YERRES FRANCE: Najah Albukai’s head is filled with the dead and disappeared of Syria’s civil war.
The prisoners with whom the 49-year-old art teacher shared a cell in Syria fill two black ink drawings hanging on the wall in the living room of his French apartment where he lives in exile with his wife and teenage daughter.
One of them shows row upon row of hunched naked men with dark, sunken eyes, their arms shielding their genitals.
In another, they look down on stacks of jumbled emaciated corpses, as if contemplating their fate.
“In prison you’re suspended between life and death. It’s an apocalyptic time. You feel as if you’re in a nightmare,” Albukai said in an interview.
Three years after his escape from the homeland, Albukai’s experiences in the regime’s torture chambers continue to explode on to his sketchpad.
Dozens of drawings, which he has exhibited across France, depict the horrors he witnessed, from prisoners being hung by their wrists from the ceiling to being folded in two in a wooden contraption nicknamed the “Flying Carpet.”
Another prop used by the torturers of President Bashar Assad was called the “German chair,” which saw prisoners lashed to the back of a chair and stretched to breaking point.
“I will draw this German chair until the end of my days to denounce this form of torture,” said the artist with a piercing gaze, whose bookshelf contains works by Jean-Paul Sartre and Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Like many in the Damascus suburb of Jdaidet Artuz, near the town of Daraya, a longtime rebel stronghold, Albukai was infected by the revolutionary fervor that swept Syria in early 2011.
But it was only when the government’s crackdown on the peaceful protests left 55 dead that he and his wife Abir joined the protests.
In 2012, he was arrested on a bus on his way to work and taken to military intelligence center “227” near Damascus where he was interrogated and beaten for “weakening national morale.”
“They would interrogate several people at the same time and while others beside you are being tortured you have to answer questions,” he said of the sessions, during which the prisoners were blindfolded.
Held with 70 others in a cell measuring five by three meters, he found it nearly impossible to sleep and illnesses such as scabies and diarrhea spread quickly.
Even while behind bars, Albukai found an outlet in art, trying to imagine the horrific scenes on canvases.
“I tried to find comparisons with paintings by Goya, or the Raft of the Medusa by (French Romantic painter Theodore) Gericault, which shows a group of people trying to escape,” he said.
After a month he was released when his wife paid €1,200 ($1,400) to have a judge drop the case.
Using a pseudonym on Facebook he continued to post about abuses by government forces online, but he tried to keep a low profile, fearing he could be arrested again at any time.
In late 2014, he tried to flee to Lebanon, but was caught on the border and returned to center 227.
By now, nearly four years into the war, “even the walls were diseased” and the bodies were piling up.
Albukai saw several people die from torture or common diseases like diabetes left untreated.
The center also acted as a sort of “temporary depot” for bodies collected from other military intelligence centers, with prisoners called on every night to unload bodies from trucks for storage in the basement.
“Some had weak necks as if they had been strangled and most were very thin and bore signs of illness,” he said.
Each had a number inscribed on the head or chest with a marker. He remembers two: 5535 and, 60 days later another: 5874.
Tens of thousands of people are missing, believed to be in government jails across Syria, where authorities have recently begun updating civil records to mark detainees as “deceased.”
In a 2016 report, Amnesty International estimated that 17,723 had died in custody between March 2011 and December 2015.
Were it not for his wife, Albukai might have been another name on a list of the deceased.
A French teacher with a salary of $80 a month, she sold their car and enlisted help from abroad to cobble together 20,000 dollars in bribes to win his freedom after around 10 months in detention.
In October 2015, the pair managed to reach Lebanon with their daughter and applied for asylum in France, where they now live in a quiet suburb south of Paris.
As government forces step up their bombardments of Idlib province, the last region still in rebel hands, Albukai is prepared to admit that “maybe we’ve been defeated and the revolution failed.”
But drawing what he witnessed helps keep the flame alive, says Albukai, who has received offers to publish his output.
“It is a way of not giving in, of not laying down arms,” he said.
Syrian torture chambers brought to life in haunting drawings
Syrian torture chambers brought to life in haunting drawings
- Held with 70 others in a cell measuring five by three meters, he found it nearly impossible to sleep and illnesses such as scabies and diarrhea spread quickly
- Dozens of drawings, which he has exhibited across France, depict the horrors he witnessed, from prisoners being hung by their wrists from the ceiling to being folded in two in a wooden contraption nicknamed the “Flying Carpet
Even with Lebanon truce deal, Israel will operate against Hezbollah: Netanyahu
- Netanyahu also said there was no evidence that Hezbollah would respect any ceasefire reached
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel will continue to operate militarily against the Iran-backed Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah even if a ceasefire deal is reached in Lebanon.
“The most important thing is not (the deal that) will be laid on paper,” Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament.
“We will be forced to ensure our security in the north (of Israel) and to systematically carry out operations against Hezbollah’s attacks... even after a ceasefire,” to keep the group from rebuilding, he said.
Netanyahu also said there was no evidence that Hezbollah would respect any ceasefire reached.
“We will not allow Hezbollah to return to the state it was in on October 6” 2023, the eve of the strike by its Palestinian ally Hamas into southern Israel, he said.
Hezbollah then began firing into northern Israel in support of Hamas, triggering exchanges with Israel that escalated into full-on war in late September this year.
Lebanon’s government has largely endorsed a US truce proposal to end the Israel-Hezbollah war and was preparing final comments before responding to Washington, a Lebanese official told AFP on Monday.
Israel insists that any truce deal must guarantee no further Hezbollah presence in the area bordering Israel.
Members of UN Security Council call for surge in assistance to Gaza
- “The situation is devastating, and frankly, beyond comprehension, and it’s getting worse, not better,” Lammy said
NEW YORK: Members of the United Nations Security Council called on Monday for a surge in assistance to reach people in need in Israeli-basieged Gaza, warning that the situation in the Palestinian enclave was getting worse.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said there needs to be a “huge, huge rise in aid” to Gaza, where most of the population of 2.3 million people has been displaced and health officials in the coastal enclave say that more than 43,922 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s 13-month-old offensive against Hamas.
“The situation is devastating, and frankly, beyond comprehension, and it’s getting worse, not better,” Lammy said. “Winter’s here. Famine is imminent, and 400 days into this war, it is totally unacceptable that it’s harder than ever to get aid into Gaza.”
The war erupted after Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel in October last year, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council that Washington was closely watching Israel’s actions to improve the situation for Palestinians and engaging with the Israeli government every day.
“Israel must also urgently take additional steps to alleviate the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza,” she said.
President Joe Biden’s administration concluded this month that Israel was not currently impeding assistance to Gaza and therefore not violating US law, even as Washington acknowledged the humanitarian situation remained dire in the Palestinian enclave.
The assessment came after the US in an Oct. 13 letter gave Israel a list of steps to take within 30 days to address the deteriorating situation in Gaza, warning that failure to do so might have possible consequences on US military aid to Israel.
Thomas-Greenfield said Israel was working to implement 12 of the 15 steps.
“We need to see all steps fully implemented and sustained, and we need to see concrete improvement in the humanitarian situation on the ground,” she said, including Israel allowing commercial trucks to move into Gaza alongside humanitarian assistance, addressing persistent lawlessness and implementing pauses in fighting in large areas of Gaza to allow assistance to reach those in need.
Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the US, said Israel had facilitated the entrance of hundreds of aid trucks a week but there had been a failure of aid agencies to collect that aid and Hamas had looted trucks. Hamas has denied the accusation.
“Not only must the UN step up its aid distribution obligations, but the focus must also shift to Hamas’ constant hijacking of humanitarian aid to feed the machine of terror and misery,” Danon said.
Two UN aid agencies told Reuters on Monday that nearly 100 trucks carrying food for Palestinians were violently looted on Nov. 16 after entering Gaza in one of the worst losses of aid during the war.
Tor Wennesland, the UN coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said humanitarian agencies face a challenging and dangerous operational environment in Gaza and access restrictions that hinder their work.
“The humanitarian situation in Gaza, as winter begins, is catastrophic, particularly developments in the north of Gaza with a large-scale and near-total displacement of the population and widespread destruction and clearing of land, amidst what looks like a disturbing disregard for international humanitarian law,” Wennesland said.
“The current conditions are among the worst we’ve seen during the entire war and are not set to improve.”
US envoy has first meeting in Sudan with army chief
- Experts say both sides have stonewalled peace efforts as they vie to gain a decisive military advantage, which neither has managed to hold for long
PORT SUDAN, Sudan: A US special envoy on Monday made his first visit to Sudan for talks with the country’s army chief and de facto leader to discuss aid and how to stop the war.
Tom Perriello met Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan in the Red Sea city for what Burhan’s ruling Sovereignty Council called “long, comprehensive and frank” talks.
It said Burhan and Perriello discussed “the roadmap for how to stop the war and deliver humanitarian aid.”
The envoy’s visit came as Russia on Monday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate end to hostilities in Sudan.
Sudan’s war erupted in April 2023 between the regular army led by Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by his former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
It has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people and the displacement of 11 million, according to the United Nations.
The conflict has also resulted in what has been described as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises in recent history.
A US State Department release said Perriello “engaged in frank dialogue with Sudanese officials.”
It said these centered “on the need to cease fighting, enable unhindered humanitarian access, including through localized pauses in the fighting to allow for the delivery of emergency relief supplies, and commit to a civilian government.”
Monday’s visit was the special envoy’s first to Port Sudan, the Red Sea city where government offices and the UN have relocated since fleeing the war-torn capital Khartoum.
It is also the first diplomatic overture in months, since Sudan’s military opted out of US-brokered negotiations in Switzerland.
Experts say both sides have stonewalled peace efforts as they vie to gain a decisive military advantage, which neither has managed to hold for long.
Perriello’s trip comes after repeated failed efforts at mediation.
The statement from Burhan’s office said Perriello expressed the “shared ambition for an end to the war to put a stop to the atrocities and violations we have witnessed recently.”
Writing on social media platform X, the US envoy welcomed “recent progress to expand humanitarian access.”
“As the largest aid donor to Sudan, we will work around the clock to ensure that food, water and medicine can reach people in all 18 states plus refugees,” Perriello posted.
Peace efforts, including by the United States, Saudi Arabia and the African Union, have only succeeded in marginally increasing access to humanitarian aid, which both the military and the RSF are accused of blocking.
International pressure has managed to secure government authorization for aid to be delivered through Adre, a key border crossing with Chad and the only access point to famine-stricken Darfur in western Sudan.
However, on Monday Burhan told Perriello his government rejects “the exploitation of the Adre crossing to deliver weapons to the rebels,” a reference to the RSF’s reported use of the border as a weapons supply route.
Monday’s Russian veto at the UN came with the Security Council largely paralyzed in its ability to deal with conflicts because of splits between permanent members, notably Russia and the United States.
Yemen’s Houthi militants linked to ship attacks in Red Sea and Gulf of Aden
- The ship’s captain saw a missile splashing in close proximity to the vessel twice, once in the Red Sea and the second time in the Gulf of Aden.
DUBAI: Suspected attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militants targeted a Panama-flagged bulk carrier traveling through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, though no damage or injuries were reported, authorities said Monday.
The attacks come as the the militant group continue their months long assault targeting shipping through a waterway that typically sees $1 trillion in goods pass through it a year over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and Israel’s ground offensive in Lebanon.
The bulk carrier Anadolu S first had been contacted over VHF radio by someone claiming to be authorities in Yemen, demanding the ship turn around, said the Joint Maritime Information Center, a multinational task force overseen by the US
“The vessel did not comply with the order and continued its transit,” the center said.
The ship’s captain later saw that “a missile splashed in close proximity to the vessel” as it traveled in the southern Red Sea near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait connecting to the Gulf of Aden in the first attack late Sunday night, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said in an alert. The attack happened some 30 miles (48 kilometers) west of Yemen port city of Mocha.
On Monday, another attack some 70 miles (112 kilometers) southeast of Aden in the Gulf of Aden similarly saw a missile splash down close to the vessel, the UKMTO said.
“The vessel and crew are safe and proceeding to its next port of call,” the UKMTO added.
The Houthis did not immediately claim the attacks. However, it can take the group hours or even days to acknowledge their assaults.
The Houthis have targeted more than 90 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started in October 2023. They seized one vessel and sank two in the campaign, which also killed four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a US-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets, which have included Western military vessels as well.
The Houthis maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the US or the UK to force an end to Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza. The Joint Maritime Information Center said the Anadolu S had an “indirect association to Israel.” However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.
The Houthis have shot down multiple American MQ-9 Reaper drones as well.
In their last attack on Nov. 11, two US Navy warships targeted with multiple drones and missiles as they were traveling through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, but the attacks were not successful.
Nearly 100 food aid trucks violently looted in Gaza, UN agencies say
- This is one of the worst aid losses during 13 months of war in the besieged enclave
- 98 of 109 trucks in convoy were raided and some transporters were injured
GENEVA/CAIRO: Nearly 100 trucks carrying food for Palestinians were violently looted on Nov. 16 after entering Gaza in one of the worst aid losses during 13 months of war in the enclave, where hunger is deepening, two UN agencies told Reuters on Monday.
The convoy transporting food provided by UN agencies UNRWA and the World Food Programme was instructed by Israel to depart at short notice via an unfamiliar route from Kerem Shalom border crossing, said Louise Wateridge, UNRWA Senior Emergency Officer.
Ninety-eight of the 109 trucks in the convoy were raided and some of the transporters were injured during the incident, she said, without detailing who carried out the ambush.
“This ... highlights the severity of access challenges of bringing aid into southern and central Gaza,” she told Reuters.
“The urgency of the crisis cannot be overstated; without immediate intervention, severe food shortages are set to worsen, further endangering the lives of over two million people who depend on humanitarian aid to survive.”
The Hamas TV channel Al-Aqsa quoted Hamas interior ministry sources in Gaza as saying that over 20 gang members involved in looting aid trucks were killed during an operation carried out by Hamas security forces in coordination with tribal committees.
It said anyone caught aiding such looting would be treated with “an iron fist.”
A WFP spokesperson confirmed the looting and said that many routes in Gaza were currently impassable due to security issues.
An Israeli official said Israel had been working to address the humanitarian situation since the start of its war against Hamas, adding that the main problem with aid deliveries was UN distribution challenges.
A UN aid official said on Friday that access for aid to Gaza had reached a low point, with deliveries to parts of the Israeli-besieged north of the enclave all but impossible. Israel’s devastating military campaign in Gaza was triggered by the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel.
