Families displaced by Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon have found shelter at the Saints Peter and Paul Monastery in the village of Qattine. Clergy there opened their doors to those fleeing the violence, offering food, shelter and a place to pray as thousands across the south remain unable to return home.
Published On 16 Mar 202616 Mar 2026
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Displaced families in Sidon are turning their vehicles into makeshift shelters, covering them with tarp to shield themselves from the rain after failing to find space in local schools. Hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes as Israel’s offensive in Lebanon intensifies.
Published On 15 Mar 202615 Mar 2026
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Gaza City, the Gaza Strip – Shortly before the call to sunset prayer, Islam Dardouna stretches her hand towards a pot hanging over a makeshift stove fashioned from a battered metal can, with scraps of paper and pieces of wood feeding the fire beneath it.
Then she pauses. She turns her face away from the rising tongues of smoke. Her face stained with a thin layer of soot and her clothes steeped in the lingering smell of fumes, she takes a deep breath but does not immediately lift the lid.
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In her right hand, Dardouna holds an asthma inhaler as though it were a ladle or tongs. With her other hand, she tries to prepare food for her three children.
“I can no longer tolerate the fire at all,” the 34-year-old says in a strained voice as she raises the inhaler to her mouth.
“We heat water on it, cook on it … everything. It completely destroyed my health,” she said, pointing to her chest.
Dardouna has been displaced from Jabalia in northern Gaza since the start of Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the territory in October 2023.
She now lives with her husband – 37-year-old Muath Dardouna – and their children in Sheikh Ajleen, west of Gaza City.
A year and a half ago, their home was destroyed. Since then, the family has moved from place to place until they eventually settled in this camp alongside other displaced families.
Everything changed after the war began. But for Dardouna, having to cook daily over an open fire in the face of cooking gas and fuel ranks among the worst.
“Our entire life now is a struggle, searching for wood and things we never imagined we would need one day,” she says. “There is no cooking gas and no gas cylinders. We lost all of that during displacement.”
What makes the situation even harder is that she suffers from asthma and chronic chest allergies, conditions she says began during Israel’s 2008 war on Gaza when she inhaled the smoke of a phosphorus bomb that dropped on her house. Her situation improved over the years, but has dramatically worsened during the current war.
“I developed airway obstruction, and recently there were masses found in my lungs,” said Dardouna, who in January was hospitalised for six days after suffering from oxygen shortage.
“The doctors prescribed an oxygen cylinder for me,” she says, quietly. “But unfortunately, I cannot afford it.”
Like so many others across Gaza, Dardouna is struggling amid a prolonged shortage of cooking gas and fuel that has persisted since the start of the war.
Supplies have remained severely limited even after a “ceasefire” came into effect in October that included provisions allowing the entry of fuel and essential goods into the territory.
However, the quantities that have entered since then remain far below the population’s actual needs, according to official sources in Gaza and United Nations agencies.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says the availability of cooking gas in Gaza remains “critically constrained”, with the limited quantities entering the territory covering less than three percent of what is required.
As a result, many families have been forced to rely on alternative and often hazardous cooking methods.
UN data indicates that about 54.5 percent of households rely on firewood for cooking, roughly 43 percent burn waste or plastic, and only around 1.5 percent are able to cook with gas.
Humanitarian groups warn that such unsafe alternatives endanger people’s health and the environment due to prolonged exposure to smoke and toxic fumes produced by burning plastic and other waste.
Amid these conditions, cooking over open fires made from wood, scrap materials or plastic has become a daily reality across displacement camps and neighbourhoods throughout Gaza.
The crisis has intensified during the Muslim holy month Ramadan, when families must prepare both suhoor meals before their daily fast and iftar meals afterwards.
Firewood has become expensive, requiring a daily budget. Lighting the fire before dawn is also often difficult due to the lack of lighting and unfavourable weather conditions, so the family often skips the pre-dawn meal entirely.
“Today, for example, it’s raining and windy. I couldn’t light the fire,” said Darduna’s husband, Muath, who is also helping out with the daily cooking.
“Even when we break our fast, we wish we could drink a cup of tea or coffee afterwards, but we can’t, because lighting the fire again is another struggle.”
A former psychosocial support worker for children, Muath says it pains him to see his children fasting without suhoor.
“Every detail of our lives is literally suffering,” he says. “Fetching water is suffering. Cooking is suffering. Even going to the bathroom is suffering. We are truly exhausted,” he added.
“Our lives are covered in soot,” Muath says, pointing to the black smoke stains left by the fire.
He describes gas as “one of our dreams”, recalling how “it felt like Eid day” when the family got a gas cylinder a few months ago. “But we don’t even have the stove to use it, and many families are like us,” he said.
“We are living on the edge of nothing. Displacement and war stripped us of everything,” he adds. “We are willing to live with the simplest rights in tents. But there is no heating, no gas, no lighting. It feels like we are living in open graves on Earth.”
In a statement on Wednesday, the General Petroleum Authority in Gaza warned of the “catastrophic and dangerous consequences of the continued halt in cooking gas supplies” to the territory, stressing that the crisis “directly affects the lives of more than two million residents” amid already dire humanitarian conditions.
The authority said Gaza had already been facing a shortfall of about 70 percent of its actual gas needs compared with the quantities that entered after the “ceasefire” announcement.
It added that the “complete suspension of gas supplies places the Gaza Strip before a looming disaster that threatens food and health security”, particularly during Ramadan.
The authority also said that preventing gas from entering the enclave constitutes a “clear violation of the ceasefire understandings”, calling on mediators and international actors to intervene urgently to ensure the regular flow of cooking gas into Gaza.
Across Gaza, many families now rely on ready-made meals from aid distributions and charity kitchens because of economic collapse and the difficulty of cooking.
“Even when food arrives ready hours before iftar,” Muath says, “heating it becomes another problem.”
The frustration of daily survival pushes Muath to the brink.
“As a father now, I cannot even provide the most basic things,” he says. “Imagine my son simply wants a cup of tea … even a little wind can stop me from making it.”
In a nearby tent, Amani Aed al-Bashleqi, 26, sits watching food being cooked over an open fire for iftar while her husband stirs the pot.
She said cooking on fire makes food taste “flavourless” – not because the taste changes, but because “exhaustion and suffering have become part of every bite”.
“We start cooking early so we can finish by iftar, and after breaking the fast, my husband and I are completely exhausted and covered in soot.”
Like Dardouna, al-Bashleqi says the smoke causes severe headaches and health problems.
“The fire suffocates you. All the women in the camp suffer health problems from cooking on fire,” she says. “But we have no choice.”
She has a seven-month-old baby, and her biggest worry is boiling water for his milk.
“Sometimes I boil water and keep it in a borrowed thermos, but I don’t always have one,” she says. “And sometimes when he wakes up at night, I mix the milk with water without boiling it, even though I know that’s not healthy. But what can I do?”
Nearby, Iman Junaid, 34, displaced from Jabalia to western Gaza City, sits with her husband Jihad, 36, in front of the fire preparing food.
Junaid blows on the flames while she pushes an empty plastic oil bottle under the fire.
Behind them, bags full of plastic bottles are piled up. The family collected them to fuel the fire because cooking gas has been unavailable for months.
A mother of six, Junaid says she knows the health dangers of burning plastic, but has “no other choice”.
“My little daughter is one year old, and her chest always hurts because she inhales the smoke,” she says. “Our life is collecting and burning plastic and nylon.”
“With the price of wood rising, we now wish we could even find wood. Gas has become almost impossible … we’ve forgotten it.”
She said there were many promises that gas would enter Gaza after the “ceasefire”, but “nothing happened”.
For Dardounah, the solution is not simply bringing cooking gas into Gaza. “What we need is for life to become possible again,” she says.
“Let gas enter. Let goods enter at reasonable prices. Let there be basic necessities for a normal life.”
WHAT’S your check list for a family holiday that keeps everyone happy? Several pools? Water slides? Beach access? Good kids club?
This month, the TUI Holiday Village in Sarigerme, Dalaman, was voted TUI’s best family-friendly hotel in the world.
The Magic Life property on the edge of the Aegean Sea has 253 rooms, five pools and four restaurants… and enough activities to keep guests busy for an entire month.
I visited for a week last summer with my 6 year old and was blown away by the offering.
As a Travel Editor for nearly a decade, I’ve slept in some of the world’s best places, from five-star resorts to Disney theme park hotels.
But this flagship Holiday Village property by TUI got a 10 out of 10 for many things, from food and cleanliness to extracurriculars.
I’ve been to five-star hotels with far poorer service and fewer food choices.
On my family’s trip our days were so busy I had to schedule everything.
We filled our days with Go Ape-style aerial adventures, drama classes, inflatable obstacle courses, discos, game show challenges, arcades…
There truly was something for everyone, including football and swimming lessons, or even chocolate parties.
Despite scorching temperatures in August hitting 48C, the staff were amazing.
The entertainment team were always on form, the food at breakfast, lunch and dinner was delicious, the poolside was immaculate and the rooms were spotless.
Breakfast was enormous, with every taste catered for — Turkish pastries, English favourites, about six types of eggs, continental, and a huge fruit selection.
Lunch by the pool was equally impressive, with a huge mezze selection consisting of about 40 different dishes.
But the best meal was dinner, with an even more expansive mezze selection, soups, salads and several hot food stations serving everything from pizza to gourmet to-order dishes, and a pudding buffet of dreams.
They also had themed nights, when the entire menu was changed — our favourites being the Turkish and Asian evenings.
And they had a separate kitchen for kids’ food at all meals.
There were three a-la-carte restaurants too, serving American, European and Asian dishes.
At night, most of the hotel decamped to the 500-seat amphitheatre to watch the entertainment.
One evening towards the end of our holiday, my son and ten others put on a half-hour show that was deeply impressive given the minimal six hours of rehearsals that had taken part in the run-up.
Also part of the evening entertainment schedule were DJs, dance contests, quizzes and a musical.
Admittedly, you have to be a certain type of person to enjoy this hotel.
“Never a dull moment” extends to all times of the day, with a full-on range of activities taking place by the pool during the afternoon.
But if that’s you, then the TUI Village Sarigerme really does offer everything the whole family could want from a holiday.
Seven night all-inclusive holidays at the hotel start from £655pp, with return UK flights.
LAREDO, Texas — A month after ICE agents sent the young Ecuadoran mother and her 7-year-old daughter to a sprawling detention center 1,300 miles from their Minnesota home, they were finally free.
But when the bus pulled up to a migrant shelter in the Texas border city of Laredo, dropping off a half-dozen families lugging bags stuffed with belongings, the stress of recent weeks tracked mother and daughter like the long shadows on that mid-February afternoon.
Night after night inside south Texas’ Dilley Immigration Processing Center with hundreds of other families, the grade-schooler wept and pleaded to know why they were being held.
“She would tell me, ‘Mom, what crime did I commit to be a prisoner?’ I didn’t know what to tell her,” said the 29-year-old, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear being identified could negatively affect their immigration case. Her husband was deported to Ecuador soon after they were taken into custody.
Many Americans were alarmed last month when photos circulated showing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis detaining a 5-year-old boy wearing a bunny hat and carrying a Spider-Man backpack. The concern followed Liam Conejo Ramos and his father when they were sent to Dilley, surrounded by chain-link fences on a dusty plain about 75 miles south of San Antonio.
But Liam was hardly an outlier. ICE has been holding hundreds of children at Dilley — many for months.
“We are all Liam,” Christian Hinojosa, an immigrant from Mexico, said by phone from Dilley, where she and her 13-year-old son were held for more than four months. They were released this month and allowed to return home to San Antonio, where she works as a health aide.
She noted that Liam and his father were released from Dilley after 10 days, after members of Congress and a judge intervened.
“My son says, ‘That’s unfair, Mama. What’s the difference between him and us?’”
When the Obama administration opened Dilley in 2014, nearly all families detained there had recently crossed the border from Mexico. Detentions at the facility were scaled back by the Biden administration in 2021, before it was closed three years later.
Since being reopened by President Trump’s administration last spring, life inside Dilley — a compound of trailers and other prefabricated buildings — has been shaped by three decisive changes.
The number of detained families has risen sharply since last fall. The government is holding many children well beyond the 20-day limit set by long-standing court order. And many detainees have lived in the U.S. for several years, with roots in neighborhoods, workplaces and schools, according to lawyers and other observers.
“Just imagine that you’re a child and you’re taken out of your surroundings,” said Philip Schrag, a Georgetown University law professor and author of “Baby Jails: The Fight to End the Incarceration of Refugee Children in America.”
Suddenly you’re in “a completely strange environment with the doors locked and guards in uniform roaming around,” said Schrag, who counseled Dilley detainees as a volunteer lawyer during the Obama administration.
ICE booked more than 3,800 children into detention during the first nine months of the new Trump administration, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from UC Berkeley’s Deportation Data Project. On an average day, more than 220 children were held, with most of those detained longer than 24 hours sent to Dilley. More than half of Dilley detainees during that period were children.
Nearly two-thirds of children detained by ICE were eventually deported, and almost 1 in 10 left the country when their parents accepted voluntary departure, according to an AP analysis of the latest comprehensive data. About a quarter were released in the U.S., requiring their parents to check in regularly with ICE as their legal cases proceed.
The number of detainees at Dilley has risen sharply since the period covered by the data, nearly tripling between fall and late January to more than 1,300, according to Relevant Research, which analyzes immigration enforcement data.
“We’ve started to use 100 days as a benchmark for prioritizing cases because so many children are exceeding 20 days,” said Leecia Welch, the chief legal director at Children’s Rights, who visits Dilley regularly to ensure compliance. In a visit this month, Welch said she counted more than 30 children who had been held for over 100 days.
The increased detention of children comes as the Trump administration has gutted a Department of Homeland Security office responsible for oversight of conditions inside Dilley and other facilities.
“It’s a particular concern that family detention is being increased,” said Dr. Pamela McPherson, a child and adolescent psychiatrist contracted by Homeland Security from 2014 until last year to inspect and investigate conditions at Dilley and other ICE facilities holding children. “Just who’s providing that check and balance now?”
Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), who represents the congressional district where Dilley is located, said multiple visits have convinced him criticism of the center is unfair.
He said he’d been impressed by Dilley’s facilities and the professionalism and dedication of staff. “They’re not doing policy. They’re just fulfilling a duty,” Gonzales said.
The Homeland Security Department did not respond to detailed questions about Dilley submitted by the AP. But both Homeland Security and ICE objected to allegations of poor care and conditions there.
“The Dilley facility is a family residential center designed specifically to house family units in a safe, structured and appropriate environment,” ICE Director Todd M. Lyons said in a statement this week. Services include medical screenings, infant care packages and classrooms and recreational spaces, he noted.
But concerns about Dilley are personal for Kheilin Valero Marcano, a Venezuelan immigrant detained with her husband and 1-year-old daughter, Amalia, in December and held for nearly two months.
When the child got a high fever, Valero Marcano said Dilley staff told her it was just a virus. Two weeks later, Amalia started vomiting, then losing weight. Valero Marcano said she took her to the Dilley doctor’s office at least eight times, and was offered only Tylenol and ibuprofen.
The baby was eventually sent to two hospitals, where doctors diagnosed COVID-19, bronchitis, pneumonia and stomach virus, she said.
ICE disputed Valero Marcano’s account, saying in a statement the baby “immediately received proper medical care” at Dilley before being sent to the hospital. Back in Dilley, “she was in the medical unit and received proper treatment and prescribed medicines,” it said.
The family’s return to Dilley coincided with a measles outbreak there. They were released earlier this month after their lawyers petitioned the court.
“I’m so worried for all the families who are still inside,” Valero Marcano said.
After more than two months in a cramped room at Dilley with three other families, the 13-year-old girl’s depression turned increasingly dark.
The eighth-grader stopped eating after finding a worm in her food, family members said. Staff sometimes withheld medications she’d long been prescribed to keep her anxiety in check and help her sleep.
When a total lockdown was imposed, a guard blocked the teen from leaving the crowded room to join her mother and sister in the bathroom. She spiraled into crisis, and used a plastic knife from the cafeteria to cut her wrist.
“She said she didn’t want to live anymore because she preferred to die rather than having to keep living in confinement,” her mother, Andrea Armero, told the AP in a video call from Colombia, where the family was deported this month. The AP generally avoids identifying people who attempt or die by suicide.
The girl’s struggles began before she arrived at Dilley. Soon after starting middle school in Colombia, she learned a family member had sexually abused her younger sister. Armero said she saw no option but to leave, and in early 2024 she and her daughters traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border and applied for asylum.
Living with family in Florida, the 13-year-old was doing well in school but sometimes experienced panic attacks about being sent back to Colombia. Under a psychiatrist’s care, she was prescribed anti-anxiety and anti-depression medications and regularly saw a therapist. Then, in December, ICE agents detained Armero and her daughters during a routine check-in.
At Dilley, the 13-year-old calmed herself by drawing, producing haunting pictures of a girl locked inside gates. But when she and other detainees took part in a protest after 5-year-old Liam and his father got to Dilley, guards took away drawing materials and ordered everyone to stay inside.
The teen’s mental health collapsed. She tried to harm herself with the plastic knife, Armero said, and repeatedly hit her head. The family was put into isolation without seeing a doctor, then deported to Colombia on Feb. 11 after a judge ordered them removed, she said.
Dilley discharge documents described “active problems,” including a “suicide attempt by cutting of wrist” and “self-harm,” in addition to a “history of post-traumatic stress disorder” and “history of anxiety.” AP also spoke with detainees and attorneys who independently described the girl’s suicide attempt.
Responding to questions from AP, a Department of Homeland Security official acknowledged there had been “a case of self-harm” inside the facility, but did not specify what had happened, or how staff handled the incident. When AP asked for details, the department did not respond to follow-up questions.
“No child at Dilley … has been denied medical treatment or experienced a delayed medical assessment,” said Ryan Gustin, a spokesman for CoreCivic, the for-profit prison company that operates the facility under contract with ICE. Gustin declined to answer specific questions about the 13-year-old girl, citing privacy rules.
On a phone call from inside Dilley, 13-year-old Gustavo Santino-Josa introduced himself to a reporter by name and the nine-digit identification number ICE assigned him when he was taken into custody with his mother.
“Until today I don’t know what we did wrong to get detained,” Gustavo said. “I’ve seen my mom cry almost daily, and I ask God that we can go out and go home soon.”
He worried they might never be released.
“My mom says that as long as there is hope it is worth fighting for,” Gustavo said before handing the phone to his mother, Christian Hinojosa, the healthcare aide originally from Mexico.
“All his friends have left already,” his mother said. “Some were deported. Some got released recently. And it hurts. It hurts to see people leaving and you’re staying here.”
Dilley was built to hold 2,400 people, housed in clusters ICE calls “neighborhoods.” Bunk beds are arranged side-by-side for up to four families, frequently putting parents with young children in close quarters.
Once in full operation, Dilley is expected to generate about $180 million in annual revenue for CoreCivic, according to the company’s recent filing with securities regulators.
In a video on its website, CoreCivic says Dilley’s “open campus layout allows residents to move freely and unescorted throughout the day.”
It does not mention that parents and their children are locked inside.
In response to questions from the AP, CoreCivic’s Gustin said the staff at Dilley includes a pediatrician, pediatric nurse practitioner and other trained medical professionals and mental health services workers to “meet the needs of children and families in our care.”
In talks with parents of children held at Dilley, however, the same problems come up repeatedly, said Welch, the children’s rights lawyer.
Kids cry often and don’t get enough sleep, in part because lights are on around the clock, she said. The water tastes terrible and causes stomachaches and rashes, so some families stick to what they can buy in the commissary.
Their children don’t eat enough and have lost weight, Welch said. There are classrooms, but instruction is limited to an hour daily, mostly filling out worksheets.
A 14-year-old girl, identified in court papers by the initials NVSM, reported there were tensions with up to 12 people sharing their room. At night when she and her mother tried to sleep, others insisted on turning up the TV.
“I feel very sad and stressed to be here,” the teen said in an account filed with the court that oversees a binding settlement governing detention and release of children. “My nerves are so high. I don’t know what is happening. My muscles will twitch because I’m so nervous and on edge.”
As the government’s detention of parents and their children came under scrutiny in 2014, an ICE official claimed that family detention centers, equipped with basketball courts and medical clinics, were “more like a summer camp.”
The characterization irritated McPherson, the child psychiatrist who, along with another physician, was retained in 2014 by Homeland Security to inspect family detention centers. Their contracts were not renewed by the Trump administration last year after Homeland Security announced sweeping staff reductions.
“Having a clean place to sleep, having food, that’s not the same thing as having family and community,” McPherson said.
The doctors’ investigations of family detention centers exposed consistently inadequate staffing and disregard by administrators for the trauma caused by detention, concerns they reported in 2018 to a Senate caucus set up to hear from whistleblowers.
At Dilley, the doctors noted a persistent shortage of pediatricians and the inability to hire a child psychiatrist from the time they began their inspections until they alerted senators.
Employees unsure how to deal with 2-year-olds biting and hitting one another placed the children and their parents in medical isolation for days, McPherson and her colleague told senators. Without supervision, a nurse at Dilley gave adult-strength hepatitis A shots to about 250 children in 2015, the American Immigration Lawyers Assn. reported.
Homeland Security responded to many of the findings by making changes before a special committee recommended in late 2016 that the government discontinue family detention except in rare cases. The first Trump administration increased family detention before the Biden administration began phasing it out in 2021.
That the Trump administration is again holding families at Dilley after so many warnings feels “dystopian,” McPherson said.
“The decision to knowingly traumatize children and subject them to chronic stress, I just have no words for it,” she said.
Huddled around picnic tables at the Laredo migrant shelter, parents released from Dilley searched anxiously for flights back to the homes they left behind. They called relatives, friends, teachers, anyone who might help with money to get there.
The young Ecuadoran mom talked of returning to Minneapolis, where her 2-year-old daughter, born in the U.S., was staying with a friend. With her husband deported, parenting will be entirely her responsibility.
That means getting her 7-year-old back in school. Then the woman, who had a work permit and a job in a Minneapolis restaurant before being detained, needs to keep her children fed.
“Let’s go home, Mom, but don’t go back to work because ICE is going to pick you up again,” the little girl said. Her mother tried to reassure her.
That won’t happen, she said, because now they have a special paper telling ICE to leave them alone.
She hopes that’s a promise she can keep.
Burke, Geller and Gonzalez write for the Associated Press. AP data reporter Aaron Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
WHEN it comes to jetting off this Easter it can be hard to pick the best destination for both affordability and great weather.
But that’s where Marmaris comes in; affordable with beautiful beaches and cheap hotels that have swimming pools and splash parks.
Which? did a price check of more than 3,000 package holidays over the Easter break – and Marmaris was revealed as the cheapest.
The resort town in the Mediterranean came out on top for the most affordable seven-night packages which were an average of just £594 per person.
It also came up trumps for average daily temperatures which can reach a high of 20C in spring – and nine hours of sunshine a day.
It’s not the first time Marmaris has been named one of the cheapest holiday destinations either.
Last year, Post Office Travel Money partnered with tour operator TUI revealed Marmaris to be the ‘best value summer holiday resort‘.
According to Numbeo, a local beer can cost as little as £1.43 and a meal at an inexpensive restaurant can start from just £3.37.
And a three-course meal for two starts from just £20.21.
Sadly, the Atlantis Waterpark is closed until May, but there are plenty of hotels that have swimming pools and splash parks too.
Sun Travel found a 7-nights stay for a family of four on an all-inclusive package from £409pp (from March 31 to April 7, 2026).
Stay at the 4-star Pineta Park Deluxe Hotel – it’s a short walk from the beach and has multiple swimming pools, two restaurants and a kids’ club.
With Jet2holidays, a 7-night stay at Club Exelsior for a family of four during the Easter break costs £495pp.
The hotel has apartment-style rooms with a huge splash park and outdoor play area.
It also offers child-free places, has a kids’ club and entertainment program.
Of course there are plenty of incredible beaches too.
The main stretch is Uzunyali Beach, also known as Long Beach, but there are lots of others slightly further afield.
Just five miles away from the town centre is Icmeler Beach which is said to be a ‘family-friendly favourite’.
It has golden sands as well as calm and shallow waters making it an ideal spot for paddling.
There are also restaurants and cafes on the shoreline so it’s very easy to get a bite to eat, or drink.
Turunc Beach is a quiet spot away from the busy town centre and Kumlubük Beach which is popular for snorkelling.
Head to the Topkapi Bazaar if you want to try your hand at haggling and collect some local gifts or souvenirs.
For those who want a bit of adventure you can even explore some of Greece from Marmaris.
A popular daytrip is to head to the island of Rhodes which is just a one-hour ferry ride away.
Here are the cheapest Easter holiday destinations in 2026 by Which?…
Here are other cheap family holiday destinations under three hours from the UK that are over 20C this Easter.
For more on Easter holidays, here’s where you can find guaranteed sun – with highs of 28C and UK flights from 3.5 hours.
WE all know Americans do things a lot bigger than in the UK – from fast food to drink sizes – and it goes for play areas too.
One in the US the size of a football pitch has caught the eye of Brits who say they’d love to see one open in the UK.
Called The Fun Station Cedar Falls, the enormous play area stretches across 70,000 square feet and is the state of Iowa‘s largest indoor adventure park.
It has over 20 attractions from zip lines to trampolines, an obstacle course, laser tag, racing slides, bowling alleys and fairground rides.
There’s a multi-level play maze, seven climbing walls as high as 22ft, a high-ropes course at 55ft, an arcade with 35 video arcade games where players can win prizes.
There’s food on-site too from a salad bar, to a cafe and fizzy drink station.
It’s popular with local parents who say that their kids “love to climb for hours here”.
With a video doing the rounds on Facebook, it’s even caught the attention of UK residents with one even saying “wish we had this in the UK”.
For UK parents, one parent in the comments suggested heading to Riverside Hub in Northampton.
One writer Catherine Lofthouse visited the attraction that has the UK’s largest playframe across four floors, which they called ‘soft play on steroids’.
Catherine said: “Laser tag, crazy golf, two climbing poles, go-karts and even arcade machines all included in the price.
“The main issue is keeping an eye on all your children as they head off in opposite directions to make the most of everything on offer.
“While the youngest was taking a spin on the carousel, my middle son was clambering up the two 10m climbing poles, one in the shape of an oak tree and the other a beanstalk, in the centre of the hub.”
There are also Fun Stations in the UK – but these are owned by a different company.
In cities like Birmingham, Leeds and Milton Keynes, there are Fun Stations that are more like arcades.
It’s packed with immersive and action-packed video and VR games, along with carnival games where visitors can win top prizes like iPads and headphones.
Some destinations even have dodgems, mini bowling, laser tag, escape rooms and mini golf.
For more on play areas, here are five of the UK’s biggest indoor soft plays to escape the rainy weather with huge climbing frames and drop slides.
And here is a huge new wooden play attraction that’s set to open at a historic English house with den building, zip lines and racing slides.
Nisreen Nassar and her family, like many other Palestinians, continue to live in schools and makeshift shelters.
Published On 20 Feb 202620 Feb 2026
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Just before sunset on Thursday, Nisreen Nassar crouched over her makeshift oven, burning wood and scraps of plastic to bake bread for her family so they could break their fast.
Four months after the United States-brokered “ceasefire” came into effect in October, and as US President Donald Trump convened the first meeting of his Board of Peace on Thursday, she wasn’t expecting to be sheltering with her family in an abandoned school and cooking on an open fire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
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“Our preparations and expectations for Ramadan this month were that it would be better than previous ones during the war. Unfortunately, it is worse,” Nassar told Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City.
Nassar’s family is one of many still living in schools and makeshift shelters throughout northern Gaza, relying on humanitarian aid for their basic needs and barely able to prepare a meal to break their fast, known as Iftar, due to gas shortages.
Nassar, her husband Thaer, and their seven children lived in Beit Hanoon, in the northeast, before Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023, which has killed more than 72,000 people, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health statistics.
They have since been displaced several times, from Beit Hanoon to Rafah and Khan Younis in the south.
The Nassar family is still waiting for a decision that would allow them to return home – or to what remains of it. This marks the third Ramadan that they have been living in a school, which, apart from the concrete walls, offers little shelter.
The children sleep not in beds, but directly on a classroom floor. The Nassar family’s only possessions comprise a few bags of clothes and some thin blankets.
Thaer said his children are afraid to go outside due to Israeli gunfire, in violation of the “ceasefire” agreement.
“My children live in fear, whether they go out into the street or stay here in the shelter. In the past, in better days, they had better times, playing ball, going to school, and then returning home.”
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, more than 600 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since the “ceasefire” came into effect.
While Palestinians have had little respite this Ramadan, Mahmoud said Palestinians remain steadfast.
“For many of the Palestinians sheltering inside this school, Iftar is a celebration of spiritual resilience, unbroken by Israel’s genocide and a future that is far from certain.”
Published On 16 Feb 202616 Feb 2026
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has showcased a newly constructed residential street for families of soldiers who have died fighting in Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to state media.
Intelligence agencies from South Korea and Western nations have reported that North Korea has dispatched thousands of soldiers to fight for Russia, and Seoul estimated they have suffered 2,000 casualties.
Experts suggested North Korea receives financial aid, military technology and essential supplies from Russia in exchange for this support.
Its official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released photographs showing Kim touring the new homes on Saeppyol Street in Pyongyang with his daughter, Ju Ae, widely regarded as his heir apparent.
South Korea’s intelligence agency recently claimed she has been “designated as a successor”, citing her involvement in high-profile events with her father.
One image depicted families inspecting utilities in their new apartments.
“The new street has been built thanks to the ardent desire of our motherland, which wishes that … its excellent sons who defended the most sacred things by sacrificing their most valuable things will live forever,” Kim said in a speech released by KCNA.
Although Monday’s report did not mention Russia, Kim recently pledged to “unconditionally support” all policies and decisions made by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Before their death, the heroic martyrs must have pictured in their mind’s eye their dear families living in the ever-prospering country,” he added.
The unveiling preceded the ruling Workers’ Party congress in Pyongyang, the nation’s most significant political event, scheduled this month. Observers are closely monitoring Kim’s announcements on foreign and domestic policy directions as well as whether Ju Ae will be granted any official party titles.
Hong Min, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told the AFP news agency that the timing of the street inauguration represents a “highly calculated political move to justify its soldier deployment” before the party congress.
“It visualises the state providing tangible compensation to the families of fallen soldiers … as a symbolic showcase,” he said.
