2022 Look Ahead: No end to suffering in sight for war-weary Syrians

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Updated 13 January 2022
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2022 Look Ahead: No end to suffering in sight for war-weary Syrians

  • Impoverished and persecuted Syrian refugees traveled to Belarus last year in a desperate bid to reach Europe 
  • Human rights monitors say detainees have been subjected to “unimaginable suffering” in Assad regime jails 

MISSOURI / WASHINGTON: If 2020 was the year when fissures began to appear within the ranks of Syria’s ruling Assad clan, then 2021 was the year of determined attempts by the leadership to tighten its grip and reclaim its legitimacy.

Although several states lately have tried to bring the regime back into the Arab fold, even opting to reopen their embassies in Damascus, Syrian President Bashar Assad’s dependence on his Russian and Iranian benefactors has only continued to grow.

Indeed, Russian President Vladimir Putin received Assad in Moscow in September for the first time since 2018, no doubt to assist his Syrian counterpart’s rehabilitation but also to rebuke Turkey and the US for their ongoing involvement in Syria.

Assad’s reliance on Russia and Iran is owed in large part to the parlous state of Syria’s economy, the crippling effects of Western sanctions, the country’s diplomatic isolation, its military vulnerabilities, de facto partition, and the lack of popular support.

Syria is geographically fractured between regime-held areas, rebel holdouts in the northwest, and Kurdish self-administration in the northeast, making the distribution of aid — particularly COVID-19 vaccines — all the more difficult.

Russian, Turkish and American forces stationed in Syria have maintained an uneasy standoff, with the cracks between their respective spheres of influence filled by mercenaries, traffickers and the increasingly emboldened remnants of Daesh.

Many Syrian cities still lie in ruins and millions of citizens remain displaced, internally and externally, often in precarious circumstances, too terrified to return home and face the regime’s retribution.

A report published in September by Amnesty International, titled “You’re Going to your Death,” documented a catalog of horrific violations committed by the regime against Syrians who were forced to return after seeking refuge in Europe.




A man evacuates a young bombing casualty after a reported air strike by regime forces and their allies in the extremist-held Syrian town of Maaret Al-Numan. (AFP/File Photo)

The scale of the regime’s crimes was hammered home in November when Omar Alshogre, a 25-year-old former regime detainee and torture survivor, addressed a UN Security Council meeting on the prevailing impunity in Syria and the need to ensure accountability.

“We have stronger evidence today than what we had against the Nazis at Nuremberg,” said Alshogre. “(We) even know where the mass graves are located. But still no international court and no end to the ongoing slaughter for the civilians in Syria.”

A report in September by the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic concluded that thousands of detainees have been subjected to “unimaginable suffering” during the war, including torture, death and sexual violence against women, girls and boys.

The sentencing by a German court in Koblenz in February of former Syrian intelligence agent Eyad Al-Gharib to four and a half years in prison on charges of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity has been hailed as historic.




A Russian military police vehicle patrols the M4 highway in the northeastern Syrian Hasakeh province on the border with Turkey, on February 22, 2020. (AFP/File Photo)

Nevertheless, few Syrians believe they will ever obtain justice for the abuses of the past decade, nor do they hold out much hope of an improvement in the humanitarian situation.

Indeed, during the closing months of 2021 thousands of Syrians lined up at Damascus airport having paid thousands of dollars to a Belorussian travel agency to fly them to a remote wilderness on the border with the EU in the desperate hope of starting a new life.

“The situation in Syria is quieter now but that doesn’t mean it is better,” Asaad Hanna, a Syrian activist and refugee, told Arab News. “In the regime-held areas, people are living from one day to the next. They can’t meet their basic needs. The economy is collapsing and the currency is losing its value.

“The Assad regime is still arresting anyone who complains, so people who are suffering are leaving the country. Imagine: since 2011, those finishing their studies have either been drafted into the army or have left the country.”




A fireball erupts from the site of an explosion reportedly targeting a joint Turkish-Russian patrol on the strategic M4 highway, near the Syrian town of Ariha. (AFP/File Photo)

In Hanna’s view, the country is going the way of other international pariahs.

“With the increase in poverty, 10 years of destruction, Syria is getting the kind of stability of North Korea,” he added.

In northwest Syria, on the other side of the dividing line between the Assad regime and the last remaining rebel holdouts, 2021 was yet another year filled with tragedy, as schools, hospitals and even displacement camps were targeted in air and artillery attacks.

Mousa Zidane, who works for the rebel-affiliated Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, said 2021 was a difficult year for first responders.

“The bombing and deaths continued despite the ceasefire decision,” he told Arab News. “The coronavirus invaded the IDP (internally displaced persons) camps and cities of Syria. The burden on us was great.




A displaced Syrian child, one of thousands who fled their homes in the countrysides of Raqa and Deir Ezzor, carries a bag of recyclable garbage. (AFP/File Photo)

“In addition to all of that, the regime and Russia’s attacks on us continued. Three of my colleagues in the White Helmets died as a result of direct attacks targeting our teams while performing their humanitarian missions, and more than 14 other volunteers were injured.”

The near-daily bombardment of rebel-held areas has drained the public’s morale, Zidane said, leaving people with little hope of change this year.

“Although we have always searched for hope, we doubt the coming year will be better for the Syrians,” he said. “But we do not lose hope in ourselves and we do not lose hope in the true friends of Syria and the Syrians. We will continue our work and our rightful demands.”

Like many Syrians, Hanna believes the Assad regime is unlikely to ever face justice for the killing of protesters, the bombardment of civilian areas, the torture and killing of opponents, or the alleged use of chemical weapons.




White helmets in Idlib. (Twitter: @syriacivildef)

“Obviously, the international community is not interested in starting an accountability track right now but that doesn’t mean we should stop. It gives us more responsibility to keep pushing for justice and accountability for the Syrian people.”

Hanna fears the Biden administration’s openness to easing sanctions against the regime, and the recent diplomatic overtures by Arab countries, mean international pressure for regime change in Syria is all but finished. Indeed, Damascus might very well regain its seat in the Arab League.

“I only see that as a result of the new Democratic administration in the US,” Hanna said. “The previous one was clear about no relations with the Assad regime. But now we see Biden’s administration softening their position on everything Iran-related.”

Of course, almost everything in Syria remains Iran-related. Militias armed and funded by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps continue to solidify their hold over wide swaths of the country.




A man stands at the entrance of a barber shop next to a portrait of Syria's president Bashar Assad in the capital Damascus on December 15, 2021. (AFP)

A long-standing alliance between Tehran and Damascus has allowed Iran to use Syria to expand its regional influence and smuggle advanced munitions. Lebanese Hezbollah, another Iranian proxy, has likewise played a decisive role in staving off a rebel victory over the embattled Assad regime.

Iran’s exploitation of Syria has drawn the attention of Israel, which is increasingly at odds with Washington’s more conciliatory approach to Tehran.

In December, Israel twice attacked suspected Iranian weapons shipments at the Syrian regime’s Latakia port. The coming months could see many more unilateral Israeli strikes targeting Iran’s regional interests.

Despite the suffering, setbacks and grim expectations for 2022, activists such as Hanna remain defiant.

“For me, personally, I don’t consider this a job; it has become a way of life,” he said. “As long as it goes on, we will keep supporting what we went into the streets for in 2011.”

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* David Romano is the Thomas G. Strong professor of Middle East politics at Missouri State University

* Oubai Shahbandar is a former defense intelligence officer and Middle East analyst with the Pentagon

 


The discovery of brutal mass graves in Syria reveals Assad’s legacy of horror

Updated 36 sec ago
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The discovery of brutal mass graves in Syria reveals Assad’s legacy of horror

  • Since Nov. 28, the White Helmets have uncovered “more than 780 bodies, most of unknown identity,” Abed Al-Rahman Mawwas, a member of the rescue service, told The Associated Press

DAMASCUS, Syria: The charred remains of at least 26 victims of the Bashar Assad government were located Tuesday by Syrian civil defense workers in two separate basements in rural Damascus.
The discovery adds to the growing tally of mass graves unearthed since the fall of the Assad government in December. The remains, which are believed to include men, women and children, showed evidence of gunshot wounds and burning.
Members of Syria’s White Helmets, a volunteer civil defense group, exhumed the fragmented, weathered skeletal remains from the basement of two properties in the town of Sbeneh, southwest of the capital. Wearing hazmat suits, they carefully logged and coded each set of remains before placing them into body bags, which were then loaded onto trucks for transport.
Since Nov. 28, the White Helmets have uncovered “more than 780 bodies, most of unknown identity,” Abed Al-Rahman Mawwas, a member of the rescue service, told The Associated Press. He said many were found in shallow graves uncovered by locals or dug up by animals. The bodies are transferred to forensics doctors to determine their identities, time of death and cause of death, as well as to match them with possible family members.
“Of course, this takes years of work,” he said.
Mohammad Al-Herafe, a resident of one of the buildings where remains were uncovered, said the stench of decomposing bodies was overwhelming when his family returned to Sbeneh in 2016 after fleeing because of fighting in the area during the country’s uprising-turned-civil war that began in 2011.
He said they found the bodies in the basement but chose not to report it out of fear of government reprisals. “We could not tell the regime about it because we know that the regime did this.”
The Assad government, which ruled Syria for over two decades, employed airstrikes on civilian areas, torture, executions and mass imprisonment, to maintain control over Syria and suppress opposition groups during the country’s 13-year civil war.
Ammar Al-Salmo, another Civil Defense member dispatched to the second basement site, said further investigation is needed to identify the victims.
“We need testimonies from residents and others who might know who stayed behind when the fighting intensified in 2013,” he told the AP.
Mohammad Shebat, who lived in the second building where bodies were found, said he left the neighborhood in 2012 and returned in 2020 when he and his neighbors discovered the bodies and demanded their removal. But no one cooperated, he said.
Shebat believes the victims were civilians who fled the nearby Al-Assali neighborhood when the fighting escalated and the Assad government imposed a siege in 2013. He said forces of the former government used to “trap people in basements, burn them with tires and leave their bodies.”
“There are several basements like this, full of skeletons,” he said.
In a report released Monday, the United Nations Syria Commission of Inquiry said that mass graves can be used as evidence to uncover the fates of thousands of missing detainees.
The report, spanning 14 years of investigations and drawing on over 2,000 witness testimonies, including more than 550 survivors of torture, detailed how detainees in Syria’s notorious prisons “suffering from torture injuries, malnutrition, disease and illness, were left to die slowly, in agonizing pain, or were taken away to be executed.”
Assad’s fall on Dec. 8 drove hundreds of families to scour prisons and morgues in desperate search of loved ones. While many were freed after years of imprisonment, thousands remain missing, their fates still unknown.
The UN commission has said that forensic exhumations of mass graves, as well as safeguarding evidence, archives and crime sites, may offer grieving families a chance to learn the truth.
The commission was established in 2011 by the Human Rights Council to investigate Syria’s alleged violations of international human rights law.
The UN report documented brutal methods of torture by the former government, including “severe beatings, electric shocks, burning, pulling out nails, damaging teeth, rape, sexual violence including mutilation, prolonged stress positions, deliberate neglect and denial of medical care, exacerbating wounds and psychological torture.”
“For Syrians who did not find their loved ones among the freed, this evidence, alongside testimonies of freed detainees, may be their best hope to uncover the truth about missing relatives,” said Commissioner Lynn Welchman.

 


This is what one family in Gaza returned home to after 15 months of war

Updated 29 January 2025
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This is what one family in Gaza returned home to after 15 months of war

  • Since Monday, more than 375,000 Palestinians have made their way back to northern Gaza, many of them on foot
  • Over 15 months, Israel launched repeated offensives in Gaza City and surrounding areas, trying to crush Hamas fighters who often operated in densely populated neighborhoods

BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip: The grove of orange, olive and palm trees that once stood in front of Ne’man Abu Jarad’s house was bulldozed away. The roses and jasmine flowers on the roof and in the garden, which he lovingly watered so his family could enjoy their fragrance, were also gone.
The house itself was a damaged, hollowed-out shell. But after 15 months of brutal war, it stood.
At the sight of it Monday, Ne’man; his wife, Majida; and three of their six daughters dropped the bags they had been lugging since dawn, fell to their knees and prayed, whispering, “Praise be to God, praise be to God.” The sunset blazed orange in the sky above.

In this image made from an Associated Press video, Ne'man Abu Jarad and his family return to their home in Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip, on Monday, Jan. 29, 2025, for the first time since the war between Hamas and Israel began. (AP)

After 477 days of hell — fleeing the length of the Gaza Strip, hiding from bombardment, sweltering in tents, scrounging for food and water, losing their possessions – they had finally returned home.
“Our joy is unmatched by any other, not the joy of success, of a marriage or of a birth,” Majida said. “This is a joy that can’t be described in words, in writing or in any expression.”
In October, at the one-year anniversary of the Gaza war, The Associated Press traced the Abu Jarad family’s flight around the territory seeking safety. They were eight of the roughly 1.8 million Palestinians driven from their homes by Israel’s massive campaign of retaliation against Hamas following the militants’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel.

In this image made from an Associated Press video, Ne'man Abu Jarad and his family return to their home in Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip, on Monday, Jan. 29, 2025, for the first time since the war between Hamas and Israel began. (AP)

Like many families, they were displaced multiple times. Ne’man, Majida and their daughters – the youngest in first grade, the oldest in her early 20s – fled their home at the northernmost part of Gaza hours after Israeli bombardment began. They would move seven times in total, fleeing all the way to Gaza’s southernmost city Rafah.
Each time, their conditions worsened. By October 2024, they were languishing in a sprawling tent camp near the southern city of Khan Younis, exhausted and depressed, with little hope of seeing home again.
Hope suddenly revived when Israel and Hamas reached a long-awaited ceasefire earlier this month. On Jan. 19, the first day of the truce, Majida began packing up their clothes, food and other belongings. On Sunday, the announcement came: The next day, Israeli troops would pull back from two main roads, allowing Palestinians to return to the north.

Members of the Abu Jarad family, who were displaced by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, gather in front of their tent at a camp for displaced Palestinians in the Muwasi area, southern Gaza Strip, Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025. (AP)

Since Monday, more than 375,000 Palestinians have made their way back to northern Gaza, many of them on foot.
The Abu Jarads set off Monday from their tent at 5 a.m., loading bags stuffed with their belongings into a car. The driver took them to the edge of the Netzarim Corridor, the swath of land across Gaza that Israeli forces had turned into a military zone that – until this week – had barred any returns north.
There, they got out and walked, joining the massive crowds making their way down the coastal road. For around 8 kilometers (5 miles), the 49-year-old Ne’eman carried one sack on his back, held another in his arms, and two bags dangled from the crooks of his elbows. They stopped frequently, to rest, rearrange bags, and drop items along the way.
“The road is really hard,” Majida told an AP journalist who accompanied them on the journey. “But our joy for the return makes us forget we’re tired. Every meter we walk, our joy gives us strength to continue.”
Reaching the southern outskirts of Gaza City, they hired a van. But it quickly ran out of fuel, and they waited more than an hour before they found another one. Driving through the city, they got their first look at the war’s devastating impact in the north.
Over 15 months, Israel launched repeated offensives in Gaza City and surrounding areas, trying to crush Hamas fighters who often operated in densely populated neighborhoods. After each assault, militants would regroup, and a new assault would follow.
The van made its way down city streets strewn with rubble, lined with buildings that were damaged husks or had been reduced to piles of concrete.
“They destroyed even more in this area,” Ne’man said, staring out the window as they left Gaza City and entered the towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun – scene of one of Israel’s most ferocious offensives in the last three months before the ceasefire.
As the sun began to set, the van dropped them off at the edge of their neighborhood. Ne’man’s daughters stood in shock. One gaped, her hands on her cheeks. Her sister pointed out at the field of flattened houses. They walked the last few hundred meters, over a landscape of rutted, bulldozed dirt.
Trudging as fast as he could under the bags draping from his body, Ne’man — a taxi driver before the war — repeated over and over in excitement, “God is great, God is great. To God is all thanks.”
Their home still stood, sort of — a hollow shell in a row of damaged buildings. After they prayed in front of it, Ne’eman leaned on the bare concrete wall of his house and kissed it. To his joy he discovered that one flowering vine in front of the house had miraculously survived. He immediately set about examining and arranging its tendrils.
One of the girls dashed in through the now doorless front entrance. “Oh Lord, oh Lord,” her gasps came from the darkness inside. Then she began to cry, as if all the shock, sorrow, happiness and relief were gushing out of her.
Like others streaming back into northern Gaza, the Abu Jarads will face the question of how to survive in the ruins of cities decimated by war. Water and food remain scarce, leaving the population still reliant on humanitarian aid, which is being ramped up under the ceasefire. There is no electricity. Tens of thousands are homeless.
Adjoining the Abu Jarads’ home, Ne’man’s brother’s three-story house is now a pile of concrete wreckage after it was destroyed by an airstrike. It damaged Ne’man’s home as it collapsed, “but, thank God, there is an undamaged room which we will live in,” he said. He vows to repair what is damaged.
Grief from the war lays heavily on him, Ne’man said. His uncle lost his home, and several of his uncle’s children were killed. Several of his neighbors’ homes were destroyed. Ne’man said he will have to walk several kilometers (miles) to find water, just like he did in the displacement camps.
“Once again, we will live through suffering and fatigue.”

 


Russia, Syria to hold further talks on Russian military bases in Syria, TASS reports

Updated 12 min 12 sec ago
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Russia, Syria to hold further talks on Russian military bases in Syria, TASS reports

DAMASCUS: Russia and Syria will hold further talks regarding Russian military bases in Syria, Russia’s news agencies reported late on Tuesday, citing Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov as telling journalists after his talks with Syrian officials.
“This issue requires additional negotiations,” TASS news agency cited Bogdanov as saying. Bogdanov is heading Russia’s delegation to Damascus for the first time since Moscow’s ally President Bashar Assad was toppled.
He added that so far there have been no changes to the presence of Russian military bases in the country.

 

 


New backlash over Trump plan to move people out of Gaza

Updated 29 January 2025
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New backlash over Trump plan to move people out of Gaza

  • “We emphasize that Jordan’s national security dictates that the Palestinians must remain on their land and that the Palestinian people must not be subjected to any kind of forced displacement whatsoever,” Jordanian’s spokesman Mohammad Momani said
  • Israel has killed at least 47,317 people in Gaza, the majority civilians according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable

JERUSALEM: An idea floated by US President Donald Trump to move Gazans to Egypt or Jordan faced a renewed backlash Tuesday as hundreds of thousands of Gazans displaced by the Israel-Hamas war returned to their devastated neighborhoods.
A fragile ceasefire and hostage release deal took effect earlier this month, intended to end more than 15 months of war that began with Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
After the ceasefire came into force, Trump touted a plan to “clean out” the Gaza Strip, reiterating the idea on Monday as he called for Palestinians to move to “safer” locations such as Egypt or Jordan.
The US president, who has repeatedly claimed credit for sealing the truce deal after months of fruitless negotiations, also said he would meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington “very soon.”
Jordan, which has a tumultuous history with Palestinian movements, on Tuesday renewed its rejection of Trump’s proposal.
“We emphasize that Jordan’s national security dictates that the Palestinians must remain on their land and that the Palestinian people must not be subjected to any kind of forced displacement whatsoever,” Jordanian government spokesman Mohammad Momani said.
Qatar, which played a leading role in the truce mediation, on Tuesday said that it often did not see “eye to eye” with its allies, including the United States.
“Our position has always been clear to the necessity of the Palestinian people receiving their rights, and that the two-state solution is the only path forward,” Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said.
Following reports that Trump had spoken with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi at the weekend, Cairo said there had been no such phone call.
“A senior official source denied what some media outlets reported about a phone call between the Egyptian and American presidents,” Egypt’s state information service said.
On Monday, Trump reportedly said the pair had spoken, saying of El-Sisi: “I wish he would take some (Palestinians).”
After Trump first floated the idea, Egypt rejected the forced displacement of Gazans, expressing its “continued support for the steadfastness of the Palestinian people on their land.”

France, another US ally, on Tuesday said any forced displacement of Gazans would be “unacceptable.”
It would also be a “destabilization factor (for) our close allies Egypt and Jordan,” a French foreign ministry spokesman said.
Moving Gaza’s 2.4 million people could be done “temporarily or could be long term,” Trump said on Saturday.
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he was working with the prime minister “to prepare an operational plan to ensure that President Trump’s vision is realized.”
Smotrich, who opposed the ceasefire deal, did not provide any details on the purported plan.
For Palestinians, any attempts to force 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 Gazan Rashad Al-Naji.
Almost all of the Gaza Strip’s inhabitants were displaced at least once by the war that has levelled much of the Palestinian territory.
The ceasefire hinges on the release during a first phase of 33 Israeli hostages held in Gaza in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
On Monday, Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said eight of the hostages due for release in the first phase are dead.
Since the truce began on January 19, seven Israeli women have been freed, as have about 290 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
On Monday, after Hamas and Israel agreed over the release of six hostages this week, “more than 300,000 displaced” Gazans were able to return to the north, according to the Hamas government media office.
“I’m happy to be back at my home,” said Saif Al-Din Qazaat, who returned to northern Gaza but had to sleep in a tent next to the ruins of his destroyed house.
“I kept a fire burning all night near the kids to keep them warm... (they) slept peacefully despite the cold, but we don’t have enough blankets,” the 41-year-old told AFP.

Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
During the attack, militants took into Gaza 251 hostages. Eighty-seven remain in the territory, including dozens Israel says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 47,317 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
“In terms of the death toll, yes, we do have confidence. But let’s not forget, the official death toll given by the Ministry of Health, is deaths accounted in morgues and in hospitals, so in official facilities,” World Health Organization spokesman Christian Lindmeier said Tuesday.
“As people go back to their houses, as they will start looking for their loved ones under the rubble, this casualty figure is expected to increase,” he added.
 

 


More than 376,000 return to north Gaza since Monday: UN

Updated 28 January 2025
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More than 376,000 return to north Gaza since Monday: UN

  • OCHA: Over 376,000 people are estimated to have returned to their places of origin in northern Gaza
  • “This is our homeland and we have to go back,” said one displaced woman, Ola Saleh

UNITED NATIONS: More than 376,000 Palestinians displaced by the war between Israel and Hamas have returned to northern Gaza, the UN’s humanitarian body OCHA said Tuesday.
“Over 376,000 people are estimated to have returned to their places of origin in northern Gaza, following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the two main roads along the Netzarim corridor” that leads into the north, OCHA said in a humanitarian update.

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Many Palestinians said they were happy to return, even though their homes in northern Gaza are likely damaged or destroyed. Others said the feeling was bittersweet, as nearly everyone has friends or relatives killed by Israel during the 15-month war against Hamas.
“This is our homeland and we have to go back,” said one displaced woman, Ola Saleh.
The ceasefire is aimed at ending the war and releasing dozens of hostages and hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned or detained by Israel.