New Generation of Syrians Were Born in Exile

Syrian women wait at a clinic in the Zaatari camp - AFP
Syrian women wait at a clinic in the Zaatari camp - AFP
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New Generation of Syrians Were Born in Exile

Syrian women wait at a clinic in the Zaatari camp - AFP
Syrian women wait at a clinic in the Zaatari camp - AFP

Ten years after fleeing war in her native Syria, Hadeel is expecting a third child, brought into a life of poverty and uncertainty at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan.

The camp, 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the capital Amman, is home to some 80,000 Syrian refugees, according to the United Nations.

Half of the camp's residents are children, and many have no memory of Syria.

"I was hoping to be at home, in my country," Hadeel said, asking to use a pseudonym for safety concerns.

"Fate decided I would be here, get married and give birth to my children here."

Like most refugees in the camp, she and her family arrived from Syria's southern Daraa province, the cradle of the 2011 uprising against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

The ensuing war has killed nearly half a million people and displaced around half of the country's pre-war population.

Hadeel, who is six months pregnant, married a Syrian refugee who also lives in Zaatari, and the couple have two children, aged six and seven.

At least 168,500 Syrian babies have been born in Jordan since 2014, according to the UN, part of an estimated one million children born to Syrians in exile across the world over the same period.

Many are born in overcrowded refugee camps, with limited access to education and the threat of child labor and forced marriage hanging over them.

Sat on a red plastic chair in a large hall, Hadeel awaited a checkup at the only clinic in the camp that delivers babies.

"My children grew up here. When they hear me talking to other women about Syria, they ask me, 'Mama, where is Syria? Why do we live in this?'" said Hadeel.

"I try to explain to them that this is not our country. We are refugees. It's difficult for them to understand".

Some 675,000 Syrian refugees are registered with the UN in Jordan, but Amman estimates the real figure to be about twice that and says the cost of hosting them has exceeded $12 billion.

While fighting in southern Syria has abated, Hadeel said it still is not safe enough to return.

Her cousin, "fed up" with the camp, returned to Syria earlier this year.

He was killed less than a month later, and his widow and five children still in Zaatari do not know how he died.

"The bad security situation makes us think a thousand times before returning," Hadeel said.

The maternity ward at the UN-run clinic -- the camp's biggest health facility with 60 staff including 21 midwives -- has 10 beds.

The clinic's director Ghada al-Saad said the facility "works 24/7, offering everything for free, including medicines, treatments, tests and vaccinations" up to the age of two.

Midwife Amon Mustafa, 58, who has worked there since the camp opened in 2012, checks on the new mothers.

"We deliver between five and 10 babies every day, with the five today, the total number of births in the camp has reached 15,963," Mustafa said.

"I know most of the women and children in the camp," she added with a smile.

Nagham Shagran, 20, holding her newborn son, has spent nine years in the camp, where she and her cousin married.

"At first we hesitated to have our first child," she said. "Every human... has the right to be born and live in his or her country, but what can we do?"

Mustafa said staff "are trying" to educate women on family planning and the use of contraceptives, but uptake is limited.

"Children are a blessing, but I hope this will be my last pregnancy,"said Eman Rabie, 28, expecting her fourth child. "My husband loves children; he says they are a blessing from God."

Rabie's home in Daraa was destroyed during the war.

"If we are asked to leave the camp and go back to Syria," she said, "I will be the last to leave".



Harris Tries to Thread the Needle on Gaza After Meeting with Netanyahu 

US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)
US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)
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Harris Tries to Thread the Needle on Gaza After Meeting with Netanyahu 

US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)
US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)

Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, is attempting to bridge divides within the party over the war in Gaza, emphasizing Israel's right to defend itself while also focusing on alleviating Palestinian suffering.

She delivered remarks after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that reflected a delicate balancing act on one of the country's most divisive political issues. Some Democrats have been critical of President Joe Biden's steadfast support for Israel despite the increasing death toll among Palestinians, and Harris is trying to unite her party for the election battle with Republican candidate Donald Trump.

"We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies," she said. "We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent."

Harris did not deviate from the administration's approach to the conflict, including grueling negotiations aimed at ending the fighting, releasing hostages held by Hamas and eventually rebuilding Gaza. She also said nothing about military assistance for Israel, which some Democrats want to cut.

Instead, she tried to refocus the conversation around mitigating the calamity in Gaza, and she used language intended to nudge Americans toward an elusive middle ground.

"The war in Gaza is not a binary issue," she said. "But too often, the conversation is binary when the reality is anything but."

In addition, Harris made a more explicit appeal to voters who have been frustrated by the ceaseless bloodshed, which began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

"To everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire, and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you, and I hear you," she said.

Harris' meeting with Netanyahu was private, and she described it as "frank and constructive." She also emphasized her longtime support for Israel, which includes raising money to plant trees in the country when she was a young girl.

Jewish Americans traditionally lean Democratic, but Republicans have tried to make inroads. Trump claimed this week that Harris "is totally against the Jewish people" because she didn't attend Netanyahu's address to a joint meeting of Congress. The vice president was traveling in Indiana during the speech.

Harris is married to a Jewish man, Doug Emhoff, who has played an outspoken role in the administration's efforts to combat antisemitism.

Netanyahu did not speak publicly after his meeting with Harris. His trip was scheduled before Biden dropped his reelection bid, but the meeting with Harris was watched closely for clues to her views on Israel.

"She is in a tricky situation and walking a tightrope where she’s still the vice president and the president really is the one who leads on the foreign policy agenda," said Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, a Democrat whose city is home to one of the largest Arab American communities in the nation. "But as the candidate, the presumptive nominee, she has to now create the space to differentiate in order for her to chart a new course."

Protesters gathered outside Union Station on the day of Netanyahu's speech, ripping down American flags and spray painting "Hamas is coming."

Harris sharply criticized those actions, saying there were "despicable acts by unpatriotic protesters and dangerous hate-fueled rhetoric. "

"I support the right to peacefully protest, but let’s be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation," she said in a statement.

As vice president, Harris has tried to show little daylight between herself and Biden. But David Rothkopf, a foreign policy writer who has met with her, said there's been "a noticeable difference in tone, particularly in regards to concern for the plight of innocent Palestinians."

The difference was on display in Selma, Alabama, in March, when Harris commemorated the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march for voting rights in 1965.

During her speech, Harris said that "given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate ceasefire."

The audience broke out in applause. A few sentences later, Harris emphasized that it was up to Hamas to accept the deal that had been offered. But her demand for a ceasefire still resonated in ways that Biden's comments had not.

An AP-NORC poll conducted in June found that about 6 in 10 Democrats disapproved of the way Biden is handling the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Roughly the same number said Israel's military response in Gaza had gone too far.

Israeli analysts said they doubted that Harris would present a dramatic shift in policies toward their country.

Chuck Freilich, a former Israeli deputy national security adviser and senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank, said Harris was from a generation of American politicians who felt they could both support Israel and publicly criticize its policies.

"The question is as president, what would she do?" Freilich said. "I think she would put considerably more pressure on Israel on the Palestinian issue overall."