More than 1 million are besieged in Syria, new report says

Updated 10 February 2016
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More than 1 million are besieged in Syria, new report says

NEW YORK: More than one million Syrians are trapped in besieged areas, a new report says in a challenge to the United Nations, which estimates just half that amount and has been accused by some aid groups of underplaying a crisis.
The fate of Syria’s besieged is at the heart of peace talks that quickly fell apart last week in Geneva and are set to resume by Feb. 25. Negotiators for the opposition had insisted that the Syrian government stop besieging civilians before talks could truly begin.
The new Siege Watch report, issued Tuesday by the Netherlands-based aid group PAX and the Washington-based Syria Institute, comes a month after images posted online of emaciated children and adults led to an international outcry and rare convoys of aid to a handful of Syrian communities.
The town featured in the images, Madaya, was not listed by the UN as a besieged community at the time. Aid workers who entered last month reported seeing skeletal people and parents who gave their children sleeping pills to calm their hunger.
The Siege Watch report says 1.09 million people are living in 46 besieged communities in Syria, far more than the 18 listed by the UN It says most are besieged by the Syrian government in the suburbs of Damascus, the capital, and Homs. In the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, about 200,000 people are besieged by both the Daesh group and the Syrian government. The report lists two communities besieged by armed opposition groups.
“Electricity and running water are usually cut off, and there is limited (if any) access to food, fuel, and medical care,” the report says. Deaths have been reported from malnutrition, disease, hypothermia and poisoning while scavenging for food. Some communities have been besieged for months or years.
The estimates are based largely on information provided by local contacts in the communities, including local councils, medical workers and citizen journalists.
With the spotlight on the besieged, the United Nations last month raised its estimate by almost 100,000, saying that 486,700 people are affected.
That’s still less than some aid groups and others estimate. They argue that the world body’s numbers set the tone for humanitarian response efforts and that more urgency is needed.
“Many remain unaware of the extent of the crisis, and the international response has been muted as a result,” the Siege Watch report says.
In meetings this week with UN officials and member states, PAX says it will call for the immediate lifting of sieges as a way to build confidence in the peace talks. Syria Institute executive director Valerie Szybala said the new report has not been shared with Syria’s government.
The UN says it considers an area besieged if three criteria are met: The area is surrounded by “armed actors,” humanitarian aid cannot regularly enter, and civilians, including the sick and wounded, cannot enter and exit.
“Of course, differences of opinion do occur,” Amanda Pitt, a UN humanitarian spokeswoman, said of criticism of the UN’s estimates.
The aid group Doctors Without Borders goes well beyond the figure in the Siege Watch report, estimating that 1.9 million Syrians live in besieged areas.
Doctors Without Borders said it defines Syria’s besieged areas as ones “that are surrounded by strategic barriers (military or non-military) that prevent the regular and safe inflow of humanitarian assistance and the regular and safe outflow of civilians, the wounded and the sick.”
The United Nations places an estimated 4.5 million Syrians into a separate category called “hard to reach,” a step below besieged. It defines that as “an area that is not regularly accessible to humanitarian actors for the purpose of sustained humanitarian programming as a result of denial of access.”
Doctors Without Borders said it doesn’t use that distinction, “as the medical consequences for both types of region are similar.” Medical supplies are almost never allowed in, it said, and medical evacuations are rarely allowed out.
The aid group has said that since convoys reached Madaya last month, at least 16 people there have died and at least 33 were in danger of dying of malnutrition.
The United Nations now considers the town of 20,000 besieged.


Israeli forces kill one Palestinian in West Bank refugee camp

Updated 6 sec ago
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Israeli forces kill one Palestinian in West Bank refugee camp

  • Palestinian news agency WAFA said Fathi Saeed Odeh Salem died after snipers shot him and fired on the ambulance crew
JERUSALEM: Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man in a dawn raid on Tuesday on a refugee camp near the city of Tulkarm in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian and Israeli officials said.
The Israeli military said the man was killed in a “counter-terrorism” operation that resulted in 18 arrests, while the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said Fathi Saeed Odeh Salem died after snipers shot him and fired on ambulance crew.
Hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Israelis have been killed in the West Bank since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas militants on southern Israel triggered the current war in Gaza and a wider conflict on several fronts.
WAFA said Israeli bulldozers demolished infrastructure in the camp, including homes, shops, part of the walls of Al-Salam mosque, which they barricaded off, and part of the camp’s water network.

Israeli army forces patients out of a north Gaza hospital, medics say

Updated 1 min 32 sec ago
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Israeli army forces patients out of a north Gaza hospital, medics say

CAIRO: Israeli troops forced the evacuation of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza and many patients, some of them on foot, arrived at another hospital miles away in Gaza City, the territory’s health ministry said on Tuesday.
The Indonesian Hospital is one of the Gaza Strip’s few still partially functioning hospitals, on its northern edge, an area that has been under intense Israeli military pressure for nearly three months.
Israel says its operation around the three northern Gaza communities surrounding the hospital — Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Jabalia — is targeting Hamas militants.
Palestinians accuse Israel of seeking to permanently depopulate northern Gaza to create a buffer zone, which Israel denies.
Munir Al-Bursh, director of the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, said the Israeli army had ordered hospital officials to evacuate it on Monday, before storming it in the early hours of Tuesday and forcing those inside to leave.
He said two other medical facilities in northern Gaza, Al-Awda and Kamal Adwan Hospitals, were also subject to frequent assaults by Israeli troops operating in the area.
“Occupation forces have taken the three hospitals out of medical service because of the repeated attacks that undermined them and destroyed parts of them,” Bursh said in a statement.
The Israeli military said it was looking into the report.
Officials at the three hospitals have so far refused orders by Israel to evacuate their facilities or leave patients unattended since the new military offensive began on Oct. 5.
Israel says it has been facilitating the delivery of medical supplies, fuel and the transfer of patients to other hospitals in the enclave during that period in collaboration with international agencies such as the World Health Organization.
Hussam Abu Safiya, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, said they resisted a new order by the army to evacuate hundreds of patients, their companions and staff, adding that the hospital has been under constant Israeli fire that damaged generators, oxygen pumps and parts of the building.
Israeli forces have operated in the vicinity of the hospital since Monday, medics said.

NEW STRIKES
Meanwhile, Israeli bombardment continued elsewhere in the enclave and medics said at least nine Palestinians, including a member of the civil emergency service, were killed in four separate military strikes across the enclave on Tuesday.
The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s campaign against Hamas has since killed more than 45,200 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave. Most of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced and much of Gaza is in ruins.
A fresh bid by mediators Egypt, Qatar and the United States to end the fighting and release Israeli and foreign hostages has gained momentum this month, though no breakthrough has yet been reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said progress had been made in hostage negotiations with Hamas but that he did not know how much longer it would take to see the results.
Gaps between Israel and Hamas over a possible Gaza ceasefire have narrowed, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials’ remarks on Monday, though crucial differences have yet to be resolved.

Syria's al-Sharaa agrees with rebel factions to merge Defence Ministry

Updated 3 min 22 sec ago
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Syria's al-Sharaa agrees with rebel factions to merge Defence Ministry

DAMASCUS: Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa reached an agreement on Tuesday with rebel faction leaders to dissolve all groups and consolidate them under the Defence Ministry, according to a statement from the new Syrian general administration.


Israel PM vows to fight ‘forces of evil’ in message to Christians

Updated 24 December 2024
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Israel PM vows to fight ‘forces of evil’ in message to Christians

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday acknowledged what he described as the steadfast support of Christians worldwide for Israel’s fight against the “forces of evil.”
Christians in Israel and the Palestinian territories were preparing for a somber wartime Christmas for the second consecutive year, with the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip casting a shadow over the season.
“You’ve stood by our side resiliently, consistently, forcefully as Israel defends our civilization against barbarism,” Netanyahu said in a video message to Christians across the world.
“We seek peace with all those who wish peace with us, but we will do whatever is necessary to defend the one and only Jewish state, the repository and the source of our common heritage.
“Israel leads the world in fighting the forces of evil and tyranny, but our battle is not yet over. With your support, and with God’s help, I assure you, we shall prevail,” Netanyahu said.
The war in Gaza, which erupted on October 7, 2023 following a deadly Hamas attack on Israel, has significantly impacted the Christian communities in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Israel’s subsequent military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 45,317 people, a majority of them civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
Israel is home to approximately 185,000 Christians, accounting for about 1.9 percent of the population, with Arab Christians comprising nearly 76 percent of the community, according to data from the country’s Central Bureau of Statistics.
According to Palestinian officials, about 47,000 Christians reside in the Palestinian territories, including the Gaza Strip.


Israel asks diplomats to seek Houthis’ listing as terrorists

Updated 24 December 2024
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Israel asks diplomats to seek Houthis’ listing as terrorists

  • The Houthis have repeatedly fired drones and missiles toward Israel

JERUSALEM: Israel has instructed its diplomatic missions in Europe to try to get the Iran-backed Houthi rebel group in Yemen designated as a terrorist organization.
The Houthis have repeatedly fired drones and missiles toward Israel in what the group describes as acts of solidarity with Palestinians fighting Israeli forces in Gaza.
The attacks have disrupted international shipping routes, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys that have in turn stoked fears over global inflation.
“The Houthis pose a threat not only to Israel but also to the region and the entire world. The first and most basic thing to do is to designate them as a terrorist organization,” Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said in a statement.
The United States, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Israel currently designate the Houthis terrorists, according to Sa’ar.
The Israeli military on Saturday failed to intercept a missile from Yemen that fell in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area, injuring 14 people.