How local green activists are confronting northeast Syria’s unfolding environmental crisis

Barin Nursery in Syria’s Qamishli donates thousands of trees and seedlings to local projects combating overcultivation, as well as water and wind erosion. (AN Photo/Ali Ali)
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Updated 20 February 2023
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How local green activists are confronting northeast Syria’s unfolding environmental crisis

  • Conflict and weather variations have left the resource-rich region stricken by pollution and desertification
  • Local ecological boards and volunteer initiatives have drawn inspiration from Saudi Arabia’s environmental initiatives

QAMISHLI, Syria: For thousands of years, the land between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers has seen dozens of civilizations rise and fall — civilizations that depended on the rivers and the surrounding lush geography to sustain themselves.

But now, after a decade of conflict and drought, the land between the rivers, and more specifically, Syria’s northeast, is a shell of what it once was.

The great rivers and their tributaries, once flowing strong with clear water, have dried to a trickle and are full of garbage and sewage. The rich soil that once nourished all kinds of trees has dried up, and its forests are gone along with it.

Not all hope is lost, however. Small groups of environmentalists and volunteers refuse to remain helpless in the face of the crisis, and are striving to make northeast Syria green again.

To plant four million trees in a country threatened by climate change, desertification and war may seem a daunting task, but it is one that the local Green Tress ecological initiative has taken on.

“We are in one of the most dangerous countries in the world, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t do anything, or that we are a helpless society. We can create initiatives and take responsibility in our society,” Ziwar Sheikho, the administrator of Green Tress, told Arab News at the initiative’s nursery in the city of Qamishli.

“Pollution has the potential to kill more people than bullets,” Sheikho said, stooping down to check if any of the thousands of seeds he had planted had begun to germinate. “Everyone understands that the loss of the environment is the loss of humanity.”

The local initiative began in 2020, after the municipality of Tel Kocher built a series of cement palm trees along the town’s main road. Sheikho wrote a letter to the municipality and the local ecology board criticizing the construction and urging the town to adopt a more eco-friendly approach. Eventually the fake trees were removed and replaced with real ones.

Not satisfied with one small victory, Sheikho knew that he had to do more. Sheikho, a journalist by trade, along with a local writer and a cinematographer, began to consider how to make their homeland a more environmentally responsible place.

In addition to the planting of four million trees, Green Tress also aims to bring the percentage of green areas in Syria’s north and east to 18. Many of the once-lush forests along the border in the north were destroyed during the crisis, when desperate locals were forced to cut trees to use for firewood as fuel sources ran out.




A pine seedling blooms at the Green Tress nursery in Qamishli, Syria. (AN Photo/Ali Ali)

According to the US-based online monitoring tool Global Forest Watch, Syria has lost more than 26,000 hectares of tree cover since 2001.

The initiative has met with many challenges, chief among them being a lack of support. “We are all volunteers. The land that we are using now was donated to us. Our water tanker was donated to us. Because we are an independent organization, and not tied to any government, we have to get all of our tools from donors,” Sheikho said.

Saudi Vision 2030, announced by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2016, has been a major source of inspiration for Green Tress, Sheikho said. The Saudi Green Initiative, which was launched in 2021 in line with Vision 2030’s goals, has committed to the rehabilitation of 40 million hectares of land and has already planted 8.4 million trees in the Kingdom.

“We have seen that many developments in the Middle East have proved destructive for the environment. For example, because of the 23 dams that Turkey built on the Euphrates, 178 rivers, streams and springs that were previously in (northern Syria) have dried up. The Tigris and Euphrates are in a bad state because of this.

“Saudi Vision 2030, and the Saudi Green Initiative, changed our opinion. It gave us a lot of hope. It aims to plant billions of trees in the Middle East. We launched our initiative at the same time that this was announced. We hope that it will spread to many other countries,” he said.

Saudi Arabia’s ambitions have of course expanded beyond its own borders in the form of the Middle East Green Initiative, which aims to plant 50 billion trees across the region among other climate-change-mitigation initiatives.

For its part, Green Tress has thought beyond the simple planting of trees. The initiative holds workshops in northeast Syria’s villages to teach locals the fundamentals of composting in order to reduce reliance on harmful chemical fertilizers, which the agricultural department says is among the main causes of desertification.

INNUMBERS

  •  59 percent - Syrian land threatened by desertification.
  • 26,000 hectares - Syrian forests lost since 2001.
  • 34 million cubic meters - Groundwater pumped out by Syrians annually.

During the time in which the Syrian regime controlled the northeast, it designated these regions as agricultural areas, particularly for the production of cotton as well as wheat and other cereals. Decades of repeated production of grains have left much of the rich soil between the Tigris and Euphrates vulnerable to desertification.

Overcultivation of the same crop coupled with water shortages leads to desertification in windy areas such as Syria’s northeast, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. FAO’s 2022 report says Syrian wheat production this year was down to one million tons, or 75 percent less than pre-war levels, due to heavy reliance on rain-fed agriculture after the collapse of irrigation systems and repeated water cutoffs and shortages.

According to the Agricultural Department of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), studies have shown that desertification threatens at least 59 percent of the country’s agricultural land.

Water erosion due to excessive logging of trees, wind erosion owing to lack of vegetative cover, and a rise in salinity of ground water due to a lack of effective drainage systems have all contributed to rapid desertification, an agricultural department spokesman told Arab News.

In the wake of these policies, AANES, which was established as an autonomous zone in Syria’s north and east separate from both the regime and the opposition, created an ecology board to try and rectify the damage done by years of war and mismanagement.

“The work we are doing is not just for this region, but the whole world. Our aim is the protection of the planet,” Berivan Omer, vice co-chair of the ecology board of AANES’ Jazira region, told Arab News.




A sign showing environmental initiatives carried out with the help of the Qamishli People's Municipality. (AN Photo/Ali Ali)

The ecology board has successfully lobbied for the implementation of two laws in the past year —  the cleanliness law, and the environmental protection law. The hygiene law prohibits throwing waste in non-designated areas at non-designated times, littering, and dumping waste into rivers, streams and springs.

It also forbids industrial facilities from dumping their waste in random locations, and punishes those who cut down trees in public or private gardens without proper permissions with a fine of up to 250,000 Syrian pounds (about $45).

The Jaghjagh River, a tributary of the Euphrates, was once clear and flowed swiftly through the city of Qamishli. Now, it is full of waste and garbage, its overpowering stench wafting over several city blocks. Low water levels in all of Syria’s rivers and streams has contributed to the spread of diseases such as leishmaniasis and even cholera, which has recently made a comeback in the country and has infected more than 15,000.

Though the local municipality, ecology board and volunteers have carried out several cleaning operations over the past few years, the river invariably returns to its former state after a short time.

Many things are out of the local administration’s control, says Omer. Houses which dump their waste directly into the river were built on its banks decades ago, and short of evicting the residents, there seem to be no easy solutions.




Household waste clogs the Jaghjagh River in Syria's Qamishli. (AN Photo/Ali Ali)

“For the river, we are now researching. We will carry out six months of research to figure out how to clean it properly,” he told Arab News. ” We will try and see if the problem can be solved with simple cleaning or if we need to divert the entire sewer system.”

Other environmental problems abound in the region: A lack of advanced petroleum refineries has led to the use of primitive burners to produce fuel. The gaseous and liquid waste from the fuel-making process ends up in the air, water and soil, which has caused increased respiratory illnesses and cases of cancer across the Jazira region, where more than 200 of these burners operate.

Though the ecological board has attempted to promote the use of alternative energy sources such as solar power, the materials available to them are expensive and of poor quality. With the main power grid left working below capacity since the beginning of the war, the majority of northeast Syria relies on neighborhood generators, which are loud and produce toxic fumes.

Both Omer and Sheikho believe the most important change lies with the mentality of the community.

“People here say, ‘if I clean my surroundings, I will only clean my home. Everything else is the responsibility of the state or the municipality,’” Omer said.

Sheikho explained that Green Tress held meetings with the Democratic Islam Community, a council of local Muslim religious officials, to ask them to include lessons about the benefit of environmental protection in their sermons.

The ecology board has also held workshops among local village councils to teach people how to separate their waste for recycling.

“We must start at the household level. It takes a lot of money, work and special tools to separate waste for recycling. But if it starts in the home, it will be much easier,” Omer said.

“People used to live as a part of nature, but now, they are separate from it. They see themselves as the center of nature instead of as just a component. As humans on this planet, we can live in harmony with all living things.”


At least five killed in Israeli air strike on Gaza mosque

Updated 06 October 2024
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At least five killed in Israeli air strike on Gaza mosque

  • Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry

GAZA: At least five people were killed and 20 others wounded in an Israeli air strike on a Gaza mosque early on Sunday, medics said.
The strike on the mosque, near the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, came as the Israel’s war in the Palestinian enclave approaches its first anniversary.
Eyewitnesses said the number of casualties could rise as the mosque was being used to house displaced people.
The Israeli military said in a statement it “conducted a precise strike on Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command and control center embedded in a structure that previously served as the ‘Shuhada Al-Aqsa’ Mosque in the area of Deir al Balah.”
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. It has also displaced nearly all of the enclave’s 2.3 million people, caused a hunger crisis and led to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.

 


Hezbollah says repelled ‘attempted’ Israeli infiltration at border village

Updated 06 October 2024
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Hezbollah says repelled ‘attempted’ Israeli infiltration at border village

BEIRUT, Lebanon: Hezbollah said its fighters pushed away Israeli troops that attempted to storm into a Lebanese border village early Sunday, in the latest clashes after Israel announced ground operations earlier this week.
The fighters launched “artillery shells” at “Israeli enemy soldiers who attempted to infiltrate from... Blida... forcing (them) to retreat,” the Iran-backed group said in a statement.

 

 


Iran ‘ongoing threat’ to Israel, says president

Updated 06 October 2024
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Iran ‘ongoing threat’ to Israel, says president

  • Since late September the conflict with Hezbollah has escalated into full-on war

JERUSALEM: President Isaac Herzog said on Saturday that Iran remains an “ongoing threat” to Israel, a year after the unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants.
“In many senses we are still living the aftermath of October 7... It is in the ongoing threat to the Jewish State by Iran and its terror proxies, who are blinded by hatred and bent on the destruction of our one and only Jewish nation state,” Herzog said in a statement to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas onslaught.
On October 1, Iran struck Israel with about 200 missiles in what was its second direct attack in less than six months during the ongoing wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
US officials told American news outlets after Iran’s earlier strike in April that Israel in turn carried out a retaliatory strike on the Islamic republic.
Iran had targeted Israel with drones and missiles after a deadly strike, which it blamed on Israel, against Tehran’s embassy consular annex in Syria.
The latest missile barrage from Iran came, it said, in retaliation for the killings of top militant leaders.
In response to the missile fire, most of which was intercepted, Iran and much of the international community is now bracing for a potential Israeli attack on the Islamic republic.
The attack by Palestinian militants Hamas almost a year ago triggered war with Israel that continues in the Gaza Strip, as well as supporting fire from Iran-backed groups in the Middle East, mainly Lebanon’s Hezbollah which is armed and financed by Iran.
Since late September the conflict with Hezbollah has escalated into full-on war.


Israeli air strikes target Palestinian refugee camp, Hezbollah TV studios in Beirut

Updated 06 October 2024
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Israeli air strikes target Palestinian refugee camp, Hezbollah TV studios in Beirut

  • Refugee camp deep in the north hit for the first time as strikes target both Hezbollah and Hamas fighters
  • Building housing studios of Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV channel also targeted 

BEIRUT: Powerful new explosions rocked Beirut’s southern suburbs late Saturday as Israel expanded its bombardment in Lebanon, striking a Palestinian refugee camp deep in the north for the first time as it targeted both Hezbollah and Hamas fighters.

A series of strong explosions were reported near midnight after Israel’s military called on residents to evacuate areas in Beirut’s Haret Hreik and Choueifat neighborhoods. Residents were also told to evacuate buildings in the areas of Al-Kafaat, Al-Laylaki, and the Madi neighborhood.

Blasts illuminated the skyline of the densely populated southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence. They followed a day of sporadic strikes and the nearly continuous buzz of reconnaissance drones.

The strong explosions began near midnight and continued into Sunday after Israel’s military urged residents to evacuate areas in Dahiyeh, the predominantly Shiite collection of suburbs on Beirut’s southern edge.

A  building near a road leading to the Rarik Hariri International Airport was among those hit, triggering violent explosions followed by a massive fire. Social media reports claimed that one of the strikes hit an oxygen tank storage facility, but this was later denied by the owner of the company Khaled Kaddouha.

A building known to house studios of Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV channel was also targeted in the strikes.

Thousands of people in Lebanon, including Palestinian refugees from the Sabra and Shatila camps, continued to flee the widening conflict in the region, while rallies were held around the world marking the approaching anniversary of the start of the war in Gaza.

A video clip posted by LBCI Lebanon News on the X platform showed chaos and confusion along the streets as people rushed for their safety.

Israel’s military confirmed it was striking targets near Beirut and said about 30 projectiles had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory, with some intercepted.

 

Shortly thereafter, Hezbollah claimed in a statement that it successfully targeted a group of Israeli soldiers near the Manara settlement in northern Israel “with a large rocket salvo, hitting them accurately.”

On Saturday, Israel’s attack on the northern Beddawi camp killed an official with Hamas’ military wing along with his wife and two young daughters, the Palestinian militant group said. Hamas later said another military wing member was killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley. The aftermath showed smashed buildings, scattered bricks and stairways to nowhere.

Israel has killed several Hamas officials in Lebanon since the Israel-Hamas war began , in addition to most of the top leadership of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah as fighting has sharply escalated.

At least 1,400 Lebanese, including civilians, medics and Hezbollah fighters, have been killed and 1.2 million driven from their homes in less than two weeks. Israel says it aims to drive the militant group away from shared borders so displaced Israelis can return to their homes.

Iranian-backed Hezbollah, the strongest armed force in Lebanon, began firing rockets into Israel almost immediately after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, calling it a show of support for the Palestinians. Hezbollah and Israel’s military have traded fire almost daily.

Last week, Israel launched what it called a limited ground operation into southern Lebanon after a series of attacks killed longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and others. The fighting is the worst since Israel and Hezbollah fought a brief war in 2006. Nine Israeli soldiers have been killed in the ground clashes that Israel says have killed 440 Hezbollah fighters.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told reporters in Damascus that “we are trying to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and in Lebanon.” The minister said the unnamed countries putting forward initiatives include regional states and some outside the Middle East.

Araghchi spoke a day after the supreme leader of Iran praised its recent missile strikes on Israel and said it was ready to do it again if necessary.

On Saturday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “Israel has the duty and the right to defend itself and respond to these attacks, and it will do so.” On Lebanon, he said ”we are not done yet.”

Fleeing Lebanon on foot

Israel’s military earlier Saturday said about 90 projectiles were fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory. Most were intercepted, but several fell in the northern Arab town of Deir Al-Asad, where police said three people were lightly injured.

At least six people in Lebanon were killed in more than a dozen Israeli airstrikes overnight and into Saturday, according to the Lebanese state-run National News Agency.

Nearly 375,000 people have fled from Lebanon into Syria in less than two weeks, according to a Lebanese government committee.

Associated Press journalists saw hundreds continuing to cross the Masnaa Border Crossing on foot, crunching over the rubble after Israeli airstrikes left huge craters in the road leading to it on Thursday. Much of Hezbollah’s weaponry is believed to come from Iran through Syria.

“We were on the road for two days,” said Issa Hilal, one of many Syrian refugees in Lebanon who are now heading back. “The roads were very crowded … it was very difficult. We almost died getting here.” Some children whimpered or cried.

Other displaced families now shelter alongside Beirut’s famous seaside Corniche, their wind-flapped tents just steps from luxury homes. “We don’t care if we die, but we don’t want to die at the hands of Netanyahu,” said Om Ali Mcheik.

The Israeli military said special forces were carrying out ground raids against Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon. It said troops dismantled tunnel shafts that Hezbollah used to approach the Israeli border.

More evacuation orders in Gaza

Almost 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza during the war, according to the Health Ministry there, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. Almost 90 percent of Gaza’s residents are displaced, amid widespread destruction.

Palestinian medical officials said Israeli strikes in northern and central Gaza on Saturday killed at least nine people. One in the northern town of Beit Hanoun killed at least five, including two children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Another hit a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least four, Awda hospital said.

Israel’s military did not have any immediate comment but has long accused Hamas of operating from within civilian areas.

An Israeli airstrike killed two children in Gaza City’s Zaytoun neighborhood, according to the civil defense first responders’ group that operates under the Hamas-run government.

Israel’s military warned Palestinians to evacuate along the strategic Netzarim corridor in central Gaza that was at the heart of obstacles to a ceasefire deal. The military told people in parts of the Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps to evacuate to Muwasi, a coastal area it has designated a humanitarian zone.

It’s unclear how many Palestinians are in those areas. Israeli forces have often returned to areas in Gaza to target Hamas fighters as they regroup.


Israel on alert ahead of Hamas attack anniversary

Updated 06 October 2024
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Israel on alert ahead of Hamas attack anniversary

  • Israel has killed at least 41,825 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures provided by the territory’s health ministry and described as reliable by the UN
  • Ahead of the October 7 anniversary, thousands joined pro-Palestinian rallies in London, Paris, Cape Town and other cities

JERUSALEM: Israel placed its forces on alert Saturday ahead of the anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack, after a military official said the country is preparing its retaliation for Iran’s missile attack.
The alert came with Israel engaged in an intensifying war with the Lebanese Hezbollah group, which army chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said would be hit “without concession or respite.”
Ahead of Monday’s grim anniversary, military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said at a televised briefing: “We are prepared with increased forces in anticipation for this day,” when there could be “attacks on the home front.”
The unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian group resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.
One year later, although the war in Gaza continues at a lower tempo, Israel has turned its focus north to Lebanon, where it is now at war with Hezbollah, and is focused on the movement’s backer Iran.
The Israeli military said it had killed around 440 Hezbollah fighters “from the ground and from the air” since Monday when troops began “targeted” ground operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israel says it aims to allow tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by almost a year of Hezbollah rocket fire into northern Israel to return home.
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog called Iran an “ongoing threat” after Tehran, which backs armed groups across the Middle East, on Tuesday launched around 200 missiles at Israel in revenge for Israeli killings of top militant leaders.

The missile attack killed one person in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and caused some damage to an Israeli air base according to satellite images.
It came on the day Israeli ground forces began their raids into Lebanon after days of intense strikes on Hezbollah strongholds across Lebanon.
An Israeli military official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly, said the army “is preparing a response” to Iran’s attack.
Later, Hagari said Israel’s response would come at a “place and time we decide.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a statement, noted Iran had twice launched “hundreds of missiles” at Israeli territory since April.
“Israel has the duty and the right to defend itself and to respond to these attacks and that is what we will do,” said Netanyahu, whose critics accuse him of obstructing efforts to reach a Gaza ceasefire and deal to free hostages still held by Hamas.
A high-level Hezbollah source said Saturday the group had lost contact with Hashem Safieddine, widely tipped to be the next Hezbollah leader, after air strikes this week in Beirut.
The movement is yet to name a new chief after Israel assassinated Hassan Nasrallah late last month in a massive strike in the Lebanese capital.
Late Saturday Israel issued a new appeal for residents of southern Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, to evacuate.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday said that “the resistance in the region will not back down.”

On Saturday Hezbollah said its fighters were confronting Israeli troops in Lebanon’s southern border region, where the Israeli military said it struck militants inside a mosque in Bint Jbeil.
The military reported frequent rocket fire from Lebanon while Hezbollah claimed a rocket attack on northern Israel’s Ramat David air base, and on a “military industries company” near Israel’s coastal city of Acre.
Hamas said Israeli strikes killed two of its operatives in north and east Lebanon on Saturday, as Israel’s military confirmed the killing of two Hamas figures.
Hamas said one of them was hit near Tripoli, the first such strike in the northern area.
Netanyahu said Israel had “destroyed a large part” of Hezbollah’s arsenal and “changed the course of the war.”
In a March report, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said estimates of Hezbollah’s rockets and missiles varied from 120,000-200,000.
On central Beirut’s busy Hamra Street, Salma Salman said she had been camping out with her seven-year-old twin daughters for nearly two weeks.
“We’re living a terrifying, never-ending nightmare,” she said.
Across Lebanon, the wave of strikes on Hezbollah strongholds has killed more than 1,110 people since September 23, according to a tally based on official figures.
The head of the UN’s refugee agency, Filippo Grandi, said in Lebanon that the country “faces a terrible crisis” and warned “hundreds of thousands of people are left destitute or displaced by Israeli air strikes.”
Israeli bombardment has put at least four hospitals in Lebanon out of service, the facilities said.
The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said it rejected a request by the Israeli military to “relocate some of our positions” in south Lebanon.
Ireland’s President Michael Higgins, whose country has peacekeepers in the mission, said Israel was “demanding that the entire UNIFIL... walk away,” which he called “an insult to the most important global institution.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, visiting Damascus on Saturday after a stop in Beirut, renewed his call for ceasefires in both Gaza and Lebanon while threatening Israel with an “even stronger” reaction to any attack on Iran.
French President Emmanuel Macron said it was time “that we stop delivering weapons to fight in Gaza,” adding that France was not providing any.
He also criticized Israel’s decision to send ground troops into Lebanon.

US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators tried unsuccessfully for months to reach a Gaza truce and secure the release of 97 hostages still held in the Hamas-ruled territory.
Medics and rescuers said Israeli fire early Saturday killed at least 12 people across Gaza.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,825 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures provided by the territory’s health ministry and described as reliable by the UN.
Ahead of the October 7 anniversary, thousands joined pro-Palestinian rallies in London, Paris, Cape Town and other cities.
Herzog, the Israeli president, said his country’s October 7 “wounds still cannot fully heal.”