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Middle East renews travel warnings as cases of coronavirus increase in Iran

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Iranian medical staff work at the state-run "13 Aban" pharmacy in Tehran on Feb. 19, 2020. (AFP0
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Tourists hold their protective masks as they pose for a photograph at the Rialto bridge in Venice, Italy, Friday, Feb. 28, 2020. (AP)
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Tourists wearing a protective face mask amid fears of the spread of the COVID-19 novel coronavirus walk at the Pyramide du louvre area on Feb. 28, 2020 in Paris. (AFP)
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An employee from a disinfection company sanitizes a closed school, as a precaution against the spread of the coronavirus, in Sidon, Lebanon on Feb. 29, 2020. (Reuters)
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A mask-clad woman makes her way through Tajrish Bazaar in the Iranian capital Tehran on Feb. 29, 2020. (AFP)
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Labourers wearing masks clean the floor of the Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia's holy city of Makkah on Feb. 28, 2020. (AFP)
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Members of the medical team spray disinfectant to sanitize indoor place of Imam Reza's holy shrine, following the coronavirus outbreak, in Mashhad, Iran Feb. 27, 2020. (Reuters)
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A person wearing a protective face mask walks through a Waterloo station in central London, Britain, Feb. 29, 2020. (Reuters)
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An Iraqi woman wearing a protective mask holds her cat as she poses for a picture during a protest against corruption in the Iraqi government in the southern city of Basra on Feb. 27, 2020. (AFP)
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A health personnel checks the body temperature of a pilgrim returning from Iran via the Pakistan-Iran border town of Taftan on Feb. 29, 2020. (AFP)
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South Korean soldiers wearing protective gear sanitize Daegu railway station in Daegu, South Korea, February 29, 2020. (Reuters)
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Paramedics work in a tent that was set up outside the hospital of Cremona, northern Italy, Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020. (AP)
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Employees pack repiratory protective face masks on an assembly line at the Valmy protective mask manufacturer plant in Mably, central France, on February 28, 2020, amid the spread of COVID-19. (AFP)
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Updated 01 March 2020
Agencies
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Middle East renews travel warnings as cases of coronavirus increase in Iran

  • Kuwait has not registered any new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours
  • Australian citizens and permanent residents returning from Iran would be required to self-isolate for 14 days
Updated 01 March 2020
Agencies

DUBAI: Governments in the Middle East continued to warn their citizens and residents against traveling to coronavirus-hit countries including Iran where hundreds have tested positive for the virus and 43 people have died from it. 

18:45 - The US is banning travel to Iran in response to the outbreak of the new coronavirus and elevating travel warnings to regions of Italy and South Korea.
Vice President Mike Pence announced the new restrictions and warnings as President Donald Trump said 22 people in the US have been stricken by the new coronavirus and that additional cases are “likely.”
“We want to lower the amount of travel to and from the most impacted areas," said Alex Azar, the secretary of health and human Services. "This is a basic containment strategy.”
Trump provided an update on the virus after the first reported US death Saturday, of a woman he described as being in her late 50s and having a high medical risk. He said healthy Americans should be able to recover if they contract the new virus.

18:00 - France has 100 confirmed cases of coronavirus, the head of the public health service, Jerome Salomon, said on Saturday, raising the tally from 73.




Employees pack repiratory protective face masks on an assembly line at the Valmy protective mask manufacturer plant in Mably, central France, on February 28, 2020, amid the spread of COVID-19. (AFP)

17:18  - The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in Italy has climbed to above 1,000 and 29 people have died from the virus. 




Paramedics work in a tent that was set up outside the hospital of Cremona, northern Italy, Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020. (AP)

17:12 - Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman jailed in Tehran, believes she has contracted the new coronavirus as Iran struggles to contain a surge in new cases, her husband said on Saturday.
The 41-year-old detainee complained that prison authorities are refusing to test her for the COVID-19 virus, despite suffering from a worsening "strange cold", according to spouse Richard Ratcliffe.

16:45 - South Korea now has the most cases outside China, with 3,150 infections as 813 more patients were reported on Saturday -- the country's biggest increase to date.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned top party officials of the "serious consequences" of failing to prevent an outbreak on their side of the border.




South Korean soldiers wearing protective gear sanitize Daegu railway station in Daegu, South Korea, February 29, 2020. (Reuters)

16:20 - Pakistan confirmed two more cases of coronavirus on Saturday, bringing the total number of positive cases to four since Wednesday when the first two cases were reported in the country.
"We have received reports of two more positive cases of coronavirus, one has been reported in Sindh province, (the) other in federal areas," Zafar Mirza, Pakistan's health minister, told a news conference.




A health personnel checks the body temperature of a pilgrim returning from Iran via the Pakistan-Iran border town of Taftan on Feb. 29, 2020. (AFP) 

16:12 - Iraq’s health ministry has announced five more cases of coronavirus.




An Iraqi woman wearing a protective mask holds her cat as she poses for a picture during a protest against corruption in the Iraqi government in the southern city of Basra on Feb. 27, 2020. (AFP)

15:51 - Iran is preparing for the possibility of “tens of thousands” of people getting tested for the new coronavirus as the number of confirmed cases spiked again Saturday, an official said, underscoring the fear both at home and abroad over the outbreak in the Islamic Republic.
The virus and the COVID-19 illness it causes have killed 43 people out of 593 confirmed cases in Iran, Health Ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said.




A mask-clad woman makes her way through Tajrish Bazaar in the Iranian capital Tehran on Feb. 29, 2020. (AFP)

15:28 - Lebanon’s health ministry has confirmed three new cases of coronavirus, bringing the total number of cases in the country to seven. 




An employee from a disinfection company sanitizes a closed school, as a precaution against the spread of the coronavirus, in Sidon, Lebanon on Feb. 29, 2020. (Reuters)

15:21 - Bahrain says the total number of coronavirus cases in the country has risen to 41 after three citizens returning from Iran have tested positive for the virus.

14:45 - France is banning all indoor public gatherings of more than 5,000 people to slow the spread of a coronavirus epidemic.
Public gatherings are being banned completely in the Oise region north of Paris that has seen a cluster of cases, and in a town in the Alps that has also seen infections, Health Minister Olivier Veran said.
As of Saturday, France had registered a total of 73 cases, up from 57 on Friday. Of those, 59 people remain hospitalized, two have died and 12 have recovered, the minister said.




Tourists wearing a protective face mask amid fears of the spread of the COVID-19 novel coronavirus walk at the Pyramide du louvre area on Feb. 28, 2020 in Paris. (AFP)

14:30 - Schools and universities will stay closed for a second consecutive week in three northern Italian regions in an effort to contain Europe's worst outbreak of coronavirus, the head of the Emilia Romagna region said on Saturday.




Tourists hold their protective masks as they pose for a photograph at the Rialto bridge in Venice, Italy, Friday, Feb. 28, 2020. (AP)

13:56 - The UAE expressed its support for Saudi Arabia's decision to temporarily suspend entry for Umrah pilgrims and those who wish to visit the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah over coronavirus fears.




Labourers wearing masks clean the floor of the Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia's holy city of Makkah on Feb. 28, 2020. (AFP)

11:07 - A World Health Organization delegation visited Kuwait and commended the efforts of Gulf states in airports against the spread of coronavirus, despite the high number of travelers.

10:23 - Qatar’s health ministry reported on Saturday the first case of coronavirus infection in the country, the state-run Qatar News Agency said.

The man is a 36 year old Qatari citizen, who returned from a trip to Iran, the ministry added.

10:06 - UAE’s ministry of education suspended nursery classes starting March 1, the announcement said on twitter.

School activities and trips will be suspended to prevent coronavirus spread, the ministry added.

09:00 - The number of people infected with coronavirus in the United Kingdom had risen to 23 on Saturday, after three more patients tested positive, Britain's health department said.




A person wearing a protective face mask walks through a Waterloo station in central London, Britain, Feb. 29, 2020. (Reuters)

08:50 - Iran’s death toll from the coronavirus outbreak has reached 43, a health official told state TV on Saturday, adding that the number of infected people across the country has reached 593.
“Unfortunately nine people died of the virus in the last 24 hours. The death toll is 43 now. The new confirmed infected cases since yesterday is 205 that makes the total number of confirmed infected people 593,” Kianush Jahanpur told state TV.

08:48 - Oman announced the first case of coronavirus recovery, the state news agency ONA reported on Saturday.

The remaining cases continue to receive treatment and are in a stable condition.

08:39 - Iran’s government spokesman will hold his weekly news conference online due to the outbreak of coronavirus in the country, which has the highest death toll outside China, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported on Saturday.
Iran warned on Friday of a “difficult week ahead” after health authorities said the death toll had reached 34 and another 388 people were infected with the coronavirus.

Also, Iranian MP Mohammad Ali Ramazani Dastak, who was elected as the representative for Astaneh-ye Ashrafiyeh, died on Saturday morning.

He is believed to have been tested positive for coronavirus and died at the hospital due to “influenza and chemical injuries” receveid during the Iran-Iraq war, state-run news agency ISNA reported.




Members of the medical team spray disinfectant to sanitize indoor place of Imam Reza's holy shrine, following the coronavirus outbreak, in Mashhad, Iran Feb. 27, 2020. (Reuters)

07:31 - Saudi Arabia called on citizens and residents to postpone unnecessary travel to Lebanon amid coronavirus concerns.

The Saudi embassy in Lebanon also asked its citizens in the country to take precautions, avoid crowded places and contact the embassy whenever they need help.

Lebanon confirmed its fourth case of the virus on Friday and announced that it was closing all schools until Mar. 8.

06:16 - Kuwait also asked its citizens to avoid traveling over concerns of coronavirus contamination, a health ministry official said at a media conference on Saturday.
The Gulf state has not registered any new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, she said.
The total number of people infected with the disease in Kuwait is 45, the health ministry said on Friday, which has reported no deaths.

05:51 - Australia will deny entry to all foreign nationals traveling from Iran due to the escalating outbreak of coronavirus in the Islamic republic, the government said on Saturday.
Foreign nationals traveling from Iran to Australia would need to spend 14 days in another country from Mar. 1, Health Minister Greg Hunt said.
“There is likely at this stage a high level of undetected cases and therefore those cases won’t be intercepted or identified on departure from Iran,” Hunt said.
Australian citizens and permanent residents returning from Iran would be required to self-isolate for 14 days and the travel advice for Australians traveling to Iran has been raised to “do not travel.”
Health authorities on Saturday confirmed the number of cases of coronavirus in Australia was 25 after a 63-year-old woman returning from Iran became ill.

Topics: Coronavirus Coronavirus (COVID-19) coronavirus Wuhan coronavirus Middle East Coronavirus

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Palestinians return to north Gaza after breakthrough on hostages

Updated 11 sec ago
AFP
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Palestinians return to north Gaza after breakthrough on hostages

  • Israel and Hamas said they had reached a deal for the release of another six hostages
  • Crowds began making their way north along a coastal road on foot Monday morning
Updated 11 sec ago
AFP

NUSEIRAT, Palestinian Territories: Masses of displaced Palestinians began streaming toward the north of the war-battered Gaza Strip on Monday after Israel and Hamas said they had reached a deal for the release of another six hostages.

The breakthrough preserves a fragile ceasefire and paves the way for more hostage-prisoner swaps under an agreement aimed at ending the more than 15-month conflict, which has devastated the Gaza Strip and displaced nearly all its residents.

Israel had been preventing Palestinians from returning to their homes in northern Gaza, accusing Hamas of violating the terms of the truce, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said late Sunday they would be allowed to pass after the new deal was reached.

Crowds began making their way north along a coastal road on foot Monday morning, carrying what belongings they could, AFPTV images showed.

“It’s a great feeling when you go back home, back to your family, relatives and loved ones, and inspect your house — if it is still a house,” displaced Gazan Ibrahim Abu Hassera said.

Hamas called the return “a victory” for Palestinians that “signals the failure and defeat of the plans for occupation and displacement.”

Its ally Islamic Jihad, meanwhile, called it a “response to all those who dream of displacing our people.”

The comments came after US President Donald Trump floated an idea to “clean out” Gaza and resettle Palestinians in Jordan and Egypt, drawing condemnation from regional leaders.

President Mahmud Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, issued a “strong rejection and condemnation of any projects” aimed at displacing Palestinians from Gaza, his office said.

Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, said that Palestinians would “foil such projects,” as they have done to similar plans “for displacement and alternative homelands over the decades.”

For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba,” or catastrophe — the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.

“We say to Trump and the whole world: we will not leave Palestine or Gaza, no matter what happens,” said displaced Gaza resident Rashad Al-Naji.

Trump had floated the idea to reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One: “You’re talking about probably a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing.”

Moving Gaza’s roughly 2.4 million inhabitants could be done “temporarily or could be long term,” he said.

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — who opposed the truce deal and has voiced support for re-establishing Israeli settlements in Gaza — called Trump’s suggestion of “a great idea.”

The Arab League rejected the idea, warning against “attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land,” saying their forced displacement could “only be called ethnic cleansing.”

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said “our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians.”

Egypt’s foreign ministry said it rejected any infringement of Palestinians’ “inalienable rights.”

Israel had said it would prevent Palestinians’ passage to the north until the release of Arbel Yehud, a civilian woman hostage who it maintained should have been freed on Saturday.

But Netanyahu’s office later said a deal had been reached for the release of three hostages on Thursday, including Yehud, as well as another three on Saturday.

Hamas confirmed the agreement in its own statement Monday.

During the first phase of the Gaza truce, 33 hostages are supposed to be freed in staggered releases over six weeks in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held by the Israelis.

The most recent swap saw four Israeli women hostages, all soldiers, and 200 prisoners, nearly all Palestinian, released Saturday in the second such exchange during the fragile truce entering its second week.

“We want the agreement to continue and for them to bring our children back as quickly as possible — and all at once,” said Dani Miran, whose hostage son Omri is not slated for release during the first phase.

The truce has brought a surge of food, fuel, medicines and other aid into rubble-strewn Gaza, but the UN says “the humanitarian situation remains dire.”

Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that ignited the war, 87 remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.

The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 47,306 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

Topics: War on Gaza Palestine Gaza Israel

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EU to agree easing Syria sanctions

Updated 7 min 38 sec ago
AFP
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EU to agree easing Syria sanctions

  • Europe is keen to help the reconstruction of the war-ravaged country and build bridges with its new leadership
  • But some EU countries worry about moving too fast to embrace the new Islamist-led rulers in Damascus
Updated 7 min 38 sec ago
AFP

BRUSSELS: EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said she expected the bloc to agree Monday to begin easing sanctions on Syria after the ouster of Bashar Assad.
“It is a step for step approach,” Kallas said at the start of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels to discuss the move.
Europe is keen to help the reconstruction of the war-ravaged country and build bridges with its new leadership after the end of the Assad family’s five-decade rule.
But some EU countries worry about moving too fast to embrace the new Islamist-led rulers in Damascus.
The 27-nation EU imposed wide-ranging sanctions on the Assad government and Syria’s economy during its civil war.
Brussels says it is now willing to ease sanctions on the expectation the new authorities make good on commitments to form an inclusive transition.
“If they are doing the right steps, then we are willing to do the steps on our behalf as well,” Kallas said.
France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said the EU could start by suspending sanctions on the energy, transport and banking sectors.
Diplomats say the EU will only suspend the sanctions and not lift them definitively to maintain leverage over the Syrian leadership.
Syria’s new de facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa, and the Islamist group he led Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, remain under EU sanctions.
Diplomats said there was still no discussion about lifting those designations, as with others on the Assad regime.

Topics: Fall of Assad Syria EU

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Deal reached to release more Israeli hostages and allow Palestinians into north Gaza

Updated 27 January 2025
Agencies
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Deal reached to release more Israeli hostages and allow Palestinians into north Gaza

  • Netanyahu’s office says another six hostages to be released in coming week after talks with Hamas
  • Israel confirms Qatar’s announcement, says Gazans can now return home from 7 a.m. Monday
Updated 27 January 2025
Agencies

DOHA/JERUSALEM/GAZA CITY: Mediator Qatar announced early Monday that an agreement has been reached to release an Israeli civilian hostage and allow Palestinians to return to northern Gaza, easing the first major crisis of the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Qatar’s statement said Hamas will hand over the civilian hostage, Arbel Yehoud, along with two other hostages before Friday. And on Monday, Israeli authorities will allow Palestinians to return to northern Gaza.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement said the hostage release — which will include soldier Agam Berger — will take place on Thursday, and confirmed that Palestinians can move north on Monday. Israel’s military said people can start crossing on foot at 7 a.m.

Under the ceasefire deal, Israel on Saturday was to begin allowing Palestinians to return to their homes in northern Gaza. But Israel put that on hold because of Yehoud, who Israel said should have been released on Saturday. Hamas accused Israel of violating the agreement.

Netanyahu's office said that another six hostages would be released in the coming week, after talks with Hamas. Three would be released on Thursday and another three on Saturday, said a statement from his office.

The breakthrough preserves a fragile ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, which has devastated the Gaza Strip and displaced nearly all its residents, paving the way for more hostage-prisoner swaps under a deal aimed at ending the more than 15-month conflict.

Israel had been preventing vast crowds of Palestinians from using a coastal road to return to northern Gaza, accusing Hamas of violating the truce agreement by failing to release civilian women hostages.

“Hamas has backtracked and will carry out an additional phase of releasing hostages this Thursday,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.

Trump’s plan meets mixed reactions

Palestinian leaders meanwhile slammed a plan floated by US President Donald Trump to “clean out” Gaza, vowing to resist any effort to forcibly displace residents of the war-battered territory.

Trump said Gaza had become a “demolition site,” adding he had spoken to Jordan’s King Abdullah II about moving Palestinians out.

“I’d like Egypt to take people. And I’d like Jordan to take people,” Trump told reporters.

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, who is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, “expressed strong rejection and condemnation of any projects” aimed at displacing Palestinians from Gaza, his office said.

Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told AFP that Palestinians would “foil such projects,” as they have done to similar plans “for displacement and alternative homelands over the decades.”

Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas in Gaza, called Trump’s idea “deplorable.”

For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark memories of what the Arab world calls the “Nakba,” or catastrophe — the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.

“We say to Trump and the whole world: we will not leave Palestine or Gaza, no matter what happens,” said displaced Gaza resident Rashad Al-Naji.

Trump floated the idea to reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One: “You’re talking about probably a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing.”

Moving Gaza’s roughly 2.4 million inhabitants could be done “temporarily or could be long term,” he said.

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — who opposed the truce deal and has voiced support for re-establishing Israeli settlements in Gaza — called Trump’s suggestion of “a great idea.”

Tantamount to ‘ethnic cleansing’

The Arab League rejected the idea, warning against “attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land.”

“The forced displacement and eviction of people from their land can only be called ethnic cleansing,” the league said in a statement.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said “our rejection of the displacement of Palestinians is firm and will not change. Jordan is for Jordanians and Palestine is for Palestinians.”

Egypt’s foreign ministry said it rejected any infringement of Palestinians’ “inalienable rights.”

In Gaza, cars and carts loaded with belongings jammed a road near the Netzarim Corridor that Israel has blocked, preventing the expected return of hundreds of thousands of people to northern Gaza.

Israel had said it would prevent Palestinians’ passage until the release of Arbel Yehud, a civilian woman hostage. She is among those slated for return on Thursday, according to Netanyahu’s office.

Hamas said that blocking returns to the north also amounted to a truce violation, adding it had provided “all the necessary guarantees” for Yehud’s release.

Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee said Monday that residents would be allowed to return on foot starting at 07 a.m. (0500 GMT) and by car at 9 a.m.

Staggered releases

During the first phase of the Gaza truce, 33 hostages are supposed to be freed in staggered releases over six weeks in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

The most recent swap saw four Israeli women hostages, all soldiers, and 200 prisoners, nearly all Palestinian, released Saturday — the second such exchange during the fragile truce entering its second week.

Dani Miran, whose hostage son Omri is not slated for release during the first phase, demonstrated outside Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem on Sunday.

“We want the agreement to continue and for them to bring our children back as quickly as possible — and all at once,” he said.

The truce has brought a surge of food, fuel, medicines and other aid into rubble-strewn Gaza, but the UN says “the humanitarian situation remains dire.”

Of the 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that ignited the war, 87 remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.

The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 47,306 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

Topics: Israel Hamas Palestine

Bittersweet return for Syrians with killed, missing relatives

Updated 27 January 2025
AFP
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Bittersweet return for Syrians with killed, missing relatives

  • “I thought that once I got to Syria, everything would be better, but in reality everything here is so very painful,” says Wafa Mustafa, whose father Ali was among the tens of thousands killed or missing in Syria’s notorious prison system
Updated 27 January 2025
AFP

DAMASCUS: Wafa Mustafa had long dreamed of returning to Syria but the absence of her father tarnished her homecoming more than a decade after he disappeared in Bashar Assad’s jails.
Her father Ali, an activist, is among the tens of thousands killed or missing in Syria’s notorious prison system, and whose relatives have flocked home in search of answers after Assad’s toppling last month by Islamist-led rebels.
“From December 8 until today, I have not felt any joy,” said Mustafa, 35, who returned from Berlin.
“I thought that once I got to Syria, everything would be better, but in reality everything here is so very painful,” she said. “I walk down the street and remember that I had passed by that same corner with my dad” years before.
Since reaching Damascus she has scoured defunct security service branches, prisons, morgues and hospitals, hoping to glean any information about her long-lost father.
“You can see the fatigue on people’s faces” everywhere, said Mustafa, who works as a communications manager for the Syria Campaign, a rights group.

Members of the security forces of Syria's new administration inspect the Saydnaya prison in Damascus on January 3, 2025. The prison is infamous for its inhumane conditions and its central role in the violent repression carried out by the clan of the ousted Syian president Bashar al-Assad. (AFP)

In 2021, she was invited to testify at the United Nations about the fate of Syria’s disappeared.
The rebels who toppled Assad freed thousands of detainees nearly 14 years into a civil war that killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.
Mustafa returned to Branch 215, one of Syria’s most notorious prisons run by military intelligence, where she herself had been detained simply for participating in pro-democracy protests in 2011.
She found documents there mentioning her father. “That’s already a start,” Mustafa said.
Now, she “wants the truth” and plans to continue searching for answers in Syria.
“I only dream of a grave, of having a place to go to in the morning to talk to my father,” she said. “Graves have become our biggest dream.”

In Damascus, Mustafa took part in a protest demanding justice for the disappeared and answers about their fate.

Syrian activist and former refugee Ayat Ahmad (C) lifts a placard as she attends a demonstration in Damascus on January 1, 2025. (AFP)

Youssef Sammawi, 29, was there too. He held up a picture of his cousin, whose arrest and beating in 2012 prompted Sammawi to flee for Germany.
A few years later, he identified his cousin’s corpse among the 55,000 images by a former military photographer codenamed “Caesar,” who defected and made the images public.
The photos taken between 2011 and 2013, authenticated by experts, show thousands of bodies tortured and starved to death in Syrian prisons.
“The joy I felt gave way to pain when I returned home, without being able to see my cousin,” Sammawi said.
He said his uncle had also been arrested and then executed after he went to see his son in the hospital.
“When I returned, it was the first time I truly realized that they were no longer there,” he said with sadness in his voice.
“My relatives had gotten used to their absence, but not me,” he added. “We demand that justice be served, to alleviate our suffering.”

A boy runs after a sheep next to tanks that belonged to the ousted Assad government, parked in front of a destroyed building in Palmyra, Syria, on Jan. 25, 2025. (AP)

While Assad’s fall allowed many to end their exile and seek answers, others are hesitant.
Fadwa Mahmoud, 70, told AFP she has had no news of her son and her husband, both opponents of the Assad government arrested upon arrival at Damascus airport in 2012.
She fled to Germany a year later and co-founded the Families For Freedom human rights group.
She said she has no plans to return to Syria just yet.
“No one really knows what might happen, so I prefer to stay cautious,” she said.
Mahmoud said she was disappointed that Syria’s new authorities, who pledged justice for victims of atrocities under Assad’s rule, “are not yet taking these cases seriously.”
She said Syria’s new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa “has yet to do anything for missing Syrians,” yet “met Austin Tice’s mother two hours” after she arrived in the Syrian capital.
Tice is an American journalist missing in Syria since 2012.
Sharaa “did not respond” to requests from relatives of missing Syrians to meet him, Mahmoud said.
“The revolution would not have succeeded without the sacrifices of our detainees,” she said.
 

Topics: Fall of Assad Bashar Assad Syria

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Trump’s Palestinian refugee idea falls flat with Jordan and confounds a Senate ally

Updated 27 January 2025
AP
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Trump’s Palestinian refugee idea falls flat with Jordan and confounds a Senate ally

  • Egypt and Jordan have made peace with Israel but support the creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories that Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War
  • Both Egypt and Jordan also have perpetually struggling economies and their governments, as well as those of other Arab states, fear massive destabilization of their own countries and the region from any such influx of refugees
Updated 27 January 2025
AP

DORAL, Florida: President Donald Trump’s push to have Egypt and Jordan take in large numbers of Palestinian refugees from besieged Gaza fell flat with those countries’ governments and left a key congressional ally in Washington perplexed on Sunday.
Fighting that broke out in the territory after ruling Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023 is paused due to a fragile ceasefire, but much of Gaza’s population has been left largely homeless by an Israeli military campaign. Trump told reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One that moving some 1.5 million people away from Gaza might mean that “we just clean out that whole thing.”
Trump relayed what he told Jordan’s King Abdullah when the two held a call earlier Saturday: “I said to him, ‘I’d love for you to take on more because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it’s a mess.’”
He said he was making a similar appeal to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi during a conversation they were having while Trump was at his Doral resort in Florida on Sunday. Trump said he would “like Egypt to take people and I’d like Jordan to take people.”
Egypt and Jordan, along with the Palestinians, worry that Israel would never allow them to return to Gaza once they have left. Both Egypt and Jordan also have perpetually struggling economies and their governments, as well as those of other Arab states, fear massive destabilization of their own countries and the region from any such influx of refugees.
Jordan already is home to more than 2 million Palestinian refugees. Egypt has warned of the security implications of transferring large numbers of Palestinians to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, bordering Gaza.
Trump suggested that resettling most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million could be temporary or long term.
Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said Sunday that his country’s opposition to what Trump floated was “firm and unwavering.” Some Israel officials had raised the idea early in the war.
Egypt’s foreign minister issued a statement saying that the temporary or long-term transfer of Palestinians “risks expanding the conflict in the region.”
Trump does have leverage to wield over Jordan, which is a debt-strapped, but strategically important, US ally and is heavily dependent on foreign aid. The US is historically the single-largest provider of that aid, including more than $1.6 billion through the State Department in 2023.
Much of that comes as support for Jordan’s security forces and direct budget support.
Jordan in return has been a vital regional partner to the US in trying to help keep the region stable. Jordan hosts some 3,000 US troops. Yet, on Friday, new Secretary of State Marco Rubio exempted security assistance to Israel and Egypt but not to Jordan, when he laid out the details of a freeze on foreign assistance that Trump ordered on his first day in office.
Meantime, in the United States, even Trump loyalists tried to make sense of his words.
“I really don’t know,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, when asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” about what Trump meant by the ”clean out” remark. Graham, who is close to Trump, said the suggestion was not feasible.
“The idea that all the Palestinians are going to leave and go somewhere else, I don’t see that to be overly practical,” said Graham, R-S.C. He said Trump should keep talking to Mideast leaders, including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and officials in the United Arab Emirates.
“I don’t know what he’s talking about. But go talk to MBS, go talk to UAE, go talk to Egypt,” Graham said. “What is their plan for the Palestinians? Do they want them all to leave?”
Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel, also announced Saturday that he had directed the US to release a supply of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel. Former President Joe Biden had imposed a hold due to concerns about their effects on Gaza’s civilian population.
Egypt and Jordan have made peace with Israel but support the creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories that Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War. They fear that the permanent displacement of Gaza’s population could make that impossible.
In making his case for such a massive population shift, Trump said Gaza is “literally a demolition site right now.”
“I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations, and build housing in a different location,” he said of people displaced in Gaza. “Where they can maybe live in peace for a change.”
 

 

Topics: War on Gaza Palestine Gaza USA US President Donald Trump Egypt Jordan UAE Saudi Arabia

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