Suspension of visas to EU diplomats hampers Syria aid work

Syrian security forces inspect a burned car at the site of an explosion in Latakia, near President Bashar Assad’s ancestral village, on Tuesday. (AP)
Updated 25 January 2019
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Suspension of visas to EU diplomats hampers Syria aid work

  • The special permission to use multiple-entry Syrian visas for access to Damascus was rescinded at the start of January

BRUSSELS, BEIRUT: Syrian President Bashar Assad has suspended special multiple-entry visas for EU diplomats to Damascus.

“We are continuing as the EU ... to do whatever we can to avoid it having an impact on the important work we are doing on the ground,” a European Commission spokeswoman said on Thursday.

The special permission to use multiple-entry Syrian visas for access to Damascus was rescinded at the start of January with no explanation from the Syrian regime, complicating efforts to distribute humanitarian aid to civil war victims.

 


Sudan army air strike kills 10 in southern Khartoum: rescuers

Updated 5 sec ago
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Sudan army air strike kills 10 in southern Khartoum: rescuers

  • Strike targeted a market area of the capital’s Southern Belt ‘for the third time in less than a month’
  • War between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary forces has killed tens of thousands of people
PORT SUDAN, Sudan: Ten Sudanese civilians were killed and over 30 wounded in an army air strike on southern Khartoum, volunteer rescue workers said.
The strike on Sunday targeted a market area of the capital’s Southern Belt “for the third time in less than a month,” said the local Emergency Response Room (ERR), part of a network of volunteers across the country coordinating frontline aid.
The group said those killed burned to death. The wounded, suffering from burns, were taken to the local Bashair Hospital, with five of them in a critical condition.
Since April 2023, the war between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed tens of thousands of people.
In the capital alone, the violence killed 26,000 people between April 2023 and June 2024, according to a report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Khartoum has experienced some of the war’s worst violence, with entire neighborhoods emptied out and taken over by fighters.
The military, which maintains a monopoly on the skies with its jets, has not managed to wrest back control of the capital from the paramilitary.
Of the 11.5 million people currently displaced within Sudan, nearly a third have fled from the capital, according to United Nations figures.
Both the RSF and the army have been repeatedly accused of targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas.

Israel says Hamas has not given ‘status of hostages’ it says ready to free

Updated 34 min 4 sec ago
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Israel says Hamas has not given ‘status of hostages’ it says ready to free

  • A Hamas official gave a list of 34 hostages the group was ready to free

JERUSALEM: Israel said on Monday that Hamas had so far not provided the status of the 34 hostages the group declared it was ready to release in the first phase of a potential exchange deal.
“As yet, Israel has not received any confirmation or comment by Hamas regarding the status of the hostages appearing on the list,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement after a Hamas official gave a list of 34 hostages the group was ready to free in the first phase.


Shooting attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank kills 3

Updated 46 min 4 sec ago
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Shooting attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank kills 3

  • The attack occurred in the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq, on one of the main east-west roads crossing the territory

JERUSALEM: A shooting attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank killed at least three people and wounded seven others on Monday, Israeli medics said.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said those killed included two women in their 60s and a man in his 40s.
Violence has surged in the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza ignited the ongoing war there.
The attack occurred in the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq, on one of the main east-west roads crossing the territory. The identities of the attackers and those killed were not immediately known. The military said it was looking for the attackers, who fled.
Palestinians have carried out scores of shooting, stabbing and car-ramming attacks against Israelis in recent years. Israel has launched near-nightly military raids across the territory that frequently trigger gunbattle with militants.
The Palestinian Health Ministry says at least 835 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.
Some 3 million Palestinians live in the West Bank under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority administering population centers. Over 500,000 Israeli settlers live in scores of settlements, which most of the international community considers illegal.
Meanwhile, the war in Gaza is raging with no end in sight, though there has reportedly been recent progress in long-running talks aimed at a ceasefire and hostage release.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed across the border in a massive surprise attack nearly 15 months ago, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed over 45,800 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health authorities, who say women and children make up more than half of those killed. They do not say how many of the dead were militants. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
The war has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced 90 percent of the territory’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands are enduring a cold, rainy winter in tent camps along the windy coast. At least seven infants have died of hypothermia because of the harsh conditions, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Aid groups say Israeli restrictions, ongoing fighting and the breakdown of law and order in many areas make it difficult to provide desperately needed food and other assistance.


New Syria foreign minister begins first visit to UAE: state media

Updated 52 min 44 sec ago
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New Syria foreign minister begins first visit to UAE: state media

Damascus: Syria’s new foreign minister Asaad Al-Shaibani landed in the United Arab Emirates Monday on his first visit to the country since rebels toppled president Bashar Assad last month, official news agency SANA said.
“Shaibani, accompanied by defense minister Murhaf Abu Qasra and intelligence chief Anas Khattab, has arrived in the United Arab Emirates,” SANA reported.
Shaibani also posted a picture of himself on X stepping off a plane, and said he looked forward “to building constructive bilateral relations.”
The officials took office after Islamist-led rebels swept into Damascus in early December, toppling Assad after more than 13 years of civil war.
Their trip to the UAE comes after they visited its Gulf neighbors Qatar on Sunday and Saudi Arabia last week.
Both Qatar and Turkiye, which backed the anti-Assad opposition, reopened their embassies in Damascus in the aftermath of Assad’s flight to Moscow.
Turkiye has long maintained a working relationship with the HTS rebels, leaving it with a direct line to Damascus.


US to ease aid restrictions for Syria while keeping sanctions in place, sources say

Updated 06 January 2025
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US to ease aid restrictions for Syria while keeping sanctions in place, sources say

  • Department to issue waivers to aid groups and companies providing essentials such as water, electricity and other humanitarian supplies

The US is set to imminently announce an easing of restrictions on providing humanitarian aid and other basic services such as electricity to Syria while still keeping its strict sanctions regime in place, according to people briefed on the matter.
The decision by the outgoing Biden administration will send a signal of goodwill to Syria’s new Islamist rulers and aims to pave the way for improving tough living conditions in the war-ravaged country while also treading cautiously and keeping US leverage in place.
US officials have met several times with members of the ruling administration, since the dramatic end on Dec. 8 of more than 50 years of Assad family rule after a lightning rebel offensive.
HTS, the faction that led the advance, has long-since renounced its former Al Qaeda ties and fought the group but they remain designated a terrorist entity by the US and Washington wants to see them cooperate on priorities such as counterterrorism and forming a government inclusive of all Syrians.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the Biden administration approved the easing of restrictions over the weekend, saying the move authorizes the Treasury Department to issue waivers to aid groups and companies providing essentials such as water, electricity and other humanitarian supplies.