After ten years: Fawzia Amin Sido, a Yazidi girl kidnapped by ISIS in Iraq and brought to Gaza at the age of 11, was rescued this week by IDF forces from the Gaza Strip and reunited with her family.

Fawzia, a Yazidi girl kidnapped by ISIS from Iraq and brought to Gaza at just 11 years old, has finally been rescued by the Israeli security forces.

For years, she was held captive by a Palestinian Hamas-ISIS member.

She has now been reunited with her family. Her story is a… pic.twitter.com/nkVotqYdov

— David Saranga (@DavidSaranga) October 3, 2024

Israel's official Arabic-language X account shared the news and emotional footage showing Fawzia reuniting with her family.

"Fawzia was held for years by a Palestinian affiliated with Hamas-ISIS," read the post. "Her story reminds us of the cruelty Yazidi children suffered when abducted against their will." The post also added: "We must remember that 101 Israeli hostages are still being held in Gaza."

The IDF released a statement detailing the operation's behind-the-scenes. According to the statement, the terrorist holding Fawzia was killed, likely during IDF airstrikes in Gaza, and she managed to flee to a hiding place. Following complex coordination between Israel, the US Embassy in Israel, the United States, and other international partners, she was secretly extracted from Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing in recent days.

After entering Israel, Fawzia continued to Jordan through the Allenby Bridge crossing. From there, she returned to her family in Iraq.

The post IDF rescues Yazidi woman kidnapped by ISIS in Iraq appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

The victim, Ashwaq Hajji Hameed, appeared on Iraqi television and demanded the attacker Abu Humam look her in the eye, but he refused to do so.

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Video: Al-Iraqiya

"Why did you do that to me?', she said, after which she collapsed.

According to international media reports, Hameed was taken forcibly by the terrorist group when she was 14 and then used as a sex slave. She eventually fled to Germany, only to bump into her attacker on a street in Stuttgart.

As a result of that encounter, she returned to Iraq, saying that she was frightened after the attacker stopped her on the street and told her he knew where she lived.

The post 'Why did you do that to me?,' Yazidi woman tells ISIS rapist appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Eighteen mental health workers arrived in Israel for an intensive two-week workshop teaching them how to treat the symptoms of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) and other trauma.

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Over the past four years, Bar-Ilan University researchers Dr. Yaakov Hoffman, of the Interdisciplinary Department of Social Sciences, and Professor Ari Zivotofsky, of the Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, have conducted studies among Yazidi women held captive by Islamic State terrorist group.

They found that over 50% of them suffer from C-PTSD, while 23% suffer from standard post-traumatic stress disorder.

Though C-PTSD is a fundamentally different disorder than PTSD, they discovered that in best-case scenarios, the women have only been treated for PTSD.

The researchers say that administering PTSD intervention for C-PTSD is not only incorrect, but it may also be detrimental.

"We feel a moral obligation not only to study the effects of genocide but to share our know-how to assist those suffering from it,"  Dr. Hoffman said.

To this end, participants in the workshop received training on PTSD, C-PTSD, depression, suicide, insomnia, and more.

Seminars were conducted by American and Israeli experts, including Israel Hayom Opinion Editor Steve Ganot, who held a session for participants on the history of Israel and the Jewish people.

"We see efforts like this as our responsibility as a university to take our research, our knowledge, and our understanding one step forward in order to generate real, positive impact in the world," University President Professor Arie Zaban said.

The program was made possible through the generosity of Rachel Gindi and Alan and Barbara Gindi, the predominant funders, along with the Hitter Family Foundation and Alan Zekelman.

Workshop participants also visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, an Israeli Druze community, Jerusalem and its holy sites, and more.

Former Prisoner of Zion Natan Sharansky greeted the women and spoke about the late Russian nuclear physicist, dissident, Nobel laureate, and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov.

Sharansky was a close aide and friend of Sakharov and was particularly interested in meeting workshop participant Lamiya Aji Bashar, a former Islamic State captive who today is a human rights activist.

Lamiya Aji Bashar won the 2016 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought with Yazidi human rights advocate Nadia Murad. Murad's family was killed in the genocide, but she managed to flee.

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