DARAA: On a tense urban frontline in Syria’s Daraa, rebel Atallah Qutayfan has been steadily reinforcing his defensive post for weeks in anticipation of a looming assault by government troops.
The 25-year-old spends his days stacking sandbags to shore up his post overlooking a market in the southern city, and monitoring the amassing regime forces nearby.
“Their reconnaissance planes are constantly above the city. There are daily clashes and they try to infiltrate our positions, but we’ve stopped them,” says Qutayfan.
“Our commanders told us to be ready for an attack by regime forces — and we’re on high alert.”
As loyalist forces mop up the last pockets of resistance around the capital, President Bashar Assad appears to already have set his sights on his next target: Daraa.
The city is split between rebels, who hold the southern Old City, and regime forces who control the modern districts and government posts to the north.
Opposition forces still hold more than two-thirds of the surrounding 3,730-square-kilometer province which borders Jordan.
Seizing the border area could bring the regime both military and economic security, analysts have said.
And a victory in Daraa city would carry symbolic weight — it was the cradle of Syria’s seven-year uprising against Assad’s rule.
The resurgent regime just this month dealt rebels their biggest blow yet by recapturing Eastern Ghouta, the former opposition stronghold outside Damascus.
That freed up troops who had spent years bombing the Ghouta front.
“After Ghouta, the regime escalated its bombing against us with surface-to-surface missiles, machine-gun fire, mortars, tanks, and heavy artillery,” says rebel fighter Fahed Abu Hatem.
In response, Abu Hatem says, his forces reinforced their positions, dug trenches and erected fresh barricades.
Gritting his teeth, rebel field commander Ibrahim Musalima, 27, insists the extra measures are necessary.
“It’s not fear, it’s readiness,” says Musalima.
“We’re setting up lines of defense and attack, and upping our coordination with the Quneitra rebels to the west, all the way to the border with Suweida to the east.”
Quneitra is the province directly to Daraa’s west, and Suweida neighbors it to the east.
Sections of the three provinces make up a “de-escalation zone” agreed in May 2017 by rebel backer Turkey and regime allies Russia and Iran.
The US and Jordan have also backed the zone, announcing alongside Russia in July that a cessation of hostilities would begin in the southern sliver.
Despite the steadily increasing violence, Musalima says the south’s rebel factions had been “advised” by their foreign backers not to provoke the regime or its loyalist militias, and to preserve the de-escalation zone.
The subtle warning belies the region’s importance to rival actors in Syria’s complex war.
Assad is keen to recapture the strategic Nasib crossing with Jordan, which the regime lost to rebels in 2015 but whose recapture could generate desperately needed income from cross-border trade.
Meanwhile, the presence of Iran-backed militias in southern Syria, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, has irked neighboring Israel.
Far away from these geopolitical interests, civilians are worried about what the escalation could bring.
Umm Mohammad Al-Baghdadi, a 45-year-old nurse in a field clinic in Daraa, describes a constant stream of wounded from shelling and bombing.
“We can’t say we’re not scared of more escalation. After the end of Ghouta, of course the regime is going to go for any area that opposes it,” she says.
“It wants to snuff out the uprising generally, and in Daraa especially.”
Around 30,000 people live in rebel-held parts of Daraa city, according to the local opposition-run council.
Its head Mohammad Abdulmajid Al-Musalima, 38, says residents struggle to cope with severe shortages of water and electricity, and widespread destruction.
“Women and children will bear the brunt of any military escalation, because they’re the main pressure point used by the regime against opposition groups,” says Musalima.
Rebels and local opposition officials alike insist Daraa’s fate will not resemble Ghouta’s, where a five-year siege had worn down rival rebel groups.
“We’re saying to the regime: Daraa is not Ghouta. The armed opposition here is holding it together,” says Mohammad Al-Masri, 60, a member of the local council.
“Here, the front lines are holding on. Our popular base and the rebels are in agreement: Daraa is our city, and we will stand firm in it,” says Masri.
Syria rebels dig in for Daraa fight
Syria rebels dig in for Daraa fight
- The city is split between rebels, who hold the southern Old City, and regime forces who control the modern districts and government posts to the north
- Far away from geopolitical interests, civilians are worried about what the escalation could bring
Strike hits south Beirut after Israel evacuation call
- Israeli drone fires two missiles at the Beirut suburb of Ghobeiry before the air force carried out a ‘very heavy’ strike
- Since September 23, Israel has ramped up its air campaign in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said an Israeli drone fired two missiles at the Beirut suburb of Ghobeiry before the air force carried out a “very heavy” strike that levelled a building near municipal offices.
The evacuation order posted on X by Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee told residents to leave, warning of imminent strikes.
“All residents in the southern suburbs, specifically ... in the Ghobeiry area, you are located near facilities and interests affiliated with Hezbollah,” Adraee said in his post.
“For your safety and the safety of your family members, you must evacuate these buildings and those adjacent to them immediately.”
His post included maps identifying buildings in the area near Bustan High School.
Repeated Israeli air strikes on south Beirut have led to a mass exodus of civilians from the Hezbollah stronghold, although some return during the day to check on their homes and businesses.
NNA also reported pre-dawn strikes on the southern city of Nabatieh.
The Israeli military said it had struck “command centers” of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force and launchers used to fire rockets at Israel on Thursday.
It said that over the past day, the air force had struck more than 120 targets across Lebanon, including weapons storage facilities, command centers and a large number of rocket launchers.
Since September 23, Israel has ramped up its air campaign in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops following almost a year of limited, cross-border exchanges begun by Hezbollah over the Gaza war.
Lebanese authorities say that more than 3,380 people have been killed since October last year, when Hezbollah and Israel began trading fire.
The conflict has cost Lebanon more than $5 billion in economic losses, with actual structural damage amounting to billions more, the World Bank said on Thursday.
Israel’s warfare in Gaza consistent with genocide, UN committee finds
- Committee’s report states ‘Israeli officials have publicly supported policies that strip Palestinians of the very necessities required to sustain life’
- It raises ‘serious concern’ about Israel’s use of AI to choose targets ‘with minimal human oversight,’ resulting in ‘overwhelming’ casualties among women and children
NEW YORK: Israel’s methods of warfare in Gaza, including the use of starvation as a weapon, mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions deliberately inflicted on Palestinians in the territory, are consistent with the characteristics of genocide, the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices said in a report published on Thursday.
“Since the beginning of the war, Israeli officials have publicly supported policies that strip Palestinians of the very necessities required to sustain life: food, water and fuel,” the committee said.
Statements from Israeli authorities and the “systematic and unlawful” blocking of humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza make clear “Israel’s intent to instrumentalize life-saving supplies for political and military gains,” it added.
The committee, the full title of which is the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the Occupied Territories, was established by the UN General Assembly in 1968 to monitor the human rights situation in the occupied Golan heights, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. It comprises the permanent representatives to the UN from three member states, currently Malaysia, Senegal and Sri Lanka, who are appointed by the president of the General Assembly.
Its latest report, which covers the period from October 2023 to July 2024, mostly focuses on the effects of the war in Gaza on the rights of Palestinians.
“Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated UN appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury, using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population,” the committee said.
The “extensive” Israeli bombing campaign has wiped out essential services in Gaza and caused an “environmental catastrophe” that will have “lasting health impacts,” it adds.
By early 2024, the report says, more than 25,000 tonnes of explosives, equivalent to two nuclear bombs, had been dropped on Gaza, causing “massive” destruction, the collapse of water and sanitation systems, agricultural devastation and toxic pollution. This has created a “lethal mix of crises that will inflict severe harm on generations to come,” the committee said.
The report notes “serious concern” about Israel’s use of artificial intelligence technology to choose its targets “with minimal human oversight,” the consequence of which has been “overwhelming” numbers of deaths of women and children. This underscores “Israel’s disregard of its obligation to distinguish between civilians and combatants and take adequate safeguards to prevent civilian deaths,” it adds.
In addition, Israel’s escalating censorship of the media and targeting of journalists are “deliberate efforts” to block global access to information, the committee found, and the report states that social media companies have disproportionately removed “pro-Palestinian content” in comparison with posts inciting violence against Palestinians.
The committee also condemned the continuing “smear campaign” and other attacks on the reputation of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, and the wider UN.
“This deliberate silencing of reporting, combined with disinformation and attacks on humanitarian workers, is a clear strategy to undermine the vital work of the UN, sever the lifeline of aid still reaching Gaza, and dismantle the international legal order,” it said.
It called on all states to honor their legal obligations to stop and prevent violations of international law by Israel, including the system of apartheid that operates in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and to hold Israeli authorities accountable for their actions.
“Upholding international law and ensuring accountability for violations rests squarely on member states,” the committee said.
Failure to do this weakens “the very core of the international legal system and sets a dangerous precedent, allowing atrocities to go unchecked.”
The committee will officially present its report to the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly on Monday.
Israel’s attorney general tells Netanyahu to reexamine extremist security minister’s role
- National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir criticized for interfering in police matters
JERUSALEM, Nov 14 : Israel’s Attorney General told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reevaluate the tenure of his far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, citing his apparent interference in police matters, Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Thursday.
The news channel published a copy of a letter written by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara in which she described instances of “illegitimate interventions” in which Ben-Gvir, who is tasked with setting general policy, gave operational instructions that threaten the police’s apolitical status.
“The concern is that the government’s silence will be interpreted as support for the minister’s behavior,” the letter said.
Officials at the Justice Ministry could not be reached for comment and there was no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office.
Ben-Gvir, who heads a small ultra-nationalist party in Netanyahu’s coalition, wrote on social media after the letter was published: “The attempted coup by (the Attorney General) has begun. The only dismissal that needs to happen is that of the Attorney General.”
Israeli forces demolish Palestinian Al-Bustan community center in Jerusalem
- Al-Bustan Association functioned as a primary community center in which Silwan’s youth and families ran cultural and social activities
LONDON: Israeli forces demolished the office of the Palestinian Al-Bustan Association in occupied East Jerusalem’s neighborhood of Silwan, whose residents are under threat of Israeli eviction orders.
The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Culture condemned on Thursday the demolition of Al-Bustan by Israeli bulldozers and a military police force.
The ministry said that “(Israeli) occupation’s arrogant practices against cultural and community institutions in Palestine, and specifically in Jerusalem, are targeting the Palestinian identity, in an attempt to obliterate it.”
Founded in 2004, the Al-Bustan Association functioned as a primary community center in which Silwan’s youth and families ran cultural and social activities alongside hosting meetings for diplomatic delegations and Western journalists who came to learn about controversial Israeli policies in the area.
Al-Bustan said in a statement that it served 1,500 people in Silwan, most of them children, who enrolled in educational, cultural and artistic workshops. In addition to the Al-Bustan office, Israeli forces also demolished a home in the neighborhood belonging to the Al-Qadi family.
Located less than a mile from Al-Aqsa Mosque and Jerusalem’s southern ancient wall, Silwan has a population of 65,000 Palestinians, some of them under threat of Israeli eviction orders.
In past years, Israeli authorities have been carrying out archaeological digging under Palestinian homes in Silwan, resulting in damage to these buildings, in search of the three-millennial “City of David.”
Israeli strike kills 12 after hitting civil defense center in Lebanon’s Baalbek, governor tells Reuters
- Eight others, including five women, were also killed and 27 wounded in another Israeli attack
CAIRO: An Israeli strike killed 12 people after it hit a civil defense center in Lebanon’s city of Baalbek on Thursday, the regional governor told Reuters adding that rescue operations were ongoing.
Eight others, including five women, were also killed and 27 wounded in another Israeli attack on the Lebanese city, health ministry reported on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Lebanese civil defense official Samir Chakia said: “The Civil Defense Center in Baalbek has been targeted, five Civil Defense rescuers were killed.”
Bachir Khodr the regional governor said more than 20 rescuers had been at the facility at the time of the strike.
