In a recent operation that highlights the complex links between different terrorist groups in the Middle East, the Israeli army (IDF) rescued a 21-year-old Yazidi woman from the Gaza Strip. This intervention reveals a story of survival spanning a decade and crossing the borders of Iraq, Syria and Gaza.
Fawzia, the young woman rescued, was only 11 years old when she was taken from her family by the Islamic State (Daesh) in Iraq. His ordeal began in 2014, at a time when ISIS was extending its grip over vast territories in Iraq and Syria. Like thousands of other Yazidi girls and women, Fawzia was the victim of human trafficking, sold to a Gaza resident who then took her to the Palestinian territory.
Fawzia’s rescue was orchestrated by the IDF’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) Unit. After her extraction from Gaza, she was reunited with her mother in Sinjar, a Yazidis town in western Iraq, near the Syrian border. According to the United Nations, approximately 5,000 Yazidis were murdered and more than 10,000 were trafficked. The city of Sinjar, conquered by Daesh, has become the symbol of this tragedy, marked by mass murders, rapes and forced conversions to Islam.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry relayed this story on social media, stressing that it “reminds us of the cruelty faced by Yazidi children kidnapped against their will.” The ministry also took this opportunity to recall that “101 Israelis are still being held hostage in Gaza.”
