BEIRUT/MOSCOW: Russia will establish a humanitarian corridor and implement a five-hour daily truce in Syria’s eastern Ghouta, it said on Monday, after a UN Security Council resolution demanding a 30-day cease-fire across the entire country.
Russia’s defense minister was cited by the RIA news agency as saying President Vladimir Putin had ordered a daily cease-fire in eastern Ghouta from 9am (0700 GMT) to 2pm (1200 GMT) each day and for the creation of a “humanitarian corridor” to allow civilians to leave.
Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in a statement the pauses will start as of Tuesday. He said Russia will work to create a “humanitarian corridor” to help evacuate civilians but said the location has not been decided yet.
Shoigu also mentioned a refugee camp in Tanf, near the border with Iraq which is “under US control” — where Russia is also suggesting calling for a humanitarian pause as well.
Over the past week Syria’s army and its allies have subjected the rebel-held enclave of eastern Ghouta near Damascus to one of the heaviest bombardments of the seven-year war, killing hundreds.
On Sunday health authorities there said several people had suffered symptoms consistent with chlorine gas exposure and on Monday rescue workers and a war monitor said seven small children were killed by air and artillery strikes in one town.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed to the warring sides to abide by the cease-fire. Speaking at the start of a session of the UN-backed Human Rights Council, the comments were his first remarks to the UN body since the resolution was adopted.
“Eastern Ghouta cannot wait,” he said. “It is high time to stop this hell on Earth.”
Guterres said he welcomes the resolution but added that council resolutions “are only meaningful if they are effectively implemented.” He added that he expects the “resolution to be immediately implemented and sustained” and also called for safe, unimpeded and sustained delivery of humanitarian aid and services, as well as evacuations of the sick and wounded.
At the Geneva gathering, UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein echoed calls for a “full implementation” of the truce but said that “however, we have every reason to remain cautious” about the cease-fire as airstrikes continue on Damascus suburbs.
He also decried “seven years of failure to stop the violence, seven years of unremitting and frightful mass killing” in Syria.
Meanwhile, the EU’s diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini on Monday demanded the cease-fire in Syria be implemented “immediately,” describing the resolution as an “encouraging” step but needed to be followed up with action.
The Security Council resolution was a “necessary and encouraging step but a first step,” Mogherini said.
“Now that resolution needs to be immediately implemented, to have monitoring mechanisms.”
The bloc also added Syria’s new information and industry ministers to its sanctions blacklist following their appointment last month. A total of 257 people are now subject to EU travel bans and asset freezes over their role in the Syrian conflict.
Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said the situation in Ghouta was a “disgrace,” describing it as like the “Middle Ages.”
Fighting has raged across Syria since Saturday’s resolution, as Turkey presses its offensive against a Kurdish militia in Afrin, rival rebel groups fight each other in Idlib and a US-led coalition targets Daesh in the east.
The Russian defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, did not say whether the Syrian government or other allied forces had agreed to abide by the five-hour daily truce.
Mohamad Alloush, the political chief of one of eastern Ghouta’s biggest rebel factions, said the Syrian army and its allies had launched “a sweeping ground assault” after the UN resolution, adding it was vital that the truce be implemented.
“We hope for real, serious, practical action,” he said.
There was a relative calm in the besieged area in the immediate aftermath of the resolution, which was unanimously approved Saturday by the 15-member council. It demands a 30-day truce in all of Syria but excludes fighting with Daesh and Al-Qaeda-linked fighters.
However, violence has since picked up and military operations have killed at least 30 people, including women and children, in eastern Ghouta in the last 48 hours, while shelling on Damascus continues from the rebel-held area, a United Nations spokeswoman said on Monday.
“The United Nations has mobilized and is ready to immediately support life-saving aid convoys to several areas in eastern Ghouta as soon as conditions allow, as well as hundreds of medical evacuations,” Linda Tom, a UN humanitarian spokeswoman in Damascus, said in emailed comments.
DEATHS
A picture issued by Civil Defense rescue workers, which could not be independently verify, showed seven small bodies lying next to each other, wrapped in white and blue sheets, after air and artillery strikes on the town of Douma in eastern Ghouta.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said four of them were among a single family of nine killed by an air strike. The other three were among seven killed by shelling in the same town, it said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said allegations the Syrian government was responsible for any chemical attack, after reports of people suffering symptoms of chlorine gas poisoning, were aimed at sabotaging the truce.
The Syrian government has consistently denied using chemical weapons in the war, which will soon enter its eighth year having killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced half of Syria’s pre-war population of about 23 million from their homes.
The bombardment of eastern Ghouta over the past week has been one of the heaviest of the war, killing at least 556 people in eight days, according to a toll compiled by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor.
The intensity of the bombardment has diminished since the UN resolution, the Observatory said, but it added that 21 people had been killed in eastern Ghouta on Monday, including the seven small children in the photograph.
Rebel shelling has caused 36 deaths and a number of injuries in Damascus and nearby rural areas in the last four days, Zaher Hajjo, a government health official, told Reuters.
Speaking in Riyadh, deputy director general of the World Health Organization, Peter Salama, said the WHO urgently needed to evacuate 750 medical cases from eastern Ghouta.
“We also need sustained access for medical equipment and for medical drugs and commodities,” he said, adding that some supplies had been “systematically removed from convoys.”
RELATIVE LULL
In eastern Ghouta, people were making use of a relative lull in the bombardment to find provisions, said Moayad Hafi, a rescue worker based there.
“Civilians rushed from their shelters to get food and return quickly since the warplanes are still in the sky and can hit at any moment,” he told Reuters in a voice message.
Lavrov said the cease-fire would not cover either the Ahrar Al-Sham or the Jaish Al-Islam factions, describing them as partners of the former Al-Qaeda affiliate, the Nusra Front.
The two major rebel factions in eastern Ghouta are Jaish Al-Islam and Failaq Al-Rahman. Tahrir Al-Sham, an alliance of militants including Nusra, also has a small presence there.
“Partners of Al-Nusra are not protected by the cease-fire regime. They are also subject to the legitimate actions of Syrian armed forces and all those who support the Syrian army,” said Lavrov.
In Idlib, Ahrar Al-Sham and Tahrir Al-Sham have been battling each other in recent days, rather than working in partnership.
Syrian state television reported that army units had advanced against militants near Harasta in eastern Ghouta. State news agency SANA also reported that the army had stopped a car bomb being driven into Damascus.
The Nusra Front has consistently been excluded from cease-fires in Syria, and the opposition says the government has used this as an excuse to keep up its bombardments.
Russia orders five-hour daily truce in Syria’s eastern Ghouta
Russia orders five-hour daily truce in Syria’s eastern Ghouta
Israel says intercepted projectile fired from Yemen
- “Rocket and missile sirens were sounded following the possibility of falling shrapnel from the interception”
JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said Tuesday it had intercepted a projectile fired from Yemen after air raid sirens sounded in the center and south of Israel.
“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago, a projectile that was launched from Yemen was intercepted prior to crossing into Israeli territory,” the Israeli army said on Telegram.
“Rocket and missile sirens were sounded following the possibility of falling shrapnel from the interception.”
Israel’s emergency medical service, Magen David Adom, reported no injuries from the projectile.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday warned the Iran-backed Houthi rebels of Yemen, who last week fired two missiles at Israel, including one that injured 16 people in the commercial hub of Tel Aviv on Saturday.
“I have instructed our forces to destroy the infrastructure of Houthis, because anyone who tries to harm us will be struck with full force,” he told lawmakers, “even if it takes time.”
Israeli warplanes retaliated against ports and energy infrastructure, which the military said contributed to Houthi rebel operations, after a rebel missile badly damaged an Israeli school last week.
The Houthis said the Israeli strikes killed nine people.
Sudan drops out of hunger-monitor system on eve of famine report
- Sudan’s withdrawal from the IPC system could undermine humanitarian efforts to help millions of Sudanese suffering from extreme hunger, said the leader of a non-governmental organization operating there, speaking on condition of anonymity
KHARTOUM: The Sudanese government has suspended its participation in the global hunger-monitoring system on the eve of a report that’s expected to show famine spreading across the country, a step likely to undercut efforts to address one of the world’s largest hunger crises.
In a letter dated Dec. 23, the government’s agriculture minister said the government is halting its participation in the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system. The letter accused the IPC of “issuing unreliable reports that undermine Sudan’s sovereignty and dignity.”
On Tuesday, the IPC is expected to publish a report finding that famine has spread to five areas in Sudan and could expand to 10 by May, according to a briefing document seen by Reuters. “This marks an unprecedented deepening and widening of the food and nutrition crisis, driven by the devastating conflict and poor humanitarian access,” the document stated.
A spokesperson for the Rome-based IPC declined to comment.
Sudan’s withdrawal from the IPC system could undermine humanitarian efforts to help millions of Sudanese suffering from extreme hunger, said the leader of a non-governmental organization operating there, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Withdrawal from the IPC system won’t change the reality of hunger on the ground,” the NGO source said. “But it does deprive the international community of its compass to navigate Sudan’s hunger crisis. Without independent analysis, we’re flying blind into this storm of food insecurity.”
A diplomat with Sudan’s mission to the United Nations in New York didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the move to cut off the IPC.
The IPC is an independent body funded by Western nations and overseen by 19 large humanitarian organizations and intergovernmental institutions. A linchpin in the world’s vast system for monitoring and alleviating hunger, it is designed to sound the alarm about developing food crises so organizations can respond and prevent famine and mass starvation.
IPC analysts typically partner with national governments to analyze data related to food insecurity and to report on conditions within a country’s borders. The government has headed the IPC’s analysis group in Sudan. But the system has increasingly struggled to function since civil war erupted in April 2023.
The fighting between the army-backed government and its foe, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary, has disrupted data collection in areas held by both sides.
A recent Reuters investigation found that the Sudanese government obstructed the IPC’s work earlier this year, delaying by months a famine determination for the sprawling Zamzam camp for internally displaced people where some have resorted to eating tree leaves to survive.
Monday’s letter was addressed to the IPC and it s Famine Review Committee, which vets and verifies a famine finding, as well as to diplomats. It says the forthcoming IPC report lacks updated malnutrition data and assessments of crop productivity during the recent summer rainy season.
The growing season was successful, the letter says.
It also notes “serious concerns” about the IPC’s ability to collect data from territories controlled by the RSF.
The IPC’s struggles go beyond Sudan. In a series of reports this year, Reuters has reported that authorities in Myanmar and Yemen have also tried to thwart the global hunger-monitoring process by blocking or falsifying the flow of data to the IPC or suppressing its findings.
In Myanmar, the IPC recently scrubbed from its website its assessment on hunger there, fearing for the safety of researchers. Reuters recently reported that representatives of the country’s ruling military junta have warned aid workers against releasing data and analysis showing that millions in Myanmar are experiencing serious hunger.
In Ethiopia, the government disliked an IPC finding in 2021 that 350,000 people were experiencing catastrophic acute food insecurity – so it stopped working with the IPC.
Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University’s Fletcher School, called Sudan’s move to stop cooperating with the IPC “both pathetic and tragic.”
“It’s part of a long history of the government of Sudan denying famine going back more than 40 years,” said de Waal, a leading specialist on famine. “Whenever there’s a famine in Sudan, they consider it an affront to their sovereignty, and they’re more concerned about their pride and their control than they are over the lives of their citizens.”
Iraq says to eliminate pollutant gas flaring by end of 2027
- The office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani in a statement Monday evening pointed to “a rise in the level of eliminating gas flaring” in the country
BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities on Monday announced that the energy-rich country would eliminate the polluting practice of gas flaring by the end of 2027, a statement from the prime minister’s office said.
Gas flaring during the production or processing of crude is intended to convert excess methane to carbon dioxide, but the process is often incomplete, resulting in further methane release.
Iraq has the third highest global rate of gas flaring, after Russia and Iran, having flared about 18 billion cubic meters of gas in 2023, according to the World Bank.
The office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani in a statement Monday evening pointed to “a rise in the level of eliminating gas flaring” in the country.
The office said that the current rate of elimination stood at 67 percent, with the aim of raising that rate to 80 percent by the end of 2025.
It added that the country aims to fully eliminate gas flaring by the end of 2027, compared to the previous administration’s target of 2030.
In 2017, Iraq joined a World Bank-led initiative aiming to end gas flaring globally by 2030.
Gas flaring is cheaper than capturing the associated gas, processing and marketing it.
In an April report, Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa said gas flaring “produces a number of cancer-linked pollutants including benzene.”
Iraq is considered by the United Nations to be one of the five countries most vulnerable to some impacts of climate change.
In recent years, it has suffered increasingly from droughts and further desertification, with the country gripped by dust storms much of the year.
Defense minister acknowledges Israel killed Hamas leader in Iran
- The comments by Israel Katz appeared to mark the first time that Israel has admitted killing Ismail Haniyeh
- Katz said the Houthis leadership would meet a similar fate to that of Haniyeh
JERUSALEM: Israel’s defense minister has confirmed that Israel assassinated Hamas’ top leader last summer and is threatening to take similar action against the leadership of the Houthi group in Yemen.
The comments by Israel Katz appeared to mark the first time that Israel has admitted killing Ismail Haniyeh, who died in an explosion in Iran in July.
Israel was widely believed to be behind the blast, and leaders have previously hinted at its involvement.
In a speech Monday, Katz said the Houthis would meet a similar fate as the other members of an Iranian-led alliance in the region, including Haniyeh.
He also noted that Israel has killed other leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, helped topple Syria’s Bashar Assad, and destroyed Iran’s anti-aircraft systems.
“We will strike (the Houthis’) strategic infrastructure and cut off the head of the leadership,” he said.
“Just like we did to Haniyeh, Sinwar, and Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza, and Lebanon, we will do in Hodeida and Sanaa,” he said, referring to Hamas and Hezbollah leaders killed in previous Israeli attacks.
The Iranian-backed Houthis have launched scores of missiles and drones at Israel throughout the war, including a missile that landed in Tel Aviv on Saturday and wounded at least 16 people.
Israel has carried out three sets of airstrikes in Yemen during the war and vowed to step up the pressure on the militant group until the missile attacks stop.
New conflict in northeast Syria could bring ‘dramatic consequences’, UN envoy says
- Turkiye regards the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants who have fought an insurgency against the Turkish state and are deemed terrorists by Ankara, Washington and the European Union
BEIRUT: Tensions in northeast Syria between Kurdish-led authorities and Turkish-backed groups should be resolved politically or risk “dramatic consequences” for all of Syria, the United Nations envoy for the country Geir Pedersen told Reuters on Monday. Hostilities have escalated between Syrian rebels backed by Ankara and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast since Bashar Assad was toppled on Dec. 8.
Syrian armed groups seized the city of Manbij from the SDF on Dec. 9 and could be preparing to attack the key city of Kobani, or Ayn Al-Arab, on the northern border with Turkiye.
“If the situation in the northeast is not handled correctly, it could be a very bad omen for the whole of Syria,” Pedersen said by phone, adding that “if we fail here, it would have dramatic consequences when it comes to new displacement.” The SDF — which is spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG — has proposed to withdraw its forces from the area in exchange for a complete truce. But Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, speaking alongside Syria’s de facto new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa on Sunday in Damascus, said the YPG should disband totally.
Turkiye regards the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants who have fought an insurgency against the Turkish state and are deemed terrorists by Ankara, Washington and the European Union.
Pedersen said a political solution “would require serious, serious compromises” and should be part of the “transitional phase” led by Syria’s new authorities in Damascus. Fidan said he had discussed the YPG presence with the new Syrian administration and believed Damascus would take steps to ensure Syria’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday the country will remain in close dialogue with Sharaa. Kurdish groups have had autonomy across much of the northeast since Syria’s war began in 2011, but now fear it could be wiped out by the country’s new Islamist rule. Thousands of women rallied on Monday in a northeast city to condemn Turkiye and demand their rights be respected.
Pedersen said Sharaa had told him in meetings in Damascus last week that they were committed to “transitional arrangements that will be inclusive of all.”
But he said resolving tensions in the northeast would be a test for a new Syria after more than a half-century of Assad family rule.
“The whole question of creating a new, free Syria would be off to a very, extremely ... to put it diplomatically, difficult start,” he said.
