GAZA: On the Gaza-Israel border women are an integral part of the tent protests that have transformed a once-deserted restricted zone.
Some provide food, water and social media support — and some, although in much smaller numbers than men, roll burning tires and hurl stones at the Israeli border fence.
Since March 30, when the protests began, hundreds of women have taken part, sometimes with their entire families.
“Some tell us we can’t do what men do, some are afraid we will get hurt and others encourage us,” Aya Abeid, 18, said.
Twice she managed to plant a Palestinian flag at the fortified wire fence that separates Gaza from Israel, a place most do not dare approach in demonstrations that have seen more than 40 Palestinians shot dead by Israeli troops. Abeid has used a slingshot against those same Israeli soldiers.
There have been no women among the dead although at least 250 women have been wounded.
“I was injured two weeks ago in my thigh as I rolled tires,” she said. “Hopefully, I will be able to attend this Friday and do what I usually do, here is my slingshot ready.”
As Israel celebrates its 70th birthday, Palestinians mourn what they call the “Nakba” (Catastrophe) of their people’s mass-dispossession during the conflict that broke out in 1948.
Two-thirds of Gaza’s 2 million Palestinians are war refugees or their descendants. “The Great March of Return,” as the Gaza border protests have been dubbed, has seen thousands gather — in greater numbers on Fridays — to demand access to their families’ lost homes or lands, now in Israel.
Israel rules that out, concerned it would lose its Jewish majority. Alternatives, such as accommodating refugees and their descendants in a future Palestinian state, have been discussed in peace talks that date back to 1993 but which are now stalled.
At the tent camp in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Taheyah Qdeih filled bottles with drinking water to distribute to people staying in tents and along the frontier.
The 49-year-old, whose family originally comes from Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv, has made it her mission almost every day.
“When I was young I used to hurl stones at the soldiers,” she said. “I am from Jaffa and I believe we will return. Am I crazy like the Jews may say? No, I am not. I am a believer.”
Israel’s military and political leadership have defended the use of live fire against protesters, saying that they will continue to protect the border with Gaza — a territory under the control of Hamas Islamists sworn to Israel’s destruction.
Palestinians have accused Israel of using excessive force against unarmed demonstrators.
Riding on a donkey cart, 48-year-old Jehad Abu Muhsen brought the youths 15 tires to burn. She collected them from car mechanics’ shops. “I do it three or four days a week, especially on Friday. This is what I can do to help,” she told Reuters.
Among 15 undergraduate nursing students at her class, Shorouq Abu Musameh decided to volunteer and be with paramedics deployed along the border.
“I wanted to do my part in supporting the marches of return,” said Abu Musameh, her white uniform stained with the blood of the wounded. “I say to myself my uniform may protect me, or maybe not.”
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In Gaza, women protest among the burning tires and smoke
In Gaza, women protest among the burning tires and smoke
- “Some tell us we can’t do what men do, some are afraid we will get hurt and others encourage us”
- “I am from Jaffa and I believe we will return. Am I crazy like the Jews may say? No, I am not. I am a believer”
How succession works in Iran and who will be the country’s next supreme leader?
DUBAI: The death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after almost 37 years in power raises paramount questions about the country’s future. The contours of a complex succession process began to take shape the morning after Khamenei’s assassination.
Here is what to know:
A temporary leadership council assumes duties
As outlined in its constitution, Iran on Sunday formed a council to assume leadership duties and govern the country.
The council is made up of Iran’s sitting president, the head of the country’s judiciary and a member of the Guardian Council chosen by Iran’s Expediency Council, which advises the supreme leader and settles disputes with parliament.
Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian and hard-line judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei are its members who will step in and “temporarily assume all the duties of leadership.”
A panel of clerics selects a new supreme leader
Though the leadership council will govern in the interim, an 88-member panel called the Assembly of Experts “must, as soon as possible” pick a new supreme leader under Iranian law.
The panel consists entirely of Shiite clerics who are popularly elected every eight years and whose candidacies are approved by the Guardian Council, Iran’s constitutional watchdog. That body is known for disqualifying candidates in various elections in Iran and the Assembly of Experts is no different. The Guardian Council barred former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate whose administration struck the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, from election for the Assembly of Experts in March 2024.
Khamenei’s son could be a possible contender
Clerical deliberations about succession and machinations over it take place far from the public eye, making it hard to gauge who may be a top contender.
Previously, it was thought Khamenei’s protégé, hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi, may try to take the mantle. However, he was killed in a May 2024 helicopter crash. That has left one of Khamenei’s sons, Mojtaba, a 56-year-old Shiite cleric, as a potential candidate, though he has never held government office. But a father-to-son transfer in the case of a supreme leader could spark anger, not only among Iranians already critical of clerical rule, but also among supporters of the system. Some may see it as un-Islamic and in line with creating a new, religious dynasty after the 1979 collapse of the US-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s government.
A transition like this has happened only once before
There has been only one other transfer of power in the office of supreme leader of Iran, the paramount decision-maker since the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In 1989, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died at age 86 after being the figurehead of the revolution and leading Iran through its bloody eight-year war with Iraq. This transition now comes after Israel launched a 12-day war against Iran in June 2025 as well.
The vast powers of a supreme leader
The supreme leader is at the heart of Iran’s complex power-sharing Shiite theocracy and has final say over all matters of state.
He also serves as the commander-in-chief of the country’s military and the powerful Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force that the United States designated a terrorist organization in 2019 and which Khamenei empowered during his rule. The Guard, which has led the self-described “Axis of Resistance,” a series of militant groups and allies across the Middle East meant to counter the US and Israel, also has extensive wealth and holdings in Iran.
Here is what to know:
A temporary leadership council assumes duties
As outlined in its constitution, Iran on Sunday formed a council to assume leadership duties and govern the country.
The council is made up of Iran’s sitting president, the head of the country’s judiciary and a member of the Guardian Council chosen by Iran’s Expediency Council, which advises the supreme leader and settles disputes with parliament.
Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian and hard-line judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei are its members who will step in and “temporarily assume all the duties of leadership.”
A panel of clerics selects a new supreme leader
Though the leadership council will govern in the interim, an 88-member panel called the Assembly of Experts “must, as soon as possible” pick a new supreme leader under Iranian law.
The panel consists entirely of Shiite clerics who are popularly elected every eight years and whose candidacies are approved by the Guardian Council, Iran’s constitutional watchdog. That body is known for disqualifying candidates in various elections in Iran and the Assembly of Experts is no different. The Guardian Council barred former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate whose administration struck the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, from election for the Assembly of Experts in March 2024.
Khamenei’s son could be a possible contender
Clerical deliberations about succession and machinations over it take place far from the public eye, making it hard to gauge who may be a top contender.
Previously, it was thought Khamenei’s protégé, hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi, may try to take the mantle. However, he was killed in a May 2024 helicopter crash. That has left one of Khamenei’s sons, Mojtaba, a 56-year-old Shiite cleric, as a potential candidate, though he has never held government office. But a father-to-son transfer in the case of a supreme leader could spark anger, not only among Iranians already critical of clerical rule, but also among supporters of the system. Some may see it as un-Islamic and in line with creating a new, religious dynasty after the 1979 collapse of the US-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s government.
A transition like this has happened only once before
There has been only one other transfer of power in the office of supreme leader of Iran, the paramount decision-maker since the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In 1989, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died at age 86 after being the figurehead of the revolution and leading Iran through its bloody eight-year war with Iraq. This transition now comes after Israel launched a 12-day war against Iran in June 2025 as well.
The vast powers of a supreme leader
The supreme leader is at the heart of Iran’s complex power-sharing Shiite theocracy and has final say over all matters of state.
He also serves as the commander-in-chief of the country’s military and the powerful Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force that the United States designated a terrorist organization in 2019 and which Khamenei empowered during his rule. The Guard, which has led the self-described “Axis of Resistance,” a series of militant groups and allies across the Middle East meant to counter the US and Israel, also has extensive wealth and holdings in Iran.
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