Turkey-backed rebels shoot down Syrian regime helicopter amid fierce clashes in Idlib

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A Syrian government helicopter bursts in flames after it was shot by a missile in Idlib province on Tuesday. (AP)
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A Syrian government helicopter bursts in flames after it was shot by a missile in Idlib province on Tuesday. (AP)
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A Syrian government helicopter bursts in flames after it was shot by a missile in Idlib province on Tuesday. (AP)
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Rebel fighters look at a Syrian government helicopter that was shot down in Idlib province on Tuesday. (AP)
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Rebel fighters look at a Syrian government helicopter that was shot down in Idlib province on Tuesday. (AP)
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Updated 11 February 2020
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Turkey-backed rebels shoot down Syrian regime helicopter amid fierce clashes in Idlib

  • Government forces seized control of the main Aleppo-to-Damascus highway running through Idlib province
  • A Turkish official said the rebels, supported by Turkish artillery, had begun “a full-fledged attack” on an area recently lost near Saraqeb

AMMAN/ANKARA: Turkish-backed Syrian rebels on Tuesday struck back against Russian-supported government forces who had made gains in their campaign to eradicate the last rebel strongholds in northwest Syria.
Earlier on Tuesday, the government forces seized control of the main Aleppo-to-Damascus highway running through Idlib province for the first time since 2012, a war monitor said.

 

 

In response, the rebels shot down a Syrian military helicopter and advanced toward the town of Nairab, which the Turkish defense ministry said had been been abandoned by Syrian government forces.
A Turkish official said the rebels, supported by Turkish artillery, had begun “a full-fledged attack” on an area recently lost near Saraqeb, a strategic crossroads town on the M5 highway. A rebel commander told Reuters they were pushing back the government forces there.
The flare-up of violence has prompted some of the most serious confrontations between Ankara and Damascus in the nine-year-old war in which Moscow and Tehran back Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Idlib’s fate may well be decided by Turkey and Russia as much as by Assad.


Russian has officers on the ground advising the Syrians on the campaign and some ground forces, and Russian warplanes have carried out numerous air strikes.
Ankara has sent thousands of soldiers across the border to stem the Syrian offensive.
Relief agencies meanwhile said an exodus of hundreds of thousands of civilians from the afflicted areas was the largest such movement in the war and marked a new humanitarian crisis.
Turkey, which already hosts 3.6 million Syrian refugees, says it cannot absorb any more. It said it will halt new refugee waves from Idlib and its military will remain there.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday the Syrian government would pay a “very heavy price” for attacking Turkish troops, including five killed on Monday and eight Turkish personnel killed a week earlier.


“We gave the necessary responses to the Syrian side at the highest level. Especially in Idlib, they got what they deserved. But this is not enough, it will continue,” he said in Ankara, adding he would announce on Wednesday a detailed plan for Idlib.
Talks in Ankara between Turkey and a Russian delegation ended on Monday without agreement on halting the clashes, a Turkish diplomatic source said.
Ankara told the Russians that attacks against Turkish posts must cease immediately and said it destroyed several Syrian government targets in retaliation. Erdogan has warned Turkey would drive back Assad’s forces unless they withdraw by the end of the month.
The Kremlin said on Tuesday all attacks on Russian and Syrian forces in Idlib must stop.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss the situation with Erdogan by phone later on Tuesday, TASS news agency said.
The US envoy for Syria, James Jeffrey, is set to meet senior Turkish officials in Ankara on Wednesday and the US Embassy there said they will discuss working together toward a political solution to the conflict.
Since the new push began in December, government forces have recaptured more than 600 square km of territory and in recent days taken control of dozens of towns and villages.
The rebels are a mix of nationalist factions and jihadists who have had deadly rivalries but are now closing ranks.
Last week government troops recaptured rebel-held Saraqeb, where Turkey had several military personnel stationed.
On Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the government forces drove rebels from a foothold near Aleppo to capture the entire length of the M5 highway that connects Aleppo in the north to the capital Damascus then on to southern Daraa.
Aleppo, once Syria’s economic hub, was the scene of heavy fighting between 2012 and 2016 which saw large-scale death and destruction.
Rescue teams said on Tuesday that Russian and Syrian war planes bombed several towns in Idlib, with most air raids in western Aleppo. At least 13 civilians were killed overnight in the air strikes, they said.
The rapid advances by Assad’s forces in Idlib have driven nearly 700,000 people — most of them women and children — from their homes toward the closed-off Turkish border in the past 10 weeks.
“This is, from our initial analysis, the largest number of people in a single period since the Syrian crisis began almost nine years ago,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the United Nations’ OCHA humanitarian agency, told reporters in Geneva.
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees spokesman Andrej Mahecic said the harsh winter weather was making their suffering worse and shelter was hard to find.
“Even finding a place in an unfinished building is becoming nearly impossible,” he said, adding that mosques were full.
Witnesses and rebels said a new column of Turkish reinforcements, including tanks, rocket launchers and armored vehicles, crossed the border into Idlib overnight.
One influential Turkish politician urged Erdogan to go further.
“There will be no peace in Turkey until Assad is brought down from his throne. Turkey must start plans to enter Damascus now, and annihilate the cruel ones,” said Devlet Bahceli, chairman of Erdogan’s nationalist partner party.
The battle for Idlib is a crucial stage of a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of combatants and civilians, made millions refugees in their own country or overseas, and fractured the wider Middle East since it broke out amid the Arab Spring in 2011.
Moscow’s military intervention in 2015 helped swing the war decisively in favor of Assad, Syria’s ruler for nearly 20 years, but he now presides over a devastated country.


UN chief urges release of staff held by Yemen’s Houthi rebels

Updated 5 sec ago
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UN chief urges release of staff held by Yemen’s Houthi rebels

  • “The United Nations will continue to work through all possible channels to secure the safe and immediate release of those arbitrarily detained,” the secretary-general said

UNITED NATIONS, United States: UN chief Antonio Guterres called Friday for the “immediate and unconditional” release of all humanitarian staff held by Yemen’s Houthis, saying the rebel group had detained seven United Nations workers.
The Iran-backed Houthis have held dozens of workers from the United Nations and other aid groups since the middle of last year, including 13 UN staff since last June.
“Their continued arbitrary detention is unacceptable,” Guterres said in a statement, adding that the “continued targeting of UN personnel and its partners negatively impacts our ability to assist millions of people in need in Yemen.”
“The United Nations will continue to work through all possible channels to secure the safe and immediate release of those arbitrarily detained,” the secretary-general said.
Reeling from a decade of war, Yemen is mired in a humanitarian catastrophe with more than 18 million people needing assistance and protection, according to the United Nations.
The latest detentions of UN staff come after United States President Donald Trump ordered the Houthis placed back on the US list of foreign terrorist organizations.
Re-listing the Houthis will trigger a review of UN agencies and other NGOs working in Yemen that receive US funding, according to the executive order signed on Wednesday.

 


Large drop in number of aid trucks entering Gaza on Friday

Updated 21 min 37 sec ago
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Large drop in number of aid trucks entering Gaza on Friday

  • The influx of aid this week compares with just 2,892 aid trucks entering Gaza for the whole of December, according to data from the UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA

UNITED NATIONS: More than 4,200 aid trucks have entered the Gaza Strip in the six days since a ceasefire began between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas, the United Nations said, although there was a large drop in the number of loads delivered on Friday.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said 339 aid trucks crossed into Gaza on Friday, citing information from Israeli authorities and the guarantors for the ceasefire agreement — the United States, Egypt and Qatar.
This compares with 630 on Sunday, 915 on Monday, 897 on Tuesday, 808 on Wednesday, and 653 on Thursday.
The truce deal requires at least 600 truckloads of aid to enter Gaza each day of the initial six-week ceasefire, including 50 carrying fuel. Half of those trucks are supposed to go to Gaza’s north, where experts have warned famine is imminent.
When asked why there was a large drop in the number of aid trucks on Friday, OCHA spokesperson Eri Kaneko said the UN and humanitarian partners “have been working as quickly as possible to dispatch and distribute this large volume of assistance” to some 2.1 million people across the devastated enclave.
The influx of aid this week compares with just 2,892 aid trucks entering Gaza for the whole of December, according to data from the UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA.
Aid is dropped off on the Gaza side of the border, where it is picked up by the UN and distributed. Data from OCHA shows 2,230 aid truckloads — an average of 72 a day — were then picked up in December.
Throughout the 15-month war, the UN has described its humanitarian operation as opportunistic — facing problems with Israel’s military operation, access restrictions by Israel, and more recently looting by armed gangs.
The UN has said that there has been no apparent major law-and-order issues since the ceasefire came into effect.
“We are also scaling up the broader response, including by providing protection assistance, education activities and other essential support,” Kaneko said.
 

 


Gaza aid surge having an impact but challenges remain

Updated 25 January 2025
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Gaza aid surge having an impact but challenges remain

  • In the final months before the ceasefire, the few aid convoys that managed to reach central and northern Gaza were routinely looted
  • Over the past week, UN officials have reported "minor incidents of looting"

JERUSALEM: Hundreds of truckloads of aid have entered Gaza since the Israel-Hamas ceasefire began last weekend, but its distribution inside the devastated territory remains an enormous challenge.
The destruction of the infrastructure that previously processed deliveries and the collapse of the structures that used to maintain law and order make the safe delivery of aid to the territory's 2.4 million people a logistical and security nightmare.
In the final months before the ceasefire, the few aid convoys that managed to reach central and northern Gaza were routinely looted, either by desperate civilians or by criminal gangs.
Over the past week, UN officials have reported "minor incidents of looting" but they say they are hopeful that these will cease once the aid surge has worked its way through.
In Rafah, in the far south of Gaza, an AFP cameraman filmed two aid trucks passing down a dirt road lined with bombed out buildings.
At the first sight of the dust cloud kicked up by the convoy, residents began running after it.
Some jumped onto the truck's rear platforms and cut through the packaging to reach the food parcels inside.
UN humanitarian coordinator for the Middle East Muhannad Hadi said: "It's not organised crime. Some kids jump on some trucks trying to take food baskets.
"Hopefully, within a few days, this will all disappear, once the people of Gaza realise that we will have aid enough for everybody."
central Gaza, residents said the aid surge was beginning to have an effect.
"Prices are affordable now," said Hani Abu al-Qambaz, a shopkeeper in Deir el-Balah. For 10 shekels ($2.80), "I can buy a bag of food for my son and I'm happy."
The Gaza spokesperson of the Fatah movement of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said that while the humanitarian situation remained "alarming", some food items had become available again.
The needs are enormous, though, particularly in the north, and it may take longer for the aid surge to have an impact in all parts of the territory.
In the hunger-stricken makeshift shelters set up in former schools, bombed-out houses and cemeteries, hundreds of thousands lack even plastic sheeting to protect themselves from winter rains and biting winds, aid workers say.
In northern Gaza, where Israel kept up a major operation right up to the eve of the ceasefire, tens of thousands had had no access to deliveries of food or drinking water for weeks before the ceasefire.
With Hamas's leadership largely eliminated by Israel during the war, Gaza also lacks any political authority for aid agencies to work with.
In recent days, Hamas fighters have begun to resurface on Gaza's streets. But the authority of the Islamist group which ruled the territory for nearly two decades has been severely dented, and no alternative administration is waiting in the wings.
That problem is likely to get worse over the coming week, as Israeli legislation targeting the lead UN aid agency in Gaza takes effect.
Despite repeated pleas from the international community for a rethink, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which has been coordinating aid deliveries into Gaza for decades, will be effectively barred from operating from Tuesday.
UNRWA spokesman Jonathan Fowler warned the effect would be "catastrophic" as other UN agencies lacked the staff and experience on the ground to replace it.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy warned last week that the Israeli legislation risked undermining the fledgling ceasefire.
Brussels-based think tank the International Crisis Group said the Israeli legislation amounted to "robbing Gaza's residents of their most capable aid provider, with no clear alternative".
Israel claims that a dozen UNRWA employees were involved in the October 2023 attack by Hamas gunmen, which started the Gaza war.
A series of probes, including one led by France's former foreign minister Catherine Colonna, found some "neutrality related issues" at UNRWA but stressed Israel had not provided evidence for its chief allegations.


Israel UN envoy formally calls on UNRWA to vacate Jerusalem premises

Updated 46 min 3 sec ago
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Israel UN envoy formally calls on UNRWA to vacate Jerusalem premises

  • Israel UN envoy formally calls on UNRWA to vacate Jerusalem premises
  • UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini warns against ‘blatant disregard of international humanitarian law’

NEW YORK: Israel’s Permanent Representative to the UN Danny Danon on Friday called on the UN relief agency for Palestine refugees to halt its operations in Jerusalem, and evacuate its premises in the city “no later than Jan. 30,” the day an Israeli ban on the organization is due to take effect.

Legislation blocking UNRWA from operating within Israel was approved overwhelmingly by the Knesset in October. The ban also prevents the country’s authorities from maintaining any contact with the relief agency.

Delivery of aid to Gaza and the West Bank requires close coordination between UNRWA and Israeli authorities. If the legislation is implemented as planned, Israel will no longer issue agency staff with work or entry permits, and coordination with the Israeli military that is essential for ensuring safe passage for aid deliveries will no longer be possible.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, Israel has relentlessly condemned and attacked the aid agency. More than 260 of its staff have been killed, while its schools — used by displaced Palestinians for shelter — have been bombed. A coordinated Israeli media campaign has attempted to discredit the agency by portraying it as a tool of Hamas.

As the date for enforcement of the Israeli ban approaches, Danon told UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that UNRWA’s premises in Jerusalem must be vacated as stipulated by law.

The Israeli envoy said that the legislation came “as a direct response to the acute national security risks posed by the widespread infiltration of UNRWA’s ranks by Hamas and other terrorist organizations, and the agency’s persistent refusal to address the very grave and material concerns raised by Israel, and to remedy this intolerable situation.”

He added: “Months of good-faith engagement with the United Nations, and years of related grievances conveyed to UNRWA, have been met with blatant disregard, compromising its fundamental obligation to impartiality and neutrality beyond repair.”

Most UN member states consider UNRWA, the largest aid agency for Palestinians, to be the irreplaceable backbone of humanitarian operations. However, few levers have been pulled to try to ensure the agency’s existence.

Asked by Arab News about this discrepancy between public statements of support and meaningful action, and whether it means Western countries are undermining the same multilateral values on which they were founded, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said: “The same question could be asked about the importance of international humanitarian law and the blatant and constant disregard of that law.

“You can ask the same question about the disrespect for the resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly. And you can ask the same question about the International Court of Justice’s ruling that Israel’s presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is illegal, and the court’s call for its withdrawal.

“And so, it’s obviously frustrating,” Lazzarini added. “What we have witnessed is an extraordinary ‘crisis of impunity,’ to the extent that international humanitarian law is almost becoming irrelevant if no mechanism is put in place to address this impunity.”


Hamas buries 2 leaders slain in Israel strike in Gaza months ago

Updated 24 January 2025
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Hamas buries 2 leaders slain in Israel strike in Gaza months ago

  • Hundreds of people attended the funerals of Rauhi Mushtaha and Sami Mohammad Odeh during Friday prayers
  • The bodies, draped in the green flag of Hamas, were carried on stretchers from the mosque

GAZA CITY: Two senior Hamas members, whom Israel said it had killed months ago, were buried in Gaza on Friday after their remains were discovered under rubble during the truce, AFP journalists reported.
Hundreds of people attended the funerals of Rauhi Mushtaha and Sami Mohammad Odeh during Friday prayers in the courtyard of the Omari mosque, a historic landmark in the heart of Gaza City that has been heavily damaged by Israeli bombing.
The bodies, draped in the green flag of Hamas, were carried on stretchers from the mosque to their burial site, accompanied by around 16 masked members of the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist group.
The Israeli army announced in early October that it had “eliminated” Mushtaha and Odeh along with another Hamas leader “about three months earlier” during an air strike in the Gaza Strip.
Mushtaha, designated an “international terrorist” by the United States in 2015, was a member of Hamas’s political bureau in Gaza, responsible for finances.
Odeh was the head of Hamas’s internal security agency.
Hamas officially acknowledged their deaths in a statement on Sunday, saying that they had fallen as “martyrs.”