IRBIL: Since she got struck by mortar shrapnel in Mosul just over a week ago, 10-year-old Nabaa has not been able to speak. A shard in her skull damaged part of her brain and doctors are not sure if she will ever be able to speak again.
The girl’s family had been forced to flee their home in the northern Iraqi city because fighting was raging around them, government artillery and helicopters were bombarding their neighborhood, and their food supplies were running out, said Nabaa’s mother, Umm Abdul-Rahman.
But as they neared Iraqi military lines the night of March 31, mortars hit, wounding Nabaa and her two brothers, 7-year-old Basem and 11-year-old Abdul-Rahman. The mother said she saw three others lying wounded on the ground after the strike but she did not know their fate.
The family is among a large number of civilians who have been caught in the middle of what appears to be a far more brutal battle over the western half of Mosul than the preceding fight for the east.
In the west, Iraqi government forces trying to wrest back the city from Daesh are relying on heavier firepower, including extensive barrages with mortars, rocket launchers and some improvised systems without guidance mechanisms.
While the east was retaken by Iraq’s special forces, much of the fighting in the west is done by militarized police units that have less experience in urban battle. Iraqi forces recaptured the east at the end of January and moved against the west in mid-February.
“They see resistance and implement a carpet-bombing approach to advance. They do this to reduce their own casualties. This is disastrous for the civilians,” said Col. Ahmed Shawki, a military analyst and retired Iraqi army officer based in the northern city of Irbil.
At the same time, Daesh militants in some cases are preventing civilians from leaving, keeping them in harm’s way as shields.
The number of casualties is hard to establish because only some of the wounded reach hospitals and most of the dead are buried immediately. At least 300 people were killed in western Mosul up to the beginning of April, according to the UN. The World Health Organization says 1,683 wounded civilians were referred to hospitals between Feb. 18 and April 8. Johannes Schad, a doctor in West Irbil Emergency Hospital, said that about 60 percent of the victims have blast injuries, mostly from shelling.
Some 1,600 civilians were killed or wounded during the 100 days of fighting to recapture Mosul’s less densely populated east. Dr. Shalan Ali, the Health Ministry official in charge of Ninevah province, thinks up to a thousand have already been killed in the west.
The worst single attack came on March 17, when an airstrike by the US-led coalition hit a building in the New Mosul neighborhood, killing more than 100 civilians who were sheltering inside. The US military is investigating the strike, and officials say Daesh militants — who have been seen elsewhere forcing civilians into buildings to use them as shields — may have played a role.
The shelling in western Mosul has been much more intense than in the east.
One police artillery unit based outside the city said they alone fired up to 200 shells a day. Police Lt. Col. Younes Sultan Jadalla told The Associated Press that they use drone footage to choose targets and only fire if there are no civilians nearby.
Drone footage taken by the AP in the Dawasa neighborhood of western Mosul on April 5 shows entire streets reduced to rubble, with deep craters dug up by airstrikes. By comparison, eastern Mosul was generally preserved, with damage mainly concentrated on individual buildings and road junctions.
Basem Mohammed, a resident of western Mosul’s Nablous neighborhood, said Daesh militants had a position in a nearby park from which they fired at Iraqi forces. In an apparent response from government forces, his street was hit by mortars on March 8, with shells hitting his neighbors’ houses, wounding several people.
He was wounded in the leg by mortar fire a week later, as he and his family fled.
Much of the destruction is wrought by Iraqi and coalition air power. An analysis of bombing in western Mosul between March 8 and 25, conducted by Human Rights Watch and using satellite imagery, identified 780 impact sites that may have been caused by large, air-delivered munitions, resulting in the destruction of hundreds of buildings. The analysis called the destruction comparable in intensity to the Russian-Syrian air attacks on Aleppo in September and October last year.
Daesh militants, too, are shelling the areas that have slipped out of their control.
Among their victims is Nashwan Jamal, 25, who was hit on March 11 in the Tel Alruman neighborhood, four days after it was taken by Iraqi special forces. Jamal, his brother and a friend were sitting on the roof of their home when a mortar landed, wounding him in the leg.
Several people who escaped western Mosul told the AP that Daesh forbade people to leave. Omar Marwan said Daesh militants told people on his street that they had planted a bomb so that they would not flee.
“They told us, stay in the house, you can’t get out. One of them even said, you have to stay until it is destroyed. No one can leave,” said Alaa Hassan, 27, from the New Mosul neighborhood. “We tried to escape when they were busy fighting. But then we ran into them and they shot at us.”
Alaa Hassan’s wife was killed in the March 17 airstrike, and his 4-year-old daughter, Hawra, was badly burned.
Hawra’s grandmother, Alia Ali, said the militants would not let them leave even after the airstrike on their house. “I went to them and told them we have a burned child and we need to take her out and they said no. They said, you have to stay here with us. And you will die here with us.” They reached Iraqi lines two days later.
Bombardment in Mosul takes heavy toll on civilians
Bombardment in Mosul takes heavy toll on civilians
Iraq’s population reaches 45.4 million in first census in over 30 years
- Prior to the census, the planning ministry estimated the population at 43 million
- The last census, conducted in 1997, did not include the Iraqi Kurdistan region
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s population has risen to 45.4 million, according to preliminary results from a national census, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said on Monday.
The census, conducted on Nov. 20, was Iraq’s first nationwide survey in more than three decades, marking a crucial step for future planning and development.
Prior to the census, the planning ministry estimated the population at 43 million.
The last census, conducted in 1997, did not include the Iraqi Kurdistan region, which has been under Kurdish administration since the 1991 Gulf War.
It counted 19 million Iraqis and officials estimated there were another 3 million in the Kurdish north, according to official statistics.
Lebanon’s Shiite Muslims pay high price in war between Israel and Hezbollah
- Many Shiite Muslims believe they are being unfairly punished because they share a religious identity with Hezbollah and often live in the same areas
BEIRUT: The Lebanese civilians most devastated by the Israel- Hezbollah war are Shiite Muslims, and many of them believe they are being unfairly punished because they share a religious identity with Hezbollah militants and often live in the same areas.
“This is clear,” said Wael Murtada, a young Shiite man who anxiously watched paramedics search rubble after a recent Israeli airstrike destroyed his uncle’s two-story home and killed 10 people. “Who else is being attacked?”
Israel has concentrated its attacks on villages in southern and northeastern Lebanon and neighborhoods south of Beirut. This is where many Hezbollah militants operate from, and their families live side by side with large numbers of Shiites who aren’t members of the group.
Israel insists its war is with Hezbollah and not the Lebanese people – or the Shiite faith. It says it only targets members of the Iran-backed militant group to try to end their yearlong campaign of firing rockets over the border. But Israel’s stated objectives mean little to people like Murtada as growing numbers of Shiite civilians also die in a war that escalated sharply in recent months.
Shiites don’t just measure the suffering of their community in deaths and injuries. Entire blocks of the coastal city of Tyre have been flattened. Large parts of the historic market in the city of Nabatiyeh, which dates to the Ottoman era, have been destroyed. And in Baalbek, an airstrike damaged the city’s famed Hotel Palmyra, which opened in the late 19th century, and a home that dates to the Ottoman era.
“Lebanese Shias are being collectively punished. Their urban areas are being destroyed, and their cultural monuments and building are being destroyed,” said Mohanad Hage Ali, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.
As Shiites flee their war-torn villages and neighborhoods, the conflict is increasingly following them to other parts of Lebanon, and this is fueling tensions.
Scores of people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes on Christian, Sunni and Druze areas where displaced Shiites had taken refuge. Many residents in these areas now think twice before providing shelter to displaced people out of fear they may have links to Hezbollah.
“The Israelis are targeting all of Lebanon,” said Wassef Harakeh, a lawyer from Beirut’s southern suburbs who in 2022 ran against Hezbollah in the country’s parliamentary elections and whose office was recently demolished by an Israeli airstrike. He believes part of Israel’s goal is to exacerbate frictions within the small Mediterranean country, which has a long history of sectarian fighting even though diverse groups live together peacefully these days.
Some Shiites say statements from the Israeli military over the years have only reinforced suspicions that their wider community is being targeted as a means to put pressure on Hezbollah.
One commonly cited example is the so-called Dahiyeh doctrine, which was first espoused by Israeli generals during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. It is a reference to the southern suburbs of Beirut where Hezbollah is headquartered and where entire residential blocks, bridges and shopping compounds were destroyed in both wars. Israel says Hezbollah hides weapons and fighters in such areas, turning them into legitimate military targets.
A video released by the Israeli military last month has been interpreted by Shiites as further proof that little distinction is being made between Hezbollah fighters and Shiite civilians.
Speaking from a southern Lebanese village he did not name, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari called it “a terror base. This is a Lebanese village, a Shiite village built by Hezbollah.” As he toured a house and showed stocks of hand grenades, rifles, night-vision goggles and other military equipment, Hagari said: “Every house is a terror base.”
Another army spokesperson disputed the notion that Israel tries to blur the line between combatants and civilians. “Our war is with the terror group Hezbollah and not with the Lebanese population, whatever its origin,” said Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani. He denied that Israel was intentionally trying to disrupt the social fabric of Lebanon, and pointed to Israel’s evacuation warnings to civilians ahead of airstrikes as a step it takes to mitigate harm.
Many Lebanese, including some Shiites, blame Hezbollah for their suffering, while also decrying Israel’s bombardments. Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel last year the day after Hamas attacked Israel and started the war in Gaza; this went against the group’s promises to use its weapons only to defend Lebanon.
Since last October, more than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon, and women and children accounted for more than 900 of the dead, according to the Health Ministry. More than 1 million people have been displaced from their homes. Shiites, who make up a third of Lebanon’s 5 million people, have borne the brunt of this suffering. Israel says it has killed well over 2,000 Hezbollah members in the past year.
The death and destruction in Lebanon ramped up significantly in mid-September, when Israeli airstrikes began targeting Hezbollah’s leaders, and once again in early October, when Israeli ground troops invaded.
Early in the war, Israeli airstrikes killed about 500 Hezbollah members but caused very little collateral damage. But since late September, airstrikes have destroyed entire buildings and homes, and in some cases killed dozens of civilians when the intended target was one Hezbollah member or official.
On one particularly bloody day, Sept. 23, Israeli airstrikes killed almost 500 people and prompted hundreds of thousands of people – again, mostly Shiites — to flee their homes in panic.
Murtada’s relatives fled from Beirut’s southern suburbs in late September after entire blocks had been wiped out by airstrikes. They moved 22 kilometers (about 14 miles) east of the city, to the predominantly Druze mountain village of Baalchmay to stay in the home of Murtada’s uncle.
Then, on Nov. 12, the home where they sought refuge was destroyed without warning. The airstrike killed nine relatives — three men, three women and three children — and a domestic worker, Murtada said.
The Israeli army said the home was being used by Hezbollah. Murtada, who lost a grandmother and an aunt in the strike, said nobody in the home was connected to the militant group.
Hezbollah has long boasted about its ability to deter Israel, but the latest war has proven otherwise and taken a severe toll on its leadership.
Some Shiites fear the weakening of Hezbollah will lead to the entire community being sidelined politically once the war is over. But others believe it could offer a political opening for more diverse Shiite voices.
Ceasefire negotiations to end the Israel-Hezbollah appear to have gained momentum over the past week. Some critics of Hezbollah say the group could have accepted months ago the conditions currently under consideration.
This would have spared Lebanon “destruction, martyrs and losses worth billions (of dollars),” Lebanese legislator Waddah Sadek, who is Sunni Muslim, wrote on X.
Donkeys offer Gazans lifeline amid war shortages
- Donkey-pulled carts were a fairly common sight in pre-war Gaza
- Displaced Gazans fleeing fighting or air strikes pile aboard them to rush to safety with their belongings
Deir el-Balah: Amina Abu Maghasib’s livelihood rests on one animal: a donkey that pulls the cart she uses to transport people around Gaza, where more than a year of war has led to a widespread shortage of fuel for cars.
“Before the war, I used to sell milk and yoghurt, and the factory used to take the milk from me,” she said from the central Gaza city of Deir el-Balah, holding reins in one hand and a rubber stick in the other that she uses to maneuver her cart.
“Now, I have no income other than the donkey and the cart.”
Donkey-pulled carts were a fairly common sight in pre-war Gaza. But the lack of fuel and destruction in the territory since the conflict began between Israel and Hamas last year have made them one of the few remaining forms of transport.
Displaced Gazans fleeing fighting or air strikes pile aboard them to rush to safety with their belongings.
For others, a donkey cart is virtually the only form of transportation.
Marwa Yess uses a donkey cart to get around with her family.
“I pay 20 shekels ($5.40) for the cart to take me from Deir el-Balah to Nuseirat. The price is outrageous, but under these circumstances, everything seems reasonable,” she said. The distance is about five kilometers (three miles).
“I used to feel embarrassed to ride a donkey cart at the beginning of the war, but now there’s no other option,” the teacher and mother of three told AFP.
Soaring prices
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, 43 percent of Gaza’s working animals — a category that includes donkeys, horses and mules — had been killed in the war by August 2024, leaving only 2,627 alive.
Abu Maghasib’s only running costs are fodder, she told AFP sitting on her cart, a few planks of wood held together by a metal frame and mounted on four wheels.
But the price of food for people and animals has soared.
After costs, Abu Maghasib has made a profit of 20 shekels at the end of the day from the clients who hop on and off from the roadside.
“I bought this donkey on credit, and the first donkey died in the war in Deir el-Balah after being hit by shrapnel,” she said.
The new one cost her 2,500 shekels.
Abdel Misbah, a 32-year-old man displaced with his family of 20 from Gaza City to the territory’s south, also made the livelihood switch to donkey transportation.
“I used to sell vegetables on a cart before the war. Now, I work in delivery,” he said, lamenting that “the donkey panics when the bombing gets too close.”
He too feels the pain of skyrocketing fodder prices.
“I make sure to feed it well, even though the price of barley (per sack) has gone up from three shekels to 50 shekels,” he said.
'More valuable than gold'
Israel imposed a near-total siege on Gaza in the early stages of the war last year, complicating aid and goods distribution.
The lack of fuel, war-damaged roads and looting, as well as fighting in densely populated areas and the repeated displacement of much of Gaza’s 2.4 million people, also contribute to the shortages.
A UN-backed assessment this month said famine looms in northern Gaza, and the United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said aid entering the territory had reached its lowest level in months.
Yusef Muhammad, a 23-year-old displaced from Gaza’s north to Khan Yunis in the south, said his donkey has become a “lifeline” for his family.
“When the war started, car fares were too expensive. I had no choice but to rely on a donkey. Thank God I had it when we were forced to evacuate.”
Beyond the widespread destruction, Israel’s military campaign has killed at least 44,211 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas government’s health ministry, which the UN considers reliable.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
When Israeli military evacuation orders, which usually precede fighting and bombing, send thousands of people and their belongings onto the road in an instant, donkey carts can be one of the only ways out of danger.
Hosni Abu Warda, 62, said his home was destroyed in the northern area of Jabalia, the scene of an intense Israeli military operation since early October.
When he fled, Abu Warda said he had no choice but to turn to four-hoofed transportation. He waited 14 hours for a cart before escaping with his family “packed like sardines.”
In times like these, “the donkey is more valuable than gold and even more valuable than modern cars,” Abu Warda said.
Mikati warns Israeli military action in Lebanon a rejection of political solution
- Borrell in Beirut: Pressure must be exerted on Israel, Hezbollah to accept US proposal
- Israel steps up bombardment of capital’s southern suburbs
BEIRUT: An Israeli strike on a Lebanese army center on Sunday killed a soldier and wounded 18 others, the Lebanese military said, with the caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, calling the attack “a direct bloody message rejecting all efforts to reach a ceasefire.”
The attack came as top EU diplomat Josep Borrell called for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war while on a visit to Lebanon.
According to the Lebanese Army Command, the first adjutant, Diab Mohammed Jaafar, was killed when Israel targeted Al-Amariyeh checkpoint on the road between Tyre and the town of Naqoura.
In a statement, Mikati said: “Israel’s messages rejecting a solution are ongoing, and just as it turned against the US-French call for a ceasefire in September, here it is once again responding with Lebanese blood, blatantly rejecting the solution that is being discussed.”
He called on “the countries of the world and the relevant international institutions to assume their responsibilities on the issue.”
Mikati’s condemnation came amid growing concerns that the Israeli military is trying to solidify its westward incursion in the coastal town of Al-Bayada, located between Tyre and Naqoura, while facing strong resistance from the eastern side of the border area in its positions in Khiyam.
Israeli forces are trying to encircle the South Litani area from both sides.
Hezbollah said it “targeted a gathering of the enemy army s forces east of the city of Khiyam with a salvo of rockets,” and “a gathering of Israeli forces at the Metula site (Israel’s outlet toward Khiyam) was targeted with a volley of rockets followed by an aerial attack with a squadron of assault drones … hitting its targets accurately.”
The Israeli military said Hezbollah launched 160 projectiles toward Israel on Sunday.
Sirens sounded across northern and central Israel, reaching Tel Aviv at successive intervals, forcing thousands of Israelis to head toward shelters.
Footage from central Israel showed extensive material damage and fires.
The Israeli military issued further warnings to residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs to evacuate, targeting Bourj Al-Barajneh and Hadath.
Former Israeli minister Benny Gantz claimed that the Lebanese government “is leaving Hezbollah unchecked,” adding: “It is time to act against its assets forcefully.”
These developments came during a round of discussions conducted by Borrell, high representative of the EU for foreign affairs and security policy, in Beirut with Mikati and Speaker Nabih Berry.
In a statement, Borrell stressed the need for exerting pressure on Israel and Hezbollah to accept the US proposal for a ceasefire.
Borrell emphasized that “the situation in the Middle East, particularly here in Beirut, presents a significant challenge to the international community. The international community cannot remain inactive in the face of these events. The absence of peace in the Middle East has reached an intolerable level, and people are dying under bombardment.”
He added that two months on from his last visit to Beirut, he now views Lebanon as on the verge of collapse due to the conflict, which has led to the devastation of numerous villages, as well as airstrikes aimed at Beirut and Baalbek. He also reiterated that “the human cost is exceedingly high.”
Borrell said Israeli airstrikes had claimed the lives of over 3,500 people in Lebanon, a figure three times greater than the casualties recorded in 2006.
The only viable path forward, Borrell said, is an immediate ceasefire and the full implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701.
Borrell praised the UNIFIL forces and confirmed the EU’s readiness to allocate €200 million ($208.3 million) to the Lebanese Armed Forces.
He emphasized the Lebanese need to “assume their political responsibilities by electing a president and putting an end to this prolonged power vacuum that has exceeded two years.”
Borrell said a ceasefire proposal for Gaza is pending Israeli government approval, and “we, as the international community, need to work to ensure the respect of international law, as we see famine being used as a weapon of war through international law violations, the complete siege imposed on Gaza and the number of people that are dying in Lebanon.”
He added that in his view the decisions of the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for Israel’s activities in Gaza were not politically motivated and had been made under international law, which applied to everyone. “We strongly support the court,” he said.
