BAGHDAD: Every Sunday in Iraq, along a strip of embankment on the Tigris River reserved for followers of the obscure and ancient Mandaean faith, worshippers bathe themselves in the waters to purify their souls.
But unlike in ancient times, the storied river that runs through Baghdad is fouled by untreated sewage and dead carp, which float by in the fast-moving current.
“It’s very saddening. Our religious books warn us not to defile the water. There are angels watching over it,” said Sheikh Satar Jabar, head of Iraq’s Mandaean community.
Iraq’s soaring water pollution is threatening the religious rites of its tight-knit Mandaean community, already devastated by 15 years of war that has also affected the country’s other minority sects.
Mandaeism follows the teachings of John the Baptist, a saint in both the Christian and Islamic traditions, and its rites revolve around water.
On the eastern bank of the Tigris recently, Jabar watched as a younger cleric blessed congregants in the river, then anointed them with holy oil and gave them a sacrament of bread and water on dry land.
The women, shrouded in white and their hair tucked under headdresses, went into the river first, receiving their blessings in a Mandaean dialect of Jesus’s native tongue, Aramaic. Then the ceremony was repeated for the men. Finally, a one-year-old child, Yuhana, received his first baptism, squirming and sputtering as his father dipped him in.
“When a Mandaean believer commits a sin or wants to ease the worries of life, he comes to the cleric to practice his religious rituals, where he must immerse himself three times in running water,” said Jabar.
The faith holds that only flowing water can baptize the faithful, and that it should be clear, pure and fit for human consumption.
Until 2003, nearly all the world’s Mandaeans lived in Iraq, but the cycles of conflict since the US invasion have driven minorities out of the country for security reasons and economic opportunity.
Most recently, under the Daesh’s three-year reign in northern Iraq, the militants dynamited shrines to saints, forced Christians to pay a special head tax, and enslaved, raped and killed followers of the Yazidi faith.
Sheikh Jabar estimates there are just 10,000 Mandaeans left in Iraq today, a fraction of what it was before. Their numbers are particularly susceptible to the toll of migration because Mandaeism does not accept converts: Worshippers must be born into the faith.
The wars that drove many Mandaeans out of the country also aggravated a water crisis set in motion by deposed dictator Saddam Hussein’s ecological policies. Baghdad’s river today is a stew of industrial chemicals, untreated sewage and poisonous agricultural runoff, the Save the Tigris civil society campaign said in a 2018 report.
And water levels are falling, owing to the changing climate and damming in neighboring Turkey, Syria and Iran. About 70 percent of Iraq’s water flows from upstream countries.
In the southern city of Basra, where the Tigris merges with Iraq’s other fabled river, the Euphrates, riots broke out this summer over the chronic pollution and water scarcity. More than a dozen people were killed in the security crackdown.
Still, the two Mesopotamian rivers mentioned in Mandaean scripture hold special significance to the faithful.
Ibtisam Kareem, 45, accepted a sacrament from the cleric and drank a handful of water from the Tigris.
“If you have faith in God,” she said, “this water is like honey.”
Water pollution in Iraq threatens Mandaean religious rites
Water pollution in Iraq threatens Mandaean religious rites
- Until 2003, nearly all the world’s Mandaeans lived in Iraq, but the cycles of conflict since the US invasion have driven minorities out of the country
- The wars that drove many Mandaeans out of the country also aggravated a water crisis set in motion by deposed dictator Saddam Hussein’s ecological policies
Jordan army says flies eight helicopters with aid to Gaza
The helicopters carrying food, medicine and supplies for children took off from Jordan toward the Palestinian territory, where the aid would be handed over to the World Food Programme, the army said in a statement.
US vetoes UN Security Council resolution on Gaza ceasefire
- Only the US voted against, using its veto as a permanent council member to block the resolution
- “As we stated many times before, we just can’t support an unconditional ceasefire that does not call for the immediate release of hostages,” US official said
UNITED NATIONS: The United States on Wednesday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution for a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza, accusing council members of cynically rejecting attempts at reaching a compromise.
The 15-member council voted on a resolution put forward by its 10 non-permanent members in a meeting that called for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” and separately demand the release of hostages.
Only the US voted against, using its veto as a permanent council member to block the resolution.
A senior US official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity ahead of the vote, said the US would only support a resolution that explicitly calls for the immediate release of hostages as part of a ceasefire.
“As we stated many times before, we just can’t support an unconditional ceasefire that does not call for the immediate release of hostages,” the official said.
Israel’s 13-month campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 44,000 people and displaced nearly all the enclave’s population at least once. It was launched in response to an attack by Hamas-led fighters who killed 1,200 people and captured more than 250 hostages in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Ahead of the vote, Britain put forward new language that the US would have supported as a compromise, but that was rejected, the US official said.
Some of the council’s 10 elected members (E10) were more interested in bringing about a US veto than compromising on the resolution, the official said, accusing Russia and China of encouraging those members.
“China kept demanding ‘stronger language’ and Russia appeared to be pulling strings with various (elected) 10 members,” the official said. “This really does undercut the narrative that this was an organic reflection of the E10 and there’s some sense that some E10 members regret that those responsible for the drafting allowed the process to be manipulated for what we consider to be cynical purposes.”
Hezbollah says Israel ‘cannot impose conditions’ for truce
- Hezbollah chief says response to Israeli strikes on Beirut will be on "central Tel Aviv"
BEIRUT: Hezbollah’s leader delivered a defiant speech on Wednesday saying Israel cannot impose its conditions for a truce, as US envoy Amos Hochstein headed from Lebanon to Israel to try to end the war.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, in a near-simultaneous statement, said any ceasefire deal must ensure Israel has the “freedom to act” against Hezbollah.
Hochstein announced in Lebanon that he would head to Israel on Wednesday to try to seal a ceasefire agreement in the war in Lebanon, which escalated in late September after nearly a year of deadly exchanges of fire across Israel’s northern border.
Israel expanded the focus of its operations from Gaza to Lebanon, vowing to secure the north and allow tens of thousands of people displaced by the cross-border fire to return home.
It has also intensified strikes on neighboring Syria, a key conduit of weapons for Hezbollah from its backer Iran.
In the latest reported attack, the Syrian defense ministry said 36 people were killed and more than 50 wounded in israeli strikes on the oasis city of Palmyra.
“Israel cannot defeat us and cannot impose its conditions on us,” Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said in an address broadcast shortly after Hochstein announced he would travel to Israel.
Qassem added that his armed group seeks a “complete and comprehensive end to the aggression” and “the preservation of Lebanon’s sovereignty.”
He also vowed that the response to recent deadly Israeli strikes on Beirut would be on “central Tel Aviv,” Israel’s densely populated commercial hub.
Before heading to Israel, Hochstein met for a second time with one of his main interlocutors, Hezbollah-allied parliament speaker Nabih Berri, who has led mediation efforts on behalf of the Iran-backed group.
“The meeting today built on the meeting yesterday and made additional progress, so I will travel from here in a couple hours to Israel to try to bring this to a close if we can,” Hochstein told reporters in the Lebanese capital.
Hochstein had on Tuesday said an end to the war was “within our grasp,” while a diplomat in Lebanon told AFP that he had studied some modifications to the US truce plan with Lebanese officials.
Ahead of Hochstein’s arrival, Israel’s top diplomat Saar said: “In any agreement we will reach, we will need to keep the freedom to act if there will be violations.”
Striking a defiant tone, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told parliament on Monday that Israel would “be forced to ensure our security in the north.”
Hezbollah began its cross-border attacks in support of its ally Hamas following the Palestinian group’s assault on Israel on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza.
Since expanding its operations to Lebanon in September, Israel has conducted extensive bombing campaigns primarily targeting Hezbollah strongholds.
Israel has also sent ground troops into southern Lebanon, where it said Tuesday one soldier had been killed in combat and three others wounded.
More than 3,544 people in Lebanon have been killed since the clashes began, authorities have said, most since late September.
Among them were more than 200 children, according to the United Nations.
While Hochstein was in Beirut, the situation in the capital was relatively calm Tuesday and Wednesday, but south Lebanon, where Hezbollah holds sway, has seen battles and strikes.
The United States, Israel’s main military and political backer, has been pushing for a UN resolution that ended the last Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006 to form the basis of a new truce.
Under UN Security Council Resolution 1701, Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only armed forces deployed in south Lebanon.
While not engaged in the ongoing war, the Lebanese army has reported 18 fatalities from among its ranks since September 23.
On Wednesday, the army said Israeli fire killed a soldier in south Lebanon, a day after it announced the deaths of three other personnel in a strike.
The Israeli military later said, without mentioning the deaths, that it was looking into reports of Lebanese soldiers injured by a strike on Tuesday.
“We emphasize that the (Israeli army) is operating precisely against the Hezbollah terrorist organization and is not operating against the Lebanon Armed Forces,” the military told AFP in a statement.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported Israeli shelling and air strikes in south Lebanon overnight and on Wednesday, saying Israeli troops were seeking to advance further near the town of Khiam.
Hezbollah said Wednesday that it had twice targeted Israeli troops near the flashpoint border town, home to an infamous former detention center that was shut down after the end of the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon in 2000.
The NNA said that Israel forces were “attempting to advance from the Kfarshuba hills... to open up a new front under the cover of fire and artillery shells and air strikes.”
“Violent clashes are taking place” between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, it added.
Israel said Wednesday it hit 100 “terror targets” around Lebanon in the past day, including “launchers, weapons storage facilities, command centers and military structures.”
Hezbollah, meanwhile, said it had launched drones at two Israeli military bases in northern Israel and fired rockets at the town of Safed.
Israel says not fighting Lebanese army, after soldiers killed
- “We emphasize that the (Israeli army) is operating precisely against the Hezbollah terrorist organization,” the military said
- “The (army) is looking into reports regarding soldiers of the Lebanon Armed Forces who were injured during the strike”
JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said Wednesday it was fighting the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon, not the Lebanese army, after the latter said four of its soldiers were killed in Israeli strikes.
“We emphasize that the (Israeli army) is operating precisely against the Hezbollah terrorist organization and is not operating against the Lebanon Armed Forces,” the military told AFP in a statement.
The Lebanese army said Israeli fire killed a soldier Wednesday, a day after it said three other personnel died in a strike on their position in the town of Sarafand, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the southern border.
South Lebanon has seen intense fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants whose group holds sway in the area.
Israel’s military said it struck “a terrorist infrastructure site in which a number of Hezbollah terrorists were operating in the area of Sarafand” on Tuesday night.
“The (army) is looking into reports regarding soldiers of the Lebanon Armed Forces who were injured during the strike,” it added, but did not refer to the other deadly incident mentioned by the Lebanese army.
Since September 23, Israel has ramped up its bombing campaign in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops, after almost a year of cross-border exchanges begun by Hezbollah in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas.
Israel insists on right to act against Hezbollah in any deal to end fighting
- Lebanon’s government is likely to view any such demand as an infringement on its sovereignty
- Hochstein told reporters the talks had made “additional progress”
BEIRUT: Israel’s defense minister says his country insists on the right to act militarily against Hezbollah in any agreement to end the fighting in Lebanon.
Lebanon’s government is likely to view any such demand as an infringement on its sovereignty, complicating efforts to end more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that erupted into all-out war in September.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement Wednesday that “the condition for any political settlement in Lebanon is the preservation of the intelligence capability and the preservation of the (Israeli military’s) right to act and protect the citizens of Israel from Hezbollah.”
Lebanese officials mediating between Israel and Hezbollah have called for a return to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between the sides.
It calls for Hezbollah militants and Israeli forces to withdraw from a buffer zone in southern Lebanon patrolled by UN peacekeepers and Lebanese troops.
US envoy Amos Hochstein, who has spent months trying to broker a ceasefire, held a second round of talks on Wednesday with Lebanon’s parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah who has been mediating on their behalf.
Hochstein told reporters the talks had made “additional progress,” and that he would be heading to Israel “to try to bring this to a close, if we can.” He declined to say what the sticking points are.
Israeli strikes and combat in Lebanon have killed more than 3,500 people and wounded 15,000, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. The war has displaced nearly 1.2 million people, or a quarter of Lebanon’s population.
On the Israeli side, 87 soldiers and 50 civilians, including some foreign farmworkers, have been killed by attacks involving rockets, drones and missiles. Hezbollah began firing on Israel the day after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack triggered the war in Gaza.
That attack killed some 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and another 250 were abducted. Around 100 hostages remain inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed nearly 44,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Lebanese army said in a statement a soldier was killed by an Israeli airstrike that hit his vehicle on the road linking Burj Al-Muluk and Qalaa in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military said it was looking into reports.
The night before, three soldiers were killed by an airstrike that targeted an army post in the town of Sarafand, near the coastal city of Saida.
Wissam Khalifa, a resident of Sarafand who lives next to the army post and was injured in the strike, said he was shocked that it was targeted.
“It’s a safe residential neighborhood. There is nothing here at all” that would present a target, he said. “Regarding the martyred soldiers, I don’t even know if there was a gun in the center. Why did this strike happen? We have no idea.”
The Lebanese army has not been an active participant in the fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah over the past 13 months, but more than 40 soldiers have been killed in the conflict.
Altogether, more than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon since Oct. 8, 2023, the vast majority of them in the past two months.
