WAFIDEEN CHECKPOINT, Syria: Syrian and Russian forces kept up military pressure on opposition-held Eastern Ghouta on Thursday as their controversial unilateral truce failed to yield a humanitarian breakthrough.
More than 40 trucks loaded with aid were unable to reach the 400,000 people living in the battered enclave, prompting fresh calls for a UN cease-fire to be implemented.
A five-hour daily “pause” announced by Moscow on Monday has led to a reduction in the bombardment that killed hundreds in only a few days and sparked global outrage last month.
But a corridor offered by Russia for civilians to flee remained ostensibly empty for a third day running, with distrust running high on both sides.
Jan Egeland, the head of the UN’s humanitarian taskforce for Syria, said he hoped aid convoys “may now be able to go to Eastern Ghouta in the next few days.”
He told reporters in Geneva that he had received word during a taskforce meeting on Thursday “that we may have the first facilitation letter, permit from the government, to go to (the main Eastern Ghouta town of) Douma in a very long time.”
But he also stressed that “five hours is not enough.”
Syrian aircraft carried out strikes on Thursday before the 9:00 am start of the daily “truce,” killing nine civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor.
Ground battles were also taking place in Al-Shaifuniyah which lies in the enclave’s northeastern region and has been extensively destroyed in recent days.
A spokesman for the Syrian Civil Defense volunteer rescuers, known as the “White Helmets,” said access to the area had been very difficult.
“There is hardly any life there. It is completely destroyed and there are people under the rubble,” said Siraj Mahmud.
Air strikes have eased compared with last week when the joint Syrian and Russian aerial campaign against Eastern Ghouta killed up to 100 civilians a day.
But the death toll for the assault launched on February 18 continued to mount even after Russia’s “humanitarian pause” kicked in, as rescuers found bodies they had been unable to access.
In the town of Hazeh, rescuers working with rudimentary equipment were painstakingly hoisting buckets of gravel from a basement where they feared up to 21 had been buried alive by a strike on Feb. 20.
So far they have only retrieved six bodies.
“I left my daughter in the basement with her husband and his family,” said 60-year-old Abu Mohammed.
“I came back the next morning. I found the building collapsed and until now I haven’t found my daughter nor her husband’s family.”
According to the UN, three quarters of all private housing in Eastern Ghouta has been damaged and hundreds of civilians need life-saving medical evacuations.
The Russian daily “pause” falls far short of a 30-day cease-fire voted for by the UN Security Council on Saturday and yet to be implemented.
UN agencies and aid organizations have argued that the five-hour window was too short for aid deliveries.
“When will your resolution be implemented?” top UN relief official Mark Lowcock asked Security Council members on Wednesday.
Russia and its allies in Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime have blamed the humanitarian deadlock on the armed groups controlling Eastern Ghouta.
Syrian military sources accused anti-regime forces in Eastern Ghouta of deliberately shelling the designated safe passage to prevent civilians from leaving and keep them as human shields.
A spokesman for Russian military observers monitoring the cease-fire initiative told Interfax news agency that many civilians were trying to leave.
The number of Ghouta residents asking for “assistance and help in getting evacuated from territory controlled by the fighters has increased exponentially over the past 24 hours,” Major General Vladimir Zolotukin said.
AFP reporters at the Wafideen checkpoint, through which civilians were asked to evacuate the enclave, said no movement was reported, however.
The only civilians believed to have fled the enclave since the “pause” took effect are an elderly Pakistani couple who had remained in Ghouta throughout the seven-year conflict but decided to leave when the violence increased.
Mohammed Fadhl Akram, 73, moved to Syria in 1974.
He and his wife, who left on Wednesday and were given shelter at the Pakistani embassy in Damascus, leave two sons, three daughters and 12 grandchildren behind.
“I hope God protects them,” said Akram, who wore a warm hat and sported a trimmed white beard, when he spoke to an AFP reporter in the main eastern Ghouta town of Douma this week.
“I don’t want anything else,” he said.
Syria regime strikes Eastern Ghouta as aid trucks wait
Syria regime strikes Eastern Ghouta as aid trucks wait
Gaza official says Israel strikes on hospital ‘terrifying’
- The area has been the focus of an intense air and ground campaign by Israeli forces since October 6, aimed at prevent Hamas from regrouping
Gaza Strip: An official from one of only two functioning hospitals in northern Gaza told AFP on Monday that Israeli forces were continuing to target his facility and urged the international community to intervene before “it is too late.”
Hossam Abu Safiyeh, director of Kamal Adwan hospital in the city of Beit Lahia, described the situation at the medical facility as “extremely dangerous and terrifying” owing to shelling by Israeli forces.
An Israeli military spokesman denied that the hospital was being targeted.
“I am unaware of any strikes on Kamal Adwan hospital,” he told AFP.
Safiyeh reported that the hospital, which is currently treating 91 patients, had been targeted on Monday by Israeli drones.
“This morning, drones dropped bombs in the hospital’s courtyards and on its roof,” said Safiyeh in a statement.
“The shelling, which also destroyed nearby houses and buildings, did not stop throughout the night.”
The shelling and bombardment have caused extensive damage to the hospital, Safiyeh added.
“Bullets hit the intensive care unit, the maternity ward, and the specialized surgery department causing fear among patients,” he said, adding that a generator was also targeted.
“The world must understand that our hospital is being targeted with the intent to kill and forcibly displace the people inside.
“We face a constant threat every day. The shelling continues from all directions... The situation is extremely critical and requires urgent international intervention before it is too late,” he said.
On Sunday, Safiyeh said he received orders to evacuate the hospital, but the military denied issuing such directives.
Located in Beit Lahia, the hospital is one of only two still operational in northern Gaza.
The area has been the focus of an intense air and ground campaign by Israeli forces since October 6, aimed at prevent Hamas from regrouping.
Most of the dead and injured from the offensive are brought to Kamal Adwan and Al-Awda hospitals.
The United Nations and other organizations have repeatedly decried the worsening humanitarian conditions in Gaza, particularly in the north, since the latest military offensive began.
Rights groups have consistently appealed for hospitals to be protected and for the urgent delivery of medical aid and fuel to keep the facilities running.
Israeli officials have accused Hamas militants of using the hospitals as command and control centers to plan attacks against the military.
The war in Gaza broke out on October 7 last year after Hamas militants launched an attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 45,259 people, a majority of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, figures the UN says are reliable.
Some gaps have narrowed in elusive Gaza ceasefire deal, sides say
- Palestinian official familiar with the talks said some sticking points had been resolved
- But identity of some of Palestinian prisoners to be released by Israel in return for hostages yet to be agreed
CAIRO/JERUSALEM: Gaps between Israel and Hamas over a possible Gaza ceasefire have narrowed, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials’ remarks on Monday, though crucial differences have yet to be resolved.
A fresh bid by mediators Egypt, Qatar and the United States to end the fighting and release Israeli and foreign hostages has gained momentum this month, though no breakthrough has yet been reported.
A Palestinian official familiar with the talks said while some sticking points had been resolved, the identity of some of the Palestinian prisoners to be released by Israel in return for hostages had yet to be agreed, along with the precise deployment of Israeli troops in Gaza.
His remarks corresponded with comments by the Israeli diaspora minister, Amichai Chikli, who said both issues were still being negotiated. Nonetheless, he said, the sides were far closer to reaching agreement than they have been for months.
“This ceasefire can last six months or it can last 10 years, it depends on the dynamics that will form on the ground,” Chikli told Israel’s Kan radio. Much hinged on what powers would be running and rehabilitating Gaza once fighting stopped, he said.
The duration of the ceasefire has been a fundamental sticking point throughout several rounds of failed negotiations. Hamas wants an end to the war, while Israel wants an end to Hamas’ rule of Gaza first.
“The issue of ending the war completely hasn’t yet been resolved,” said the Palestinian official.
Israeli minister Zeev Elkin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet, told Israel’s Army Radio that the aim was to find an agreed framework that would resolve that difference during a second stage of the ceasefire deal.
Chikli said the first stage would be a humanitarian phase that will last 42 days and include a hostage release.
HOSPITAL
The war was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza has since killed more than 45,200 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave. Most of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced and much of Gaza is in ruins.
At least 11 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes on Monday, medics said.
One of Gaza’s few still partially functioning hospitals, on its northern edge, an area under intense Israeli military pressure for nearly three months, sought urgent help after being hit by Israeli fire.
“We are facing a continuous daily threat,” said Hussam Abu Safiya, director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital. “The bombing continues from all directions, affecting the building, the departments, and the staff.”
The Israeli military did not immediately comment. On Sunday it said it was supplying fuel and food to the hospital and helping evacuate some patients and staff to safer areas.
Palestinians accuse Israel of seeking to permanently depopulate northern Gaza to create a buffer zone, which Israel denies.
Israel says its operation around the three communities on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip — Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Jabalia — is targeting Hamas militants.
On Monday, the United Nations’ aid chief, Tom Fletcher, said Israeli forces had hampered efforts to deliver much needed aid in northern Gaza.
“North Gaza has been under a near-total siege for more than two months, raising the specter of famine,” he said. “South Gaza is extremely overcrowded, creating horrific living conditions and even greater humanitarian needs as winter sets in.”
Palestinians in Jenin observe a general strike
- The Palestinian Authority exercises limited authority in population centers in the West Bank
JENIN: Palestinians in the volatile northern West Bank town of Jenin are observing a general strike called by militant groups to protest a rare crackdown by Palestinian security forces.
An Associated Press reporter in Jenin heard gunfire and explosions, apparently from clashes between militants and Palestinian security forces. It was not immediately clear if anyone was killed or wounded. There was no sign of Israeli troops in the area.
Shops were closed in the city on Monday, the day after militants killed a member of the Palestinian security forces and wounded two others.
Militant groups called for a general strike across the territory, accusing the security forces of trying to disarm them in support of Israel’s half-century occupation of the territory.
The Western-backed Palestinian Authority is internationally recognized but deeply unpopular among Palestinians, in part because it cooperates with Israel on security matters. Israel accuses the authority of incitement and of failing to act against armed groups.
The Palestinian Authority blamed Sunday’s attack on “outlaws.” It says it is committed to maintaining law and order but will not police the occupation.
The Palestinian Authority exercises limited authority in population centers in the West Bank. Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Mideast War, and the Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state.
Israel’s current government is opposed to Palestinian statehood and says it will maintain open-ended security control over the territory. Violence has soared in the West Bank following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza, which ignited the war there.
Qatari minister arrives in Damascus on first Qatar Airways flight since Assad’s fall
DUBAI: Qatar’s minister of state for foreign affairs arrived in Damascus on Monday on the first Qatar Airways flight to the Syrian capital since the fall of President Bashar Assad two weeks ago, Doha’s foreign ministry said.
Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson said Mohammed Al-Khulaifi was the most senior official of the Gulf Arab state to visit Syria since militants toppled the Assad family’s 54-year-long rule.
Iran foreign ministry affirms support for Syria’s sovereignty
- Assad fled Syria earlier this month as rebel forces led by the Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) entered the capital Damascus
TEHRAN: Iran affirmed its support for Syria’s sovereignty on Monday, and said the country should not become “a haven for terrorism” after the fall of president Bashar Assad, a longtime Tehran ally.
“Our principled position on Syria is very clear: preserving the sovereignty and integrity of Syria and for the people of Syria to decide on its future without destructive foreign interference,” foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said in a weekly press briefing.
He added that the country should not “become a haven for terrorism,” saying such an outcome would have “repercussions” for countries in the region.
Assad fled Syria earlier this month as rebel forces led by the Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) entered the capital Damascus after a lightning offensive.
The takeover by HTS — proscribed as a terrorist organization by many governments including the United States — has sparked concern, though the group has in recent years sought to moderate its image.
Headed by Ahmed Al-Sharaa, Syria’s new leader and an ardent opponent of Iran, the group has spoken out against the Islamic republic’s influence in Syria under Assad.
Tehran helped prop up Assad during Syria’s long civil war, providing him with military advisers.
During Monday’s press briefing, Baqaei said Iran had “no direct contact” with Syria’s new rulers.
Sharaa has received a host of foreign delegations since coming to power.
He met on Sunday with Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan, and on Monday with Jordan’s top diplomat Ayman Safadi.
On Friday, the United States’ top diplomat for the Middle East Barbara Leaf held a meeting with Sharaa, later saying she expected Syria would completely end any role for Iran in its affairs.
A handful of European delegations have also visited in recent days.
Regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia, which has long supported Syria’s opposition, is expected to send a delegation soon, according to Syria’s ambassador in Riyadh.
