Umm Yahya, or 'The Mother of Rebels as many activists call her, had experience in nursing although she was mainly working as a mother taking care of her four children in the town of Tura in Jobar district, when the regime forces began shooting at peaceful demonstrators in the eastern Ghouta. She says her nephew asked her to help the rebels by treating and caring for the wounded because of her experience as a nurse. At that time, she opened a small field hospital in her house with the assistance of her husband and children.
One day in 2012 while she transported a pregnant woman from Eastern Ghouta to one of the hospitals in Damascus, she was arrested on charges of helping the wife of a terrorist. She was detained for three months during which she was subjected to various kinds of torture and humiliation before the regime security forces threw her, passed out, in the al-Abbasiyin square.
Speaking to Ammar Johmani, she explained that after she regained her health, she began her relief work once more. She managed to establish a large field hospital in the Ein Tirma area in Eastern Ghouta which is referred to as al-Hajja Umm al-Thawar Hospital. In addition to the hospital, she set up several medical points in Jobar district. Umm Yahya explained that she hastened to establish a medical emergency point every time the rebels stormed a town or area in the Eastern Ghouta. She added that the regime repeatedly targeted these points and she lost many members of her medical staff due to the regime targeting medical points.
As the regime forces began advancing in the area and killing more civilians, Umm Yahya decided to fight and joined the Haroon al-Rashid Brigade. Umm Yahya, alongside several other women who were also former detainees, acted as an investigator and contributed to buying weapons for the rebels while they formed the Yasin Mahanayet Martyr Brigade.
According to Umm Yahya, it was at this time that she turned to establishing a female brigade named the Free of Eastern Ghouta which was composed of 50 well trained women from snipers to RPG rocket launchers. All the brigade members were trained to carry arms and fight. Discussing the idea behind establishing the brigade, Umm Yahya explained that her primary aim was to awaken men from their hibernation and prove the pivotal role women play in the Eastern Ghouta, which is no less important than the role men play.
Speaking to Ammar Johmani, Umm Yahya confirmed that in June 2016, regime forces targeted one of her medical points in Jobar neighborhood destroying it completely. The attack destroyed the medical point and ambulances as well as killing the medical staff and the injured who came seeking medical assistance. She added that the regime forces are accustomed to targeting an area, especially medical points, twice to inflict the greatest number of casualties
