 "Fawzia Amin Sido (R) in Iraq after being rescued in a recent operation involving Israel, the United States, and Iraq. Image courtesy: Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs")
A 21-year-old Yazidi woman, who was abducted at the age of 11, was rescued from Gaza this week in an operation involving Israel, the United States, and Iraq that had been in the works for several months.
Her escape was likely made possible after her captor was “presumably killed” in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza. In a statement, the Israeli army said, “She was recently rescued in a secret mission from the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing.”
“Upon her entry into Israel, she continued to Jordan through the Allenby Bridge crossing and from there returned to her family in Iraq,” it added.
What do we know about the woman and the rescue?
The woman, identified as Fawzia Amin Sido, was freed after over four months of efforts, including several failed attempts due to the challenging security situation in Gaza, where Israel was conducting a military operation, Silwan Sinjaree, the chief of staff for Iraq’s foreign minister told Reuters.
The Iraqi foreign ministry confirmed her return and praised the partnership between the United States and Jordan. Without mentioning Gaza or Israel, the ministry said, “The girl was handed over to her family this (Thursday) evening after returning to Iraq.”
Meanwhile, in Washington, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller stated that the girl was only 11 years old when she was “kidnapped by ISIS in Iraq, sold and forced to marry a Hamas fighter in Gaza, moved to Gaza against her will.”
“The recent death of her captor in Gaza allowed her to escape, and we were contacted by the Iraqi government, who was made aware of the fact that she escaped, that she was alive, and that she wanted to come home to her family,” he further said, adding that the US “worked with a number of our partners in the region to get her out of Gaza, to get her safely home.”
A video shared by Canadian philanthropist Steve Maman shows Fawzia Sido reuniting with her family in Iraq. Sharing the video on X, Maman wrote, “I made a promise to Fawzia the Yazidi who was hostage of Hamas in Gaza that I would bring her back home to her mother in Sinjar. To her it seemed surreal and impossible but not to me, my only enemy was time. Our team reunited her moments ago with her mother and family in Sinjar.”
Brigadier General Elad Goren of Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), also spoke about the woman’s journey but did not specify how she was moved from Iraq to Gaza.
Speaking at a briefing, he said, “ISIS sold her to one person from Hamas, but she’s been held by a group from Hamas.” “(It’s) further proof of the ideological links between Hamas and ISIS,” he added.
Israeli officials have consistently drawn parallels between Hamas, the Palestinian militant group ruling Gaza since 2007, and IS, whose extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam saw them target not only non-Muslim communities like Iraq’s Yazidis but also Shiite Muslims.
Goren informed that the woman was physically healthy “but not in a good mental situation”. He said, “She wasn’t hurt physically but we understand that the experience she had was terrible.”
Who are the Yazidis and what happened to them?
The ancient Yazidi religious minority, whose faith is rooted in Zoroastrianism, is primarily located in Iraq and Syria. In 2014, the Islamic State group launched a brutal campaign against the Yazidis, killing over 5,000 people and kidnapping thousands more in what the United Nations (UN) has recognised as genocide.
The Islamic State group’s assault on the Yazidi community in Sinjar, northern Iraq, resulted in the massacre of many men and the enslavement of girls and women. Following these atrocities, around 100,000 Yazidis sought refuge in Europe, the United States, Australia, and Canada, according to the UN.
According to Iraqi authorities, over 3,500 Yazidis have been rescued or freed, but around 2,600 remain missing. While many are feared dead, Yazidi activists believe that hundreds may still be alive.
The Israeli military has been fighting against Hamas in Gaza since the group’s large-scale attack on Israel almost a year ago, which left 1,205 people dead. In response, Israel’s military offensive in Gaza has led to the deaths of at least 41,788 people, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.
With inputs from agencies