DAMASCUS: Syria prepared for parliamentary elections to be held Sunday as President Bashar Assad marked a second decade in power mired by war, international sanctions and economic woes.
The legislative polls, to be held across 70 percent of territory under government control, are the country’s third since the start of the war in 2011.
As the war-battered economy wanes, some 2,100 candidates — including prominent businessmen under Western sanctions — are competing for 250 seats.
Several lists were allowed to run across the country but any real opposition is absent from the poll, no surprises are expected and the ruling Baath party’s hegemony is guaranteed.
The elections, held every four years and so far always won by Assad’s Baath party and its allies, were due in April but twice postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The global economic carnage wreaked by coronavirus has compounded Syria’s woes, which include stinging inflation and the free fall of the national currency on the black market.
With many Syrians choking from the soaring cost of living, most candidates have pledged to stem the price hikes.
Food prices have doubled nationwide over the past year, in a country where more than 80 percent of people already live in poverty, the World Food Programme says.
Others candidates are running on promises of reconstruction, fixing war-ravaged infrastructure and bringing home millions of refugees.
Translator Abeer Deebeh, 32, said voters would likely choose whoever seemed best positioned to improve their living conditions.
“People’s demands are always the same and tied to living standards” and public services, she said.
“During the war, the priority might have been security but now it’s gone back to the economy.”
Syrians have been called to cast their votes in 7,313 polling stations nationwide, some of them in areas the government did not control the last time polls were held.
“These parliamentary polls are being held at a moment when the Syrian army... has seized back most regions once held by armed groups,” said Heba Fatoum, a judge and a member of the electoral commission.
Russian-backed government forces have retaken control of several regions, Eastern Ghouta on the capital’s doorstep in 2018 and the southern part of Idlib province in the northwest earlier this year.
Those displaced from areas still outside government control will be able to cast their ballots in polling stations set up specially for them across the country.
But Syrians outside the country, including millions of refugees, cannot take part.
“Expatriates are not allowed to vote in the parliamentary elections except in the polling centers inside the country according to the elections law,” electoral commission member Riad Al-Qawas told Al-Watan online newspaper.
The streets in Damascus and its countryside are lined with posters of candidates.
Among them are businessmen under Western sanctions, including the US Caesar Act implemented last month.
They include lawmaker Mohammed Hamsho, who is running for re-election, and has been blacklisted since 2011 for his support to Assad.
Also running is Khaled Zubaidi, who has been targeted by US and European Union sanctions over winning a government contract to build a luxury tourist resort near Damascus airport.
Syria’s war has killed 380,000 people since it started with the repression of protests in 2011, but also laid waste to much of the country’s economy.
The new parliament will be expected to sign off on a new constitution and approve candidates for the next presidential poll.
Assad, who first came to power in 2000 after three decades of his father’s rule, is expected to name a new prime minister after Sunday’s vote.
Sworn in at the age of 34, the London-trained ophthalmologist briefly embodied the hope for change and economic liberalization.
But 20 years on, nearly half of which marked by war, Assad’s government is crippled by Western sanctions.
The war has spiralled into a complex battlefield involving foreign armies, militias and jihadists.
Years of UN-brokered peace negotiations have yielded nothing and a parallel track led by government ally Russia and rebel backer Turkey has in recent years taken precedent.
With 2021 presidential elections approaching, there is no political solution to the war in sight.
Damascus-based analyst Osama Danura said he thought the Syrian government would be open to a political solution to end the war.
But “international consensus is a long-term and complicated issue. It’s clear there is no understanding between the countries that have become actors in the Syrian war,” he said.
Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallem last month said Assad would remain in power “as long as the Syrian want him to stay.”
Danura said any presidential candidate next year will need “written approval from 35 members of parliament at least.”
War-torn Syria goes to the polls amid economic crisis
https://arab.news/m4ywv
War-torn Syria goes to the polls amid economic crisis
- Syrians have been called to cast their votes in 7,313 polling stations nationwide
Khamenei aide warns against impulsive Iran response to Israel attack
- Israel is engaged in conflicts with the Iran-backed Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon
- Israeli warplanes struck military sites in Iran on October 26 in retaliation for a large Iranian missile attack
Israel, Iran’s sworn enemy, is engaged in conflicts with the Iran-backed Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israeli warplanes struck military sites in Iran on October 26 in retaliation for a large Iranian missile attack on Israel at the start of the month.
“Israel aims to bring the conflict to Iran. We must act wisely to avoid its trap and not react instinctively,” the adviser, Ali Larijani, told state television late Thursday.
Iran said it fired 200 missiles at Israel on October 1 in response to the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a strike on Beirut and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh while he was in Tehran.
After Israel hit back, it warned Iran against any counterattack, but the Islamic republic has vowed to respond.
“Our actions and reactions are strategically defined, so we must avoid instinctive or emotional responses and remain entirely rational,” Larijani added.
The former parliament speaker also praised Nasrallah for accepting a ceasefire during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war rather than making an “emotional decision.”
On Sunday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said a potential ceasefire between Tehran’s allies and Israel could affect Iran’s response to the Israeli strikes.
Hezbollah claims second attack on Israel naval base in 24 hours
- The group had on Thursday claimed another attack on the same area
- Israel has been at war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah since late September
BEIRUT: Hezbollah said it targeted a naval base near the Israeli city of Haifa with missiles Friday, the second such attack in less than 24 hours.
The Iran-backed Lebanese group said it targeted the “Stella Maris” naval base northwest of Haifa with a missile barrage, “in response to the attacks and massacres committed by the Israeli enemy.”
The group had on Thursday claimed another attack on the same area.
In a separate statement, the group claimed that it had also targeted the Ramat David air base, southeast of Haifa, with missiles.
Israel has been at war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah since late September when it broadened its focus from fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip to securing its northern border.
It escalated its air campaign and later sent in ground forces into the country’s south.
This came after a year of cross-border exchanges with Hezbollah, which has said it was acting in support of Hamas Palestinian militants fighting Israel in Gaza.
The war has killed more than 2,600 people in Lebanon since September 23, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
UAE delivers 288 tonnes of aid for displaced Palestinians in Gaza
- UAE’s relief effort, dubbed Operation Chivalrous Knight 3, has so far delivered 121 shipments in Gaza
GAZA: Two shipments of aid from the UAE entered the Gaza Strip this week via Egypt’s Rafah Crossing, state news agency WAM reported on Friday.
The UAE’s relief effort, dubbed Operation Chivalrous Knight 3, has so far sent 121 shipments to ease the plight of Palestinians affected by Israel’s war on Gaza.
Nearly 1.9 million Palestinians, of the 2.3 million population in Gaza, are facing a dire humanitarian crisis.
The UAE’s various initiatives include the opening of a field hospital in Rafah last year, a floating hospital in the Egyptian city of Al-Arish, and a prosthetics project to support those who have lost limbs.
The latest convoys involved 20 trucks carrying over 288 tonnes of aid, including food, medical supplies, children’s nutritional supplements, clothing, shelter materials, and health kits for women.
Operation Chivalrous Knight 3 has so far delivered a total of 17,312 tonnes of aid for Gaza residents.
Residents of Israeli settlement ‘Trump Heights’ welcome Donald’s return to US presidency
- During his first term, Donald Trump became the first and only foreign leader to recognize Israel’s control of the Golan Heights
- Trump’s election has inspired hope in the community that it will attract more members and also more funding for security improvements
RAMAT TRUMP, Golan Heights: Israeli residents of “Trump Heights” are welcoming the election of their namesake, hoping Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency will breathe new life into this tiny, remote settlement in the central Golan Heights.
During his first term, Trump became the first and only foreign leader to recognize Israel’s control of the Golan, which it seized from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel thanked him by rebranding this outpost after him.
But a large-scale influx of new residents never materialized after that 2019 ceremony, and just a couple dozen families live in Trump Heights, or “Ramat Trump” in Hebrew. Job opportunities are limited, and Israel’s more than yearlong war against Hezbollah militants in nearby Lebanon has added to the sense of isolation.
Trump’s election has inspired hope in the community that it will attract more members and also more funding for security improvements.
“Maybe it can raise more awareness and maybe some support to help here and help our kids here,” said Yarden Freimann, Trump Heights’ community manager.
Ori Kallner, head of the Golan’s regional council, showed off dozens of plots of land, replete with new asphalt roads, lampposts and utility lines, that residents have prepared for future housing developments.
“President Trump’s return to the White House definitely puts the town in the headlines,” he said.
Hanging on while war rages nearby
Kallner stood next to a metal statue of an eagle and a menorah, symbolizing the United States and Israel, as Israeli warplanes flew overhead. Two explosions from rockets fired from Lebanon punched the hills nearby, and just across the border in Lebanon, plumes of smoke rose into the air from Israeli airstrikes.
An enormous sign with the settlement’s name in Hebrew and English gleamed in the sun, while two large sunbaked metal flags of Israel and the United States were faded almost beyond recognition.
Surrounded by ashen ruins of villages fled by Syrians in the 1967 war, the town is perched above the Hula Valley, where Israel has amassed tanks, artillery and troops for its fight in Lebanon. Most towns in the valley have been evacuated. Trump Heights sends its kids to a makeshift daycare in a nearby settlement after the government shuttered all schools in the region in the wake of the Oct. 1 invasion of Lebanon.
“We find ourselves hanging by our fingernails to be in our own community, not be evacuated, and on the other hand, we cannot work, we cannot send our kids to any kind of an education system,” said Freimann.
Trump Heights is only about 12 kilometers from Lebanon and Syria. Alerts for incoming fire gives residents about 30 seconds’ head start to get to a bomb shelter.
Trump broke with other leaders on the Golan Heights
Israel annexed the Golan, a strategic plateau overlooking northern Israel, in 1981 in a move that is not internationally recognized.
That changed in March 2019 when Trump, without notice, tweeted that the US would “fully recognize” Israel’s control of the territory. His announcement drew widespread condemnation from the international community, which considers the Golan to be occupied Syrian territory and Israel’s settlements to be illegal. The Biden administration left the decision intact, but the US remains the lone country to recognize the Israeli annexation.
Kallner said he hopes Trump will now persuade European countries to recognize Israeli sovereignty there.
According to Israeli figures, the Golan is home to about 50,000 people — roughly half of them Jewish Israelis and the other half Arab Druze, many of whom still consider themselves Syrians under occupation.
Israel has encouraged and promoted settlements in the Golan, and the Druze residents operate farms and a tourism and restaurant sector popular with Israelis. But the area has struggled to develop because of its remoteness, several hours from Israel’s economic center in Tel Aviv.
That economic hardship has only worsened during the war as the hospitality sector cratered. On July 28, a rocket killed 12 Druze children on a soccer field in the city of Majdal Shams, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) away. Israel invaded Lebanon months later.
In June 2019, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu led an inauguration ceremony for Trump Heights. The US ambassador at the time, David Friedman, noted that the ceremony came days after Trump’s birthday and said: “I can’t think of a more appropriate and a more beautiful birthday present.”
As president, Trump was close with Netanyahu
The Golan recognition was among a series of diplomatic gifts that Trump delivered to Israel during his first term. They included recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the American embassy to the contested city, and a series of diplomatic agreements with Arab countries known as the Abraham Accords.
He has vowed to bring peace to the tumultuous region during his second term, but has not said how.
Netanyahu enjoyed a close relationship with Trump during his first term but ran afoul of the former president when he congratulated Joe Biden on his 2020 victory. The Israeli prime minister announced Tuesday that he was one of the first foreign leaders to call the president-elect and congratulate him on his victory. An official in his office, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal communications, said aides were upbeat and giddy.
“Congratulations on history’s greatest comeback!” the Israeli leader said in a statement. “Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America.”
At Trump Heights, Kallner was optimistic too: “The Golan community is strong and resilient, and people that want to come and live here are from the same material. I believe we will overcome these challenging times and won’t stop growing.”
US says Israel to open new Gaza crossing as aid deadline looms
- US has given Israel until Nov. 13 to improve humanitarian situation in Gaza
- The letter calls for a minimum of 350 trucks per day to be allowed into Gaza
WASHINGTON: Israel has informed the United States that it will open an additional crossing for aid into Gaza, the State Department said Thursday, as a US-imposed deadline looms next week.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have given Israel until November 13 to improve the humanitarian situation in the war-besieged Gaza Strip or risk the withholding of some military assistance from the United States, Israel’s biggest supporter.
They made the demands in a letter before Tuesday’s election of President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised to give freer rein to Israel.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that Israel, after recently reopening the Erez crossing, has informed the United States that they “hope to open an additional new crossing at Kissufim” in “the next few days.”
“We have continued to press them, and we have seen them, including in the past few days since the election, take additional steps,” Miller told reporters.
He stopped short of saying how the United States would assess Israel’s compliance with the aid demands.
In the letter, Blinken and Austin had urged Israel to “consistently” let aid through four major crossings and to open a fifth crossing.
Kissufim, near a kibbutz across from southern Gaza that was attacked in the October 7, 2023 Hamas assault that sparked the war, has mostly been in disuse except by the military since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
The letter called for a minimum of 350 trucks per day to be allowed into Gaza. Miller said 229 trucks entered on Tuesday.
Outgoing President Joe Biden has repeatedly pressed Israel to improve humanitarian aid and protect civilians, while mostly stopping short of using leverage such as cutting off weapons.
Miller said Blinken hoped to keep using the rest of his term to press for an end to the wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
