recover

Emmerdale’s Claire King has suffered from a debilitating health condition for several decades

Emmerdale legend Claire King has candidly opened up in the past about her health battles.

Claire has been a firm favourite on the long-running soap since 1989 – and as the man-eater queen of the village Kim Tate, she has played a part in several big storylines.

From her many feuds in the Dales to faking her own death, her time on the show has not been short of drama over the years.

Kim’s also been involved in several famous romances – including her affair and marriage to Frank Tate (Norman Bowler) and her recent romance with Will Taylor (Dean Andrews), who sadly died at Christmas last year.

And on the soap recently, Kim was left fighting for her life after her horse Ice was spooked by shooters on the Home Farm estate and she was thrown off. Although managing to make a recovery, her beloved horse had to be put to sleep after sustaining a horrific injury.

However, away from the soap Claire has faced her own health battles. Over the years, she has been open about her struggle with rheumatoid arthritis over the years.

Claire told OK!: “When I was first diagnosed I was worried, as I was ignorant of the ins and outs of it. I was only in my twenties.

“Over the years they’ve improved various treatments, so my doctors are very good. I manage it. I have various pills and injections every week and I just get on with it. There are certain things I can’t do at work, like wearing killer heels for more than five minutes.

“And the costume department has to do up all of my buttons, as it takes me ages. Doing my hair and make-up takes me a bit longer too, as I’ve got metal in some of my fingers.”

She also said: “I struggled to go to work and do the things I love, like horse-riding, because of the terrible pressure it put on my knees.

“I can certainly relate to the ‘invisible disease’ – although my symptoms don’t always show, it doesn’t mean I’m not in pain or feeling exhausted.”

Meanwhile talking to Health Awareness, Claire revealed: “My joints swelled up, and my knees felt like someone had hit them with a mallet.” Making a heartbreaking confession, Claire added: “You just think, ‘this is an old person’s disease, am I going to end up in a wheelchair?’.

“There was very little treatment available at the time. You just tend to think the worst.”

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Authorities in Gaza have warned that stormy weather could spur more war-damaged buildings to collapse and heavy rains are making it more difficult to recover bodies still under the rubble.

Authorities sounded the alarm on Monday, three days after two buildings collapsed in Gaza, killing at least 12 people, during winter rains that have also washed away and flooded the tents of displaced Palestinians and led to deaths from exposure.

A ceasefire has been in effect since October 10 after two years of Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza, but humanitarian agencies said Israel is letting very little aid into the enclave, where nearly the entire population has been displaced.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abou Azzoum said despite a shortage of equipment and fuel and the weather conditions in the enclave, Palestinian Civil Defence teams retrieved the bodies of 20 people on Monday.

The bodies were recovered from a multistorey building bombed in December 2023 where about 60 people, including 30 children, were believed to be sheltering.

Gaza Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal called on the international community to provide mobile homes and caravans for displaced Palestinians rather than tents.

“If people are not protected today, we will witness more victims, more killing of people, children, women, entire families inside these buildings,” he said.

Father mourns children killed in building collapse

Mohammad Nassar and his family were living in a six-storey building that was badly damaged by Israeli strikes earlier in the war and collapsed in heavy rain on Friday.

His family had struggled to find alternative accommodation and had been flooded out while living in a tent during a previous bout of bad weather. Nassar went out to buy some necessities on Friday and returned to a scene of carnage as rescue workers struggled to pull bodies from the rubble.

“I saw my son’s hand sticking out from under the ground. It was the scene that affected me the most. My son under the ground and we are unable to get him out,” Nassar said. His son, 15, died as did a daughter, aged 18.

Exposure warning

The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees warned on Monday that more aid must be allowed into Gaza without delay to prevent putting more displaced families at serious risk.

“With heavy rain and cold brought in by Storm Byron [late last week], people in the Gaza Strip are freezing to death,” UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini posted on X.

“The waterlogged ruins where they are sheltering are collapsing, causing even more exposure to cold,” he added.

Lazzarini said UNRWA has supplies that have waited for months to enter Gaza that he said would cover the needs of hundreds of thousands of Gaza’s more than two million people.

UN and Palestinian officials said at least 300,000 new tents are urgently needed for the roughly 1.5 million people still displaced. Most existing shelters are worn out or made of thin plastic and cloth sheeting.

Gaza authorities, meanwhile, were still digging to recover about 9,000 bodies they estimated remain buried in rubble from Israeli bombing during the war, but the lack of machinery is slowing down the process, spokesman Ismail al-Thawabta said.

Azzoum reported that Civil Defence teams said they require a surge in heavy machinery to expedite the work.

“They are saying that they are still in need, initially, for 40 excavators and bulldozers in order to achieve some slight progress in the whole process on the ground,” Azzoum said, reporting from Gaza City.

Israel’s continuing ban on the entry of heavy machinery into the Gaza Strip is a violation of the ceasefire, he added.

Earlier on Sunday, Hamas said Israel’s continuing violations of the ceasefire risk jeopardising the agreement and progress towards the next stage of United States President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war.

Since the ceasefire began, Israel has continued to strike Gaza on a daily basis, carrying out nearly 800 attacks and killing nearly 400 people, according to authorities in Gaza, while blocking the free flow of humanitarian aid.

“There is no real sense of safety nor protection for families,” Azzoum said of the ongoing violations.