BEIRUT: The Syrian government is scrambling to deal with its worst fuel crisis since the war began in 2011, aggravated by US sanctions targeting oil shipments to Damascus.
There was temporary relief when reserves or smuggled oil made their way to the market. Long lines outside gas stations slightly receded, as did public panic that had translated into widespread criticism of government policies.
But more dramatic measures are necessary for the government of President Bashar Assad, which needs to procure more than 75 percent of its fuel from outside sources.
Experts say Damascus either has to regain control of oil-fields in the east, currently controlled by the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or replace oil supplies that used to come from Iran with new ones from Russia — at a political cost.
Government forces and their allies could make a quick move on the east if Washington goes ahead with talk of withdrawing its troops based there and working with the SDF. A US withdrawal would also offer Turkey a chance to launch its own assault to push away the SDF, which it considers a threat, and extend its borders. There are signs, however, the US may be reconsidering its plans.
Eventually, an offensive on the east is inevitable, said Fabrice Balanche, a Syria expert at the University of Lyon.
“When Turkey (attacks) the Kurds, Assad’s forces will (re)take Al-Omar oil field. After 3 months? 6 months? One year?“
For now, Syria needs oil. Domestic production this year reached 24,000 barrels a day — only around 20-25 percent of total needs — down from 350,000 barrels a day before the war. Government officials say they need $2.7 billion worth of subsidized fuel every year.
Iran, which offered vital military support to Assad, was the main provider. But Tehran is feeling the heat as the US squeezes sanctions tighter.
The credit line Iran extended to Damascus since 2013 to supply oil has run dry and its oil shipments stopped late last year. This followed US Treasury sanctions imposed in November on a network that spanned Syria, Iran and Russia and was responsible for shipping oil to the Syrian government. The Treasury also issued a global advisory warning of sanctions for illicit oil shipments, naming specific vessels and pressuring insurance companies. At least one tanker with Iranian oil headed to Syria remains docked outside the Suez Canal since December, according to TankerTrackers.com.
The Syrian pound dropped to one of its lowest values in years, going for 590 liras to the dollar on the black market compared to the official rate of 430 liras, and prices have skyrocketed.
Middlemen benefit from the sanctions by buying oil and bringing it in by land, usually from Iraq or Lebanon — providing around 20 percent of Damascus’ needs. Some is smuggled in from the oil fields of eastern Syria, a trade that went on while the area was held by Daesh and continues under the Kurdish-led SDF. In recent days, activists and residents of Damascus spotted oil trucks crossing into government-held areas.
In the long run, the SDF may have to negotiate a compromise with Damascus, given its precarious dependency on US protection. But for the moment, the SDF is seeking to enforce sanctions, tightening control over supply routes and securing bridges across the Euphrates River to government-controlled areas. They banned the making of barges that carry oil across the river.
Russia can offer a stable supply to replace Iran’s. But to get it, Assad may have to recalibrate ties with his two main allies, Moscow and Tehran, which have different interests in Syria.
“The question is what Assad can offer in return and how profitable that will be for Russia,” said Kirill Semenov, Moscow-based Middle East analyst and a non-resident expert at the Russian International Affairs Council.
“Moscow could be using this to make Assad more pliable and act more in the interests of Moscow rather than Iran.”
Last week, the Syrian government announced plans to lease the port of Tartous to Russia for 49 years for business. Russia already leases part of the port for its naval base.
The announcement followed reports in February that Iran was in talks to lease the nearby Latakia port in exchange for scrapping Damascus’ debts. That would allow Tehran access to the Mediterranean, right next to the Russian-run port. Moscow would be in a difficult spot with Israel, which has targeted Iranian bases in Syria and maintains a military hotline with Russia.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov met with Assad in Damascus at the end of April and said the Russian lease of the port would boost bilateral trade and benefit the Syrian economy. He lamented that the eastern oil fields are out of the government’s reach but said “specific proposals” exist and that “Syria should be ready to solve (the problem).”
Syrian Minister of Transportation Ali Hammoud said Stroytransgaz, a leading Russian gas and oil company, would expand the port to more than double its current capacity and inject more than $500 million.
Stroytransgaz is not afraid of US sanctions. It is controlled by a close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin who faces US sanctions since 2014 because of his connection to the Crimean crisis.
David Butter, an energy expert at Chatham House, said both Iran and Russia are using the fuel crisis as leverage on Assad.
“Iran wants guarantees of debt repayment; Russia seems to be angling for more political (and) military control,” he said. While Moscow has not yet spelled out what it wants, it is looking to “impose its will on the scope of any political settlement, to secure economic assets (and) control the military arena — elbowing out Iran.”
Leith Aboufadel, founder and editor of the pro-Syrian government site Al-Masdar News, said Damascus “may choose the path set forth by the Russians,” including rapprochement with Saudi Arabia.
Late last month, Russian media reported that Putin’s envoy to Syria traveled to Damascus after a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman where they discussed the Syrian crisis. Gulf countries, who had supported the armed opposition, have been making overtures to Assad aiming to pull Damascus out of Tehran’s orbit.
“The Syrian government’s potential decision may not sit well with Iran, but at this juncture in the war, the sanctions and lack of funding are taking a toll on Damascus,” Aboufadel wrote.
Syrian government has few options to battle fuel sanctions
Syrian government has few options to battle fuel sanctions
- US sanctions against Iran are causing fuel shortages in government-held parts of Syria
- The sanctions are working in favour of Russia, which is looking to step in and fill the gap in supply
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
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.
Iran to hold nuclear talks with three European powers in Geneva on Friday, Kyodo reports
- A senior Iranian official confirmed that the meeting would go ahead next Friday
DUBAI: Iran plans to hold talks about its disputed nuclear program with three European powers on Nov. 29 in Geneva, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported on Sunday, days after the UN atomic watchdog passed a resolution against Tehran.
Iran reacted to the resolution, which was proposed by Britain, France, Germany and the United States, with what government officials called various measures such as activating numerous new and advanced centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium.
Kyodo said Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s government was seeking a solution to the nuclear impasse ahead of the inauguration in January of US President-elect Donald Trump.
A senior Iranian official confirmed that the meeting would go ahead next Friday, adding that “Tehran has always believed that the nuclear issue should be resolved through diplomacy. Iran has never left the talks.”
In 2018, the then-Trump administration exited Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six major powers and reimposed harsh sanctions on Iran, prompting Tehran to violate the pact’s nuclear limits, with moves such as rebuilding stockpiles of enriched uranium, refining it to higher fissile purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up output.
Indirect talks between President Joe Biden’s administration and Tehran to try to revive the pact have failed, but Trump said in his election campaign in September that “We have to make a deal, because the consequences are impossible. We have to make a deal.”
Lebanon military says one soldier killed, 18 hurt in Israeli strike on army center
- The attack caused severe damage to the facility, the army added in a post on X
At least one soldier was killed and 18 others injured, some seriously, after an Israeli attack targeted an army center in the town of Al-Amiriya on the Al-Qalila-Tyre road in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese army said on Sunday.
The attack caused severe damage to the facility, the army added in a post on X.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the incident.
Israel cracks down on Palestinian citizens who speak out against the war in Gaza
- Israeli authorities have opened more incitement cases against Palestinian citizens during the war in Gaza than in the previous five years combined
UMM AL-FAHM, Israel: Israel’s yearlong crackdown against Palestinian citizens who speak out against the war in Gaza is prompting many to self-censor out of fear of being jailed and further marginalized in society, while some still find ways to dissent — carefully.
Ahmed Khalefa’s life turned upside down after he was charged with inciting terrorism for chanting in solidarity with Gaza at an anti-war protest in October 2023.
The lawyer and city counselor from central Israel says he spent three difficult months in jail followed by six months detained in an apartment. It’s unclear when he’ll get a final verdict on his guilt or innocence. Until then, he’s forbidden from leaving his home from dusk to dawn.
Khalefa is one of more than 400 Palestinian citizens of Israel who, since the start of the war in Gaza, have been investigated by police for “incitement to terrorism” or “incitement to violence,” according to Adalah, a legal rights group for minorities. More than half of those investigated were also criminally charged or detained, Adalah said.
“Israel made it clear they see us more as enemies than as citizens,” Khalefa said in an interview at a cafe in his hometown of Umm Al-Fahm, Israel’s second-largest Palestinian city.
Israel has roughly 2 million Palestinian citizens, whose families remained within the borders of what became Israel in 1948. Among them are Muslims and Christians, and they maintain family and cultural ties to Gaza and the West Bank, which Israel captured in 1967.
Israel says its Palestinian citizens enjoy equal rights, including the right to vote, and they are well-represented in many professions. However, Palestinians are widely discriminated against in areas like housing and the job market.
Israeli authorities have opened more incitement cases against Palestinian citizens during the war in Gaza than in the previous five years combined, Adalah’s records show. Israeli authorities have not said how many cases ended in convictions and imprisonment. The Justice Ministry said it did not have statistics on those convictions.
Just being charged with incitement to terrorism or identifying with a terrorist group can land a suspect in detention until they’re sentenced, under the terms of a 2016 law.
In addition to being charged as criminals, Palestinians citizens of Israel — who make up around 20 percent of the country’s population — have lost jobs, been suspended from schools and faced police interrogations posting online or demonstrating, activists and rights watchdogs say.
It’s had a chilling effect.
“Anyone who tries to speak out about the war will be imprisoned and harassed in his work and education,” said Oumaya Jabareen, whose son was jailed for eight months after an anti-war protest. “People here are all afraid, afraid to say no to this war.”
Jabareen was among hundreds of Palestinians who filled the streets of Umm Al-Fahm earlier this month carrying signs and chanting political slogans. It appeared to be the largest anti-war demonstration in Israel since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. But turnout was low, and Palestinian flags and other national symbols were conspicuously absent. In the years before the war, some protests could draw tens of thousands of Palestinians in Israel.
Authorities tolerated the recent protest march, keeping it under heavily armed supervision. Helicopters flew overhead as police with rifles and tear gas jogged alongside the crowd, which dispersed without incident after two hours. Khalefa said he chose not to attend.
Shortly after the Oct. 7 attack, Israel’s far-right government moved quickly to invigorate a task force that has charged Palestinian citizens of Israel with “supporting terrorism” for posts online or protesting against the war. At around the same time, lawmakers amended a security bill to increase surveillance of online activity by Palestinians in Israel, said Nadim Nashif, director of the digital rights group 7amleh. These moves gave authorities more power to restrict freedom of expression and intensify their arrest campaigns, Nashif said.
The task force is led by Itamar Ben-Gvir, a hard-line national security minister who oversees the police. His office said the task force has monitored thousands of posts allegedly expressing support for terror organizations and that police arrested “hundreds of terror supporters,” including public opinion leaders, social media influencers, religious figures, teachers and others.
“Freedom of speech is not the freedom to incite ... which harms public safety and our security,” his office said in a statement.
But activists and rights groups say the government has expanded its definition of incitement much too far, targeting legitimate opinions that are at the core of freedom of expression.
Myssana Morany, a human rights attorney at Adalah, said Palestinian citizens have been charged for seemingly innocuous things like sending a meme of a captured Israeli tank in Gaza in a private WhatsApp group chat. Another person was charged for posting a collage of children’s photos, captioned in Arabic and English: “Where were the people calling for humanity when we were killed?” The feminist activist group Kayan said over 600 women called its hotline because of blowback in the workplace for speaking out against the war or just mentioning it unfavorably.
Over the summer, around two dozen anti-war protesters in the port city of Haifa were only allowed to finish three chants before police forcefully scattered the gathering into the night. Yet Jewish Israelis demanding a hostage release deal protest regularly — and the largest drew hundreds of thousands to the streets of Tel Aviv.
Khalefa, the city counselor, is not convinced the crackdown on speech will end, even if the war eventually does. He said Israeli prosecutors took issue with slogans that broadly praised resistance and urged Gaza to be strong, but which didn’t mention violence or any militant groups. For that, he said, the government is trying to disbar him, and he faces up to eight years in prison.
“They wanted to show us the price of speaking out,” Khalefa said.
Israeli strikes across Lebanon kill more than 55 as US officials push for ceasefire
- At least 20 were killed and 66 wounded in a strike in the heart of Beirut
- Air strikes also killed 24 in eastern Lebanon and 14 in the south, health ministry says
BEIRUT: Lebanon said Israeli air strikes on Saturday killed more than 55 people, many of them in central Beirut, as Israel’s defense minister vowed decisive action against Hezbollah, in a call with his US counterpart.
It was one of the deadliest strikes in a day since Israel escalated air strikes against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on September 23, after nearly a year of limited cross-border exchanges of fire, in which Lebanon’s Hezbollah said it was acting in support of Hamas.
One strike on Saturday in the heart of Beirut brought down a residential building and jolted residents across the city.
The strike on the working-class Basta neighborhood killed at least 20 people and wounded 66, Lebanon’s health ministry said in a revised toll.
A Lebanese security source told AFP that the central Beirut strike had “targeted a leading Hezbollah figure,” but a Hezbollah lawmaker, Amin Sherri, denied to Lebanese media that any official was present at the time of the attack.
Similar strikes carried out without warning outside of Hezbollah’s traditional bastions — which include southern Beirut but not the center — have tended to target senior figures.
The health ministry said Israeli air strikes also hit eastern Lebanon, killing 24 people including 13 in the town of Shmostar overlooking the Bekaa Valley, another Hezbollah stronghold.
In Lebanon’s south, at least 14 were killed including five in the coastal city of Tyre, the ministry said.
Rude awakening
Residents in Beirut's Basta neighborhood were asleep and had not been given prior warning to evacuate, according to a civil defense source.
Four bunker buster missiles hit the building in the densely populated Al-Ma’moun Street.
It resulted in the complete or partial destruction of adjacent structures, while the targeted building was reduced to rubble, leaving a deep crater.
The sheer number of residents who sustained various injuries overwhelmed local hospitals that issued urgent calls for blood donations.
“We saw two dead people on the ground... The children started crying and their mother cried even more,” said Samir, 60, who lives in a building facing the one destroyed.
The attack in the capital was followed by others in the city’s southern suburbs after calls by the Israeli military to evacuate.
Israel has not commented on the strike in central Beirut but said it had again hit Hezbollah targets in the city’s southern suburbs, a stronghold of the Iran-backed group.
A military statement said that over the past week, the air force “struck dozens of Hezbollah command centers, weapons storage facilities, and terrorist infrastructure in the Dahieh area.”
Survivors recounted the moments of terror they experienced during the airstrikes and how they narrowly escaped death as parts of their homes collapsed.
Among the victims of the raid was a family of 10 from the southern town of Shaqra’s Hourani family. They had been displaced to the Al-Salam neighborhood in the southern suburbs of Beirut but chose to move to Basta, “believing it offered greater security than the southern suburbs,” according to a relative.
The bunker buster munitions resembled those used in the assassinations of the former chief of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, and another top official, Hashem Safieddine.
A building about 100 meters from the new target was attacked about a month ago.
Confusion over the targets
About 12 hours after the raid that shook Beirut and its suburbs, Hezbollah MP Amin Sherri, while inspecting the targeted site in Basta, said: “There was no Hezbollah member in the targeted building.”
Information circulating at the time of the airstrikes suggested that the target of the raid was a “prominent Hezbollah leader” taking part in a leadership meeting.
Israeli Channel 12 reported that the “target was Sheikh Naim Qassem, the secretary-general of Hezbollah.”
But the Israel Broadcasting Authority reported in the morning, citing a security source, that the target was Hezbollah official Mohammed Haidar.
However, the Israeli source did not confirm at the time whether he was killed or survived.
Haidar, a former member of Lebanese parliament, represented the Marjayoun-Hasbaya district from 2005 to 2009.
He served as a military aide to Nasrallah and was a member of the Jihad Council, regarded as Hezbollah’s highest executive leadership for military and security operations.
Haidar is one of the three prominent members of the council alongside Talal Hamieh and Khudar Yussuf Nader.
Additionally, Haidar serves as head of Hezbollah’s operations room.
Channel 12’s military reporter said that the official “was residing in a hidden apartment,” adding that the Basta attack “was an attempt to assassinate him.”
Israeli attacks against Beirut, especially against Hezbollah commanders, prompted internal backlash.
Independent MP Waddah Sadek said: “Hezbollah should take the moral and courageous decision of protecting Beirut’s residents and displaced people.
“Beirut is not an operation area, but a city that welcomed our displaced people only.”
Former Beirut MP Rola Al-Tabesh said: “The magnitude of the Israeli enemy’s criminality and blood-shedding is condemned and indescribable.”
Diplomatic solution
In a telephone call with Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Saturday, Washington's Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “reiterated US commitment to a diplomatic resolution in Lebanon that allows Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return safely to their homes on both sides of the border,” a Pentagon spokesperson said.
A spokesman for Katz said he commended the US efforts toward “de-escalation in Lebanon” and underscored that Israel would “continue to act decisively in response to Hezbollah’s attacks on civilian populations in Israel.”
United States envoy Amos Hochstein was in Lebanon and Israel this week, meeting with both countries’ senior officials, to try to negotiate an end to the war.
After talks in Beirut he said a deal was “within our grasp” but as he headed to Israel both sides put out statements that dented hopes of rapid progress.
Lebanon says more than 3,670 people have been killed in the country since October 2023. Most of the deaths have been since September this year.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed at least 44,176 people, most of them civilians, according to data from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which the United Nations considers reliable.
In the pre-dawn darkness of Gaza on Saturday, one strike killed seven people including children at a house in the Zeitun area of Gaza City, civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
AFPTV footage showed victims being brought in to Al-Ahli Arab Hospital including a bloody and dust-covered man, as a boy on a bed beside him struggled to reach the man and called for his father.
“We were sleeping, I was lying here. What happened?” one survivor, Abu Shaker Shaldan, said, lost for words at the scene of the strike, with blood trickling down his head.
Tensions escalate
Meanwhile, confrontations between the Israeli army and Hezbollah have escalated, reaching the second line of villages across the southern Lebanese border.
The escalation included Baalbek, Brital and Chmistar, where three children and their mother were killed.
Israeli drones targeted several fishermen on the beach of Tyre, killing two.
Hezbollah said it was now using cruise missiles to target Israeli military outposts in northern Israel.
Beirut’s southern suburb has been subject to a series of Israeli raids since the early morning. The airstrikes targeted not only single houses and buildings, but also residential and commercial compounds.
The attacks were preceded by evacuation warnings issued by the Israeli army, along with a map showing the targeted locations.
Raids reached Burj Al-Barajneh, Hadath, Choueifat, Amrousieh near the Lebanese University and Haret Hreik.
The Israeli army claimed that it targeted “many Hezbollah headquarters, weapon depots and military infrastructure.”
Clashes intensified in the southern town of Khiam between Hezbollah and the Israeli army amid fierce militant resistance.
The Israeli army carried out detonations, described as “very violent,” in the heart of the town, and homes were destroyed in Shamaa and Tayr Harfa, which the Israeli army entered a few days earlier.
Reports suggested that the Israeli army took control of large areas of the coastal town of Al-Bayada.
Media reports spoke of Israeli soldiers entering between the border towns of Al-Taybeh and Rab Al-Thalathin.
The Israeli army fired heavy munitions toward the outskirts of the town of Naqoura.
Several people were killed in Israeli airstrikes targeting motorcycles on the roads in the Tyre and Bint Jbeil districts.
Airstrikes targeted frontline and second-line towns, and in the city of Bint Jbeil, about 50 shells hit residential neighborhoods within a two-hour period.
Israeli jets struck Chehabiyeh and Zefta, killing three people, and the vicinity of Al-Bazourieh, Chaaitiyeh and Roumine, where five people were killed, as well as Khirbet Selm and Mayfadoun.
Airstrikes hit the town of Roum in the Jezzine district, resulting in three deaths and two injuries.
- With Agencies
