An Indian woman from Kashmir who had sought immediate evacuation from the war-torn Hamas-ruled Gaza has safely reached Egypt with the help of Indian missions in the region, according to her husband.

Lubna Nazir Shaboo and her daughter Karima, crossed the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza on Monday evening.

“They are in al-Arish (a city in Egypt). Tomorrow morning (Tuesday) they will move to Cairo,” Lubna’s husband Nedal Toman said in a text message sent to PTI from Gaza.

The only exit route from Gaza, the Rafah crossing with Egypt, has been infrequently opened the past few weeks to let humanitarian supplies enter Gaza and also let some foreign nationals and wounded people cross over to the other side.

In a telephone call to PTI on Sunday, Lubna confirmed that her name was among the people who could leave Gaza and thanked profusely the Indian missions in the region — in Ramallah, Tel Aviv and Cairo — for making this possible.

On October 10, Lubna had reached out to PTI over the phone seeking help for evacuation.

“We are facing a brutal war here and everything is being destroyed and bombarded in a matter of seconds,” she had told PTI.

Following the unprecedented attacks by Hamas militants on October 7 in the southern areas of the Jewish state, Israel declared war launching a counter-offensive with the twin objectives of ousting Hamas, which has ruled the coastal Strip since 2007, and freeing around 240 people who were taken hostage by the Islamic faction.

“The sounds of bombardment are too scary and the whole house shakes. It is a very, very scary situation,” Lubna had told PTI before moving with her family to the southern part of Gaza where she spent several days with acquaintances before being evacuated.

She had mentioned that their “water supply was officially cut off” in the middle of the night of October 9 and they were without electricity, which made them decide to move to the south and seek help in evacuation.

Lubna had also said that she hadn’t seen anything like this before and had two families living with them who had to run away after bombardment in the bordering areas of Gaza.

“We are not able to go anywhere because there is no safe place for us anywhere and the Gaza Strip is too small and it is closed from every side. There are no exit points over here,” she said.

“I have already asked for help from the Representative office of India in Ramallah to help me get to a safer place along with my husband and my daughter,” she had said in a video message sent to PTI.

Five members of a family were killed in a house fire on Sunday in Hounslow, west London, police and the fire service said. Seema Ratra died along with her three children, while their father Aroen Kishen is thought to have survived and been taken to hospital, Sky News said in a report. One more person, also a member of the family, was present on the spot and remains unaccounted for, the outlet further said. There was no immediate indication what caused the fire at the property near Heathrow airport and a neighbour dismissed suggestions that Diwali fireworks were to blame.

Speaking to Sky News, the neighbour Felicia Matei said she fled their home due to the fire that broke out at 10.20pm on Diwali night. The woman added she heard Mr Kishen screaming “my kids, my kids”.

“It was a big fire. I screamed to my family and said we need to run away,” said Ms Matei.

The fire engulfed two floors and the roof of the house. Seventy fire engines were present on the spot and battled the blaze till Monday morning.

Other people living in the area told Independent that fireworks for Diwali celebrations were the loudest in decades, and that they saw flames flickering on the trees with the whole area shrouded in smoke “like a mist”.

“It was so loud. Then the ambulances started coming. It is very sad. I can’t believe it. How there could be five deaths? How was it so quick?” Sayed Arfeem, aged 80, told the outlet.

Chief Superintendent Sean Wilson called it a “terrible incident” and said the London Fire Brigade will work tirelessly to find the reason behind the tragedy.

The India-US joint mission to study climate change with the world’s most expensive Earth imaging satellite is in its final stages and the launch is expected in the first quarter of 2024, a senior NASA official has said. 

Speaking exclusively to NDTV on Tuesday, Laurie Leshin, the Director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) will also help in predicting hazards like earthquakes and tsunamis, and that respect for India’s space programme is “off the charts” after Chandrayaan-3. 

Purpose, Impact

NISAR is a low earth orbit observatory being developed by ISRO and NASA, which will map the entire Earth in 12 days and provide consistent data for understanding changes in the planet’s ecosystems, ice mass, vegetation, sea level rise, groundwater levels and natural hazards, including earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and landslides.

On how the satellite will make a difference in the life of the common man, Ms Leshin said, “Understanding how the Earth’s surface is changing is really important for understanding the impacts of climate change… NISAR will allow us to observe with precision small changes in that surface. Everyone should care about melting ice sheets and changing forests, and earthquakes and volcanoes, so it really will impact people’s lives everywhere.”

The NASA official said watching things changing on the Earth’s surface will help scientists understand the physics behind the change and better predict what is coming in the future. 

Collaboration

“We are so thrilled with the collaboration between NASA and ISRO on NISAR. This is the biggest collaboration on something technological between our two nations and certainly the biggest collaboration in the history of space exploration between the US and India. I am sure this is the beginning of many more things to come,” Ms Leshin said. 

“It is one thing to talk about it at a very high level and leadership talking about collaboration, but we have had 30 or 40 engineers at a time here in Bengaluru working shoulder-to-shoulder with their ISRO colleagues for over nine months,” she added. 

Scientists from ISRO also spent time working on the radar at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and it  was then brought to Bengaluru to be mated with the spacecraft. “Overall, the teams have worked together spectacularly well,” Ms Leshin asserted.

“Many Ways To Success”

Asked about NASA’s key learnings from the collaboration, Ms Leshin said, “We are learning that there are many ways to be successful in space. We are learning from each other. If you talk to our colleagues at ISRO, they would say they have learnt from us and my colleagues say we have absolutely learnt from India in how they do their work. And that is good for everyone. Innovation loves new ideas coming together.”

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s director said that respect for India’s space programme, which was already high, has gone up after the historic success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission.

“We are so impressed with Chandrayaan-3 and the future plans for Indian space exploration, and we look forward to having many more partnerships between NASA and ISRO. The respect for India’s space programme – it was already very high because India has accomplished so much in space – but now it’s off the charts.”  

Launch Next Year

The director said the launch of NISAR is expected in the first quarter of 2024 and both space agencies have decided to go ahead with it only when they are ready. The spacecraft will undergo a series of tests after the solar panels are attached to ensure that it will survive and do its job in the space environment.