BEIRUT: Hundreds of angry protesters in southern Syria smashed the statue of Syria’s late president on Monday as they they marked the 2015 assassination of a prominent anti-government Druze leader.
The protests in the province of Sweida, where the Druze community represents the majority of the population, have entered their third week. The demonstrations were initially driven by surging inflation and the war-torn country’s spiraling economy but quickly shifted focus, with marchers calling for the fall of President Bashar Assad’s government.
Monday’s protest took place in the provincial capital, also called Sweida, where angry men and woman called for the downfall of Assad’s government. Some smashed the statue of Assad’s late father and predecessor, Hafez Assad.
Several demonstrators marched up to the building of the local branch of the social security and tore down a giant poster of Bashar Assad, according to videos circulated on social media and opposition activists.
Monday marked the eighth anniversary of the assassination of cleric Sheik Wahid Balous, a prominent critic of Assad. He had called on the youth in Sweida to refuse to serve in the military.
Balous, a strong supporter of rebels trying to topple Assad, died in one of two bomb explosions on Sept. 4, 2015, that also also killed 25 others. Some have blamed the government for the killing.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said the protesters initially went into the Swedia municipality building and removed Hafez Assad’s statue from the yard, carried it to a nearby street and smashed it there.
Some demonstrators angrily kicked chunks of the statue as it lay on the ground.
Sweida province has largely stayed out of the fighting in Syria’s 12-year civil war that has killed half a million people, wounded hundreds of thousands and left parts of the country destroyed. The conflict has displaced half the country’s prewar population of 23 million, including more than 5 million who are refugees outside the country.
A 10th century offshoot of Shiite Islam, the Druze make up about 5 percent of Syria’s prewar population, and are split between supporters and opponents of President Bashar Assad.
In late August, angry protesters raided the local offices of the ruling Baath party in Sweida while others blocked a highway that links the province with the capital of Damascus.
Protesters in southern Syria smash statue as they mark 2015 assassination of anti-government leader
https://arab.news/y442t
Protesters in southern Syria smash statue as they mark 2015 assassination of anti-government leader

- Protests in Sweida province, where the Druze community represents the majority of the population, entered their third week
Gaza civil defense says 16 killed in Israel strikes

GAZA: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli strikes killed 16 people on Friday across the territory, where Israel has ramped up its military offensive in recent days.
The toll from “Israeli strikes in various areas of the Gaza Strip since midnight totals 16 dead,” agency official Mohammed Al-Mughayyir told AFP.
US and regional countries team up to resolve the issue of Daesh prisoners in Syria

- President Trump asked the Syrian government to “assume responsibility” Daesh prisoners
- Some 9,000 Daesh prisoners are being held by the US-backed SDF in northeast Syria
ISTANBUL: Turkiye, the United States, Syria and Iraq have formed a working group to try to resolve the issue of Daesh group prisoners held in Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in comments published Thursday.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, control large parts of northeast Syria bordering Turkiye and Iraq and oversee more than a dozen prison camps holding thousands of suspected Daesh — also known as Islamic State or IS — fighters and their families.
US President Donald Trump asked the Syrian government to “assume responsibility” for some 9,000 Daesh prisoners when he met Syrian President President Ahmad Al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia on May 14.
Erdogan said a committee had been formed to work out what to do with the prisoners, particularly women and children held at refugee camps such as Al-Hol in northern Syria. His comments on the presidential website were released as he returned from a trip to Hungary.
“Iraq needs to focus on the issue of the camps,” Erdogan said. “The vast majority of women and children in the Al Hol camp in particular belong to Iraq and Syria. They should do what is necessary for them.”
In 2014, Daesh declared a caliphate in large parts of Iraq and Syria and attracted tens of thousands of supporters from around the world. The extremists were defeated by a US-led coalition in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019. Tens of thousands of people linked to the group were taken to Al-Hol camp close to the Iraqi border.
It is anticipated that the government in Damascus will take control of the prison camps, a move Erdogan said would make it easier to integrate the Kurdish forces in Syria.
Kurdish fighters in Syria have ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which on May 12 agreed to dissolve and lay down its weapons following a four-decade insurgency against Turkiye.
Turkiye to provide Syria with 2 billion cubic meters of gas annually

- Deal signed to activate gas pipeline connecting Syria with Turkiye
- Turkiye will also start supplying 500 megawatts of electricity to Syria by yearend
DAMASCUS: Turkiye will provide 2 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Syria each year, Turkish energy minister Alparslan Bayraktar said on Thursday.
In a joint news conference with his Syrian counterpart in Damascus, Bayraktar said that Turkiye’s gas exports to Syria will contribute to an additional 1,300 megawatts of electricity production in the country.
Ankara, which supported rebel forces in neighboring Syria throughout the 13-year civil war that ended this month with the ousting of Bashar Assad, is now positioning itself to play a major role in Syria’s reconstruction.
Turkiye will also provide an additional 1,000 megawatts of electricity to neighboring Syria for its short term needs, he added.
Syrian Energy Minister Mohammed Al-Bashir said they agreed to activate a gas pipeline that connects Syria with Turkiye, with gas flows expected in June.
“This will significantly boost electricity generation, which will positively impact the Syrian people’s electricity needs,” Al-Bashir said.
The two minister discussed completing a 400-kilovolt line that links the countries, contributing to importing around 500 megawatts of electricity into Syria, to be ready by the end of the year or shortly thereafter, he added.
Cooperation also includes opening the door for Turkish companies to invest in mining, phosphate, electricity generation and electricity distribution in Syria.
“There is very intensive work underway regarding the discovery of new natural resources, whether gas or oil, on land or at sea,” Bayraktar said. (Reporting by Riham Alkousaa in Damascus and Huseyin Hayatsever in Ankara; Editing by Jonathan Spicer and Louise Heavens)
WHO chief begs Israel to show ‘mercy’ in Gaza

- Tedros said only a political solution could bring a meaningful peace.
GENEVA: Fighting back tears, the head of the World Health Organization on Thursday urged Israel to have “mercy” in the Gaza war and insisted peace would be in Israel’s own interests.
In an emotional intervention at the WHO annual assembly, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the war was hurting Israel and would not bring a lasting solution.
“I can feel how people in Gaza would feel at the moment. I can smell it. I can visualize it. I can hear even the sounds. And this is because of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder),” said Tedros, 60, who has often recalled his own wartime upbringing in Ethiopia.
“You can imagine how people are suffering. It’s really wrong to weaponize food. It’s very wrong to weaponize medical supplies.”
The United Nations on Thursday began distributing around 90 truckloads of aid which are the first deliveries into Gaza since Israel imposed a total blockade on March 2.
Tedros said only a political solution could bring a meaningful peace.
“A call for peace is actually in the best interests of Israel itself. I feel that the war is hurting Israel itself and it will not bring a lasting solution,” he said.
“I ask if you can have mercy. It’s good for you and good for the Palestinians. It’s good for humanity.”

WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan said that 2.1 million people in Gaza were “in imminent danger of death.”
“We need to end the starvation, we need to release all hostages and we need to resupply and bring the health system back online,” he said.
“As an ex-hostage, I can say that all hostages should be released. Their families are suffering. Their families are in pain,” he added.
The WHO said Gazans were suffering acute shortages of food, water, medical supplies, fuel and shelter.
Four major hospitals have had to suspend medical services in the past week, due to their proximity to hostilities or evacuation zones, and attacks.
Only 19 of the Gaza Strip’s 36 hospitals remain operational, with staff working in “impossible conditions,” the UN health agency said in a statement.
“At least 94 percent of all hospitals in the Gaza Strip are damaged or destroyed,” it said, while north Gaza “has been stripped of nearly all health care.”
It said that across the Palestinian territory, only 2,000 hospital beds remained available — a figure “grossly insufficient to meet the current needs.”
“The destruction is systematic. Hospitals are rehabilitated and resupplied, only to be exposed to hostilities or attacked again. This destructive cycle must end.”
Israel PM names new security chief, defying attorney general

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Thursday his pick for the next head of the Shin Bet domestic security agency, defying the country’s attorney general and a significant segment of the public.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu announced this evening his decision to appoint Major General David Zini as the next head of the Shin Bet,” a statement from the premier’s office said.
The decision is the latest development in a long-running controversy surrounding the role, which has seen mass protests against the incumbent chief’s dismissal, as well as against moves pushed by Netanyahu’s government to expand elected officials’ power to appoint judges.
The supreme court on Wednesday ruled the government’s decision to fire current domestic security chief Ronen Bar was “improper and unlawful.”
Netanyahu’s move to tap Zini to replace Bar directly defied Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who had said that, given the court ruling, the premier “must refrain from any action related to the appointment of a new head of the Shin Bet.”
Netanyahu immediately responded in a rare press conference that his government would make an appointment despite Baharav-Miara’s stance.
Following Thursday’s announcement, the attorney general released a statement saying that the prime minister was acting “contrary to legal guidance.”
“There is serious concern that he acted while in a conflict of interest, and the appointment process is flawed,” the statement said.
Zini, the son of immigrants from France and the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, has held “many” operational and command positions in the Israeli military, Thursday’s announcement said, including for some elite units and combat brigades.
The announcement comes after more than two months of political and legal wrangling over who should head the powerful agency.
In March, Netanyahu said that he was dismissing Bar due to “ongoing lack of trust.”