BAGHDAD: At least 21 people have died and tens of thousands displaced by heavy rains that have battered Iraq over two days, the health ministry and United Nations said on Sunday.
Women and children were among the dead, health ministry spokesman Seif Al-Badr told AFP. Some had drowned, but others had died in car accidents, were electrocuted, or were trapped when their houses collapsed.
At least 180 more were injured, he added.
Iraq and neighboring countries have been hit by heavier-than-average rainfall in recent weeks, resulting in deaths and widespread damage.
The country’s north has borne the brunt of it, and the UN’s Iraq office said the downpour had forced tens of thousands of people out of their homes.
An estimated 10,000 people in Salahaddin province and 15,000 people in Nineveh are in desperate need of help, including families living in displacement camps, the UN said.
In the Al-Sharqat district in Salahaddin, about 250 kilometers (150 miles) north of Baghdad, thousands of homes were left totally underwater by the rains.
And in Mosul, the Daesh group’s onetime bastion in Iraq, the heavy storms submerged two floating bridges along the Tigris river, which bisects the city.
They were the only way to move between Mosul’s eastern and western halves, after its bridges were all bombed by the anti-IS fight.
Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi announced Friday he was establishing a “crisis cell” of security forces and local authorities to coordinate a response.
The ministries of electricity, oil, and trade had also indicated their willingness to help.
Iraq is one of the hottest countries on earth but when heavy rains do hit, they can result in casualties because of deteriorating public infrastructure.
In 2015, 58 Iraqis were killed in floods and cases of electrocution due to intense downpours.
Iraq floods leave 21 dead in two days: health ministry
Iraq floods leave 21 dead in two days: health ministry
- Women and children were among the dead, health ministry spokesman Seif Al-Badr said
- Iraq and neighboring countries have been hit by heavier-than-average rainfall in recent weeks, resulting in deaths and widespread damage
Why is Israel launching a crackdown in the West Bank after the Gaza ceasefire?
- Prominent human rights groups call it a form of apartheid since the over 500,000 Jewish settlers in the territory have all the rights conferred by Israeli citizenship
In the days since a fragile ceasefire took hold in the Gaza Strip, Israel has launched a major military operation in the occupied West Bank and suspected Jewish settlers have rampaged through two Palestinian towns.
The violence comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces domestic pressure from his far-right allies after agreeing to the truce and hostage-prisoner exchange with the Hamas militant group. US President Donald Trump has, meanwhile, rescinded the Biden administration’s sanctions against Israelis accused of violence in the territory.
It’s a volatile mix that could undermine the ceasefire, which is set to last for at least six weeks and bring about the release of dozens of hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, most of whom will be released into the West Bank.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and Palestinians want all three territories for their future state. Escalations in one area frequently spill over, raising further concerns that the second and far more difficult phase of the Gaza ceasefire — which has yet to be negotiated — may never come.
A rampage and a military raid
Dozens of masked men rampaged through two Palestinian villages in the northern West Bank late Monday, hurling stones and setting cars and property ablaze, according to local Palestinian officials. The Red Crescent emergency service said 12 people were beaten and wounded.
Israeli forces, meanwhile, carried out a raid elsewhere in the West Bank that the military said was in response to the hurling of firebombs at Israeli vehicles. It said several suspects were detained for questioning, and a video circulating online appeared to show dozens being marched through the streets.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military launched another major operation, this time in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, where its forces have regularly clashed with Palestinian militants in recent years, even before Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of the Gaza Strip triggered the war there.
At least nine Palestinians were killed on Tuesday, including a 16-year-old, and 40 were wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. The military said its forces carried out airstrikes and dismantled roadside bombs and “hit” 10 militants — though it was not clear what that meant.
Palestinian residents have reported a major increase in Israeli checkpoints and delays across the territory.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz cast the Jenin operation as part of Israel’s larger struggle against Iran and its militant allies across the region, saying “we will strike the octopus’ arms until they snap.”
The Palestinians view such operations and the expansion of settlements as ways of cementing Israeli control over the territory, where 3 million Palestinians live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering cities and towns.
Prominent human rights groups call it a form of apartheid since the over 500,000 Jewish settlers in the territory have all the rights conferred by Israeli citizenship. Israel rejects those allegations.
Netanyahu’s far-right partners are up in arms
Netanyahu has been struggling to quell a rebellion by his ultranationalist coalition partners since agreeing to the ceasefire. The agreement requires Israeli forces to withdraw from most of Gaza and release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners — including militants convicted of murder — in exchange for hostages abducted in the Oct. 7 attack.
One coalition partner, Itamar Ben-Gvir, resigned in protest the day the ceasefire went into effect. Another, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, has threatened to bolt if Israel does not resume the war after the first phase of the ceasefire is slated to end in early March.
They want Israel to annex the West Bank and to rebuild settlements in Gaza while encouraging what they refer to as the voluntary migration of large numbers of Palestinians.
Netanyahu still has a parliamentary majority after Ben-Gvir’s departure, but the loss of Smotrich — who is also the de facto governor of the West Bank — would severely weaken his coalition and likely lead to early elections.
That could spell the end of Netanyahu’s nearly unbroken 16 years in power, leaving him even more exposed to longstanding corruption charges and an expected public inquiry into Israel’s failure to prevent the Oct. 7 attack.
Trump’s return could give settlers a freer hand
Trump’s return to the White House offers Netanyahu a potential lifeline.
The newly sworn-in president, who lent unprecedented support to Israel during his previous term, has surrounded himself with aides who support Israeli settlement. Some support the settlers’ claim to a biblical right to the West Bank because of the Jewish kingdoms that existed there in antiquity.
The international community overwhelmingly considers settlements illegal.
Among the flurry of executive orders Trump signed on his first day back in office was one rescinding the Biden administration’s sanctions on settlers and Jewish extremists accused of violence against Palestinians.
The sanctions — which had little effect — were one of the few concrete steps the Biden administration took in opposition to the close US ally, even as it provided billions of dollars in military support for Israel’s campaign in Gaza, among the deadliest and most destructive in decades.
Trump claimed credit for helping to get the Gaza ceasefire agreement across the finish line in the final days of the Biden presidency.
But this week, Trump said he was “not confident” it would hold and signaled he would give Israel a free hand in Gaza, saying: “It’s not our war, it’s their war.”
Qatar, Egypt, US using Cairo hub to monitor Gaza ceasefire
- Negotiators tackling disputes, violations in bid to prevent escalation
- Qatari official says ‘we’re banking on the support’ of Trump administration
LONDON: Negotiators from Qatar, Egypt and the US are operating a hub in Cairo to monitor and protect the ceasefire in Gaza amid concerns over violations, The Guardian reported.
US President Donald Trump took credit for the ceasefire deal, but said he was not confident that it would hold.
Majed Al-Ansari, an adviser to the Qatari prime minister and spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said on Tuesday: “If it wasn’t for (Trump) this deal wouldn’t be in place right now, so we’re banking on the support of this administration.”
Violations of the ceasefire, the first stage of which is set to last six weeks, have already been reported. On Monday, medics in Gaza said eight people had been struck by Israeli fire.
Negotiations on the second phase are expected to prove more challenging, and will begin early next month.
The hub aims to smooth communication between Israel and Hamas amid a dearth of trust. Timed hostage and prisoner releases have been spaced out to allow for coordination and time to solve disputes.
The deal “gives us enough time to exchange lists, agree on them, deal with any issues with the lists which might arrive and deal with any breaches,” Al-Ansari said.
Breaches are reported to the hub, which operates around the clock, and mediators speak to liaisons from Israel and Hamas in an attempt to prevent escalation.
“This is what has been happening in the last 48 hours. We got calls about possible breaches, we dealt with them immediately and the ceasefire held in place,” Al-Ansari said.
Libyan PM uncertain US policy on Libya will shift under Trump
DAVOS: Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Al-Debeibeh on Wednesday said that opinions are mixed on whether a new US administration under President Donald Trump would shift its approach to the Libyan situation.
Panel moderator Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, editor of Foreign Affairs, asked Al-Debeibeh to reflect on Trump’s return and if his new term as president would affect Libya’s stability.
“I believe not only Libya fears the return of Trump, many others, including Europeans, have somehow reservations and different views about how to perceive (it),” he told a panel on global security at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Al-Debeibeh said Libya’s ongoing political crisis cannot be solved only from the point of view of security.
“Our institutions are still weak,” he said. “If we only focus on security, this is not the best recipe to solve the problems we have. Like many examples, in Syria lately and Afghanistan, we (in Libya) reject the idea of security-(based) solutions only.
“There are alternatives that we need to look into, such as reviving our heritage, our economic fabric, and this is precisely what is going to be the building blocks leading to a long-lasting stability here.
“If Mr Trump, the new American administration or whoever is in charge, if they really want Libya to be stable, then they shall look to find other ways to help us, not only through security, because otherwise, we are going back to square one.
“Unfortunately, when the diagnosis is wrong, then the result is wrong.
“If we focus on security only, this is going to backfire at the end of the day.”
Al-Debeibeh pointed to the fragility of state institutions and challenges to rebuilding a new Libya. But he said that his country is recovering slowly through the national unity government, and has managed to reestablish state institutions and services, today more than any time before.
“I have to tell you things are not rosy, but we somehow managed to recover to normal life in Libya and I would very much like thank the international community for backing us.”
He said the main challenge remains in the work to democratize Libyan society, saying that “democracy is the only solution.”
However, foreign intervention in Libya is a big challenge, because there are “powers who want to intervene, they want to impose their own agenda for many reasons.”
Yet, his country still needs to establish democratic institutions, a constitution that reflects Libyan society and to hold a referendum on the draft constitution.
“We have enough of weapons, we need stability to begin with, we need to stabilize the economy because it is the way to stabilize the political situation. We have oil, we want foreign companies to come to invest in a win-win situation. So, the more the economy is stable, the more we have a stable country.”
Syria’s military hospital where detainees were tortured, not treated
DAMASCUS: Former Syrian detainee Mohammed Najib has suffered for years from torture-induced back pain. Yet he dreaded being taken by his jailers to a military hospital, where he received beatings instead of treatment.
The prison guards forbade him from revealing his condition, only sending him to hospital for his likely tuberculosis symptoms — widespread in the notorious Saydnaya prison where he was detained.
Doctors at Tishreen Hospital, the largest military health facility in Damascus, never inquired about the hunch on his back — the result of sustained abuse.
Freed just hours after the fall of Bashar Assad, Najib has a tennis ball-sized bulge on his lower back.
The 31-year-old can barely walk, and the pain is unbearable.
But he insisted on showing AFP around a jail in the military hospital compound.
“I hated being brought here,” Najib said as he returned with two friends who had shared the same cell with him after they were accused of ties to the armed rebellion that sought Assad’s overthrow.
“They hit us all the time, and because I couldn’t walk easily, they hit me” even more, he said, referring the guards.
Because he was never allowed to say he had anything more than the tuberculosis symptoms of “diarrhea and fever,” he never received proper treatment.
“I went back and forth for nothing,” he said.
Assad fled Syria last month after Islamist-led rebels wrested city after city from his control until Damascus fell, ending his family’s five-decade rule.
The Assads left behind a harrowing legacy of abuse at detention facilities that were sites of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances.
Hours after Assad fled, Syrian rebels broke into the notorious Saydnaya prison, freeing thousands, some there since the 1980s.
Since then, Tishreen Hospital has been out of service pending an investigation.
NEGLECT AND TORTURE
Human rights advocates say Syria’s military hospitals, most notably Tishreen, have a record of neglect and ill-treatment.
“Some medical practitioners that were in some of these military hospitals (were) assisting... interrogations and torture, and maybe even withholding treatments to detainees,” Hanny Megally of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria told AFP.
Former Saydnaya detainees told AFP about the ordeals they went through after they got sick.
It would begin with a routine examination by two of the jail’s military doctors.
One of them used to beat prisoners, sometimes to death, four ex-detainees said.
Guards relentlessly beat them from the moment they were pulled from their cells to the hospital jail, then to its main building to meet the doctors, and finally escorted back to prison.
At the hospital’s jail, those who were too ill were left to die or even killed, several former detainees said.
Three years ago, Najib and other inmates were tortured using the “tyre” method inside Saydnaya for merely talking to each other.
They were forced into vehicle tires and beaten with their foreheads against their knees or ankles.
After a first check-up by a military doctor at Saydnaya, Najib was prescribed painkillers for his back pain.
The doctor eventually accepted to transfer him to Tishreen Hospital for tuberculosis symptoms.
Former prisoners said guards looking to minimize their workload would order them to say they suffered from “diarrhea and fever” so they could transfer everyone to the same department.
When Omar Al-Masri, 39, was taken to the hospital with a torture-induced leg injury, he too told a doctor he had an upset stomach and a fever.
While he was awaiting treatment, a guard ordered him to “clean” a very sick inmate.
Masri wiped the prisoner’s face and body, yet when the guard returned, he angrily repeated the same order: “Clean him.”
As Masri repeated the task, the sick prisoner soon took his last breath. An agitated Masri called out to the guard who gave him a chilling response: “Well done.”
“That is when I learnt that by ‘clean him’, he meant ‘kill him’,” he said.
According to a 2023 report by the Association of Detainees and the Missing in Sednaya Prison, security forces at the hospital jail and even medical and administrative staff inflicted physical and psychological violence on detainees.
A civilian doctor told AFP she and other medical staff at Tishreen were under strict orders to keep conversations with prisoners to a minimum.
“We weren’t allowed to ask what the prisoner’s name was or learn anything about them,” she said, requesting anonymity for fear of reprisals.
She said that despite reports about ill treatment at the hospital, she had not witnessed it herself.
But even if a doctor was courageous enough to ask about a prisoner’s name, the scared detainee would only give the number assigned to him by the guards.
“They weren’t allowed to speak,” she said.
After a beating in his Saydnaya cell, Osama Abdul Latif’s ribs were broken, but the prison doctors only transferred him to the hospital four months later with a large protrusion on his side.
Abdul Latif and other detainees had to stack the bodies of three fellow inmates into the transfer vehicle and unloaded them at Tishreen hospital.
“I was jailed for five years,” Abdul Latif said.
But “250 years wouldn’t be enough to talk about all the suffering” he endured.
