JERUSALEM: Rachel Goldberg said it still does not feel real 167 days after her son was taken hostage by Hamas, as prayers echoed at Jerusalem’s Western Wall Thursday for the Gaza captives.
She spoke as thousands stood at the holy site for a mass Jewish prayer seeking the return of the 130 hostages Israel believes remain in the Palestinian territory — including Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23.
“People say ‘We can’t image what you’re going through’ and we always say, we can’t imagine what we’re going through,” said Goldberg, seated next to her husband Jonathan Polin.
Both wore strips of masking tape on their chests that had “167” written on them in black marker for the days their son has been held.
Goldberg-Polin was snatched at the Nova music festival in southern Israel where nearly a third of the deaths occurred in the October 7 attack and many hostages were taken.
Families of the hostages have pushed to keep the attention of the public and leaders on their loved ones’ fates, which depend largely on a negotiated exchange with the militants that took them.
The thousands who gathered at the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray at the foot of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest shrine, chanted the Shema prayer — an affirmation of Judaism — to the sound of a ram’s horn instrument known as the “shofar.”
“I think it’s really touching that all of these people come together,” said Shai Zohar, uncle to hostage Omer Neutra, 22.
Hostages’ families, friends and supporters, some wearing T-shirts bearing their pictures, were part of the crowd closest to the wall.
The area is revered by Jews, who come from across the world to pray at the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall, a remnant of the biblical Second Temple.
The Hostages Families Forum, which represents some of the families, said in a statement that “the strength you give us allows us to continue the difficult struggle in our lives: the struggle for the release of our loved ones.”
The bloodiest-ever Gaza war broke out after Hamas’s attacks resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s military has waged a retaliatory offensive against Hamas that has killed 31,988 people, most of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Militants also seized about 250 hostages, of whom Israel believes 130 remain in Gaza, including 33 who are presumed dead.
The mass prayer came just weeks ahead of the six-month mark since the attack.
“Somehow or other as a world, it’s crazy to me that we’ve let it get to six months,” Jonathan Polin told AFP.
Thousands pray in Jerusalem for Gaza hostages’ return
https://arab.news/z6fab
Thousands pray in Jerusalem for Gaza hostages’ return
- Families of the hostages have pushed to keep the attention of the public and leaders on their loved ones’ fates
- Hostages’ families, friends and supporters, some wearing T-shirts bearing their pictures, were part of the crowd closest to the wall
Syria’s new leader says all weapons to come under ‘state control’
- The seizure of power by the Sunni Islamists of HTS — proscribed as a terrorist organization by many governments including the United States — has sparked concern, though the group has in recent years sought to moderate its image
DAMASCUS: Two weeks after seizing power in a sweeping offensive, Syria’s new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa on Sunday said weapons in the country, including those held by Kurdish-led forces, would come under state control.
Sharaa spoke alongside Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, after earlier meeting with Lebanese Druze leaders and vowing to end “negative interference” in the neighboring country.
Ankara-backed rebels played a key role in supporting Sharaa’s Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which headed a rebel alliance and seized Damascus on December 8, toppling longtime ruler Bashar Assad.
During a press conference with Fidan, Sharaa said Syria’s armed “factions will begin to announce their dissolution and enter” the army.
“We will absolutely not allow there to be weapons in the country outside state control, whether from the revolutionary factions or the factions present in the SDF area,” he added, referring to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
Sharaa — also known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani — traded in the olive-green military shirt he sported just days ago for a suit and tie during his meetings on Sunday at the presidential palace.
He also said “we are working on protecting sects and minorities from any attacks that occur between them” and from “external” actors exploiting the situation “to cause sectarian discord.”
“Syria is a country for all and we can coexist together,” he added.
Fidan said sanctions on Syria must “be lifted as soon as possible.” He called for the international community to “mobilize to help Syria get back on its feet and for the displaced people to return.”
Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war killed more than half a million people and displaced more than half its population, with many of them fleeing to neighboring countries, including three million in Turkiye.
Turkiye has maintained strong ties with Syria’s new leaders, and Ankara’s intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin was in Damascus just four days after Assad fell.
Ankara has continued operations against Kurdish-held areas in northeastern Syria, with a Britain-based war monitor reporting on Saturday that Turkish drone strikes killed five civilians in the area.
A senior German diplomat, Tobias Tunkel, on Sunday said on X that he had spoken with SDF leader Mazloum Abdi about rising tensions in the Kurdish-held border town of Kobani “and urgent steps to diffuse them.”
On Friday a US diplomat in Damascus said Washington was urging a ceasefire between Turkish-backed forces and the SDF around Kobani.
Ankara regards the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the main component of the SDF, as being connected to the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) at home, which both Turkiye and Western allies deem a “terrorist” organization.
During his meeting with visiting Lebanese Druze chiefs Walid and Taymur Jumblatt, Sharaa said Syria would no longer engage in “negative interference in Lebanon at all.”
Syria “will stay at equal distance from all” in Lebanon, Sharaa added, acknowledging that Syria has been a “source of fear and anxiety” for its neighbor.
Walid Jumblatt, long a fierce critic of Assad and his father Hafez who ruled Syria before him, arrived in Damascus on Sunday at the head of a delegation of lawmakers from his parliamentary bloc and Druze religious figures.
The Druze religious minority is spread across Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Jordan.
Walid Jumblatt accuses the former Syrian authorities of having assassinated his father in 1977 during Lebanon’s civil war.
The Syrian army entered Lebanon in 1976, only leaving in 2005 after enormous pressure and mass protests following the assassination of former prime minister Rafic Hariri, a killing attributed to Damascus and its ally, Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group.
Assad was an adherent of the Alawite offshoot of Shiite Islam and projected himself as a protector of the country’s religious and ethnic minorities.
The seizure of power by the Sunni Islamists of HTS — proscribed as a terrorist organization by many governments including the United States — has sparked concern, though the group has in recent years sought to moderate its image.
Despite worries over Syria’s future, global powers including the United States and the European Union have stepped up contacts with the war-ravaged country’s new leaders, urging them to guarantee protections for women and minorities.
The foreign leaders have also stressed the importance of combating “terrorism and extremism.”
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran — a major backer of Assad’s administration before it fell — on Sunday predicted “the emergence of a strong, honorable group” that would stand against “insecurity” in Syria.
Assad had long played a strategic role in Iran’s “axis of resistance,” a loose alliance of regional proxy forces aligned against Israel, particularly in facilitating the supply of weapons to Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon.
That axis has suffered heavy blows over the past year with Israel’s devastation of the leadership of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Khamenei nonetheless denied that these armed groups acted as proxies, adding that: “If one day we want to take action, we do not need a proxy force.”
2024 Year in Review: Can Lebanon recover from the depredations of Israel-Hezbollah war?
- Months-long conflict compounded the country’s economic and political crises, left thousands displaced from the south
- With the Iran-backed militia weakened, now could be the moment when the state reasserts control over its security
BEIRUT: On the first day of 2024, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah received an Israeli ultimatum. If it did not immediately retreat from the Israeli-Lebanese border and cease its rocket attacks, a full-scale war was imminent. It was the threat that preceded the storm.
The following day, Israeli fire, previously confined to cross-border exchanges initiated by Hezbollah on Oct. 8, 2023, with the stated aim of supporting Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in Gaza, was turned on the southern suburbs of Beirut for the first time.
An Israeli drone targeted a Hamas office in Haret Hreik, killing the group’s third-ranking leader, Saleh Al-Arouri. Simultaneously, the killings of Hezbollah leaders in southern Lebanon increased exponentially.
The war that Hezbollah launched against northern Israel compounded Lebanon’s existing crises. Already burdened by the financial collapse of 2019, Lebanon entered 2024 grappling with worsening economic and social turmoil.
A political crisis deepened the chaos, as a failure to appoint a president — caused by sharp divisions between Hezbollah and its allies on one side and their opponents on the other — has left the government paralyzed since October 2022.
The flare-up on the border initially displaced 80,000 people from their villages, further straining the country’s economy and increasing poverty. In mid-December 2023, donor countries informed Lebanon of plans to reduce aid for social protection at the start of 2024.
Military confrontations escalated quickly. Hezbollah maintained its “linked fronts” strategy, insisting it would continue its attacks until Israel withdrew from Gaza, while Israel insisted Hezbollah comply with Resolution 1701 and withdraw its forces north of the Litani River.
Between Oct. 8, 2023, and September 2024, Hezbollah launched 1,900 cross-border military attacks, while Israel responded with 8,300 attacks on southern Lebanon. These hostilities caused hundreds of fatalities and displaced entire communities in both southern Lebanon and northern Israel.
Despite intensive diplomatic efforts — primarily by France and the US — no ceasefire was reached during this period. The confrontations intensified, with the Israeli army expanding its targets to the Baalbek region, while Hezbollah extended its strikes to deep Israeli military positions.
Daily clashes revealed Hezbollah’s entrenched military presence in southern Lebanon, including arms depots, artillery emplacements and tunnels, despite the monitoring role of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon under Resolution 1701.
Resolution 1701 mandates the establishment of a weapons-free zone between the Blue Line and the Litani River, except for Lebanese government and international forces. It also prohibits the unauthorized sale or supply of arms to Lebanon.
Hassan Nasrallah, the slain secretary-general of Hezbollah, asserted in 2021 that the group’s fighting force was 100,000 strong.
Funded by Iran and trained by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hezbollah boasted a significant arsenal, predominantly Iranian-made and locally manufactured weapons.
After monopolizing resistance operations in the 1980s, Hezbollah morphed into what many analysts considered an Iranian proxy beyond the control of the Lebanese state.
This year’s confrontations broke traditional rules of engagement, imposing new dynamics.
UNIFIL troops in forward positions were not spared from the crossfire, with incidents escalating after Israeli forces entered UNIFIL’s operational zones.
By mid-July, Western embassies in Lebanon were urging their nationals to leave, aware of Israel’s threat to expand the conflict into an all-out war on Lebanon.
Israeli strikes on Hezbollah’s leadership intensified, culminating in the July killing of Radwan Division commander Fouad Shukr in southern Beirut. The following day, Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh was targeted in Tehran, heightening tensions between Israel and Iran.
Israeli airstrikes deepened across southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, while Hezbollah extended its attacks to Kiryat Shmona, Meron and the outskirts of Haifa and Safed.
Then, on Sept. 17-18, Israel mounted a coordinated attack on thousands of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies, causing explosions that resulted in 42 deaths and more than 3,500 injuries. Although Israel has not claimed responsibility, the attack marked a significant escalation.
By Sept. 27, the killing of Nasrallah and other senior Hezbollah figures in Haret Hreik signaled the start of a wider war. Israeli forces used precision concussion rockets to strike deep into buildings and bunkers, killing Hezbollah commanders and forcing mass evacuations from Beirut’s southern suburbs.
In response, Hezbollah reaffirmed its commitment to linking any ceasefire in Lebanon to one in Gaza. However, by Oct. 1, Israel had intensified its raids, leveling residential buildings and even threatening archaeological sites in Tyre and Baalbek.
The Israeli army also initiated a ground offensive in southern Lebanon, destroying border villages and severing land crossings with Syria to disrupt Hezbollah’s supply lines. Satellite imagery revealed the total destruction of towns like Ayta Al-Shaab and Aitaroun, rendering them uninhabitable.
The devastation affected not only Hezbollah but also Lebanon’s Shiite community, which had invested heavily in the group over decades.
On Nov. 26, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, with US mediation, finalized a ceasefire agreement. However, the deal was preceded by a massive Israeli escalation in Beirut.
As the ceasefire came into effect, questions arose in Hezbollah strongholds about its decision to separate the Lebanon and Gaza peace tracks. Critics also questioned its commitment to dismantling military installations and cooperating with US-led monitoring efforts.
Despite the ceasefire, violations continued. Meanwhile, the war’s economic toll was becoming apparent.
Amin Salam, Lebanon’s minister of economy, estimated initial losses at $15-20 billion, with 500,000 jobs lost, widespread business closures, and agricultural devastation affecting 900,000 dunams of farmland.
Farmers, industrialists and displaced communities were left without support, deepening Lebanon’s economic paralysis. Municipalities began assessing damages, while Hezbollah sought to distribute Iranian-funded aid to those affected.
Although its leadership and its once mighty arsenal have been badly diminished, and the war in Gaza continues, the fact that Hezbollah has survived the past year of conflict is being projected by the group as a victory in itself.
What is certain is that Lebanon now faces an unprecedented challenge, recovering from a conflict it was ill-equipped to withstand and watching a friendly government in neighboring Syria crumble under an onslaught by opposition forces.
By the same token, now may be the moment many Lebanese had been eagerly waiting for, when the state is in a position to assert its control over internal and external security.
UN investigator says possible to find ‘enough’ proof for Syria prosecutions
- Since Assad’s fall, Petit has been able to visit the country but his team still require authorization to begin their work inside Syria which they have requested
DAMASCUS: The visiting head of a UN investigative body for Syria said Sunday it was possible to find “more than enough” evidence to convict people of crimes against international law, but there was an immediate need to secure and preserve it.
The doors of Syria’s prisons were flung open after an Islamist-led rebel alliance ousted longtime ruler Bashar Assad this month, more than 13 years after his brutal repression of anti-government protests triggered a war that would kill more than 500,000 people.
With families rushing to former prisons, detention centers and alleged mass graves to find any trace of disappeared relatives, many have expressed concern about safeguarding documents and other evidence.
“We have the possibility here to find more than enough evidence left behind to convict those we should prosecute,” said Robert Petit, who heads the International Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) set up by the UN in 2016 to prepare prosecutions for major international crimes in Syria.
But he noted that preserving evidence would “need a lot of coordination between all the different actors.”
“We can all understand the human impulse to go in and try and find your loved ones,” Petit said. “The fact is, though, that there needs to be a control put in place to restrict access to all these different centers... It needs to be a concerted effort by everyone who has the resources and the powers to do that to freeze that access, preserve it.”
The organization, known as the Mechanism, was not permitted to work in Syria under Assad’s government but was able to document many crimes from abroad.
Since Assad’s fall, Petit has been able to visit the country but his team still require authorization to begin their work inside Syria which they have requested.
He said his team had “documented hundreds of detention centers... Every security center, every military base, every prison had their own either detention or mass graves attached to it.”
“We’re just now beginning to scratch that surface and I think it’s going to be a long time before we know the full extent of it,” he told AFP.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, more than 100,000 people died in Syria’s jails and detention centers from 2011.
The Saydnaya complex, the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomised the atrocities committed against Assad’s opponents.
Petit compared Saydnaya to the S-21 prison in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh, which came to stand for the Khmer Rouge’s wider atrocities and now houses the country’s genocide museum.
The Saydnaya facility will become “an emblematic example of inhumanity,” he said.
Petit said his team had reached out to the new authorities “to get permission to come here and start discussing a framework by which we can conduct our mandate.”
“We had a productive meeting and we’ve asked formally now, according to their instructions, to be able to come back and start the work. So we’re waiting for that response,” he said.
Even without setting foot in Syria, Petit’s 82-member team has gathered huge amounts of evidence of the worst breaches of international law committed during the war.
The hope is that there could now be a national accountability process in Syria and that steps could be taken to finally grant the International Criminal Court jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed in the country.
Tunisian women herb harvesters struggle with drought
- Tunisia produces around 10,000 tonnes of aromatic and medicinal herbs each year, according to official figures
TUNIS: On a hillside in Tunisia’s northwestern highlands, women scour a sun-scorched field for the wild herbs they rely on for their livelihoods, but droughts are making it ever harder to find the precious plants.
Yet the harvesters say they have little choice but to struggle on, as there are few opportunities in a country hit hard by unemployment, inflation and high living costs.
“There is a huge difference between the situation in the past and what we are living now,” said Mabrouka Athimni, who heads a local collective of women herb harvesters named “Al-Baraka.”
“We’re earning half, sometimes just a third, of what we used to.”
SPEEDREAD
Yet the harvesters say they have little choice but to struggle on, as there are few opportunities in a country hit hard by unemployment and high living costs.
Tunisia produces around 10,000 tonnes of aromatic and medicinal herbs each year, according to official figures.
Rosemary accounts for more than 40 percent of essential oil exports, mainly destined for French and American markets.
For the past 20 years, Athimni’s collective has supported numerous families in Tbainia, a village near the city of Ain Draham in a region with much higher poverty rates than the national average.
Women, who make up around 70 percent of the agricultural workforce, are the main breadwinners for their households in Tbainia.
Tunisia is in its sixth year of drought and has seen its water reserves dwindle, as temperatures have soared past 50 degrees Celsius in some areas during the summer.
The country has 36 dams, mostly in the northwest, but they are currently just 20 percent full — a record low in recent decades.
The Tbainia women said they usually harvested plants like eucalyptus, rosemary and mastic year-round, but shrinking water resources and rare rainfall have siphoned oil output.
“The mountain springs are drying up, and without snow or rain to replenish them, the herbs yield less oil,” said Athimni.
Mongia Soudani, a 58-year-old harvester and mother of three, said her work was her household’s only income. She joined the collective five years ago.
“We used to gather three or four large sacks of herbs per harvest,” she said. “Now, we’re lucky to fill just one.”
Forests in Tunisia cover 1.25 million hectares, about 10 percent of them in the northwestern region.
Wildfires fueled by drought and rising temperatures have ravaged these woodlands, further diminishing the natural resources that women like Soudani depend on.
In the summer of last year, wildfires destroyed around 1,120 hectares near Tbainia.
“Parts of the mountain were consumed by flames, and other women lost everything,” Soudani recalled.
To adapt to some climate-driven challenges, the women received training from international organizations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, to preserve forest resources.
Still, Athimni struggles to secure a viable income.
“I can’t fulfil my clients’ orders anymore because the harvest has been insufficient,” she said.
The collective has lost a number of its customers as a result, she said.
Civilians suffer as rival forces seek foothold in wider Darfur region
- Rapid Support Forces seize back control of key logistical base
DUBAI/CAIRO: Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized back control of a key logistical base in North Darfur on Sunday, the paramilitary group said, a day after it was taken by rival forces allied with Sudan’s army.
The conflict between the RSF and the army erupted in April 2023, and some of the fiercest fighting has taken place in North Darfur as the army and allied Joint Forces — a collection of former rebel groups — battle to maintain a last foothold in the wider Darfur region.
The Joint Forces and the army said in statements they had taken control on Saturday of the Al-Zurug base, which the RSF has used during the 20-month war as a logistical base to channel supplies from over the nearby borders with Chad and Libya.
BACKGROUND
• The conflict between the RSF and the army erupted in April 2023, and some of the fiercest fighting has taken place in North Darfur.
• Since fighting picked up in Al-Fashir in mid-April, at least 782 civilians have been killed, according to a UN human rights report.
Dozens of RSF soldiers were killed, vehicles destroyed and supplies captured as they captured the base, they said.
The incident could inflame ethnic tensions between the Arab tribes that form the base of the RSF and the Zaghawa tribe that forms most of the Joint Forces, analysts say.
The RSF accused Joint Forces fighters of killing civilians and burning down nearby homes and public amenities during the raid.
“The Joint Forces carried out ethnic cleansing against innocent civilians in Al-Zurug and intentionally killed children, women, and the elderly and burnt and destroyed wells and markets and homes and the health center and schools,” it said in a statement on Sunday.
The Joint Forces said the base had been used by the RSF as a “launching point for barbaric operations against civilians” in areas including Al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur state and one of the most active frontlines in the fighting.
Since fighting picked up in Al-Fashir in mid-April, at least 782 civilians have been killed, according to a UN human rights report, the result of attacks via “intense” heavy artillery and suicide drones from the RSF and airstrikes and artillery strikes by the army.
On Sunday, activists from the Al-Fashir Resistance Committee reported an onslaught of at least 30 missiles fired on different parts of the city.
Seizing control of the city would bolster the RSF’s attempt to install a parallel government to the national government in Port Sudan, analysts say.
