FALLUJAH: The road was dirty, bumpy and winding and the car jolted up and down. Some of the homes on either side were partially damaged, others had been turned into piles of rubble.
The area of destruction increased deeper into Al-Shuhadaa, the eastern district of Fallujah city, the first Iraqi city to fall into the hands of Daesh in Jan. 2017.
The streets seemed deserted, except for a few families who have recently returned to their homes, and the area is littered with booby traps.
The recent visit by Arab News revealed the scale of the challenge faced by Iraq as it embarks on repairing the damage inflicted by the extremists during their short rule over large tracts of the north and west.
On Monday, at least 2,300 international and local companies from 70 countries, will gather in Kuwait for a conference on reconstructing Iraq. The three-day event, organized by Baghdad in coordination with Kuwait and the International Monetary Fund, will launch more than 150 projects and drum up investment from the international community to contribute to the $100 billion that Iraq says it needs to repair all the damage.
But in many areas, before any major rebuilding projects can get underway, residents are facing a deadly and more immediate problem — unexploded bombs left behind by Daesh.
“Anything here may be booby-trapped,” police officer Maj. Yasser Rabah told Arab News as he stood 20 meters from a one-floor house still under construction and partially damaged in Fallujah.
He said the house had been laced with improvised explosive devices, two of which had already exploded. One of the blasts killed two brothers as they stood at the entrance.
“No one can get closer as we know there is still a series of linked unexploded IEDs,” Rabah said.
“They (Daesh) booby-trapped everything. Even the land has been planted with improvised explosive devices.”
Al-Shuhadaa and Al-Nuimaya districts are near the highway that linked Fallujah to Baghdad and were turned into one of the main Daesh front lines.
They were used by the extremists to stop the advance of Iraqi security forces to retake the city and witnessed some of the fiercest battles during the military operations launched in May 2016 that lasted for almost five weeks.
Houses in the area were either bobby-trapped or surrounded by IEDs planted in the dirt. Rusted square steel plates with a diameter of about 25cm, connected by wires, and 90cm-long wooden panels stand out of the dirt on the roadside every two meters.
Ziyad Khalaf, a resident who returned to his home in the area with his family a few months ago, said his wife and sister were killed after they returned when one of these devices detonated.
“They went out to get some firewood to for the oven,” he told Arab News. “My sister pulled on a palm frond and an explosion took place,” Khalaf said, trying to stop his tears. “She (his sister) was blown to pieces while my wife was badly injured. She died at the hospital.”
Some of the devices in the area have been defused by the army but left behind, while others have been disarmed by the rain, but the rest are still live, he said.
Families have returned to their homes in eastern districts of Fallujah despite military maps that show much of the area is still covered with mines.
More than 20 civilians were killed just in Al-Shuhadaa in the past few months, local officials in Fallujah told Arab News.
“We have not allowed any of these families to go back to the area but they sneaked there without our permission,” Essaa Al-Sayer, the mayor of Fallujah, said. “We have no control over them so we cannot prevent them from going back.”
Sayer said the army could not do that much in the “mine-contaminated area” because of lack of experience and because Baghdad’s government does not have enough money to get foreign specialized companies to treat the 300 houses booby trapped in Fallujah. “We are relying on international donors to deal with this (the mines) problem. It’s beyond our abilities.”
Many other cities and towns are still contaminated with improvised explosive devices, such as the old city of Mosul, some neighborhoods in Ramadi, Saqlawiya, Naimiya and Rawa in Anbar, Jarf Al-Sakhr in Babil and Baiji in Salahuddin.
Two-and-a-half-million people are still displaced and some of them are living in camps on the edge of their cities. Those people cannot go back to their homes, mainly because of the IEDs.
UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) said the Iraqi government, the UN, and other national and international stakeholders should prioritized the clearance of “explosive hazards” as an essential first step before any rehabilitation or reconstruction work can be carried out.
“The explosive hazards problem is complex, extensive, and exceeds the capacity of the existing resources to address it,” according to the UNMAS website.
Iraq is seeking $147 million to support operations in removing unexploded bombs in the country in 2018, UNMAS said.
Deadly Daesh legacy blights Iraq reconstruction plans
Deadly Daesh legacy blights Iraq reconstruction plans
Iraq begins repatriating Syrian soldiers amid border security assurances
DUBAI: Iraq has begun the process of returning Syrian soldiers to their home country, according to state media reports on Wednesday.
Lt. Gen. Qais Al-Muhammadawi, deputy commander of joint operations, emphasized the robust security measures in place along Iraq’s borders with Syria.
“Our borders are fortified and completely secure,” he said, declaring that no unauthorized crossings would be permitted.
Muhammadawi said that all border crossings with Syria are under tight control, stating: “We will not allow a terrorist to enter our territory.”
Turkiye won’t halt Syria military activity until Kurd fighters ‘disarm’
ISTANBUL: Turkiye will push ahead with its military preparations until Kurdish fighters “disarm,” a defense ministry source said Thursday as the nation faces an ongoing threat along its border with northern Syria.
“Until the PKK/YPG terrorist organization disarms and its foreign fighters leave Syria, our preparations and measures will continue within the scope of the fight against terrorism,” the source said.
Hamas says Israeli strikes in Yemen ‘dangerous development’
GAZA: Palestinian militant group Hamas said Thursday that Israel’s strikes in Yemen after the Houthi rebels fired a missile at the country were a “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.
