BEIRUT: Daesh has released two women and four children among 27 surviving Druze hostages it seized during a deadly July attack on the minority community’s heartland in southern Syria.
State television broadcast footage of the six arriving in the city of Sweida on Saturday, joyful at being reunited with their families but haggard after their three-month ordeal.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said their release was the first part of a deal that would see at least 60 Daesh prisoners released in exchange and a $27 million ransom paid.
The militants abducted around 30 people — mostly women and children — from Sweida province in late July during the deadliest attack on Syria’s Druze community of the seven-year civil war.
As negotiations for their release dragged on, families led a series of protests outside government offices in Sweida to demand more be done.
“I cannot describe my joy,” Rasmia Abu Amar told state television after being reunited with her husband.
“But it is incomplete — my son has not yet been released,” she said, her hair covered by a white headscarf.
A second woman appeared with her four children, their clothes still dirty from their long captivity and her sons with their heads shaved.
Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP that the six were freed on Friday night and that further hostage releases were expected “in the next few days or hours.”
He said that in return for the release of all of the hostages, the Syrian government had agreed to free 60 Daesh prisoners and pay a ransom of $27 million.
“Nine IS women prisoners held by the regime have already been handed over to the group along with seven children,” Abdel Rahman said, referring to another acronym for Daesh.
During the coordinated assaults on July 25 Daesh carried out suicide bombings, shootings and stabbings that left more than 250 people dead, most of them civilians.
Sweida province is the heartland of the country’s Druze minority, which made up around three percent of Syria’s pre-war population — or around 700,000 people.
The militants executed a 19-year-old male student among the hostages in August and then a 25-year-old woman in early October. Daesh said a 65-year-old woman being held by the group also died from illness.
Negotiations between regime ally Russia and the militants for the release of the hostages had stalled. But the latest round of talks appeared to have paid off — albeit it with a stiff price.
The Observatory said Daesh had also demanded the halting of an offensive against them in Sweida.
Government forces have battled its fighters in the volcanic plateau of Tulul Al-Safa in the east of the province since the July attack.
Abdel Rahman said the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led alliance that controls swathes of the north and northeast with the support of a US-led coalition, “should also release some IS detainees” but he did not specify the number.
There was no immediate comment from the SDF, which has been taking heavy casualties fighting Daesh in its last pocket of control in eastern Syria, around the Euphrates valley town of Hajjin.
On September 10, the group launched a major assault on the pocket where they estimate some 3,000 militants are holed up.
The battle has killed 414 militants and 227 SDF fighters in total since then, the Observatory says.
On Saturday, coalition air strikes killed 28 Daesh fighters in and around Hajjin, while another seven militants were killed in clashes with the SDF, the monitor said.
Coalition air strikes on Daesh targets in another part of the eastern pocket killed at least 41 civilians, 10 of them children, on Thursday and Friday, it added.
A coalition spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
Syria’s grinding civil war has claimed more than 360,000 lives since it erupted with the the bloody repression of anti-government protests in 2011.
A caliphate which the militants proclaimed across large swathes of Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2014 has crumbled in the face of multiple offensives against them but they remain a potent force.
Daesh frees 6 Druze in exchange for $27m, 60 fighters
Daesh frees 6 Druze in exchange for $27m, 60 fighters
- Daesh abducted around 30 people — mostly women and children — from Sweida province in late July during the deadliest attack on Syria’s Druze community of the seven-year civil war
- Sweida province is the heartland of the country’s Druze minority, which made up around three percent of Syria’s pre-war population — or around 700,000 people
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.
‘A symbol of resilience’ — workers in Iraq complete reconstruction of famous Mosul minaret
- Workers complete reconstruction of 12th-century minaret of Al-Nuri Mosque
- Tower and mosque were blown by Daesh extremists in 2017
High above the narrow streets and low-rise buildings of Mosul’s old city, beaming workers hoist an Iraqi flag into the sky atop one of the nation’s most famous symbols of resilience.
Perched precariously on scaffolding in high-vis jackets and hard hats, the workers celebrate a milestone in Iraq’s recovery from the traumatic destruction and bloodshed that once engulfed the city.
On Wednesday, the workers placed the last brick that marked the completed reconstruction of the 12th-century minaret of Al-Nuri Mosque. The landmark was destroyed by Daesh in June 2017 shortly before Iraqi forces drove the extremist group from the city.
Known as Al-Hadba, or “the hunchback,” the 45-meter-tall minaret, which famously leant to one side, dominated the Mosul skyline for centuries. The tower has been painstakingly rebuilt as part of a UNESCO project, matching the traditional stone and brick masonry and incorporating the famous lean.
“Today UNESCO celebrates a landmark achievement,” the UN cultural agency’s Iraq office said. “The completion of the shaft of the Al-Hadba Minaret marks a new milestone in the revival of the city, with and for the people of Mosul.
“UNESCO is grateful for the incredible teamwork that made this vision a reality. Together, we’ve created a powerful symbol of resilience, a true testament to international cooperation. Thank you to everyone involved in this journey.”
The restoration of the mosque is part of UNESCO’s Revive the Spirit of Mosul project, which includes the rebuilding of two churches and other historic sites. The UAE donated $50 million to the project and UNESCO said that the overall Al-Nuri Mosque complex restoration will be finished by the end of the year.
UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay celebrated the completion of the minaret by posting “We did it!” on social media site X.
She thanked donors, national and local authorities in Iraq and the experts and professionals, “many of whom are Moslawis,” who worked to rebuild the minaret.
“Can’t wait to return to Mosul to celebrate the full completion of our work,” she said.
The Al-Nuri mosque was built in the second half of the 12th century by the Seljuk ruler Nur Al-Din.
After Daesh seized control of large parts of Iraq in 2014, the group’s leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, declared the establishment of its so-called caliphate from inside the mosque.
Three years later, the extremists detonated explosives to destroy the mosque and minaret as Iraqi forces battled to expel them from the city. Thousands of civilians were killed in the fighting and much of Mosul was left in ruins.
