The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Candidate fears for her family in Gaza horrors
Along-serving SNP activist who stood for election in the north-east last week says she has been worried sick as her brother and young relatives endure a war zone in Gaza.
Nadia El-nakla, who is married to Scottish Government justice secretary Humza Yousaf, spoke of her distress while deadly violence worsened in the blockaded territory.
The 37-year-old lives in Broughty Ferry and has been kept in constant contact through Whatsapp messages about her family.
“For us as a family here it’s sickening,” she says. “Literally sick with worry to the point where you can’t eat.
“You almost don’t want to hear from your family because you don’t want to hear how bad it is for them.
“As siblings you feel like you should have the same experience, so for me, my brother, my niece and my nephews, it breaks my heart that I’m here safe and they’re in a war zone.
“There is nowhere for them to go. There is no safe haven in Gaza.”
Rockets were fired from
Gaza while Israeli forces bombarded the territory with air strikes in the most serious fighting since the 50-day war in 2014.
The death toll in Gaza rose to 35 Palestinians, including 12 children and three women, by yesterday morning according to the health ministry there, with at least 233 people injured.
Five Israelis, including three women and a child, were killed by rocket fire on Tuesday and early yesterday, and dozens of other people were injured.
The UN’S Middle East peace envoy, Tor Wennesland, said the sides were “escalating towards a full-scale war”.
Ms El-nakla, whose dad is Palestinian, visited Gaza regularly every summer when she was growing up but has been unable to go for the past 16 years.
“We’d stay there six weeks at a time, sometimes twice a year, so it’s very much like my home,” she said.
“It’s home to my brother, my niece and my nephews, my grandmother who’s very frail now.”
Her brother Mohammed, a doctor, has been giving regular updates. He is married to wife Duas and has two boys, Amjid and Majid, and a girl, Layla. Ms El-nakla’s 85-year-old gran, Hasna, is also in Gaza.
Ms El-nakla, senior case worker for Dundee City East MSP Shona Robison, said her brother had been giving her updates.
“He’s messaging me trying to make me feel better, saying it’s normal, ‘I’m used to it, I’m not scared of dying’,” she said.
“For his sister to hear that, it’s difficult. I was walking in Broughty Ferry and I can’t even imagine bombs dropping on us, let alone that being the ‘norm’.
“It shouldn’t be normal for anyone. They used to tell the kids people were having a party and there were fireworks. But now it’s just really bad. My cousin told me ‘how do I comfort my child when I’m terrified myself. I’ve been in Gaza when bombs are dropping and it is terrifying.”
Her husband, a senior figure in Nicola Sturgeon’s government, earlier raised the family’s plight in a series of posts on social media, drawing attention to the international crisis.
He wrote: “Wife has been in floods of tears. Her brother lives in Gaza with his wife and three young children. He tells us it’s raining rockets. As a parent he feels helpless, they cannot leave as they are under blockade. All we can do is pray and hope they are alive in the morning.”
Mr Yousaf thanked people for their “kind messages” about his brother-in-law.
Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged leaders in Israel and Palestine to “step back from the brink”.
Mr Johnson said: “The UK is deeply concerned by the growing violence and civilian casualties and we want to see an urgent de-escalation of tensions.”
The latest upsurge in violence has been triggered by tensions in Jerusalem during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
A focal point was the Al-aqsa mosque compound, a holy site sacred to both Jews and Muslims, while there were also clashes over the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers in the Sheikh Jarrar neighbourhood of east Jerusalem.
Israel has killed a string of senior Hamas military figures and pounded three multistorey towers as it hammered the Gaza Strip with air strikes and militants in the territory fired barrages of rockets.
Dozens have died in the most severe outbreak of violence since a 2014 war, with no resolution in sight.
The fighting has taken on many hallmarks of that devastating 50-day conflict between Israel and Hamas, but with a startling new factor: a burst of fury from Israel’s Palestinian citizens in support of those living in the territories as well as counter-violence by Jewish Israelis.
In response, Israel has deployed border guards in two mixed Arab-jewish cities that saw unrest in previous days. It was a rare use of the paramilitary force, which normally puts down protests by Palestinians in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
Palls of grey smoke rose in Gaza, as Israeli air strikes struck apartment towers and hammered multiple Hamas security installations.
In Israel, hundreds of rockets fired by Gaza’s Hamas rulers and other militants at times overwhelmed missile defences and brought air raid sirens and explosions echoing across Tel Aviv, Israel’s biggest metropolitan area, and other cities.
The death toll in Gaza rose to 53 Palestinians, including 14 children and three women, according to the Health Ministry.
At least 320 have been wounded, including 86 children and 39 women.
Six Israelis were killed by rocket fire, including the first death of an Israeli soldier in this round of conflict, along with three women and a child. Dozens in Israel have been wounded.
There was no sign that either side is willing to back down and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to expand the offensive, saying “this will take time”.
Hamas has called for a full-scale uprising – the last began in 2000 and lasted more than five years.
The latest eruption of violence began a month ago in Jerusalem, where heavy-handed police tactics during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the threatened eviction of dozens of Palestinian families by Jewish settlers ignited protests and clashes with police.
A focal point was the Alaqsa Mosque compound, a site sacred to Jews and Muslims.
Late on Monday, Hamas, claiming to be “defending Jerusalem”, launched a barrage of rockets at the city, escalating the ground tensions into a new Israelhamas punching match.
Since then, militants have fired more than 1,050 rockets from Gaza, according to the Israeli military, and Israel has conducted hundreds of strikes in the tiny territory where two million Palestinians have lived under a crippling Israeliegyptian blockade since Hamas took power in 2007.