porter sentenced Elizabeth Wolf, 43, after she pleaded guilty to attempted murder and injury to a child. Wolf was indicted last year after the attack, which was condemned by then-President Joe Biden, and waived a trial by jury.
Why it’s important
Human rights advocates note rising threats against American Muslims, Arabs and Jews since the start of Israel’s assault on Gaza after a 2023 Hamas attack.
The incident occurred at an apartment complex swimming pool in Euless, Texas. Wolf argued with the mother of the 3-year-old girl. The mother was also at the pool with her 6-year-old son, and Wolf asked where they were from, a police report said.
Wolf tried to drown the 3-year-old and attempted to grab the 6-year-old, the report said. The mother pulled her daughter from the water and the children were medically cleared after medics responded.
Other US incidents
Recent incidents raising anti-Muslim bias concerns include the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian-American boy in Illinois, the stabbing of a Palestinian-American man in Texas and a violent mob attack on pro-Palestinian protesters in California.
There was also the shooting of two Israeli visitors in Florida whom a suspect mistook for Palestinians and an assault by a pro-Israeli mob in New York City that chanted “Death to Arabs.”
Incidents raising alarm over antisemitism and anti-Israeli attitudes include the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington, a Colorado attack that killed one person and an arson attack on Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s residence.
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