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Hamas has been presenting released Israeli hostages with gifts, including medals, maps of Gaza, and accessories featuring the Palestinian flag. However, one gift drew questions about the motivation behind it, angering many Palestinians.
According to Arab and Palestinian media, the Al Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, gave a pair of gold earrings to the daughter of Sagui Dekel-Chen, an Israeli-American hostage who was released on Saturday in the latest exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Mr Dekel-Chen was captured on October 7, 2023, and his daughter was born four months after his captivity began.
This gesture prompted mixed reactions among Gazans. Alaa Matar, 36, whose six-year-old daughter Sara and 35-year-old wife were killed in an Israeli air strike on their home in Al Tuffah, east of Gaza city, spoke of his anguish.
"From the moment I saw the earrings given to the prisoner for his daughter, I felt nothing but pain and heartbreak," Mr Matar told The National. "Why did all of this happen? What was the point of all this chaos? For what reason was our life destroyed? And at what cost?"
One of the other gifts that Hamas presented was an hourglass given to Einav Zangauker, an activist for hostage families and the mother of Matan Zangauker, another Israeli hostage.
However, the gold earrings caused the strongest reactions. Many Gaza residents, particularly those whose relatives were killed in the war, expressed frustration.
"Why does he get a gift to take to his daughter while I was dying to hold mine – only for her to be killed?" said Mr Matar. "Why is her mother still buried under the rubble, and no one cares enough to retrieve her so we can at least build a grave for her?
"Even if there is a message behind this, why don’t they consider our feelings? What could possibly justify all this pain?"
Hamas released three Israeli hostages in the sixth swap underpinning a fragile truce that came close to collapse on the weekend. In exchange, Israel has freed 369 Palestinian detainees.
Hanan Jamal, 38, a resident of Gaza city, shared similar sentiments to Mr Matar.
"The gold gift, I keep thinking – what was the purpose behind it? And how many devastated mothers are out there, grieving the loss of their children?" she told The National.
She spoke about her friend Wafaa, who struggled for years to conceive two children, only to lose them in the war.
"Did anyone feel the pain in her heart?" she asked.
Ms Jamal's other friend, Ibtisam, lost all three of her children born after years of fertility treatments.
Ibtisam's body was disfigured after she was trapped under the rubble of an Israeli attack for days.
"She tried to conceive again, but hope is almost non-existent," said Ms Jamal's "There are thousands of mothers who will never be able to have children again after losing them in this reckless war."
"But what really matters to the world is international opinion. The grief of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families? That doesn’t seem to matter at all."
More than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed in the 15-month war and about 111,670 injured, the majority of which are women and children.
Alaa Baroud, 34, from the Al Shati refugee camp in Gaza, said that the gifts may serve a strategic purpose.
"We see that Al Qassam sent presents to the Israeli prisoners. These gifts may have symbolic meanings – one of them being that, as Muslims, we treat enemy prisoners according to Islamic teachings. This approach can also be beneficial for the prisoners' psychological state."
Mr Baroud also highlighted the potential diplomatic and political implications. "It sends a message to Israeli society that, despite everything, the killing, the destruction, the Palestinian resistance still treats captives in a certain way."
Regarding the debate around the gold earrings, Mr Baroud said: "It shows that the resistance knows all their updates. They are aware of what happens to the families of prisoners."
What is the definition of an SME?
SMEs in the UAE are defined by the number of employees, annual turnover and sector. For example, a “small company” in the services industry has six to 50 employees with a turnover of more than Dh2 million up to Dh20m, while in the manufacturing industry the requirements are 10 to 100 employees with a turnover of more than Dh3m up to Dh50m, according to Dubai SME, an agency of the Department of Economic Development.
A “medium-sized company” can either have staff of 51 to 200 employees or 101 to 250 employees, and a turnover less than or equal to Dh200m or Dh250m, again depending on whether the business is in the trading, manufacturing or services sectors.
HIV on the rise in the region
A 2019 United Nations special analysis on Aids reveals 37 per cent of new HIV infections in the Mena region are from people injecting drugs.
New HIV infections have also risen by 29 per cent in western Europe and Asia, and by 7 per cent in Latin America, but declined elsewhere.
Egypt has shown the highest increase in recorded cases of HIV since 2010, up by 196 per cent.
Access to HIV testing, treatment and care in the region is well below the global average.
Few statistics have been published on the number of cases in the UAE, although a UNAIDS report said 1.5 per cent of the prison population has the virus.
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Motori Profile
Date started: March 2020
Co-founder/CEO: Ahmed Eissa
Based: UAE, Abu Dhabi
Sector: Insurance Sector
Size: 50 full-time employees (Inside and Outside UAE)
Stage: Seed stage and seeking Series A round of financing
Investors: Safe City Group
Greatest of All Time
Starring: Vijay, Sneha, Prashanth, Prabhu Deva, Mohan
Hotel Data Cloud profile
Date started: June 2016
Founders: Gregor Amon and Kevin Czok
Based: Dubai
Sector: Travel Tech
Size: 10 employees
Funding: $350,000 (Dh1.3 million)
Investors: five angel investors (undisclosed except for Amar Shubar)
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.
Emergency phone numbers in the UAE
Estijaba – 8001717 – number to call to request coronavirus testing
Ministry of Health and Prevention – 80011111
Dubai Health Authority – 800342 – The number to book a free video or voice consultation with a doctor or connect to a local health centre
Emirates airline – 600555555
Etihad Airways – 600555666
Ambulance – 998
Knowledge and Human Development Authority – 8005432 ext. 4 for Covid-19 queries
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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In numbers: China in Dubai
The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
Gothia Cup 2025
4,872 matches
1,942 teams
116 pitches
76 nations
26 UAE teams
15 Lebanese teams
2 Kuwaiti teams
Sanju
Produced: Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Rajkumar Hirani
Director: Rajkumar Hirani
Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Vicky Kaushal, Paresh Rawal, Anushka Sharma, Manish’s Koirala, Dia Mirza, Sonam Kapoor, Jim Sarbh, Boman Irani
Rating: 3.5 stars
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
'Of Love & War'
Lynsey Addario, Penguin Press
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
