LONDON: More than 346 people killed, 1,500 injured and more than 13 hospitals hit. With every hour that passes, the casualties mount.
Seven years into Syria’s relentless civil war, the statistics sound horribly familiar, but for doctors in Eastern Ghouta, and many more denied entry to supply much-needed support, the crisis has never felt more acute.
“There’s no access at all, not even the birds can fly over Ghouta now,” said Dr. Ghanem Tayara, chairman of the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM), which operates medical centers in locations around Syria, including Ghouta.
“What’s needed now is to stop the military operation completely and open a corridor to let aid into the besieged areas,” said Tayara, a GP in Birmingham in the UK.
“We have sent numerous messages to the regime requesting permission to go in and help with the casualties (but) have been completely ignored. They want to make life unbearable for everybody inside, so any support is rejected.”
On Sunday, Russian-backed regime forces stepped up efforts to secure the last major rebel stronghold in Syria. Since then, military aircraft have hardly left the skies. Barrel bombs, shells and surface-to-surface missiles rain down indiscriminately on the 400,000 residents of Eastern Ghouta, who fear their desperate plight goes unheeded by the world outside.
“People feel abandoned,” Aous Al-Mubarak, a civil society activist based in Eastern Ghouta, told Arab News. Speaking over WhatsApp messenger, he said: “There is utter disappointment here at the general silence of the world, and the weak attitudes toward the massacres and horrors that people have experienced.”
Doctors, sickened at the sight of more suffering among a population debilitated by years under siege, wonder why they should look up from their work to discuss the daily horrors they witness.
Mohamad Katoub, advocacy officer for the Syrian American Medical Society, said: “It’s hard now to convince doctors there to make another testimony … they say, why should I? Will this bring any accountability, or any justice?”
Another contact in Ghouta approached by Arab News said they were tired of talking to the media while people are being killed.
“People are very worried that the current situation might continue for days, or perhaps even weeks or months,” Al-Mubarak said. Everyone fears a repeat of Aleppo, which fell in December 2016 after government forces laid siege to the former rebel stronghold, maiming hundreds and torturing or disappearing many more.
Two weeks into a sustained air campaign by Syrian and Russian forces, residents of Eastern Ghouta are bracing themselves for a ground offensive that threatens a repeat of these atrocities, and the many others marking the chapters of this brutal war, in Homs, Hama, Darayya and other devastated areas.
“They didn’t have the stamina for this,” Afif Ahmed, a merchant from Ghouta told The Guardian newspaper. Speaking from the ruins of his shop, where his family has sought shelter since Sunday, he added: “Iran and Russia do. At least they don’t abandon their friends.”
Speaking to Arab News ahead of his trip to Syria next week, Tayara, the doctor, said the situation in Ghouta is “beyond description.”
“It’s dire, it’s horrible, it’s horrific.” He doesn’t know what else can be said to elicit a genuine response from the international community.
Tayara is not the only one struggling to find words to describe the death and destruction. On Friday, UNICEF released a statement that was blank except for a single sentence: “No words will do justice to the children killed, their mothers, their fathers, their loved ones.”
Since then the carnage has continued, with the casualties piling up. Those able to find shelter cower in underground bunkers and bombed-out buildings, often with little or no access to food, water or sanitary facilities.
The Syrian American Medical Society lost connection with one of its medical facilities for five hours on Tuesday during an intense bombardment. “All the staff and patients were stuck in the emergency shelter and for hours we heard nothing. We were really nervous,” Katoub said.
For others, there is no escape. “The bombing and barrelling is completely random. Children are trying to hide, but there’s no safe space for them ... casualties lie under the rubble for hours because medical staff can’t get to them,” Tayara said.
UOSSM is monitoring the destruction and recording the body count at each obliterated clinic. “The time will come when we have to present it to the courts, or when the international community wakes up and wants to bring people to justice,” Tayara said.
“This is really a systematic slaughtering of the Syrian people in front of the eyes of the international community, there’s no doubt about that.”
UN secretary general António Guterres has described life in the Damascus suburb as “hell on earth” and warned that “a human tragedy” is unfolding. But the bombing continues and help remains out of reach.
Food, medicine, fuel and other basic supplies are increasingly scarce. Since the beginning of 2017, only 10 aid convoys have made it through, barely enough for 10 percent of the population, according to Katoub.
“It’s hard to decide who gets this aid and who doesn’t when the whole community is in need.”
“Pediatricians have to choose which babies get milk and which don’t. It’s an impossible decision.”
Meanwhile, hospitals are being systematically targeted. “There are no emergency services, just basic ones. Only the small field hospitals are left,” said Majid Al Asemi, operating director of Acting for Change International, an NGO operating in Syria.
Médecins Sans Frontières said that 13 of the medical centers it supports in the affected areas were hit between Monday and Wednesday, and supplies of blood bags, anaesthetics and intravenous antibiotics have run out.
Dr. Ahmad Dbis, UOSSM head of safety and security, said people are afraid to go to hospital with their injuries, but medical staff refuse to leave, despite fears they will be targeted. “They feel it is their duty to stay there and deliver services,” he said.
Nowhere in Ghouta is safe. Last week the line was cut while Dbis was on a call with an associate based in Ghouta. “I could hear the bombs in the background. Thirty minutes later, I found out he was killed.”
Soon, he says, there will be no respite for the injured. “If this continues for one week, all the medical facilities will be destroyed and many others will be dead.”
Medical rescue teams accuse world of ignoring ‘human tragedy’ in Eastern Ghouta
Medical rescue teams accuse world of ignoring ‘human tragedy’ in Eastern Ghouta
UN chief condemns ‘escalation’ between Yemen’s Houthis and Israel
- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls Israeli strikes on Sanaa airport ‘especially alarming’
NEW YORK: The UN chief on Thursday denounced the “escalation” in hostilities between Yemen’s Houthi militias and Israel, terming strikes on the Sanaa airport “especially alarming.”
“The Secretary-General condemns the escalation between Yemen and Israel. Israeli airstrikes today on Sana’a International Airport, the Red Sea ports and power stations in Yemen are especially alarming,” said a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a statement.
Israeli air strikes pummeled Sanaa’s international airport and other targets in Yemen on Thursday, with Houthi militia media reporting six deaths.
The attack came a day after the Houthis fired a missile and two drones at Israel.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on social media he was at the airport during the strike, with the UN saying that a member of its air crew was injured.
The United Nations put the death toll from the airport strikes at three, with “dozens more injured.”
UN chief Guterres expressed particular alarm at the threat that bombing transportation infrastructure posed to humanitarian aid operations in Yemen, where 80 percent of the population is dependent on aid.
“The Secretary-General remains deeply concerned about the risk of further escalation in the region and reiterates his call for all parties concerned to cease all military actions and exercise utmost restraint,” he said.
“He also warns that airstrikes on Red Sea ports and Sana’a airport pose grave risks to humanitarian operations at a time when millions of people are in need of life-saving assistance.”
The UN chief condemned the Houthi militias for “a year of escalatory actions... in the Red Sea and the region that threaten civilians, regional stability and freedom of maritime navigation.”
The Houthis are part of Iran’s “axis of resistance” alliance against Israel.
Bodies of about 100 Kurdish women, children found in Iraq mass grave
TAL AL-SHAIKHIA, Iraq: Iraqi authorities are working to exhume the remains of around 100 Kurdish women and children thought to have been killed in the 1980s under former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein, three officials said.
The grave was discovered in Tal Al-Shaikhia in the Muthanna province in southern Iraq, about 15-20 kilometers (10-12 miles) from the main road there, an AFP journalist said.
Specialized teams began exhuming the grave earlier this month after it was initially discovered in 2019, said Diaa Karim, the head of the Iraqi authority for mass graves, adding that it is the second such grave to be uncovered at the site.
“After removing the first layer of soil and the remains appearing clearly, it was discovered that they all belonged to women and children dressed in Kurdish springtime clothes,” Karim told AFP on Wednesday.
He added that they likely came from Kalar in the northern Sulaimaniyah province, part of what is now Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, estimating that there were “no less than 100” people buried in the grave.
Efforts to exhume all the bodies are ongoing, he said, adding that the numbers could change.
Following Iraq’s deadly war with Iran in the 1980s, Saddam’s government carried out the ruthless “Anfal Operation” between 1987 and 1988 in which it is thought to have killed around 180,000 Kurds.
Saddam was toppled in 2003 following a US-led invasion of Iraq and was hanged three years later, putting an end to Iraqi proceedings against him on charges of genocide over the Anfal campaign.
Karim said a large number of the victims found in the grave “were executed here with live shots to the head fired at short range.”
He suggested some of them may have been “buried alive” as there was no evidence of bullets in their remains.
Ahmed Qusai, the head of the excavation team for mass graves in Iraq, meanwhile pointed to “difficulties we are facing at this grave because the remains have become entangled as some of the mothers were holding their infants” when they were killed.
Durgham Kamel, part of the authority for exhuming mass graves, said another mass grave was found at the same time that they began exhuming the one at Tal Al-Shaikhia.
He said the burial site was located near the notorious Nugrat Al-Salman prison where Saddam’s authorities held dissidents.
The Iraqi government estimates that about 1.3 million people disappeared between 1980 and 1990 as a result of atrocities and other rights violations committed under Saddam.
Brother of suspected ‘terrorist’ stabs Tunisia National Guard officer
TUNIS: The brother of a suspected “terrorist” on Thursday stabbed a Tunisian National Guard officer in the eastern Monastir governorate, a judicial source told AFP.
Earlier in the day, a National Guard unit attempted to arrest the suspect — accused by authorities of being a member of a “terrorist group” — at his home, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
During the arrest operation, his brother attacked the officer, the source added.
The source said the officer was hospitalized following the stabbing in his abdomen and was recovering after undergoing surgery.
An investigation was opened by the judicial division combatting terrorism, the source added.
Neither of the brothers, both of whom were taken into police custody, have been named, and the Tunisian interior ministry did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.
Tunisia saw a surge in jihadist groups after the 2011 revolution that overthrew the dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Attacks claimed by jihadists in recent years have killed dozens of soldiers and police officers, as well as some civilians and foreign tourists.
Jihadist attacks in Sousse and the capital Tunis in 2015 killed dozens of tourists and police, but authorities say they have since made significant progress against extremism.
Palestinian hospital director says Israeli strike kills 5 staff in Gaza
- WHO has described conditions at Kamal Adwan hospital as “appalling” and said it was operating at a “minimum” level
GAZA STRIP: Five staff at one of northern Gaza’s last functioning hospitals were killed by an Israeli strike on Thursday, the facility’s director said, more than two months into an Israeli operation in the area.
Hossam Abu Safiya, head of the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia, said “an Israeli strike resulted in five martyrs among the hospital staff.” The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Israel has been pressing a major offensive in northern Gaza since October 6, saying it aims to prevent Hamas militants from regrouping.
At the other end of the Palestinian territory, the chief paediatric doctor at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis said three babies had died from a “severe temperature drop” this week as winter cold sets in.
Doctor Ahmed Al-Farra said the most recent case was a three-week-old girl who was “brought to the emergency room with a severe temperature drop, which led to her death.”
A three-day-old baby and another “less than a month old” died on Tuesday, he said.
Meanwhile, in central Gaza, a Palestinian TV channel affiliated with a militant group said five of its journalists were killed on Thursday in an Israeli strike on their vehicle in Gaza, with Israel’s military saying it had targeted a “terrorist cell.”
Witnesses said a missile struck the van while it was parked outside Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat.
The three-week-old girl, Sila Al-Faseeh, was living in a tent in Al-Mawasi, an area designated a humanitarian safe zone by the Israeli military that is home to huge numbers of displaced Palestinians.
“The tents do not protect from the cold, and it gets very cold at night, with no way to keep warm,” said Farra.
He said many mothers were suffering from malnutrition which affected the quality of their breast milk and compounded the risks to newborns.
Sila’s father Mahmoud Al-Faseeh said it was “extremely cold, and the tent is not suitable for living. The children are always sick.”
The United Nations and other organizations have repeatedly decried the worsening humanitarian conditions in Gaza, particularly in the north, since Israel began its latest military offensive in early October.
The World Health Organization has described conditions at Kamal Adwan hospital as “appalling” and said it was operating at a “minimum” level.
Earlier on Thursday, Gaza’s civil defense agency said that five other people had been killed by Israeli strikes during the day in the north of Gaza.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said a 35-year-old soldier was killed in the central Gaza Strip. It brings to 390 the number of Israeli soldiers killed since the start of ground operations in the Palestinian territory.
The journalists’ employer Al-Quds Today said in a statement that a missile hit their broadcast van while it was parked in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
The channel is affiliated with Islamic Jihad, whose militants have fought alongside Hamas in the Gaza Strip and took part in the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war.
The station identified the five staffers as Faisal Abu Al-Qumsan, Ayman Al-Jadi, Ibrahim Al-Sheikh Khalil, Fadi Hassouna and Mohammed Al-Ladaa.
They were killed “while performing their journalistic and humanitarian duty,” the statement said.
The Israeli military said it had conducted a “precise strike” and that those killed “were Islamic Jihad operatives posing as journalists.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists’ Middle East arm said in a statement it was “devastated by the reports.”
“Journalists are civilians and must always be protected,” it added.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said last week that more than 190 journalists had been killed and at least 400 injured since the start of the war in Gaza.
The war was triggered by the Hamas-led October 7 attack last year, which resulted in 1,208 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 45,399 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
Israeli attorney general orders probe into report that alleged Netanyahu’s wife harassed opponents
- Program uncovered a trove of WhatsApp messages in which Mrs. Netanyahu appears to instruct a former aide to organize protests against political opponents
JERUSALEM: Israel’s attorney general has ordered police to open an investigation into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife on suspicion of harassing political opponents and witnesses in the Israeli leader’s corruption trial.
The Israeli Justice Ministry made the announcement in a terse message late Thursday, saying the investigation would focus on the findings of a recent report by the “Uvda” investigative program into Sara Netanyahu.
The program uncovered a trove of WhatsApp messages in which Mrs. Netanyahu appears to instruct a former aide to organize protests against political opponents and to intimidate Hadas Klein, a key witness in the trial.
The announcement did not mention Mrs. Netanyahu by name, and the Justice Ministry declined further comment.
But in a video released earlier Thursday, Netanyahu listed what he said were the many kind and charitable acts by his wife and blasted the Uvda report as “lies.”
It was the latest in a long line of legal troubles for the Netanyahus — highlighted by the prime minister's ongoing corruption trial.
Netanyahu is charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in a series of cases alleging he exchanged favors with powerful media moguls and wealthy associates. Netanyahu denies the charges and says he is the victim of a “witch hunt” by overzealous prosecutors, police and the media.
