YARMUK: When Syrian authorities said they would allow returns to the war-ravaged Yarmuk camp for Palestinian refugees in southern Damascus, Issa Al-Loubani rushed to sign up and quickly started repairing his home.
Hundreds of former residents have already requested permission to go back to the settlement, home to 160,000 Palestinian refugees and some Syrian families before the conflict broke out in 2011.
More than 400 families have returned in the last few months because they cannot afford to rent homes elsewhere after years of displacement, the United Nations said in early November.
Loubani, who first left in 2012, is determined to join their ranks even if the windows of his wrecked apartment are still covered with plastic sheeting.
“Our flat needs major work, but it’s better than paying rent,” said Loubani, who has been living in a Damascus apartment with his wife and daughter.
“We still need electricity, running water, and to clear rubble from the streets” before moving back in, the 48-year-old Palestinian refugee told AFP from Yarmuk.
Syrian government and allied forces retook the camp in 2018 from the Daesh group.
But two years on, reconstruction has been slow and the scars of war remain visible.
The walls of Loubani’s building are pockmarked with bullet holes.
Neighbouring blocks have had their facades blown off or seen their balconies cave.
Some structures have collapsed entirely following years of bombardment and heavy fighting.
Loubani’s wife, Ilham, finds an old photo from their wedding in the rubble-strewn alley.
“That’s Umm Walid,” she says, pointing to one of the guests in the picture.
Founded in 1957 with tents for Palestinians who fled or were ousted from their homes with the establishment of Israel, Yarmuk grew into a bustling neighborhood.
In 2012, around 140,000 residents fled as clashes raged.
Those who stayed faced severe shortages of food and medicine under a withering years-long government siege.
IS entered the area in 2015, bringing further suffering to remaining residents until jihadists were forced out three years later.
This month, the Damascus municipality said residents could register to return to Yarmuk if their homes were structurally sound.
Some 600 families have already signed up, said Mahmoud Al-Khaled, a Palestinian who heads a committee that clears rubble in the camp.
But the civil engineer who grew up in Yarmuk said less than half of the buildings were currently safe for reoccupation.
The 430 families that have already returned despite difficult living conditions rely heavily on the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
Around 75 percent of UNRWA’s 23 premises in Yarmuk, including 16 schools, need to be completely rebuilt, and all three of its health centers have been destroyed.
To compensate, the organization sends a mobile health clinic to the camp once a week and provides buses to transport children to schools in Damascus.
A month ago, Syrian Shehab Al-Din Blidi returned to his home — one of the few apartments in Yarmuk largely spared by the fighting.
Its cosy living room with bright paint and upholstered armchairs stands in stark contrast with the wasteland outside.
“If we had waited for electricity, water and sewage to return, we would have perhaps” had to wait for a year before coming back, Blidi said.
With little outside help, he said it was up to residents to fend for themselves.
“Reconstruction requires efforts from several countries,” Blidi said.
“In the meantime, we have to make do.”
The 60-year-old has managed to secure some electricity for his flat through a long cable connected to a power source beyond the camp.
With no running water, he buys large bottles from outside Yarmuk and stores them at home.
But for camp residents displaced to Idlib — the last major opposition bastion, in northwestern Syria — returning is nearly impossible.
“No one in the (opposition-held) north can register to return or even reach Yarmuk,” said Ahmad Khormandi, who left the camp when IS entered in 2015.
He and his family now live in a displacement camp in Idlib province near the border with Turkey.
The 43-year-old Palestinian told an AFP correspondent in northwestern Syria that he fears arrest if he returns to Yarmuk.
But even if he were allowed back, he said, returning to live in his home would be impossible.
“I don’t have the means to fix my house,” he said.
In Syria, Yarmuk residents plan return to war-torn Palestinian camp
https://arab.news/8z5dg
In Syria, Yarmuk residents plan return to war-torn Palestinian camp
- Hundreds of former residents have already requested permission to go back to the settlement
- It was previously home to 160,000 Palestinian refugees and some Syrian families before the conflict broke out in 2011
US says supports gas deals with Kurdistan region after Iraq lawsuit
- “We encourage Baghdad and Irbil to work together to expand domestic gas production as soon as possible
WASHINGTON: The United States said Tuesday it supported American energy companies’ contracts with Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region after the Iraqi government filed a lawsuit against them.
Regional prime minister Masrour Barzani announced the signing of the two deals valued at tens of billions of dollars during a visit to Washington, in which he met Friday with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Rubio in his meeting “commended” the deals with US companies, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters.
“We encourage Baghdad and Irbil to work together to expand domestic gas production as soon as possible. These types of economic partnerships will benefit both the American and Iraqi peoples and help Iraq move toward energy independence,” she said.
“We also believe that US and Iraqi interests are best served by having a strong, resilient Iraqi Kurdistan region within a sovereign and prosperous federal Iraq
“As far as the nature of the lawsuits, obviously we are looking forward to continuing these kinds of deals. We expect these kinds of deals to flourish, and expect and would hope that they would be facilitated,” she said.
Israeli troops fire warning shots as Palestinians overwhelm new Gaza food center
- The UN and other humanitarian organizations have rejected the new system, saying it won’t be able to meet the needs of Gaza’s 2.3 million people
MUWASI, Gaza Strip: Chaos erupted on the second day of aid operations by a new US-backed group in Gaza as desperate Palestinians overwhelmed a center distributing food on Tuesday, breaking through fences. Nearby Israeli troops fired warning shots, sending people fleeing in panic.
An AP journalist heard Israeli tank and gunfire and saw a military helicopter firing flares. The Israeli military said its troops fired the warning shots in the area outside the center and that “control over the situation was established.”
At least three injured Palestinians were seen by The Associated Press being brought from the scene, one of them bleeding from his leg.
The distribution hub outside Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah had been opened the day before by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been slated by Israel to take over aid operations. The UN and other humanitarian organizations have rejected the new system, saying it won’t be able to meet the needs of Gaza’s 2.3 million people and allows Israel to use food as a weapon to control the population. They have also warned of the risk of friction between Israeli troops and people seeking supplies.
Palestinians have become desperate for food after nearly three months of Israeli blockade pushed Gaza to the brink of famine.
Palestinians walk miles for food, finding chaos
Palestinians at the scene told AP that small numbers of people made their way to the GHF center Tuesday morning and received food boxes. As word spread, large numbers of men, women and children walked for several miles from the sprawling tent camps along Gaza’s Mediterranean coast. To reach the hub, they had to pass through nearby Israeli military positions.
By the afternoon, hundreds of thousands were massed at the hub. Videos show the crowds funneled in long lines through chain-link fence passages. Two people said each person was searched and had their faces scanned for identification before being allowed to receive the boxes. Crowds swelled and turmoil erupted, with people tearing down fences and grabbing boxes. The staff at the site were forced to flee, they said.
The AP journalist positioned some distance away heard gunfire and rounds of tank fire. Smoke could be seen rising from where one round impacted. He saw a military helicopter overhead firing flares.
“There was no order, the people rushed to take, there was shooting, and we fled,” said Hosni Abu Amra, who had been waiting to receive aid. “We fled without taking anything that would help us get through this hunger.”
“It was chaos,” said Ahmed Abu Taha, who said he heard gunfire and saw Israeli military aircraft overhead. “People were panicked.”
Crowds were seen running from the site. A few managed to secure aid boxes — containing basic items like sugar, flour, pasta and tahini — but the vast majority left empty-handed.
US-backed group says they ‘fell back’ to ensure safety
In a statement, GHF said that because of the large number of Palestinians seeking aid, staff at the hub followed the group’s safety protocols and “fell back” to allow them to dissipate, then later resumed operations.
A spokesperson for the group told the AP that no shots were fired from GHF. Speaking on condition of anonymity in line with the group’s rules, the spokesperson said the protocols aim at “avoiding loss of life, which is exactly what happened.”
GHF uses armed private contractors to guard the hubs and the transportation of supplies. The hub is also close to Israeli military positions in the Morag Corridor, a band of territory across the breadth of Gaza that divides Rafah from the rest of the territory.
GHF has set up four hubs around Gaza to distribute food, two of which began operating on Monday — both of them in the Rafah area.
The UN and other humanitarian groups have refused to participate in GHF’s system, saying it violates humanitarian principles. They say it can be used by Israel to forcibly displace the population by requiring them to move near the few distribution hubs or else face starvation – a violation of international law. They have also opposed the use of facial recognition to vet recipients.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday commented on the turmoil at the Rafah center, saying, “There was some loss of control momentarily … happily we brought it under control.”
He repeated that Israel plans to move Gaza’s entire population to a “sterile zone” at the southern end of the territory while troops fight Hamas elsewhere.
UN says it has been struggling to transport aid
Israel has said the new system is necessary because it claims Hamas has been siphoning off supplies that reach Gaza. The UN has denied that any significant diversion takes place.
Throughout the war, the UN and other aid groups have conducted a massive operation distributing food, medicine and other supplies to wherever Palestinians are located. Israel says GHF will replace that network, but the past week has allowed a trickle of aid to enter Gaza for the UN to distribute.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency in charge of coordinating aid, said on Tuesday that 400 trucks of supplies, mainly food, was waiting on the Gaza side of the main crossing from Israel, but that the UN had not collected them. It said Israel has extended the times for collection and expanded the routes that the UN can use inside Gaza.
Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN humanitarian office OCHA, told reporters in Geneva that agencies have struggled to pick up the supplies “because of the insecure routes that are being assigned to us by the Israeli authorities to use.” He said the amount of aid allowed the past week was “vastly insufficient.”
Israeli strike on south Lebanon kills one: ministry
- The ministry said an “Israeli enemy strike” on a motorcycle killed one man in Yater
- The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the attack
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli strike on south Lebanon killed one man on Tuesday, the latest attack despite a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah.
In a statement, the ministry said an “Israeli enemy strike” on a motorcycle killed one man in Yater, in south Lebanon’s Bint Jbeil district.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the attack, which came after it said it killed a Hezbollah member in south Lebanon’s Majdal Zoun on Monday.
Israel has continued to launch strikes on its northern neighbor despite the November truce that sought to halt more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, including two months of full-blown war.
Under the terms of the ceasefire deal, only UN peacekeepers and the Lebanese army should be deployed in southern Lebanon, though Israel has kept its forces in five areas it has declared strategic.
Lebanon has called on the international community to pressure Israel to end its attacks and withdraw all its troops.
UN says it has no information over Gaza aid group deliveries
GENEVA: The United Nations said on Tuesday it had no information on whether the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US-backed aid group, had actually delivered any supplies inside the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
The little-known group, which has stirred controversy since surfacing in early May, announced on Monday it had begun distributing truckloads of food in the Gaza Strip.
But officials from the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, and UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said they were unaware whether any aid had actually been distributed.
The UN and international aid agencies have said they will not cooperate with the GHF, amid accusations it is working with Israel without any Palestinian involvement.
“It is a distraction from what is actually needed, which is a reopening of all the crossings in to Gaza; a secure environment within Gaza; and faster facilitation of permissions and final approvals of all the emergency supplies that we have just outside the border that need to get in,” OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke told a press briefing in Geneva.
UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma told journalists aid to Gaza was still “very, very far” from what was needed: a minimum of 500 to 600 trucks per day loaded with food, medical aid, fuel, water and other basic supplies, she said, speaking via video-link from Amman.
Israel, which recently stepped up its offensive against militant group Hamas, drew international condemnation after implementing a blockade on March 2 that has sparked severe food and medical shortages.
Humanitarian aid has begun trickling back into Gaza in recent days after Israel lifted the 11-week blockade.
Touma said no UNRWA supplies had gone in since March 2, while Laerke said he had no information on how many UN trucks had passed through the Kerem Shalom crossing in the last 24 hours, partly because Israel does not allow them to have a fixed presence there.
Israeli forces raid foreign exchange stores across West Bank
- One killed, eight other people were injured by Israeli forces during a raid in Nablus
RAMALLAH: Israeli forces raided foreign exchange stores in several West Bank cities including Ramallah and Nablus on Tuesday, accusing their parent company of “connections with terrorist organizations,” according to an army closure notice.
“Israeli forces are taking action against Al-Khaleej Exchange Company due to its connections with terrorist organizations,” a leaflet left at the company’s Ramallah location read.
An AFP journalist present at the scene reported several army vehicles at the store’s entrance while soldiers came out carrying items covered by a cloth.
Two army vehicles escorted one of the store’s employees away from the premises.
In the northern West Bank city of Nablus, Israeli forces raided a second foreign exchange store belonging to the Al-Khaleej company, as well as a gold store, according to another AFP journalist.
Some Palestinian residents of Nablus were seen clashing with the army during the raid, throwing objects at troops.
The Ramallah-based Ministry of Health said one man was killed and eight other people were injured by Israeli forces’ live ammunition during a raid in Nablus on Tuesday.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said it treated 20 people for tear gas inhalation and three others who were injured by rubber bullets.
The Palestinian movement Hamas condemned the raids on foreign exchange shops.
“These assaults on economic institutions, accompanied by the looting of large sums of money and the confiscation of property, are an extension of the piracy policies adopted by the (Israeli) government,” the group said in a statement, adding that the targeted companies were “operating within the law.”
