Why coronavirus is a ticking bomb in war-ravaged northern Syria

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Updated 01 August 2020
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Why coronavirus is a ticking bomb in war-ravaged northern Syria

  • People in Idlib and northeastern Syria see themselves as sitting ducks if infections begin to spread
  • Region is particularly vulnerable owing to dire humanitarian conditions and risk of further conflict

ERBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan: As the coronavirus pandemic cuts a wide and deadly swathe through the Middle East and Asia, people in war-torn areas are pretty much sitting ducks, waiting to contract the infection.

Nowhere are crisis-ravaged communities more exposed to the deadly virus than in large expanses of Syria, especially in the country’s northwest and northeast.

Northern Syria is particularly vulnerable owing to dire humanitarian conditions and the risk of further conflict, analysts told Arab News.

The northwestern governorate of Idlib and the mostly Kurdish-controlled northeast, the two remaining areas outside the Syrian regime’s control, now face an invisible enemy.

Syria confirmed its first case on March 23, after insisting for weeks that the virus had not reached the country.

The regime had been waging an aggressive military campaign to retake territory in Idlib. For the past several weeks fighting has abated, especially after Turkey, which backs several rebel groups, reached a cease-fire deal with Russia, Syrian President Bashar Assad’s main military backer.

The hundreds of thousands displaced by the fighting have sought shelter in already overcrowded displacement camps, where conditions make it impossible for residents to practice social distancing or self-isolation.

Out of Idlib’s 2 million-plus population, at least 900,000 were displaced by the latest round of fighting between the regime and rebels.

“About a million people are displaced, living in tents along the Turkish border,” said Mustafa Gurbuz, a non-resident fellow at the Arab Center in Washington DC. “Social distancing is a luxury. There’s nothing called home, water shortage is pervasive, hygiene is impossible, and people are already suffering from poor health.” 

Under the circumstances, if a COVID-19 contagion infects only a few people, it could spread very quickly.

“Only a few cases could result in an explosive outbreak. If the fragile cease-fire derails, a renewed conflict may cause more displacement, which could lead to further spread of COVID-19,” Gurbuz said, referring to the March truce that brought the fighting in Idlib to a halt.

The UN has called for a cease-fire across all of Syria so that efforts can be focused on preventing a major outbreak, which could affect the lives of millions of people living in deplorable and unsanitary conditions across the country.

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Aron Lund, a fellow with The Century Foundation, said Idlib is too disorganized and poorly equipped to handle an epidemic.

“There’s no coherent government, just a gaggle of militias half-heartedly strung together by a system of councils,” he said, adding that Idlib sorely lacks staff, medical facilities and medicine to cope with the likely effects of any significant outbreak.

Hundreds of thousands of people live cheek by jowl with each other in tent camps and decrepit buildings.

“Old people, who are most at risk of dying or falling very ill from the virus, are mixed up with children and have no way of isolating themselves for protection,” Lund said.




A policeman wearing a mask as a means of protection against the cononavirus Covid-19, directs the traffic at an intersection in the northeastern Syrian Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli. (AFP)

Furthermore, many people in Idlib have no access to clean or hot water, or necessities such as soap that can help prevent the spread of the virus.

To compound the crisis, the regime’s Russian-backed air campaign in Idlib saw repeated bombing of hospitals and health facilities, which has crippled the local health infrastructure and rendered it incapable of handling any outbreak.

When it comes to a COVID-19 outbreak, Idlib’s fears and vulnerabilities are mirrored by those of northeast Syria, most of which is controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The news of the first death here — in a hospital in the city of Qamishli, which is under the regime’s authority — drew a strong reaction from the Kurdish Red Crescent and the SDF-backed Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES) on Friday.

The Red Crescent lamented the “high risk of a large spread of the virus” due to the announcement by the World Health Organization (WHO) of “the positive result after 15 days of the case.”

Joshua Landis, director of Middle East studies at the University of Oklahoma, describes the area as “a ticking time bomb for the coronavirus.”

For instance, on March 29 Turkey and its armed proxies, which occupy part of northeast Syria since launching an invasion last October, cut off water supplies to the area by shutting down the Allouk water station, on which 460,000 people depend.

If these supplies are indefinitely withheld, hundreds of thousands of local inhabitants could fall prey to coronavirus for much the same reason that makes many civilians in northwest Syria vulnerable.

“Tensions are extremely high as six armies are in a standoff: The Turkish Army, the Syrian Army, the SDF, the US Army, along with Russian and Iranian forces stationed in the region, not to mention the many proxy militias, which have their own agendas,” Landis said. “This makes getting aid to the region or coordinating policy impossible.”

The medical infrastructure in northeast Syria, which was at best primitive even before the uprising began in 2011, has been devastated by years of conflict.

The SDF began to enforce a lockdown on March 23 in an attempt to contain any spread of the virus.

However, it sorely lacks testing kits for detecting COVID-19 cases and determining which individuals or areas might have the virus and need to be strictly quarantined.

The US-led anti-Daesh coalition has partially addressed the issue through the supply of $1.2 million worth of medical supplies to help the NES, but that is unlikely to be even nearly enough.




Members of the Syrian Civil Defence (White Helmets) disinfect a mosque in the city of al-Bab in the north of Aleppo province on March 24, 2020, as part of protective measures against COVID-19 coronavirus disease. (AFP)

In December, Russia and China used their veto power to prevent the UN Security Council from renewing permission for the delivery of aid to northern Syria from neighboring countries, in a move denounced as “callous” by Amnesty International, the human-rights advocacy group.

As a result, up to 400,000 medical items that would otherwise have been delivered to northeast Syria were left stuck in trucks in neighboring Iraq.

The Syrian regime, likely as part of a bid to pressure the SDF, has also prevented the flow of aid through Damascus.

The WHO says it has provided Syria with at least 1,200 testing kits, but the NES says Damascus has failed to provide protective equipment and artificial respirators.

This leaves the NES in a bind and more vulnerable to any outbreak given its heavy reliance on aid from the UN and NGOs, especially for the region’s displaced-persons camps and overcrowded prisons.

In the absence of a resumption of the flow of UN aid or unhindered passage of medical supplies through Damascus to NGOs, the meager resources of the NES are bound to become overwhelmed quickly in the event of an outbreak.

A coronavirus contagion in northeast Syria could also pose a very severe security threat to the region and possibly beyond.

“Some 10,000 Daesh fighters, along with close to 70,000 Daesh family members, are held in tight quarters, where social distancing is impossible,” said Landis.

At the very least, the situation in northern Syria is a big cause for concern as the pandemic causes havoc throughout the Middle East.

What is certain is that the pain and suffering of the war-weary people of Idlib and northeast Syria are unlikely to end anytime soon.


47 Palestinians killed overnight in Israeli strikes in central Gaza, Palestinian news agency says

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47 Palestinians killed overnight in Israeli strikes in central Gaza, Palestinian news agency says

  • Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and reduced most of the enclave to rubble

GAZA: Forty seven Palestinians were killed and dozens injured, most of them children and women, in overnight Israeli bombardment of the city of Deir Al-Balah, the Nuseirat camp and the town of Al-Zawayda in the central Gaza Strip, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported on Friday.

The Gaza war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and reduced most of the enclave to rubble, Palestinian authorities say.

At least 46 Palestinians were killed in Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, mostly in the north where one attack hit a hospital, torching medical supplies and disrupting operations, the enclave’s health officials said.

Israel’s military has accused the Palestinian militant group Hamas of using Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya for military purposes and said “dozens of terrorists” have been hiding there. Health officials and Hamas deny the assertion.

The health ministry in the Gaza Strip called for all international bodies “to protect hospitals and medical staff from the brutality of the (Israeli) occupation.”

Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said on Thursday that one of its doctors at the hospital, Mohammed Obeid, had been detained last Saturday by Israeli forces. It called for the protection of him and all medical staff who “are facing horrific violence as they try to provide care.”


Israel fights a seemingly endless war in Gaza’s most devastated region

Updated 01 November 2024
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Israel fights a seemingly endless war in Gaza’s most devastated region

  • Since its Oct. 7 attack into Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, Hamas has taken heavy losses
  • esidents say Israeli forces raid shelters for the displaced, forcing people out at gunpoint

JERUSALEM: More than a year into a war that has ricocheted across the Middle East, Israeli troops are still battling Hamas in the most heavily destroyed and isolated part of the Gaza Strip.
In northern Gaza, Hamas militants carry out hit-and-run attacks from bombed-out buildings. Residents say Israeli forces have raided shelters for the displaced, forcing people out at gunpoint. First responders say they can barely operate because of the Israeli bombardment.
Since its Oct. 7 attack into Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, Hamas has taken heavy losses. The recent killing of its top leader, Yahya Sinwar, was viewed as a possible turning point, yet the two sides do not appear any closer to a ceasefire, and Hamas, which still holds scores of hostages, remains the dominant power in Gaza.
The conflict has drawn in militants from Lebanon to Yemen, and their key sponsor, Iran, has inched closer to all-out war with Israel. But in northern Gaza, the war seems stuck in a loop of devastating Israeli offensives, followed by Hamas fighters regrouping.
Israel is once again ordering mass evacuations, severely restricting aid despite global outrage and raiding hospitals it says are used by militants.
In the northern border town of Beit Lahiya — one of the first targets of last year’s ground invasion — two Israeli strikes this week killed at least 88 Palestinians, including dozens of women and children. The military said its target was a spotter on the roof.
As the war grinds on, Israel is resorting to ever more draconian measures. There is even talk of adopting a surrender-or-starve strategy proposed by former generals.
On Monday, Israel passed legislation that could severely restrict the UN agency that is the largest aid provider in Gaza despite protests by the United States and other close allies. It accuses the agency of allowing itself to be infiltrated by Hamas, allegations denied by the UN
Another offensive, as Hamas keeps filling the void
Israel launched its latest offensive in northern Gaza in early October, focusing on Jabaliya, a crowded, decades-old urban refugee camp where it says Hamas had regrouped.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted another 250 that day. Israel’s offensive has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, who do not say how many were combatants but say more than half were women and children.
Israel says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence, and the United States says Hamas is no longer capable of mounting an Oct. 7-style attack.
But Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to areas where they had battled before — only to face renewed attacks. At least 16 Israeli soldiers have been killed in northern Gaza since the latest operation began, including a 41-year-old colonel.
Israel has yet to lay out a plan for postwar Gaza and has rejected a US push for the Western-backed Palestinian Authority to return and govern with Arab support. Plainclothes Hamas security men still patrol most areas.
“It’s endless war,” said Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli military intelligence officer who now leads a Palestinian studies program at Tel Aviv University.
He says Israel has only two options to break the cycle: Either completely reoccupy Gaza, which would require several thousand troops to be stationed there indefinitely. Or secure a ceasefire with Hamas that involves the release of its hostages in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli jails, and a full Israeli withdrawal — the kind of deal that has long eluded US and Arab mediators.
“We are in Jabaliya for the fourth time, and maybe in the next month we will find ourselves there for the fifth and the sixth.” he said.
‘Leave now’ if you care about the lives of your children
Around a million people fled the north, including Gaza City, when Israel ordered its wholesale evacuation at the start of the war. They have not been allowed to return.
Some 400,000 have remained, even as Israel has encircled the area and obliterated entire neighborhoods and critical infrastructure.
The UN says at least 60,000 people have fled to Gaza City in recent weeks from Jabaliya and the northern border towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya.
Residents who remain describe being stuck in their homes for days at a time because of the fighting, with bodies rotting in the streets and rescue teams unable to venture out.
Amna Mustafa and her children were asleep before dawn in a crowded school-turned-shelter in Beit Lahiya last week when an Israeli drone hovering overhead ordered everyone to evacuate. “If you care about your life and the lives of your children, leave now,” it said.
She said men were ordered to strip down and taken away in trucks. The military says it makes every effort to avoid harming civilians, and that such procedures are used to search and detain militants who it says hide among civilians.
Women and children were ordered to walk to a nearby hospital, where Israeli soldiers searched them before allowing most to walk onward to Gaza City, several miles (kilometers) to the south. Mustafa said she spent two nights in the open before moving into a new tent camp in a soccer field.
“There is no food, no water, no blankets, no diapers and no milk for the children,” she said. “We are here waiting for God’s mercy.”
The Israeli military shared drone footage of a similar exodus, showing thousands of people walking down a plowed up road past tanks. It said Hamas had prevented them from leaving before its forces arrived, without providing evidence.
The UN human rights office warned earlier this month that Israel “may be causing the destruction of the Palestinian population in Gaza’s northernmost governate through death and displacement.”
Israel restricts aid despite US warnings
Israel has severely restricted aid to Gaza in October, allowing in only about a third of the humanitarian assistance that entered the previous month.
Alia Zaki, a spokesperson for the World Food Program, said Israel has not allowed UN agencies to deliver aid to the north outside of Gaza City since the latest offensive began.
Col. Elad Goren, a spokesperson for COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of civilian affairs in Gaza, attributed the lack of aid in the first half of the month to Jewish holiday closures and troop movements.
At a briefing last week, he said there was no need for aid deliveries in Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya because there was “no population” left in either town. That was before this week’s strikes on Beit Lahiya killed scores of people.
The Biden administration has told Israel to increase the supply of aid entering Gaza, warning it of US laws that could require it to reduce its crucial military support.
Does Israel plan to empty the north?
Palestinians fear Israel is carrying out a strategy proposed by former generals in which aid to the north would be cut off, civilians would be ordered to leave and anyone remaining would be branded a militant. Rights groups say the plan would violate international law.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who visited the region last week for the 11th time since the start of the war, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told him that Israel had not adopted the plan. The military has denied receiving such orders.
But the Israeli government has not publicly repudiated the plan, even after Blinken’s visit.
Milshtein says the fact that Israel is even considering it is “a post-traumatic phenomenon” born of desperation.
“Many people in the (Israeli military) know it’s a bad idea... But they say: ‘OK, we don’t have any other plan, so let’s try it.”


Strikes hit south Beirut after Israeli evacuation orders — Lebanon news agency

Updated 01 November 2024
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Strikes hit south Beirut after Israeli evacuation orders — Lebanon news agency

  • At least 1,829 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel began an air campaign targeting Hezbollah strongholds on Sept. 23
  • Friday’s strikes come a day after Israeli PM Netanyahu met visiting US officials to discuss a possible deal to end the war in Lebanon

BEIRUT:  At least 10 strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs at dawn on Friday, Lebanon’s official news agency said, after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders for buildings in the area.

AFPTV footage showed explosions followed by clouds of smoke that rang out in the city’s suburbs after the Israeli army ordered several buildings in Hezbollah’s stronghold to evacuate.

“The raids left massive destruction in the targeted areas, as dozens of buildings were leveled to the ground, in addition to the outbreak of fires,” the National News Agency (NNA) said.

Israeli warplanes carried out 10 raids targeting the suburban areas of Ghobeiry and Al-Kafaat, the Sayyed Hadi Highway, the vicinity of the Al-Mujtaba Complex, and the old airport road, it added.

The Israeli military has repeatedly bombarded south Beirut in recent weeks, while also carrying out deadly strikes elsewhere in the capital and across Lebanon.

Friday’s strikes come a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met visiting US officials to discuss a possible deal to end the war in Lebanon, with the death toll mounting on both sides of the border.

At least 1,829 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel began an air campaign targeting Hezbollah strongholds on September 23, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.


Dead or alive? Scores missing after paramilitary group’s attacks in Sudan’s Al-Jazira state

Updated 01 November 2024
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Dead or alive? Scores missing after paramilitary group’s attacks in Sudan’s Al-Jazira state

  • Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo's paramilitary RSF has been accused of killing people and "looting property including from markets and hospitals”
  • Amnesty International said the RSF had gone berserk in eastern Al-Jazira state after a high-ranking officer defected to the national army

NEW HALFA, Sudan: Khadir Ali and his family managed to survive a harrowing paramilitary attack in war-torn Sudan. But by the time they got to safety, he realized that one person was missing.
“We escaped in total chaos — there was gunfire coming from every direction,” said the 47-year-old civil servant of the October 22 Rapid Support Forces attack on Rufaa in Al-Jazira state.
“But once we got out of the city, we noticed my nephew wasn’t with us,” he said.
Mohammed, 17, suffers from a congenital skin condition and “needs special care.”
The teenager is among scores of people reported missing as the RSF stages major attacks across eastern Al-Jazira state after a high-ranking officer from the area defected to the army.
In retaliation, the RSF has been “killing people in their homes, in markets and on the streets, and looting property including from markets and hospitals,” rights group Amnesty International said on Wednesday.
“Six days have passed, and we know nothing about him,” Ali said, speaking in New Halfa in Kassala state.
He and his family have taken refuge there after an arduous 150-kilometer (90-mile) journey.
At least 124 people have been killed and dozens wounded in the fighting in Al-Jazira state over the past 10 days, according to the United Nations.
The death toll for the whole month is at least 200.
War has raged in Sudan since April 2023 between the army under the country’s de facto ruler Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the RSF, led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The conflict has triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. More than half the population — 25 million people — face acute hunger.

So many persons missing
The UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that more than 119,000 people have fled from Al-Jazira state amid the recent surge of violence.
Mohamed Al-Obaid from Al-Hajjilij village in the state told AFP his story.
“So far, we’ve counted 170 missing from our village. Entire families are unaccounted for,” he said from New Halfa, where some children arrive unaccompanied by family members.
Since February, communications networks and Internet services have been almost entirely severed in the state, making it practically impossible to check on someone’s whereabouts.
Activist Ali Bashir, who helps people get away from villages in eastern Al-Jazira, said “the communications blackouts are making the missing persons crisis even worse.”
Sudanese social media are filled with posts about missing persons, with activists sharing the pictures and names, many of them children or elderly.
Earlier this month, intense clashes between the army and the RSF spread to Al-Jazira’s Tamboul city.
Just hours after the army said it had taken control of Tamboul, witnesses reported that the paramilitaries were continuing to operate there, causing thousands of civilians to flee.
Among them was trader Osman Abdel Karim, who lost track of two of his sons during fighting on October 19.
“Two of my sons, one 15 and the other 13, were outside when the attack began that Saturday night, and we had to leave without them,” the 43-year-old said.
“Ten days have passed, and we don’t know if they’re dead or alive.”


Strikes hit south Beirut after Israeli evacuation orders: Lebanon news agency

Updated 01 November 2024
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Strikes hit south Beirut after Israeli evacuation orders: Lebanon news agency

BEIRUT:  At least 10 strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs at dawn on Friday, Lebanon’s official news agency said, after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders for buildings in the area.
AFPTV footage showed explosions followed by clouds of smoke that rang out in the city’s suburbs after the Israeli army ordered several buildings in Hezbollah’s stronghold to evacuate.
“The raids left massive destruction in the targeted areas, as dozens of buildings were leveled to the ground, in addition to the outbreak of fires,” the National News Agency (NNA) said.
Israeli warplanes carried out 10 raids targeting the suburban areas of Ghobeiry and Al-Kafaat, the Sayyed Hadi Highway, the vicinity of the Al-Mujtaba Complex, and the old airport road, it added.
The Israeli military has repeatedly bombarded south Beirut in recent weeks, while also carrying out deadly strikes elsewhere in the capital and across Lebanon.
Friday’s strikes come a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met visiting US officials to discuss a possible deal to end the war in Lebanon, with the death toll mounting on both sides of the border.
At least 1,829 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel began an air campaign targeting Hezbollah strongholds on September 23, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.