MOSUL: Along the waterfront of the Euphrates River in Iraq’s war-torn Mosul, gaping holes in hotel walls reveal little but enormous heaps of rubble.
Six months since Iraqi forces seized the country’s second city from Daesh, human remains still rot in front of the Al-Nuri Mosque.
The building, denuded of its iconic minaret and largely reduced to ruins by the fighting, was the site of the only known public appearance by Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi following the group’s declaration of a “caliphate” in 2014.
Mosul residents have gone from euphoria at the city’s “liberation” after three years of terrorist rule to uncertainty.
The few souls who venture into the debris-strewn alleyways say their future is precarious.
Iraq forces defeated Daesh in Mosul in July 2017 after months of intense urban battles that reduced the historic Old City to ruins.
Pounded by international coalition airstrikes and constant shellfire by insurgents, most of Mosul’s residents fled.
Some never made it out.
Asma Mohammed’s father and husband were killed in an airstrike then hurriedly buried, like several of their neighbors, in improvised cemeteries on a vacant strip of land.
Mohammed said the strike missed its target, hitting civilians rather than terrorists occupying the nearby buildings.
Iraqi authorities “say they need to investigate before issuing death certificates,” she said, sitting in her modest Old City house, itself damaged during the violence.
She is one of many Mosul residents who count family members among those killed in airstrikes.
The US-led coalition has admitted to killing 817 civilians over three years of battling the group.
But according to sources in Mosul, some 2,000 civilians were killed in coalition airstrikes and fighting in the city alone.
Since her parents died, Asma and her two children have survived day-to-day on donations from friends and neighbors.
When she thinks of the future, she begins to cry.
Only one other family has returned to this part of the Old City — that of Ansam Anwar, 30, who headed back just days ago with her husband and their five children.
In small whitewashed rooms around the inner courtyard of their house, the cold is biting. The utilities have been cut off and electricity meters torn from the walls.
Ansam’s husband, a laborer, has yet to find work in the largely deserted Old City.
“There is still no water or electricity, my children are still deprived of school. Even the smell of rotting bodies continues to suffocate us,” Ansam said as she moves away dust and debris covering the ground.
The alley outside is partially blocked by wooden furniture.
Further down the street, Abu Qutayba Al-Attar, 59, walks through the once crowded alleys of the historic market, a traditional kuffiyeh scarf around his head and a long robe reaching his feet.
His father’s shop, where he spent his days “from the age of six onwards,” was destroyed in the carnage.
After the fighting reached his neighborhood a year ago, he said he remained “shut up at home in a state of depression.”
But now he has started working to rebuild the shop at his own expense.
Now that “security has returned,” the economy must follow, he insisted.
Sitting at a historic trading crossroads close to Syria and Turkey, Mosul has long thumbed its nose at authorities in Baghdad.
But traders say working with the authorities is essential to ensure that Daesh does not return.
“Now, we must cooperate with the security forces that have liberated us and inform on anyone who seems suspicious, rather than remain passive,” one said.
After their invasion of Iraq in 2003, American forces took huge losses in Mosul and the surrounding region, from which many of former dictator Saddam Hussein’s army officers originated.
Even before Daesh launched its lightning takeover of a third of Iraq’s territory and large parts of Syria in 2014, extremist groups had taken control in some areas, placing them off limits to Iraqi forces.
“For the time being, the residents are cooperating completely and informing us when they see strangers in their neighborhoods,” said a police officer, who asked to remain anonymous.
“We hope that will continue — if not, everything could change and a new Daesh could emerge.”
Mozhar Abdel Qader, a 48-year-old trader, cautioned against celebrating too quickly. The conditions that allowed Daesh to recruit en masse in Mosul still exist, he said.
“There is unemployment, injustice. People don’t have enough to eat. So when you give them $100 to plant a bomb, they do it,” the father of five told AFP.
He said he regularly returns to examine his house in the Old City, riddled with bullets and shells.
“If we feed everyone and find work for young people, you can be sure that everyone would protect the country even better than the security forces,” he said.
Mosul’s old heart in ruins 6 months after liberation
Mosul’s old heart in ruins 6 months after liberation
Hamas says Israeli strikes in Yemen ‘dangerous development’
“We regard this escalation as a dangerous development and an extension of the aggression against our Palestinian people, Syria and the Arab region,” Hamas said in a statement as Israel struck ports and energy infrastructure in Yemen after intercepting a missile attack by the Houthis.
Separated for decades, Assad’s fall spurs hope for families split by Golan Heights buffer zone
- Golan Heights is a rocky plateau that Israel seized from Syria in 1967 and annexed in 1981
- US is the only country to recognize Israel’s control; the rest of the world considers the Golan Heights occupied Syrian territory
MAJDAL SHAMS, Golan Heights: The four sisters gathered by the side of the road, craning their necks to peer far beyond the razor wire-reinforced fence snaking across the mountain. One took off her jacket and waved it slowly above her head.
In the distance, a tiny white speck waved frantically from the hillside.
“We can see you!” Soha Safadi exclaimed excitedly on her cellphone. She paused briefly to wipe away tears that had begun to flow. “Can you see us too?”
The tiny speck on the hill was Soha’s sister, Sawsan. Separated by war and occupation, they hadn’t seen each other in person for 22 years.
The six Safadi sisters belong to the Druze community, one of the Middle East’s most insular religious minorities. Its population is spread across Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Golan Heights, a rocky plateau that Israel seized from Syria in 1967 and annexed in 1981. The US is the only country to recognize Israel’s control; the rest of the world considers the Golan Heights occupied Syrian territory.
Israel’s seizure of the Golan Heights split families apart.
Five of the six Safadi sisters and their parents live in Majdal Shams, a Druze town next to the buffer zone created between the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights and Syria. But the sixth, 49-year-old Sawsan, married a man from Jaramana, a town on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, 27 years ago and has lived in Syria ever since. They have land in the buffer zone, where they grow olives and apples and also maintain a small house.
With very few visits allowed to relatives over the years, a nearby hill was dubbed “Shouting Hill,” where families would gather on either side of the fence and use loudspeakers to speak to each other.
The practice declined as the Internet made video calls widely accessible, while the Syrian war that began in 2011 made it difficult for those on the Syrian side to reach the buffer zone.
But since the Dec. 8 fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, families like the Safadis, are starting to revive the practice. They cling to hope, however faint, that regime change will herald a loosening of restrictions between the Israeli-controlled area and Syria that have kept them from their loved ones for so long.
“It was something a bit different. You see her in person. It feels like you could be there in two minutes by car,” Soha Safadi, 51, said Wednesday after seeing the speck that was her sister on the hill. “This is much better, much better.”
Since Assad’s fall, the sisters have been coming to the fence every day to see Sawsan. They make arrangements by phone for a specific time, and then make a video call while also trying to catch a glimpse of each other across the hill.
“She was very tiny, but I could see her,” Soha Safadi said. “There were a lot of mixed feelings — sadness, joy and hope. And God willing, God willing, soon, soon, we will see her” in person.
After Assad fell, the Israeli military pushed through the buffer zone and into Syria proper. It has captured Mount Hermon, Syria’s tallest mountain, known as Jabal Al-Sheikh in Arabic, on the slopes of which lies Majdal Shams. The buffer zone is now a hive of military and construction activity, and Sawsan can’t come close to the fence.
While it is far too early to say whether years of hostile relations between the two countries will improve, the changes in Syria have sparked hope for divided families that maybe, just maybe, they might be able to meet again.
“This thing gave us a hope … that we can see each other. That all the people in the same situation can meet their families,” said another sister, 53-year-old Amira Safadi.
Yet seeing Sawsan across the hill, just a short walk away, is also incredibly painful for the sisters.
They wept as they waved, and cried even more when their sister put their nephew, 24-year-old Karam, on the phone. They have only met him once, during a family reunion in Jordan. He was 2 years old.
“It hurts, it hurts, it hurts in the heart,” Amira Safadi said. “It’s so close and far at the same time. It is like she is here and we cannot reach her, we cannot hug her.”
Israel’s deprivation of water in Gaza is act of genocide – Human Rights Watch
- ‘What we have found is that the Israeli government is intentionally killing Palestinians in Gaza by denying them the water that they need to survive’
- Israel’s campaign has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, displaced most of the 2.3 million population and reduced much of the coastal enclave to ruins
THE HAGUE: Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that Israel has killed thousands of Palestinians in Gaza by denying them clean water which it says legally amounts to acts of genocide and extermination.
“This policy, inflicted as part of a mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, means Israeli authorities have committed the crime against humanity of extermination, which is ongoing. This policy also amounts to an ‘act of genocide’ under the Genocide Convention of 1948,” Human Rights Watch said in its report.
Israel has repeatedly rejected any accusation of genocide, saying it has respected international law and has a right to defend itself after the cross-border Hamas-led attack from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023 that precipitated the war.
Although the report described the deprivation of water as an act of genocide, it noted that proving the crime of genocide against Israeli officials would also require establishing their intent. It cited statements by some senior Israeli officials which it said suggested they “wish to destroy Palestinians” which means the deprivation of water “may amount to the crime of genocide.”
“What we have found is that the Israeli government is intentionally killing Palestinians in Gaza by denying them the water that they need to survive,” Lama Fakih, Human Rights Watch Middle East director told a press conference.
Human Rights Watch is the second major rights group in a month to use the word genocide to describe the actions of Israel in Gaza, after Amnesty International issued a report that concluded Israel was committing genocide.
Both reports came just weeks after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense chief for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. They deny the allegations.
The 1948 Genocide Convention, enacted in the wake of the mass murder of Jews in the Nazi Holocaust, defines the crime of genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
The 184-page Human Rights Watch report said the Israeli government stopped water being piped into Gaza and cut off electricity and restricted fuel which meant Gaza’s own water and sanitation facilities could not be used.
As a result, Palestinians in Gaza had access to only a few liters of water a day in many areas, far below the 15-liter-threshold for survival, the group said. Israel launched its air and ground war in Gaza after Hamas-led fighters attacked Israeli communities across the border 14 months ago, killing 1,200 people and taking over 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s campaign has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, displaced most of the 2.3 million population and reduced much of the coastal enclave to ruins.
Israel hits ports, energy sites in Yemen after missile intercepted
- Raids ‘targeted two central power plants’ in Yemen’s capital Sanaa
- The Houthi militants have said they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians
JERUSALEM: Israel said Thursday it struck ports and energy infrastructure it alleges are used by Houthi militants, after intercepting a missile fired by the group.
Israel’s military said it “conducted precise strikes on Houthi military targets in Yemen — including ports and energy infrastructure in Sanaa, which the Houthis have been using in ways that effectively contributed to their military actions.”
The announcement came shortly after Israel said it had intercepted a missile fired from Yemen.
Al-Masira, a media channel belonging to the Houthis, said a series of “aggressive raids” were launched in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa and the port city of Hodeidah.
It reported raids that “targeted two central power plants” in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, while in Hodeidah it said “the enemy launched four aggressive raids targeting the port... and two raids targeting” an oil facility.
The strikes were the second time this week that Israel’s military has intercepted a missile from Yemen.
On Monday, the Houthis claimed a missile launch they said was aimed at “a military target of the Israeli enemy in the occupied area of Yaffa” — a reference to Israel’s Tel Aviv area.
Also Monday, an Israeli navy missile boat intercepted a drone in the Mediterranean after it was launched from Yemen, the military said.
The Houthi militants have said they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians and pledged Monday to continue operations “until the aggression on Gaza stops and the siege is lifted.”
On December 9, a drone claimed by Houthis exploded on the top floor of a residential building in the central Israel city of Yavne, causing no casualties.
In July, a Houthi drone attack in Tel Aviv killed an Israeli civilian, prompting retaliatory strikes on the Yemeni port of Hodeidah.
The Houthis have also regularly targeted shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, leading to retaliatory strikes on Houthi targets by United States and sometimes British forces.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the group had become a “global threat,” pointing to Iran’s support for the militants.
“We will continue to act against anyone, anyone in the Middle East, that threatens the state of Israel,” he said.
Israeli army says intercepted missile fired from Yemen
JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said sirens sounded across central Israel as it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen on Thursday.
The Israeli Air Force “intercepted one missile that was launched from Yemen before it crossed into Israeli territory,” said a statement from the army, adding that there could be “falling debris from the interception.”
