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A Picture of Her Grief Gripped the World. A Year On, Gaza Woman Haunted by Memories

A combination picture shows Palestinian woman Inas Abu Maamar, 36, embraces the body of her 5-year-old niece Saly, who was killed in an Israeli strike, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 17, 2023 (L) and Inas visits a damaged cemetery where Saly was buried, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, September 11, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
A combination picture shows Palestinian woman Inas Abu Maamar, 36, embraces the body of her 5-year-old niece Saly, who was killed in an Israeli strike, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 17, 2023 (L) and Inas visits a damaged cemetery where Saly was buried, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, September 11, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
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A Picture of Her Grief Gripped the World. A Year On, Gaza Woman Haunted by Memories

A combination picture shows Palestinian woman Inas Abu Maamar, 36, embraces the body of her 5-year-old niece Saly, who was killed in an Israeli strike, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 17, 2023 (L) and Inas visits a damaged cemetery where Saly was buried, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, September 11, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
A combination picture shows Palestinian woman Inas Abu Maamar, 36, embraces the body of her 5-year-old niece Saly, who was killed in an Israeli strike, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 17, 2023 (L) and Inas visits a damaged cemetery where Saly was buried, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, September 11, 2024. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

The Reuters photograph of Inas Abu Maamar, face buried in the shrouded body of her dead five-year-old niece Saly, was taken days after Israel began its military offensive on Gaza.
It has become one of the most vivid images of Palestinian suffering during the year-long bombing of Gaza, Israel's response to Hamas' Oct. 7 attack.
Saly was killed with her mother, baby sister, grandparents, uncle, aunt and three cousins. Since then, Abu Maamar, 37, has also lost her sister, killed along with her four children in an airstrike in northern Gaza.
Abu Maamar has moved three times to avoid bombing, at one point spending four months living in a tent. Today, she is back in her home in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza. Cracks run through the corrugated roof; a shower curtain covers a window-sized hole in the wall.
"We lost all hope in everything," said Abu Maamar, sitting amid rubble in the small graveyard by the family house. Beneath the debris, she said, lay Saly's grave.
"Even the grave was not safe."
Hamas' attack on Oct. 7 killed around 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and about 250 people were taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel's campaign in Gaza, with the declared goal of wiping out Hamas, has since killed at least 41,500 people, mostly civilians, according to Palestinian health authorities.
Israel's military has said its bombardment of Gaza is necessary to crush Hamas, which it accuses of hiding among the general Palestinian population. Hamas denies this. Israel says it tries to reduce harm to civilians.
AIRSTRIKE
Before Oct. 7, Gaza had faced an extensive Israeli blockade following Hamas' takeover of the Palestinian territory in 2007. There was little work and imports were severely restricted but her family was settled, Abu Maamar said.
Abu Maamar lived with her husband near her brother Ramez' family, allowing her to spend much of her time with her nieces Saly and Seba and her nephew Ahmed.
As bombing intensified near the house after Oct. 7, Ramez sheltered with his family at his in-laws' about 1 km (0.6 miles) away. It was hit in an airstrike the next day.
When Abu Maamar heard she went straight to the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis. There she saw Ahmed, then 4, and grabbed him by the hand. She found Saly, dead, in the mortuary.
"I tried to wake her up. I couldn't believe she was dead," she said.
It was there that Reuters photographer Mohammed Salem took the picture of Abu Maamar cradling her dead niece, her body wrapped in a white sheet. The image was named World Press Photo of the year and won a Pulitzer Prize along with other Reuters images of the Oct. 7 attack and war in Gaza.
DISPLACEMENT
Israel said it had attacked 5,000 Hamas targets in Gaza from Oct. 7 until Oct. 17, the day of the airstrike that killed Saly. Palestinian health authorities said about 3,000 people had been killed by that point, including 940 children.
Israel's military did not respond to a request for comment on the strike that killed Saly.
In a comment six days after her death about the killing of another family in a different airstrike in Khan Younis, a spokesperson for Israel's military said: "Hamas has entrenched itself among the civilian population throughout the Gaza Strip. So wherever a Hamas target arises, the Israeli army will strike at it in order to thwart the terrorist capabilities of the group, while taking feasible precautions to mitigate the harm to uninvolved civilians."
By December, with Palestinian authorities saying the death toll in Gaza had topped 15,000 and Israel preparing to expand its ground assault to southern Gaza, Abu Maamar and other family members moved to Mawasi, a beach area where displaced people sought refuge in tents. They moved twice more as Israeli forces battled Hamas across the south, ordering civilians first from Khan Younis and then the city of Rafah.
Now back home, Abu Maamar says there is no point moving any more. She picked up Saly's favorite outfit, a black dress with traditional red Palestinian embroidery, and pressed it to her face.
"We are just waiting for the cascade of blood to stop."

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Arab World

Over $71 Bn Needed Over Next Decade to Rebuild Gaza, Say UN and EU

Palestinian men stand atop a heavily damaged building in Gaza City on April 20, 2026. (AFP)
Palestinian men stand atop a heavily damaged building in Gaza City on April 20, 2026. (AFP)
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Over $71 Bn Needed Over Next Decade to Rebuild Gaza, Say UN and EU

Palestinian men stand atop a heavily damaged building in Gaza City on April 20, 2026. (AFP)
Palestinian men stand atop a heavily damaged building in Gaza City on April 20, 2026. (AFP)

More than $71 billion will be needed over the next decade for recovery and reconstruction in war-ravaged Gaza, according to an EU-UN assessment published Monday.

In their final Gaza Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA), the United Nations and the European Union said that more than two years of war in the Palestinian territory "has led to unprecedented loss of life and a catastrophic humanitarian crisis".

"Recovery and reconstruction needs are estimated at around $71.4 billion," said the assessment, developed in coordination with the World Bank.

Much of Gaza -- including schools, hospitals and other civic infrastructure -- has been reduced to rubble by a withering Israeli military offensive following the unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7, 2023.

The final assessment determined that $26.3 billion would be required in the first 18 months to restore essential services, rebuild critical infrastructure and support economic recovery.

"Physical infrastructure damages are estimated at $35.2 billion, with economic and social losses amounting to $22.7 billion," a joint statement said.

Gaza is under a fragile ceasefire agreed last October, which followed two years of devastating conflict sparked by the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.

That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to official Israeli figures tallied by AFP. Palestinian fighters also abducted 251 hostages.

The retaliatory Israeli military campaign has killed more than 72,000 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry whose figures the UN considers reliable.

- 'Immense scale of need' -

According to the RDNA, some 371,888 housing units have been destroyed or damaged, more than 50 percent of hospitals in the territory are non-functional and nearly all schools have been destroyed or damaged.

At the same time, 1.9 million people -- nearly Gaza's entire population -- have been displaced, often multiple times, and more than 60 percent of the population had lost their homes, the assessment found.

Gaza's economy has contracted by 84 percent, it said.

"The scale and extent of deprivation across living conditions, livelihoods/income, food security, gender equality, and social inclusion, have pushed back human development in the Gaza Strip by 77 years," the assessment said.

The UN and the EU stressed that "given the immense scale of need, recovery efforts must run in parallel with humanitarian action" in Gaza, ensuring a "transition from emergency relief toward reconstruction at scale".

They insisted that the recovery and reconstruction needed to be "Palestinian-led", and incorporate approaches that actively support the transfer of governance to the Palestinian Authority, in accordance with UN Security Council resolution 2803.

That resolution, which was adopted last November, welcomed the creation of US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace to support Gaza's reconstruction.

The UN and the EU also emphasised that "a set of enabling conditions" were needed for the resolution to be implemented effectively on the ground.

They included in particular "a sustained ceasefire and adequate security", as well as "unimpeded humanitarian access and immediate restoration of essential services," and "free movement of people, goods, and reconstruction materials, within and between Gaza and the West Bank".

Without such conditions, they warned, "neither recovery nor reconstruction can succeed".

Arab World

Lebanon, Israel to Hold Second Round of Talks in Washington on Thursday

From left, Michael Needham, counselor for the US Dept. of State, US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, US Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, Lebanese Ambassador to the US Nada Hamadeh Moawad, and Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter pose for a photo before a meeting at the State Department in Washington, Tuesday, April 14, 2026. (AP)
From left, Michael Needham, counselor for the US Dept. of State, US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, US Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, Lebanese Ambassador to the US Nada Hamadeh Moawad, and Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter pose for a photo before a meeting at the State Department in Washington, Tuesday, April 14, 2026. (AP)
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Lebanon, Israel to Hold Second Round of Talks in Washington on Thursday

From left, Michael Needham, counselor for the US Dept. of State, US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, US Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, Lebanese Ambassador to the US Nada Hamadeh Moawad, and Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter pose for a photo before a meeting at the State Department in Washington, Tuesday, April 14, 2026. (AP)
From left, Michael Needham, counselor for the US Dept. of State, US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, US Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, Lebanese Ambassador to the US Nada Hamadeh Moawad, and Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter pose for a photo before a meeting at the State Department in Washington, Tuesday, April 14, 2026. (AP)

Lebanese and Israeli representatives will hold talks in Washington on Thursday, a US State Department spokesperson and an Israeli source speaking on the condition of anonymity told Reuters ‌on Monday.

The ‌US will host ‌the ⁠second round of ⁠ambassador-level talks between the two countries at the Department of State, the State Department spokesperson said.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted ⁠the first round of talks ‌between Israeli ‌ambassador to the United States ‌Yechiel Leiter and Lebanon's ambassador to ‌Washington Nada Moawad - the first direct talks between Israel and Lebanon in decades - on April 14.

"We ‌will continue to facilitate direct, good-faith discussions between the ⁠two ⁠governments," the spokesperson said.

The second round of talks will mark the first talks between the two countries since a 10-day ceasefire took effect on Thursday.

- Aoun defends talks - 

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said Monday that planned talks with Israel aim to end hostilities and the occupation in the south, even as Hezbollah and its supporters rejected the negotiations. 

Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah told AFP Monday it was in Aoun's and Lebanon's "interest" to withdraw from the talks, however adding that his group also wanted the ceasefire to last. 

A ceasefire pausing more than six weeks of war between Hezbollah and Israel started on Friday after being announced by US President Donald Trump. 

"It is in the interest of Lebanon, the president of the republic and the government to move away from the path of direct negotiation and return to a national understanding about the best option for Lebanon," Fadlallah told AFP. 

"Perhaps through indirect negotiations, even via the United States of America, we can achieve" Lebanon's goals, Fadlallah stated. 

Aoun said Monday the goal of negotiations was to "stop hostilities, end the Israeli occupation of southern regions and deploy the (Lebanese) army all the way to the internationally recognized southern borders". 

Fadlallah said regional powers including Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have worked to build a US-Iran diplomatic track, which creates "a regional umbrella that can provide a kind of guarantee for Lebanon. 

"Going into direct bilateral negotiations, alone, amid deep Lebanese divisions and internal disagreements, constitutes a threat to internal consensus." 

He noted that there was no direct communication with the president, while Hezbollah's ministers remain in Lebanon's cabinet. 

Aoun's remarks on Monday came after an address to the nation Friday night, in which he said: "We negotiate for ourselves... we are no longer a pawn in anyone's game, nor an arena for anyone's wars, and we never will be again." 

The truce in Lebanon was also one of Iran's conditions for resuming talks with Washington to extend their separate ceasefire and work out the terms of a lasting peace. 

Lebanon is officially at war with Israel and has no diplomatic relations with its southern neighbor. 

- Aoun faces backlash - 

On the road to Beirut's international airport, in the southern suburbs where Hezbollah holds sway, AFP images showed fresh graffiti attacking Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam on Monday, following their endorsement of negotiations. 

"Joseph is a traitor, Nawaf is a turncoat," said one spray-painted sign. "Dealing with Israel is forbidden... no to normalization," another read. 

Senior Hezbollah official Mahmud Qamati blasted Aoun on Saturday, saying "defeated, you go to the Israelis and Americans, let's see what you will get out of it". 

Hezbollah supporters also heaped scorn on Aoun on social media. 

"You're going to hand over the south after two days of negotiations?" one user posted on X, adding "we won't let you" sign an agreement. 

"After all our sacrifices this guy wants to speak for us?" another user posted on X, with their profile picture showing a picture of Aoun and Salam with the words "they do not represent me". 

Israeli attacks killed nearly 2,300 people and forced over a million to flee their homes, Lebanese authorities said, since Hezbollah pulled the country into the Middle East war last month. 

"Any outcome of direct negotiations cannot be imposed on the people who made these sacrifices," Fadlallah told AFP. 

- 'I am full of hope' - 

Aoun on Monday named former Lebanese ambassador to Washington Simon Karam to head the negotiations with Israel. 

In December, Karam became the first Lebanese civilian representative to directly speak with Israeli representatives in decades, as part of a ceasefire monitoring mechanism set up at the end of a previous round of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in 2023 and 2024. 

"Lebanon is facing two options: either the continuation of the war, with all its humanitarian, social, economic, and sovereign repercussions, or negotiations to put an end to this war and achieve lasting stability," Aoun said. 

"I have chosen negotiations, and I am full of hope that we will be able to save Lebanon," he said. 

Arab World

A Top Paramilitary Commander Defects to Sudan’s Military as War Enters 4th Year

A boy is seen through the wreckage of a car in Omdurman, Sudan, on the outskirts of Khartoum, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP)
A boy is seen through the wreckage of a car in Omdurman, Sudan, on the outskirts of Khartoum, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP)
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A Top Paramilitary Commander Defects to Sudan’s Military as War Enters 4th Year

A boy is seen through the wreckage of a car in Omdurman, Sudan, on the outskirts of Khartoum, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP)
A boy is seen through the wreckage of a car in Omdurman, Sudan, on the outskirts of Khartoum, Friday, April 17, 2026. (AP)

A high-profile paramilitary commander in Sudan has changed sides and joined the country’s army in a move welcomed by army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan shortly after the war entered its fourth year.

Burhan on Sunday welcomed Maj. Gen. al-Nour Ahmed Adam, who defected earlier this month from the Rapid Support Forces. The ruling sovereign council posted a video on social media showing Burhan’s meeting with Adam, who is known as al-Qubba, in Sudan’s Northern province on the border with Egypt.

“Doors are open to all those who lay down arms and join the path of national reconstruction,” Burhan, who chairs the sovereign council, said in a statement.

The RSF didn’t comment on the defection.

Adam fled the RSF-controlled Darfur region earlier this month and joined the military along with dozens of fighters and equipment, according to local media.

The Sudan Tribune news outlet reported that Adam left after “disputes” with the RSF leadership, mainly over not appointing him as a military commander of North Darfur province after the RSF seized control of el-Fashir city in October – the military’s last stronghold in the Darfur region.

Adam is one of the most senior officers to defect from the paramilitaries during the war. In 2024, Abu Aqla Kaikel, who led the Sudan Shield Forces, left the RSF when the military retook the crucial central province of Gezira.

The war broke out in April 2023 when a power struggle between the military and RSF exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the sprawling country.

The war has killed at least 59,000 people, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, known as ACLED. The US-based war tracking group said its toll was almost certainly low given difficulties in reporting.