BEIRUT: “That’s it? You’re sure he’s dead?” Seven years had passed with no news, but Salwa could hardly believe her nephew, a Syrian activist arrested in 2011, had been dead the last five.
That’s what the civil records employee in Salwa’s native Hama, a central government-held city, declared last month after shuffling through papers at her desk.
“She told me, ‘Yes, we received the names of everyone who died inside’” prison, Salwa told AFP, using a pseudonym because she fears reprisals in regime territory.
Tens of thousands of people are estimated to be held in government jails across Syria, with relatives and advocates saying they are often tortured, denied fair trial, and deprived contact with families.
Their relatives are left in limbo, spending years and precious savings shuttling between security services to know where loved ones are held or if they’re even alive.
Now, activists and families of imprisoned Syrians say authorities have quietly updated civil records to mark detainees as “deceased,” backdating deaths to as long ago as 2013.
Hearing of this through word of mouth, families of detained Syrians are flooding registries to ask: “Are they alive?.”
For around 400 detainees in recent months, the answer has been “no,” said Fadel Abdul Ghany, head of the Syrian Network for Human Rights.
The SNHR estimates 80,000 Syrians remain forcibly disappeared by the government.
“Before, the regime was giving no details on the detained. It wouldn’t declare them dead,” Abdul Ghany told AFP.
“Now it is, but in a barbaric way.”
Hama’s records were updated first, followed by Homs, the capital Damascus, Latakia and Hasakah, and new names are still arriving at registries, the SNHR said.
In seven years of documenting Syria’s uprising-turned-war, Abdul Ghany said he had never before seen families learn of the fate of the detainees in this way.
“Usually, you take a death certificate to the registry and inform them your relative is dead, not the other way around,” he said.
On that June morning, Salwa and her sister-in-law worried they’d be the only people at the registry asking about imprisoned relatives.
“But when we got there, we saw a line out the door,” she said.
“Most were women, mothers and sisters of detainees. Security forces stood among them, and every single woman was wiping her tears and covering her face with her scarf.”
Weeping, Salwa went home to hold a single day of hushed condolences for two nephews: Saad, arrested in 2011 and marked deceased in 2013, and Saeed, detained since 2012 and recorded to have died last year.
The family had no bodies to bury and was afraid of grieving publicly in a regime-held city.
“They scorched our hearts — those two boys were like roses. Even in mourning, we’re afraid and hide our grief,” Salwa said.
The last time Islam Dabbas’s family saw him was late 2012, behind bars at a regime prison near Damascus.
“He wore a sweater that read ‘Just Freedom’. We stopped hearing anything a while after that,” recalled his brother Abdulrahman, who has since moved to Egypt.
This month, a relative still in Syria learned of the updated files and checked Islam’s.
“It said he died January 15, 2013 in Saydnaya,” Abdulrahman said.
Amnesty International has dubbed the infamous prison “the human slaughterhouse,” after reports of mass executions there.
“Honestly, it’s a relief. My mother told me, ‘He’s lucky. He’s at peace,’” Abdulrahman said.
They held condolences for Islam last week in Egypt, hundreds of kilometers (miles) from home and without a body.
Abdulrahman and his mother then broke the news by phone to his father, still in Syria serving out his own prison sentence.
But confirming what many long suspected is not enough, said Noura Ghazi, a Syrian lawyer and member of the detainee advocacy group Families for Freedom.
“OK, you’ve told us they’re dead, but we want to know where the bodies are. We want to know the real way they died,” Ghazi said.
Others are hesitating.
“People are so tired. Of course there’s denial. Others are suspicious, saying ‘Why would we believe this document is real? Or this date to be true?’” said Ghazi, who lives in Beirut.
Her husband, activist Bassel Khartabil, vanished after his October 3, 2015 arrest. In 2017, through her networks, Ghazi confirmed he died in regime detention.
“I held condolences for him, I wore black. I thought I had processed the truth,” she said.
That changed when a relative of Khartabil visited a Damascus registry in early July and saw the government’s freshly-recorded date of death: October 5, 2015.
“When we saw that, it’s like he died all over again,” said Ghazi.
“There’s no going back. For more than two years I fought to know his fate. Now I’ll be fighting my whole life to get his body.”
After painful search, Syrians learn detained relatives are long dead
After painful search, Syrians learn detained relatives are long dead
- The SNHR estimates 80,000 Syrians remain forcibly disappeared by the government
- Tens of thousands of people are estimated to be held in government jails across Syria
Who are the Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for Israeli hostages?
- An activist in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Aradeh, was sentenced to life in prison for a range of offenses going back to the second intifada, or uprising against Israel’s occupation in the early 2000s
RAMALLAH, West Bank: The release of four female Israeli soldiers from Hamas captivity on Saturday came at a heavy cost for Israel.
Israel released 200 Palestinian prisoners, 120 of them serving life sentences, from its jails as part of a ceasefire deal. They ranged in age from 16 to 67.
Some were set free into an exuberant West Bank, while those whose offenses were considered too serious were transferred to Egypt.
In the West Bank city of Ramallah on Saturday, dozens of freed Palestinians, all looking wan and thin in stained gray Israeli prison jumpsuits, disembarked from a white Red Cross bus. They launched themselves into a jubilant crowd.
The images dredged up trauma for Israelis whose loved ones were killed by some of those released.
Moshe Har Melech, whose son was killed in a Palestinian shooting attack in 2003, said that he was sickened by the released prisoners being greeted as “superheroes” and warned that even exile was no deterrent.
“They’ll continue remotely recruiting and establishing terrorist cells,” he said. “But this time, they’ll be more experienced.”
Adrenalized teenagers streamed the revelry on social media, and mothers wept as they hugged their sons for the first time in years.
“It can’t be described. To be between your mother and father, it’s an indescribable feeling,” said Azmi Nafaa, accused of trying to ram his vehicle into Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint in 2015 and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
After nine years in prison, Nafaa hugged his mother, Hadiya Hamdan. She suggested that she cook meat dumplings in yogurt sauce, and he laughed, suggesting instead the more elaborate “mansaf,” a Bedouin dish of lamb and rice.
“That will be difficult for you,” he said.
“No,” she replied. “Nothing will be difficult.”
There was no such reception for the 70 prisoners sent into exile, whose convoy made its way south and quietly slipped through Gaza’s Rafah border crossing into Egypt.
Underscoring the challenges for Israel, the reception for prisoners in Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority, revealed an outpouring of support for the rival Hamas group. Many young Palestinians waved the bright green flags of Hamas and called on the militant group to capture more Israelis in order to free all the prisoners.
Hard-line commentators criticized the deal as justice undone and capitulation to the enemy.
“A deal that releases brutal murderers ... endangers the lives of more Israelis down the road,” David M. Weinberg, a senior fellow at the conservative research group Misgav, wrote in the Makor Rishon right-wing newspaper. “And that road is not particularly long.”
Here’s a look at the more prominent Palestinian prisoners released on Saturday.
Mohammed Aradeh, 42
An activist in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Aradeh, was sentenced to life in prison for a range of offenses going back to the second intifada, or uprising against Israel’s occupation in the early 2000s. Some of the charges, according to the Israeli Prison Service, included planting an explosive device and attempting murder.
He was credited with plotting an extraordinary prison escape in 2021, when he and five other detainees used spoons to tunnel out one of Israel’s most secure prisons. They remained at large for days before being caught.
From an impoverished and politically active family Jenin, in the northern occupied West Bank, Aradeh has three brothers and a sister who have all spent years in Israeli prison.
He was welcomed as a sort of cult hero in Ramallah on Saturday as family, friends and fans swarmed him, some chanting “The freedom tunnel!” in reference to his prison escape. When asked how he felt, Aradeh was breathless.
Over and over he muttered, “Thank God, thank God.”
Mohammed Odeh, 52, Wael Qassim, 54, and Wissam Abbasi, 48
All three men hail from the neighborhood of Silwan, in east Jerusalem, and rose within the ranks of Hamas. Held responsible for a string of deadly attacks during the second intifada, the men were sentenced to multiple life sentences in Israeli jail in 2002.
They were accused of plotting a suicide bombing at a crowded pool hall near Tel Aviv in 2002 that killed 15 people. Later that year, they were found to have orchestrated a bombing at Hebrew University that killed nine people, including five American students. Israel had described Odeh, who was working as a painter at the university at the time, as the kingpin in the attack.
All three were among those transferred to Egypt. Their families all live in Jerusalem.
The Abu Hamid brothers
Three brothers from the prominent Abu Hamid family of the Al-Amari refugee camp in Ramallah — Nasser, 51, Mohammad, 44, and Sharif, 48 — were deported together on Saturday. They had been sentenced to life in prison over deadly militant attacks against Israelis in 2002.
Their brother, a different Nasser Abu Hamid, was one of the founders of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade — an armed militia affiliated with Fatah, the secular political party that controls the Palestinian Authority.
He was also sentenced to life in prison for several deadly attacks. His 2022 death from lung cancer behind bars unleashed a wave of angry protests and strikes across the West Bank as Palestinian officials accused Israel of medical neglect.
The family has a long arc of Palestinian militancy. The mother, Latifa Abu Hamid, 72, now has three sons exiled, one still imprisoned, one who died in prison and one who was killed by Israeli forces. Their family house has been demolished at least three times by Israel, which defends such punitive home demolitions as a deterrent against future attacks.
Mohammad Al-Tous, 67
Al-Tous had held the title of longest continuous Israeli imprisonment until his release on Saturday, Palestinian authorities said.
First arrested in 1985 while fighting Israeli forces along the Jordanian border, the activist in the Fatah party spent a total of 39 years behind bars. Originally from the West Bank city of Bethlehem, he was among the prisoners exiled to Egypt.
White House makes 2,000-pound bombs available to Israel, undoing Biden’s pause
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s White House has instructed the US military to release a hold imposed by the Biden administration on the supply of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, a White House source told Reuters on Saturday.
The move was widely expected. Biden put the hold on the delivery of those bombs due to concern over the impact they could have in Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza. A ceasefire to halt the war was recently agreed.
The Biden administration’s particular concern had been over the use of such large bombs in the city of Rafah, where more than one million Palestinians in Gaza had taken refuge.
Nearly 30 percent of Syrians want to go home, up from almost zero, UN refugee chief says
- Filippo Grandi says "needle has moved" on refugees wanting to return now Bashar Assad has been deposed
DAMASCUS: Almost 30 percent of the millions of Syrian refugees living in Middle Eastern countries want to return home in the next year, following the fall of President Bashar Assad, up from almost none last year, the head of the UN’s refugee agency said.
The shift is based on an assessment done by the UN in January, weeks after Assad was ousted by Islamist rebels, bringing an abrupt end to a 13-year civil war that had created one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times.
“We have seen the needle move, finally, after years of decline,” Filippo Grandi told a small group of reporters in Damascus, after holding meetings with the Syria’s new ruling administration.
The number of Syrians wishing to return “had reached almost zero. It’s now nearly 30 percent in the space of a few weeks. There is a message there, which I think is very important, must be listened to and must be acted upon,” he said.
Around 200,000 Syrian refugees have already returned since Assad fell, he said, in addition to around 300,000 who fled back to Syria from Lebanon during the Hezbollah-Israel war in September and October, most of whom are thought to have stayed.
Returning the roughly 6 million Syrians who fled abroad and the millions who became internally displaced has been a main aim of Syria’s new administration.
But the civil war has left large parts of many major cities in ruins, services decrepit and the vast majority of the population living in poverty. Syria remains under a harsh Western sanctions regime that effectively cuts off its formal economy from the rest of the world.
To aid Syrians returning, many of whom often sell all their belongings to pay for the trip, UN agencies are providing some cash aid for transportation and will help with food and to reconstruct at least parts of broken homes, Grandi said.
More aid is needed from donors, Grandi said, and sanctions should be reconsidered. He did not comment directly on an announcement on Friday by the new US administration of a broad suspension of foreign aid programs.
“If sanctions are lifted, this will improve the conditions in the places where people return,” he said.
The US earlier this month provided a six-month sanctions exemption for some sectors, including energy, but Syria’s new leaders say much more relief is needed.
Grandi said refugees were responding to a political process that the new administration’s leader Ahmed Sharaa has committed to, aimed at producing a governing authority by March 1 that better represents Syria’s diversity.
“Refugees are listening to what he’s saying, to what his people are saying, and that’s why I think many people decided to go back,” Grandi said. “But many more will come if these things continue to be positive.”
Turkiye says will fight terror after death of Iraqi border guards
- Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Oncu Keceli said: “We are deeply saddened by the deaths of two border guards”
- “It is clear that the PKK terrorist organization poses a threat to the national security of Turkiye and Iraq“
ISTANBUL: Turkiye vowed on Saturday to work closely with Iraq to secure their common frontier after two Iraqi border guards were killed in a shooting blamed on outlawed PKK militants.
On Friday, Iraq’s interior ministry said the two Iraqi guards were killed near the Turkish border in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.
“When the Iraqi border forces were carrying out their duties securing the Iraqi-Turkish border, they were fired at by terrorists from the banned PKK organization” in Zakho district, the ministry said.
A third guard was wounded, it added.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state, has several outposts in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region, which also hosts Turkish military bases.
Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Oncu Keceli said on X that “we are deeply saddened by the deaths of two border guards as a result of the attack carried out by the PKK terrorist organization.”
“It is clear that the PKK terrorist organization poses a threat to the national security of Turkiye and Iraq and violates Iraq’s sovereignty,” he said.
“We will continue to fight together with Iraq against terrorism.”
The attack comes ahead of a planned visit by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to Baghdad on Sunday.
Israel delays withdrawal from Lebanon’s southern border
- Army Command urges residents to avoid returning to their homes
- Residents vowed on Saturday to return to their villages, despite an Israeli decision to postpone the withdrawal of its forces
BEIRUT: Lebanese Army Command on Saturday urged residents of southern border villages to avoid returning to their homes due to mines and other explosives left by Israeli forces.
The “procrastination in the withdrawal” of Israeli forces from the south has complicated the army’s deployment to the area, it said.
The 60-day period for the full withdrawal of the Israeli forces from the southern border area ends on Sunday.
The deadline was stipulated in a ceasefire agreement between Hezbollah and Israel, which invaded the Lebanese southern border area on Oct. 1.
Residents vowed on Saturday to return to their villages, despite an Israeli decision to postpone the withdrawal of its forces.
Israel blamed the Lebanese state for failing to “fully enforce” the agreement, and threatened to “retaliate with a military escalation against any Hezbollah response” to the delay.
The Israeli prime minister’s office said in a statement that the gradual withdrawal will continue, “in full coordination with the US administration.”
Lebanon’s new leadership views the Israeli withdrawal as a priority.
Army Command called on citizens to “remain responsible and adhere to its directives and the instructions of the deployed military units, to preserve their safety.”
President Joseph Aoun received a phone call from French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday, his media office said.
“Macron went over the developments in southern Lebanon, the efforts to control escalation, and the appropriate solutions to ensure the implementation of the ceasefire agreement, and the measures to defuse the situation,” a statement added.
The French president told his Lebanese counterpart that he is holding talks to maintain the ceasefire and complete the implementation of the agreement.
Aoun highlighted the need to pressure Israel into implementing the provisions of the deal.
This would put end to its successive violations, notably the destruction of villages near the southern border and the leveling of lands, which will hinder the return of residents, Aoun said.
Ghassan Hasbani, a member of the Lebanese Forces parliamentary bloc, said: “The renewal of war is not the current concern, but rather the prolonged presence of the Israeli army in the south.
“It is Hezbollah that brought the Israeli army into Lebanon, and what will drive it out is adherence to the terms of the ceasefire agreement and international pressure,” he added.
Hasbani spoke of “deliberate or inadvertent tardiness in implementing the ceasefire agreement, whether through the delay in forming the monitoring committee or Hezbollah’s failure to seriously hand over its weapons and dismantle its infrastructure.
“We are not justifying the Israeli army’s continued presence in the south but have called for its withdrawal from the first day. We would have preferred to avoid causing its entry in the first place,” he said.
The Israeli army continued its violations of the ceasefire agreement on Saturday in the eastern sector of the border.
Earth mounds were raised to prevent citizens from advancing toward the area where Israeli forces are carrying out detonations and leveling additional structures and homes.
The Israeli measures included the closure of main and secondary roads leading to the town of Kfar Kila from the towns of Burj Al-Muluk and Deir Mimas. Additionally, the northern entrance to the town of Yaroun was bulldozed, and the roads and secondary intersections leading to the villages of Bani Hayyan, Talloussah, Houla and Aitaroun were plowed.
Israeli media reported: “The Israeli army is on high alert, with the northern command, air forces, and operations division of the general staff preparing for a range of scenarios should Hezbollah and civilians attempt to return to their homes on Sunday, and challenge the Israeli military.”
Israeli jets conducted aerial incursions over the southern region, flying at medium altitude.
Residents of southern Lebanese border villages have continuously been warned by Israel to avoid returning to their homes.
Several residents in the south received phone calls from international numbers, cautioning them to avoid traveling to the frontline villages on Sunday and urging them to stay away from the southern region.
Military units of the Lebanese Army continued engineering surveys, road clearing and the handling of unexploded ordnance in the western and central sectors.
Army Command said it is “closely monitoring the operational situation, particularly regarding the violations of the agreement and assaults on Lebanon’s sovereignty, in addition to the destruction of infrastructure and the demolition, and burning of homes in the border villages by the Israeli enemy.”
A team from the Lebanese Red Cross and Lebanese Civil Defense continued to search for the bodies of Hezbollah fighters in the towns of Al-Jabain and Shihin.
The Israeli army raised an earthen berm in the middle of the road leading to the town of Qantara in the Marjeyoun district.
A citizen of the town was shot in the hand by Israeli forces and taken to hospital.
UNIFIL forces delivered a message to the commander of the Southern Litani sector in the Lebanese Army, Brig. Gen. Edgar Lawandos, pledging to provide support.
In an unprecedented move concerning Palestinian camps, Lebanese Army Command announced the takeover of “military centers previously occupied by Palestinian organizations inside Lebanese territory.”
The army conducted surprise raids at the entrance of the Burj Al-Barajneh camp in the southern suburbs of Beirut and proceeded to remove unauthorized commercial structures.
Forces also seized a former center of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and two former centers of the Fatah Al-Intifada organization, near the Beddawi refugee camp in Tripoli.
The army also seized weapons and ammunition, in addition to military equipment and surveillance devices.
It is “in accordance with the ceasefire agreement, which stipulates the dismantling of all illegal military installations, starting from south of the Litani,” a statement said.
“These missions are part of the framework for maintaining security and stability, and extending the authority of the state across various regions of Lebanon.”
Lebanese army units took control of all military points at the entrances of the Beddawi camp since early morning, amid a significant deployment of troops in the area.
