UNITED NATIONS: Experts from the UN and the chemical weapons watchdog said Syria’s government is responsible for a sarin nerve gas attack that killed over 90 people last April.
Their report, obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, said leaders of the expert body are “confident that the Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin at Khan Sheikhoun on April 4, 2017.”
The report supports the initial findings by the United States, France and Britain that a Syrian military plane dropped a bomb with sarin on the town.
Syria and Russia, its close ally, have denied any attack and have strongly criticized the Joint Investigative Mechanism, known as the JIM, which was established by the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to determine responsibility for chemical weapons attacks in Syria.
The attack in Khan Sheikhoun sparked outrage around the world as photos and video of the aftermath, including quivering children dying on camera, were widely broadcast.
The United States blamed the Syrian military and launched a punitive strike days later on the Shayrat air base, where it said the attack was launched.
Responding to the report, US Ambassador Nikki Haley said: “Today’s report confirms what we have long known to be true. Time and again, we see independent confirmation of chemical weapons use by the Assad regime.”
Clearly referring to Russia, she said: “In spite of these independent reports, we still see some countries trying to protect the regime. That must end now.”
The Security Council should make it clear that “the use of chemical weapons by anyone will not be tolerated,” Haley said.
A fact-finding mission by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons reported June 30 that sarin was used in the Khan Sheikhoun attack and “sulfur mustard” in Um Hosh. But the JIM experts had the task of determining who conducted the attacks.
The JIM experts said Thursday they are “confident” the Daesh extremist group was responsible for an attack in Um Hosh in Aleppo on Sept. 15-16, 2016, that used “sulfur mustard,” the chemical weapon commonly known as mustard gas.
In addition to blaming the Syrian government and the Daesh group, the JIM report says, “The continuing use of chemical weapons, including by non-state actors, is deeply disturbing.”
“If such use, in spite of the prohibition by the international community, is not stopped now, a lack of consequences will surely encourage others to follow — not only in the Syrian Arab Republic but also elsewhere,” it warned. “This is the time to bring these acts to an end.”
The report was issued two days after Russia vetoed a US-sponsored resolution to extend the mandate of the JIM investigators for another year after it expires Nov. 17.
Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said Moscow wanted to wait for the JIM report. “We can meaningfully negotiate the renewal of JIM after we have seen the report,” he told reporters Thursday before it came out.
Russia’s UN Mission said after its circulation: “We have started a thorough study of this paper, which is of very complex technical nature.”
Haley said countries that don’t support the JIM experts “are no better than the dictators or terrorists who use these terrible weapons.”
The investigators determined last year that the Syrian government was behind at least three attacks involving chlorine gas and that the Daesh extremist group was responsible for at least one involving mustard gas.
Louis Charbonneau, UN director for Human Rights Watch, said: “The question now is whether Security Council and OPCW members, including Russia, will move to protect a key international rule and hold Syrian authorities accountable as they said they would.”
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said: “Britain condemns this appalling breach of the rules of war and calls on the international community to unite to hold Assad’s regime accountable.”
The report said the JIM experts talked with 17 witnesses in addition to those interviewed by the OPCW fact-finding mission and collected and reviewed material the OPCW did not have. It said the experts also obtained “substantial information” on activities by the Syrian air force on April 4.
The experts determined sarin was released from a crater in the northern part of Khan Sheikhoun between 6:30 a.m. and 7 a.m. April 4.
Based on photos, videos and satellite images as well as studies of munition remnants by forensic institutes and individual experts hired by the JIM, the experts “assessed that the crater was most probably caused by a heavy object traveling at a high velocity, such as an aerial bomb with a small explosive charge,” the report said.
The possibility that an improvised explosive device caused the crater “could not be completely ruled out,” but the experts determined that was “less likely” because an IED “would have caused more damage to the surroundings than had been observed at the scene.”
The report said the investigators received information that Syrian air force planes “may have been in a position to launch aerial bombs in the vicinity” of the town. But it said air force flight records and other records provided by Syria’s government made no mention of Khan Sheikhoun. The experts said they received “conflicting information” about aircraft deployments in the town that morning.
The experts also obtained “original video footage from two separate witnesses that showed four plumes caused by explosives across Khan Sheikhoun,” the report said. It said forensic analysis confirmed the footage was made during the time of the sarin attack.
According to the report, the JIM leadership panel concluded the Syrian military was behind the sarin attack based on the following “sufficient, credible and reliable evidence”:
— Aircraft dropped munitions over Khan Sheikhoun between 6:30 a.m. and 7 a.m. on April 4
— Syrian aircraft were “in the immediate vicinity” at that time.
— The crater was created that morning.
— The crater “was caused by the impact of an aerial bomb traveling at high velocity.”
— The number of people affected and the presence of sarin at the crater 10 days later “indicate that a large amount of sarin was likely released, which is consistent with it being dispersed via a chemical aerial bomb”
— The symptoms of victims, their treatment and the scale of the incident “are consistent with a large-scale intoxication of sarin.”
— Sarin samples from Khan Sheikhoun were “most likely” made with a precursor chemical that was from “the original stockpile of the Syrian Arab Republic.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reiterates “his full confidence in the professionalism, impartiality and objectivity” of the JIM and looks forward to the Security Council’s consideration of the report Nov. 7, UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.
UN report finds Syrian regime responsible for sarin attack
UN report finds Syrian regime responsible for sarin attack
A lion cub evacuated from Lebanon to a South African sanctuary escapes airstrikes and abuse
Sara is the fifth lion cub to be evacuated from Lebanon by local rescue group Animals Lebanon since Hezbollah and Israel began exchanging fire
BEIRUT: When Sara first arrived at her rescuers’ home, she was sick, tired, and was covered in ringworms and signs of abuse all over her little furry body.
After spending two months in a small Beirut apartment with an animal rights group, the four-and-half-month-old lion cub arrived Friday at a wildlife sanctuary in South Africa after a long journey on a yacht and planes, escaping both Israeli airstrikes and abusive owners.
Sara is the fifth lion cub to be evacuated from Lebanon by local rescue group Animals Lebanon since Hezbollah and Israel began exchanging fire a day after the Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel by Hamas that ignited the war in Gaza last year.
Animals Lebanon first discovered Sara on social media channels in July. Her owner, a Lebanese man in the ancient city of Baalbek, posted bombastic videos of himself parading with the little lion cub on TikTok and Instagram.
Under Lebanese law, it is prohibited to own wild and exotic animals.
The lion cub was “really just being used as showing off,” said Jason Mier, executive director of Animals Lebanon.
In mid-September, the group finally retrieved her after filing a case with the police and judiciary, who interrogated her owner and forced him to give up the feline.
Soon after that, Israel launched an offensive against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah — after nearly a year of low-level conflict — and Baalbek came under heavy bombardment.
Mier and his team were able to extract Sara from Baalbek weeks before Israel launched its aerial bombardment campaign on the ancient city, and move her to an apartment in Beirut’s busy commercial Hamra district.
She was supposed to fly to South Africa in October, but international airlines stopped flights to Lebanon as Israeli jets and drones hit sites close to the country’s only airport.
Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border into Israel in support of its ally, Hamas, on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after Palestinian militants staged the deadly surprise incursion into southern Israel. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes. Beginning in mid-September, Israel launched an intense aerial bombardment of much of Lebanon, followed by a ground invasion.
Before the conflict, Animals Lebanon was active in halting animal trafficking and the exotic pet trade, saving over two dozen big cats from imprisonment in lavish homes and sending them to wildlife sanctuaries.
Since the war started, Animals Lebanon has also been rescuing pets that have been trapped in damaged apartments as hundreds of thousands of Lebanese fled bombardment — almost 1,000 over the past month alone.
“Lots are still in our care because the owners of these animals are still displaced,” Mier said. “So, we can’t expect the person to take this animal back when he might be living on the street or in a school.”
Before the conflict escalated, the rights group was able to move around the country more freely as the fighting largely remained in southern Lebanon along the border with Israel. But things became more difficult as airstrikes became more frequent and spread over wider swathes of the country.
Unaware of the war around her, Sara thrived. She was fed a platter of raw meat daily and grew to 40 kilograms (88 pounds). She cuddled every morning with Mier’s wife Maggie, also an animal rights activist.
But the activists faced a major obstacle: How would they get her out of Lebanon?
Animals Lebanon collected donations from supporters and rights groups around the world to put Sara on a small yacht to take her to Cyprus. From there, she flew to the United Arab Emirates before her long journey ended in Cape Town.
Days before her evacuation Sara played in one of the bedrooms at Mier’s apartment, with cushions and chew toys scattered.
Thursday at dawn, she arrived to the port of Dbayeh, just north of Beirut. Mier and his team were relieved, but also struggling to hold back their tears at her departure.
Mier anticipates Sara will be held for monitoring and disease-control, but soon will be part of a community of other lions.
“Then she’ll be integrated with two recent lions that we’ve sent from Lebanon, so she’ll make a nice group of three hopefully,” he said. “That’s where she will live out the rest of her life. That is the best option for her.”
Palestinian militants release new clip of Israeli hostage Trupanov in Gaza
- Trupanov appealed to Aryeh Deri, a member of Israel’s governing coalition, to help free him and the other hostages held in Gaza
- In September, Deri described the act of bringing back the hostages as a “sacred duty“
JERUSALEM: A Palestinian militant group allied with Hamas released a new clip Friday of Israeli hostage Sasha Trupanov, held in Gaza since the October 2023 attack, after publishing a first video earlier this week.
Trupanov, identified by his relatives in the previous video released on Wednesday, appealed to Aryeh Deri — leader of the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party Shas, a member of Israel’s governing coalition — to help free him and the other hostages held in Gaza.
The Shas party supports a deal for their release under the Jewish religious obligation to do everything possible to free captives.
In September, Deri described the act of bringing back the hostages as a “sacred duty.”
Trupanov, 29, is a dual Russian-Israeli citizen who was abducted with his girlfriend, Sapir Cohen, from the Nir Oz kibbutz near the Gaza border.
His mother and grandmother were also abducted and released along with Cohen during a week-long truce and hostage-prisoner exchange in November 2023.
His father, Vitaly, was killed in the October 7, 2023 attack, the deadliest in Israeli history.
This is now the fourth video of Trupanov released by Islamic Jihad.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called for the release of Trupanov and another hostage, Maxim Herkin, in comments made before the release of the latest clip.
“We reiterate our call for the immediate and unconditional release of all civilians held by Palestinian groups, with priority given to our compatriots,” she said.
Herkin, a 35-year-old Russian-Israeli citizen, was abducted at the Nova music festival.
Militants seized 251 hostages during the attack, some of them already dead.
Ninety-seven are still being held hostage, while 34 are confirmed dead but their bodies remain in Gaza.
The attack resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 43,764 people in Gaza, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
Workers search through rubble in eastern Lebanon where Israeli strike killed 13
- All those killed in the strike on the town of Douris near Baalbek were employees and volunteers of the emergency services agency, according to the Lebanese Civil Defense
- Some other remains were also recovered and will require DNA testing
BEIRUT: Rescue teams were searching Friday through rubble for missing people near the city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon where an Israeli strike hit a civil defense center the night before, killing at least 13.
All those killed in the strike on the town of Douris near Baalbek were employees and volunteers of the emergency services agency, according to the Lebanese Civil Defense. Some other remains were also recovered and will require DNA testing, it said in a statement.
The General Directorate of Civil Defense expressed “deep regret over this direct attack on its members.” Staffers “will continue to respond to relief calls and continue with its humanitarian mission, no matter how great the challenges and sacrifices are,” it said.
Israel has accused Hezbollah of using ambulances and medical facilities to transport and store weapons. The Israeli military has not commented on the strike on the civil defense center in Baalbek.
Israel has been striking deeper inside Lebanon since September as it escalates the war against Hezbollah. After 13 months of war, more than 3,300 people have been killed and more than 14,400 wounded, Lebanon’s Health Ministry says.
The Israel-Hamas war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others. Lebanon’s Hezbollah group began firing into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza.
Israel’s blistering 13-month war in Gaza has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to local health officials who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The fighting has left some 76 people dead in Israel, including 31 soldiers.
Gaza aid access ‘at a low point’, UN official says
- UN official’s remarks run counter to a US assessment earlier this week that Israel is not currently impeding humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip
GENEVA: Aid access in Gaza is at a low point with deliveries to parts of the besieged north of the enclave all but impossible, a UN humanitarian official said on Friday.
The remarks run counter to a US assessment earlier this week that Israel is not currently impeding humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip, avoiding restrictions on US military aid. Israel has said it has worked hard to assist the humanitarian needs in Gaza.
“From our perspective, on all indicators you can possibly think of in a humanitarian response, all of them are going in the wrong direction,” said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in response to a question at a Geneva press briefing about whether humanitarian access had improved.
“Access is at a low point. Chaos, suffering, despair, death, destruction, displacement are at a high point,” he added.
Laerke voiced concern about north Gaza where residents have been ordered to head south as Israeli forces’ more than month-long incursion continues. Israel says its operations there are designed to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping.
“We have seen and been particularly concerned about the situation in the north of Gaza, which is now effectively under siege and it is near impossible to deliver aid in there. So the operation is being stifled,” Laerke said.
“One of my colleagues described it as, for humanitarian work... you want to jump. You want to jump up and do something. But what he added was: but our legs are broken. So we are being asked to jump while our legs are broken.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in an Oct. 13 letter gave their Israeli counterparts a list of specific steps that Israel needed to do within 30 days to address the worsening situation in Gaza.
Failure to do so may have possible consequences on US military aid to Israel, they said in the letter. Other non-UN aid groups say Israel has failed to meet the demands — an allegation Israel has rejected.
Hamas ready for ceasefire ‘immediately’ but Israel yet to offer ‘serious’ proposal
- Hamas official Basem Naim: Oct. 7 attack ‘an act of self defense’
- ‘I have the right to live a free and dignified life,’ he tells Sky News
LONDON: A Hamas official has claimed that Israel has not put forward any “serious proposals” for a ceasefire since the assassination of its leader Ismail Haniyeh, despite the group being ready for one “immediately.”
Dr. Basem Naim told the Sky News show “The World With Yalda Hakim” that the last “well-defined, brokered deal” was put on the table between the two warring sides on July 2.
“It was discussed in all details and I think we were near to a ceasefire ... which can end this war, offer a permanent ceasefire and total withdrawal and prisoner exchange,” he said. “Unfortunately (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu preferred to go the other way.”
Naim urged the incoming Trump administration to do whatever necessary to help end the war.
He said Hamas does not regret its attack against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which left 1,200 people dead and prompted Israel’s invasion of Gaza that has killed in excess of 43,000 people and left hundreds of thousands injured.
Naim said Israel is guilty of “big massacres” in the Palestinian enclave, and when asked if Hamas bore responsibility as a result of the Oct. 7 attack, he called it “an act of self defense,” adding: “It’s exactly as if you’re accusing the victims for the crimes of the aggressor.”
He continued: “I’m a member of Hamas, but at the same time I’m an innocent Palestinian civilian because I have the right to live a free and dignified life and I have the right to defend myself, to defend my family.”
When asked if he regrets the Oct. 7 attack, Naim replied: “Do you believe that a prisoner who is knocking (on) the door or who is trying to get out of the prison, he has to regret his will to be? This is part of our dignity ... to defend ourselves, to defend our children.”
