ISTANBUL: Anti-migrant sentiment, economic woes and political pressures are leading some of the 3.3 millions Syrians living in Turkiye to plan a return to Syria or seek shelter in Europe, according to migrants interviewed by Reuters.
They are concerned that rhetoric against migrants may rear up in campaigning for March local elections, echoing efforts to tap into nationalist sentiments during May’s general elections.
Many of those now living in Istanbul face a more immediate worry — authorities’ Sept. 24 deadline for them to leave the city if they are registered in other Turkish provinces.
One 32-year-old Syrian said he is saving up to pay smugglers and plans to go to Belgium. Hardship caused by Turkiye’s rampant inflation and anti-migrant rhetoric motivated his decision.
“We are blamed and scapegoated for the worsening economy. Discrimination is rising. It is becoming impossible for us to live here,” he told Reuters, declining to give his name for security reasons.
The 32-year-old is among those affected by Sunday’s deadline because he was registered in southeastern Sanliurfa province.
According to rights groups, racist violence against Syrians is increasing and authorities have adopted a tougher policy on migrants not registered in Istanbul, stoking migrants’ fears.
Another Syrian man, a 33-year-old teacher, said he could no longer afford to live in Turkiye after 10 years spent in Istanbul with his two children, with his expenses exceeding his income.
“I decided to return to Syria because of the bad financial situation in Turkiye. I know the situation is bad in Syria too but here it’s worse for me,” he said, declining to be named.
It was not possible to quantify the number of Syrians currently planning to leave for Europe or return to Syria.
Turkiye is home to 3.3 million Syrians with temporary protection permits, according to Turkish authorities. Istanbul has the highest Syrian population with more than 532,000.
While Syrians were assigned to provinces throughout Turkiye, many went to Istanbul due to more job opportunities. Authorities said it was unclear how many such people there were in the city.
DEADLINE TO MOVE
Adem Maarastawi, a 29 year-old Syrian activist working in Istanbul, is registered in central Turkiye’s Kirsehir province.
As Sept. 24 approaches, he fears being sent to Kirsehir.
“I struggled to build a life here. How can I rebuild my life from scratch in another city?” he said, adding that he looked for a job in more than 30 cities before settling in Istanbul.
Experts believe anti-migrant sentiment will dominate opposition campaigning for the March votes, as it did in the May elections, and worry this could lead to more physical and verbal violence against migrants including more social media hostility.
“Anti-migrant rhetoric is likely to rise before the March elections,” said Deniz Sert, associate professor of international relations at Ozyegin University.
Local government expert Ali Mert Tascier said opposition parties are likely to use anti-migrant rhetoric, with municipalities being the main players in managing migrants.
During campaigning for the May elections, the main opposition CHP vowed to send Syrians back. It declined to comment on its migration perspective for the local votes.
President Tayyip Erdogan has been fiercely critical of the opposition’s stance, telling a conference this week that Turkiye’s hosting of refugees would continue unchanged.
However, ahead of the May elections, Erdogan played up his plans to repatriate a million Syrian refugees.
“We will continue to pursue our voluntary return policy. It is, however, inappropriate to use migrants for political gain,” said Osman Nuri Kabaktepe, Istanbul head of Erdogan’s AK Party.
But Maarastawi said he feared such campaigning would lead to a deterioration in the situation for migrants.
“I believe everything will just worsen for us as a result of more populist discourse during the local elections,” he said.
Syrians feel growing pressure from Turkiye’s anti-migrant political wave
https://arab.news/jzs3a
Syrians feel growing pressure from Turkiye’s anti-migrant political wave
- Syrian migrants face deadline to leave Istanbul if registered elsewhere
- Many fear rise in anti-migrant rhetoric before March vote
Israel says to end ‘administrative detention’ for West Bank settlers
- Practice allows for detainees to be held for long periods without being charged or appear in court
- The Palestinian Prisoners Club advocacy group said in August that 3,432 Palestinians were held in administrative detention
JERUSALEM: Israeli authorities will stop holding Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank under administrative detention, or incarceration without trial, the defense ministry announced Friday.
The practice allows for detainees to be held for long periods without being charged or appear in court, and is often used against Palestinians who Israel deems security threats.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said it was “inappropriate” for Israel to employ administrative detention against settlers who “face severe Palestinian terror threats and unjustified international sanctions.”
But, according to settlement watchdog Peace Now, it is one of only few effective tools that Israeli authorities to prevent settler attacks against Palestinians, which have surged in the West Bank over the past year.
Katz said in a statement issued by his office that prosecution or “other preventive measures” would be used to deal with criminal acts in the West Bank.
B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group, said authorities use administrative detention “extensively and routinely” to hold thousands of Palestinians for lengthy periods of time.
The Palestinian Prisoners Club advocacy group said in August that 3,432 Palestinians were held in administrative detention.
Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Friday that eight settlers were held under the same practice in November.
Yonatan Mizrahi, director of settlement watch for Peace Now, said that although administrative detention was mostly used in the West Bank to detain Palestinians, it was one of the few effective tools for temporarily removing the threat of settler violence through detention.
“The cancelation of administrative detention orders for settlers alone is a cynical... move that whitewashes and normalizes escalating Jewish terrorism under the cover of war,” the group said in a statement, referring to a spike in settler attacks throughout the Israel-Hamas conflict over the past 13 months.
Western governments, including Israel’s ally and military backer the United States, have recently imposed sanctions on Israeli settlers and settler organizations over ties to violence against Palestinians.
On Monday, US authorities announced sanctions against Amana, a movement that backs settlement development, and others who have “ties to violent actors in the West Bank.”
“Amana is a key part of the Israeli extremist settlement movement and maintains ties to various persons previously sanctioned by the US government and its partners for perpetrating violence in the West Bank,” the US Treasury said.
Excluding Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the West Bank — which Israel has occupied since 1967 — is home to three million Palestinians as well as about 490,000 Israelis living in settlements that are illegal under international law.
UK would arrest Netanyahu over ICC warrant: Senior politician
- Emily Thornberry: Britain has ‘obligation under Rome Convention’ to arrest Israeli PM if he enters country
- Court: ‘Reasonable grounds to believe’ Netanyahu responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity in Gaza
LONDON: The UK will arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he enters the country, a senior British politician has said.
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu on Thursday for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, alongside his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, pertaining to the Gaza war.
Emily Thornberry — Labour chair of the foreign affairs committee, and former shadow foreign secretary and shadow attorney general — told Sky News: “If Netanyahu comes to Britain, our obligation under the Rome Convention would be to arrest him under the warrant from the ICC.
“(It is) not really a question of should — we are required to, because we are members of the ICC.”
UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has refused to be drawn on whether Netanyahu would be arrested if he set foot on British soil, saying it “wouldn’t be appropriate for me to comment.”
She told Sky: “We’ve always respected the importance of international law, but in the majority of the cases that they pursue, they don’t become part of the British legal process.
“What I can say is that obviously, the UK government’s position remains that we believe the focus should be on getting a ceasefire in Gaza.”
Netanyahu’s arrest warrant is the first to be issued against the premier of a major Western ally by an international court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
His office denounced the warrant as “anti-Semitic,” adding that Israel “rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions.” Israel is not an ICC member and rejects the court’s jurisdiction.
US President Joe Biden called the warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant “outrageous,” adding: “Whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he plans to invite Netanyahu to visit Budapest, adding that the arrest warrant will “not be observed” by his government.
The Italian and French governments, however, have indicated that Netanyahu will be arrested if he visits either country.
The ICC said on Thursday it has “reasonable grounds to believe” that Netanyahu and Gallant “bear criminal responsibility” for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”
The court also issued a warrant for Hamas commander Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Israel says Al-Masri, believed to have been the mastermind behind the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, was killed in Gaza earlier this year.
The ICC said it issued the warrant for his arrest because of insufficient evidence to prove his death.
Monitor raises toll in Israel strikes on Syria’s Palmyra to 92
- Wednesday’s Israeli attack targeted three sites in Palmyra, with one hitting a meeting of pro-Iranian groups
- Since civil war erupted in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in the country
BEIRUT: A Syria war monitor said on Friday that Israeli strikes on the city of Palmyra this week killed 92 pro-Iran fighters, after a United Nations representative said they were likely the deadliest to date.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday’s attack targeted three sites in Palmyra, with one hitting a meeting of pro-Iranian groups that also involved commanders from Iraq’s Al-Nujaba group and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The toll has risen to “92 dead: 61 Syrian pro-Iran fighters,” 11 of them working for Hezbollah, “and 27 foreign nationals mostly from Al-Nujaba, plus four from Hezbollah,” the Observatory said.
The Britain-based war monitor, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, had previously reported 82 dead, while the Syria defense ministry on Wednesday said 36 people were killed.
The UN deputy special envoy to Syria, Najat Rochdi, told the Security Council on Thursday that the raid was “likely the deadliest Israeli strike in Syria to date.”
The Observatory said the strikes also targeted “a weapons depot near the industrial area” in Palmyra, a modern city adjacent to globally renowned Greco-Roman ruins.
Since civil war erupted in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in the country, mainly targeting the army and Iran-backed groups.
Israel rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence in the country.
The Israeli military has intensified its strikes on targets in Syria since almost a year of hostilities with Iran-backed Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon escalated into full-scale war in late September.
Iran Guards chief says Netanyahu ICC warrant ‘political death’ of Israel
- Revolutionary Guards chief General Hossein Salami calls the ICC warrant ‘a welcome move’
- Salami adds it is a ‘great victory for the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements’
TEHRAN: The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Friday described the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a former defense minister as the “end and political death” of Israel, in a speech.
“This means the end and political death of the Zionist regime, a regime that today lives in absolute political isolation in the world and its officials can no longer travel to other countries,” Revolutionary Guards chief General Hossein Salami said in the speech aired on state TV.
In the first official reaction by Iran, Salami called the ICC warrant “a welcome move” and a “great victory for the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements,” both supported by the Islamic republic.
Israel and its allies criticized the ICC’s decision to issue an arrest warrant on Thursday for Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu and the country’s former defense minister Yoav Gallant.
The court also issued a warrant for the arrest of Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif.
The warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant were issued in response to accusations of crimes against humanity and war crimes during Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, sparked by the Palestinian militant group’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The move drew angry reactions from Netanyahu, who denounced it as antisemitic and from Israel’s closest allies, including the United States, but was welcomed by rights groups including Amnesty International.
The ICC’s move theoretically limits the movement of Netanyahu, as any of the court’s 124 national members would be obliged to arrest him on their territory.
The court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan urged the body’s members to act on the warrants, and for non-members to work together in “upholding international law.”
Israel armys say ‘eliminated’ five Hamas militants in north Gaza raid
- Israeli military: Slain militants had ‘led the murders and kidnappings in the area of Mefalsim’
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said on Friday it had “eliminated” five Hamas militants, including two commanders, in an overnight raid in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia.
In a statement, the military and the Shin Bet security agency said they had “eliminated five Hamas terrorists, including a Nukhba (commando) company commander and an additional company commander who participated in the Oct. 7 massacre” that sparked the Gaza war last year, adding that the slain militants had “led the murders and kidnappings in the area of Mefalsim,” a kibbutz in southern Israel.
