Fawzia Amin Sido

Fawzia Amin Sido (Kurdish: Fewziya Emîn Seydo, فەوزییە ئەمین سیدۆ, ) is a Kurdish Yazidi woman from northern Iraq. She was captured by the Islamic State as a 10-year-old child, (Gaza's government media office said she was 3 or 4 years older, The IDF said that the airstrike killed her captors.) Sido leaving Gaza was complicated by the tensions between Iraq and Israel. a month before her 11th birthday. It happened on the same day the Islamic State overran Sinjar District. Two of her brothers were also captured, but were released 8 months later. Since her kidnapping, her family had little communication with her. By the end of 2018, after the Syrian Democratic Forces defeated the Islamic State, 15-year-old Sido lost contact with al-Makdisi, who fled to Idlib, Once there, she was abused by the family, who saw her as "a kind of domestic slave". She appeared to have been married to one of her old husband's brothers, who was later killed fighting against Israel. Isolated from her family, community, homeland, and language, all while having to care for her children, she was in extreme distress. US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said she was "kidnapped by ISIS in Iraq, sold and forced to marry a Hamas fighter in Gaza, moved to Gaza against her will". The Voice of America interview said that she chose to go to Gaza out of fear that her family would reject her and her children. The Israel Defense Forces claimed that Sido had been held captive by a "Hamas terrorist affiliated with ISIS".

She stated that Hamas treated her as a slave, and that after the October 7 attacks, Hamas had sent her to work as a slave in a hospital. She and other young women resided at the Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah, patrolled by armed Hamas fighters. She claimed that "all hospitals were used as Hamas bases. They all had weapons. There were weapons everywhere."

Interrogation by authorities in Gaza

CNN reported Fawzia as saying, "Hamas constantly harassed me due to my Yazidi background and contact with my family, even going so far as to format my phone during their investigations. After a year, they moved me to a guest house." Despite feeling marginally safer in her current location, she conveyed her despair, questioning the purpose of sharing her story, stating, "Is there any benefit in me talking to you about my life, or is it just tiring me out? Because many have asked me and I told them everything, but unfortunately to no avail". Furthermore, she added “I am exhausted here in Gaza. Every now and then Hamas would take me and my phone and torture me,” stating that presently where she was located at the time of the interview, Hamas barely operates and does not control the area, making her feel safer and freer. Gaza's government media office released a statement on 4 October 2024 that denied the Israeli version of events. Despite her constantly mentioning the abuse she faced, Hamas claimed she willingly lived in Gaza and only wanted to leave because of the war, and that the IDF "promoted a false narrative and a fabricated story about the Yazidi girl who was in the Gaza Strip and narrated fabricated events that have no truth or basis."

She also spoke to Israeli media before leaving the Gaza Strip, using the name "Lucia" .

Airstrike

The Jerusalem Post said that in Gaza she was living with her two young children "at the home of her former husband’s family".

Children

Major news reports published when Fawzia left the Gaza Strip did not mention what happened to her children or whether they survived the airstrike on the family's house. After she left the Gaza Strip, Brig. Gen. Elad Goren, who oversees Israeli humanitarian efforts in Gaza, remarked that Sido appeared to be physically well but was "not in a good mental situation" after years of daily abuse.