HASAKA, Syria: The paramedics’ log at Al-Hol camp in eastern Syria lists the injuries and ailments of infants rushed from the battlefield to its crowded, dirty clinic: malnourishment, stunted growth, broken leg.
Those in critical need – mostly emaciated babies born in war to the wives of dead Daesh militants – are taken to the nearest hospital, a bumpy two-hour drive away. Other people cram into a waiting room with a tin roof in a growing queue for basic medical treatment.
At the hospital, staff have had to build two portacabins on the roof that serve as a makeshift ward for the treatment of malnourished babies, crammed sometimes two or three to a cot.
Lower floors are filled with teenagers missing limbs and women with shrapnel and bullet wounds.
The exodus during intense fighting of more than 60,000 people from Daesh’s final redoubt of Baghouz is overwhelming medical staff in eastern Syria who struggle to cope at the camp and ill-equipped hospitals.
Scores of people, mostly children, have died on the 150-mile (240-kilometer) journey to Al-Hol or soon after arriving, aid groups say.
“My son has a dislocated hip. He needs an operation urgently,” said Umm Mohammed, a veiled 33-year-old woman holding an expressionless six-month-old boy at the camp.
“Medics keep saying they have more urgent cases to deal with — wounds and shrapnel injuries.”
In the waiting area, dozens of people who mostly left Baghouz during a brief truce last month, arranged for civilians and surrendering militants to evacuate, sit on wooden benches or the concrete floor. Children in wheelchairs watch while babies scream as they are bandaged or given injections.
US-backed forces declared the defeat in March of Daesh’s self-proclaimed caliphate – the territory it once held in Iraq and Syria – after militants were driven out of the village of Baghouz where they made a months-long last stand.
The intense bombardment and fighting to dislodge the Sunni extremist group cost countless lives and wounded many more people, including the wives of fighters, their children, Daesh supporters and other civilians trapped by the militants in the enclave.
Those who evacuated in recent weeks have strained health care in Kurdish-run areas of eastern Syria beyond capacity.
In the clinic at Al-Hol, which is hosting more than 70,000 people displaced by violence, many people wore crude casts. One woman said she did not have enough painkillers for a wound to her hand – a long metal rod from the explosion that wounded her and killed three relatives was still lodged in her knuckle.
“I just want an X-ray at the hospital,” she said, giving her name as Umm Ahmed.
Starving children of Daesh
But local hospitals can take only the most severe cases.
In one room at the hospital in the nearby town of Hasaka, 19-year-old Baraa Al-Kurdi, the wife of a Syrian Daesh member, lay motionless next to a boy with third-degree burns covering his head.
“I was hit in the head by shrapnel,” Kurdi said quietly. “We were next to a car packed with ammunition and explosives, including suicide belts ready for fighters to use.
“My husband was killed. My daughter is one month old – she’s upstairs in the babies’ ward.”
Kurdi’s daughter was one of the few non-foreign infants in the ward.
Others, many blond or with Asian features, lay quietly in their cots with cheekbones showing and eyes sunken into their sockets from malnutrition. The patients’ register listed the names their mothers gave the hospital – Ali Azerbaijani, Ali Al-Uzbeki, Mohamed Skramo, a Norwegian name.
Many who remained in Baghouz until the end of the fighting were die-hard supporters of Daesh who flocked from all over the world to support its violent interpretation of Islam.
A number of European countries have refused to take back citizens who joined Daesh, putting additional strain on local authorities to deal with prisoners and patients.
“Children from the camp are arriving night and day. We currently have more than 70 babies being treated for malnutrition,” a nurse in the ward said.
She and other hospital staff declined to be named or for the hospital to be identified, fearing reprisals for treating the children of Daesh fighters.
“Most cases are treated and then returned to the camp. A few have died. We’re doing out best but had limited resources even before this influx.”
More than 200 people have died on their way to Al-Hol or after arriving in the camp in recent months, according to the International Rescue Committee. It said this week that around 30 to 50 cases every day were referred to local hospitals.
“We get 30 ambulances arriving each day,” a local health official said, also declining to be named.
“There’s aid from international organizations for those from Baghouz. They’re mostly foreign. We can barely provide health care for our own.”
Starved infants, wounded women crowd Syrian hospitals after Daesh defeat
Starved infants, wounded women crowd Syrian hospitals after Daesh defeat
- The exodus during intense fighting of more than 60,000 people from Daesh’s final redoubt of Baghouz is overwhelming medical staff in eastern Syria
- US-backed forces declared the defeat in March of Daesh’s self-proclaimed caliphate
Two Israeli strikes hit south Beirut: Lebanon state media
“Israeli warplanes launched two violent strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in the Kafaat area,” the official National News Agency said.
The southern Beirut area has been repeatedly struck since September 23 when Israel intensified its air campaign also targeting Hezbollah bastions in Lebanon’s east and south. It later sent in ground troops to southern Lebanon.
AFPTV footage showed grey smoke billowing over south Beirut.
The raids “caused massive destruction over a large geographical area” of the Kafaat district, NNA said.
Earlier Sunday, Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee warned on social media platform X that the military would strike “Hezbollah facilities and interests” in the Hadath and Burj Al-Barajneh districts, also sharing maps of the areas to be evacuated.
Full-on war erupted following nearly a year of limited exchanges of fire initiated by Iran-backed Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas, after the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack sparked the Gaza war.
Israel records 160 launches fom Lebanon as Hezbollah targets Tel Aviv, south
- Medical agencies reported that at least 11 people were wounded, including a man in a “moderate to serious” condition
JERUSALEM: Israel’s army said Hezbollah fired around 160 projectiles into its territory from Lebanon on Sunday, with the group saying its attacks had targeted the Tel Aviv area and Israel’s south.
The Iran-backed group said in a statement that it had “launched, for the first time, an aerial attack using a swarm of attack drones on the Ashdod naval base” in southern Israel.
Later, it said it fired “a barrage of advanced missiles and a swarm of attack drones” at a “military target” in Tel Aviv, and had also launched a volley of missiles at the Glilot army intelligence base in the city’s suburbs.
The Israeli military did not comment on the specific attack claims when contacted by AFP.
But it said earlier that air raid sirens had sounded in several locations in central and northern Israel, including in the greater Tel Aviv suburbs.
It later reported that “approximately 160 projectiles that were fired by the Hezbollah terrorist organization have crossed from Lebanon into Israel.”
Some of the projectiles were shot down.
Medical agencies reported that at least 11 people were wounded, including a man in a “moderate to serious” condition.
AFP images from Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv, showed several damaged and burned-out cars, and a house pockmarked by shrapnel.
The wave of projectiles follows at least four deadly Israeli strikes in central Beirut in the past week, including one that killed Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif.
In a speech on Wednesday, Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem had said the response to the recent strikes on the capital “must be expected on central Tel Aviv.”
The Lebanese army, meanwhile, said that a soldier was killed on Sunday and 18 others injured, “including some with severe wounds, as a result of an Israeli attack targeting a Lebanese army center in Amriyeh.”
Though the Lebanese army is not a party to the war between Israel and Hezbollah, Israeli strikes have killed 19 Lebanese soldiers in the last two months, authorities have said.
Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign, later sending in ground troops after nearly a year of limited exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas after the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack, which sparked the Gaza war.
Lebanon’s health ministry says at least 3,670 people have been killed in the country since October 2023, most of them since September this year.
Israeli strike on Lebanese army center kills soldier, wounds 18 others
- It was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes that have killed over 40 Lebanese troops
- Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister condemned it as an assault on US-led ceasefire efforts
BEIRUT: An Israeli strike on a Lebanese army center on Sunday killed one soldier and wounded 18 others, the Lebanese military said.
It was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes that have killed over 40 Lebanese troops, even as the military has largely kept to the sidelines in the war between Israel and Hezbollah militants.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has said previous strikes on Lebanese troops were accidental and that they are not a target of its campaign against Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned it as an assault on US-led ceasefire efforts, calling it a “direct, bloody message rejecting all efforts and ongoing contacts” to end the war.
“(Israel is) again writing in Lebanese blood a brazen rejection of the solution that is being discussed,” a statement from his office read.
The strike occurred in southwestern Lebanon on the coastal road between Tyre and Naqoura, where there has been heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of the Gaza Strip ignited the war there. Hezbollah has portrayed the attacks as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians and Hamas. Iran supports both armed groups.
Israel has launched retaliatory airstrikes since the rocket fire began, and in September the low-level conflict erupted into all-out war, as Israel launched waves of airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon and killed Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several of his top commanders.
Israeli airstrikes early Saturday pounded central Beirut, killing at least 20 people and wounding 66, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Hezbollah has continued to fire regular barrages into Israel, forcing people to race for shelters and occasionally killing or wounding them.
Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The fighting has displaced about 1.2 million people, or a quarter of Lebanon’s population.
On the Israeli side, about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed by bombardments in northern Israel and in battle following Israel’s ground invasion in early October. Around 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from the country’s north.
The Biden administration has spent months trying to broker a ceasefire, and US envoy Amos Hochstein was back in the region last week.
The emerging agreement would pave the way for the withdrawal of Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops from southern Lebanon below the Litani River in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war. Lebanese troops would patrol the area, with the presence of UN peacekeepers.
Lebanon’s army reflects the religious diversity of the country and is respected as a national institution, but it does not have the military capability to impose its will on Hezbollah or resist Israel’s invasion.
EU’s Borrell urges pressure on Israel, Hezbollah to accept US ceasefire proposal
- The EU’s foreign policy chief warned that Lebanon was “on the brink of collapse”
BEIRUT: The European Union’s foreign policy chief called on Sunday during a visit to Beirut for pressure to be exerted on both the Israeli government and on Lebanon’s Hezbollah to accept a US ceasefire proposal.
Speaking at a news conference in Beirut, Josep Borell also urged Lebanese leaders to pick a president to end a two-year power vacuum in the country, and he pledged 200 million euros in support for Lebanon’s armed forces.
Lebanon on 'brink of collapse'
The EU’s foreign policy chief warned that Lebanon was “on the brink of collapse” after Israel launched an intense air campaign two months ago following nearly a year of clashes with Hezbollah.
“Back in September I came and was still hoping we could prevent a full-fledged war of Israel attacking Lebanon. Two months later Lebanon is on the brink of collapse,” Josep Borrell told reporters in Beirut.
Israeli army orders Gaza City suburb evacuated, spurring new displacement wave
- Israeli military blames Hamas rocket fire for renewed evacuation directive
- Palestinians say hospitals in north Gaza barely functioning
CAIRO: The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders to residents in areas of an eastern Gaza City suburb, setting off a new wave of displacement on Sunday, and a Gaza hospital director was injured in an Israeli drone attack, Palestinian medics said.
The new orders for the Shejaia suburb posted by the Israeli army spokesperson on X on Saturday night were blamed on Palestinian militants firing rockets from that heavily built-up district in the north of the Gaza Strip.
“For your safety, you must evacuate immediately to the south,” the military’s post said. The rocket volley on Saturday was claimed by Hamas’ armed wing, which said it had targeted an Israeli army base over the border.
Footage circulated on social and Palestinian media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed residents leaving Shejaia on donkey carts and rickshaws, with others, including children carrying backpacks, walking.
Families living in the targeted areas began fleeing their homes after nightfall on Saturday and into Sunday’s early hours, residents and Palestinian media said — the latest in multiple waves of displacement since the war began 13 months ago.
In central Gaza, health officials said at least 10 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the urban camps of Al-Maghazi and Al-Bureij since Saturday night.
Hospital director wounded by gunfire
In north Gaza, where Israeli forces have been operating against regrouping Hamas militants since early last month, health officials said an Israeli drone dropped bombs on Kamal Adwan Hospital, injuring its director Hussam Abu Safiya.
“This will not stop us from completing our humanitarian mission and we will continue to do this job at any cost,” Abu Safiya said in a video statement circulated by the health ministry on Sunday.
“We are being targeted daily. They targeted me a while ago but this will not deter us...,” he said from his hospital bed.
Israeli forces say armed militants use civilian buildings including housing blocks, hospitals and schools for operational cover. Hamas denies this, accusing Israeli forces of indiscriminately targeting populated areas.
Kamal Adwan is one of three hospitals in north Gaza that are barely operational as the health ministry said the Israeli forces have detained and expelled medical staff and prevented emergency medical, food and fuel supplies from reaching them.
In the past few weeks, Israel said it had facilitated the delivery of medical and fuel supplies and the transfer of patients from north Gaza hospitals in collaboration with international agencies such as the World Health Organization.
Residents in three embattled north Gaza towns — Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun — said Israeli forces had blown up hundreds of houses since renewing operations in an area that Israel said months ago had been cleared of militants.
Palestinians say Israel appears determined to depopulate the area permanently to create a buffer zone along the northern edge of Gaza, an accusation Israel denies.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 44,000 people, uprooted nearly all the enclave’s 2.3 million population at least once, according to Gaza officials, while reducing wide swathes of the narrow coastal territory to rubble.
The war erupted in response to a cross-border attack by Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, 2023 in which gunmen killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
