Syrians missing, dying from torture in militant-run prisons

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Ahmad Al-Hakim prays as he sits by the tomb of his brother Abdul Qader, who was reportedly killed in torture while in captivity by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), in the village of Harbanush in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province on Mar. 8, 2024. (AFP)
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Amina Al-Hamam, 70, whose son Ghazwan Hassun was detained by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) in 2019, kisses her grandson as they sit at the entrance of their tent at a camp for those displaced by conflict in Idlib close to the Turkish border on Mar. 12, 2024. (AFP)
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Noha Al-Atrash, the wife of Syrian detainee Ahmed Abbas Majlouba who has been held captive by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), poses with her children during a demonstration condemning torture in HTS prisons and demanding the release of prisoners held by the group, in Idlib on Mar. 1, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 27 March 2024
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Syrians missing, dying from torture in militant-run prisons

  • “We protested and rose up against the Assad regime in order to be rid of injustice,” said Hakim, 30, referring to Syrian President Bashar Assad
  • Accusations of torture and other rights violations have increased since last year when HTS launched a crackdown on suspected “agents” for Damascus or foreign governments

HARBANUSH, Syria: Ahmed Al-Hakim’s 27-year-old brother was tortured to death in prison in Syria’s militant-run northwest, sparking rare protests amid accusations from residents and activists of rights violations in the opposition bastion.
“We protested and rose up against the Assad regime in order to be rid of injustice,” said Hakim, 30, referring to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Now “we find ourselves ruled with the same methods,” he told AFP, crouched near his brother Abdel-Kader’s grave, flowers and plants placed in the freshly turned soil.
Syria’s 13-year-old conflict, sparked by Assad’s brutal repression of anti-government protests, has drawn in foreign armies and militants and killed more than 500,000 people.
Around half of Idlib province and parts of neighboring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces are controlled by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), an alliance of Islamist factions led by Syria’s former Al-Qaeda affiliate.
Accusations of torture and other rights violations have increased since last year when HTS launched a crackdown on suspected “agents” for Damascus or foreign governments.
Security forces from the Islamist group have detained hundreds of civilians, fighters and even prominent HTS members, providing no information to families, said residents and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.
Abdel-Kader’s death triggered rare protests in Idlib province — home to some three million people, many displaced from government-held areas — in recent weeks and calls for the release of detainees, according to the Britain-based Observatory.
The war monitor said demonstrations are taking place daily in towns and villages, most recently on Sunday evening, when protesters chanted slogans against HTS leader Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani.
Jolani has said the protesters’ demands were “mostly justified,” and announced changes including the restructuring of the security force running the prisons.
HTS’s media office told AFP the group was “seriously examining” the protesters’ demands and would “tighten security bodies’ work (and) improve prison infrastructure... to deal with any dysfunction.”
Hakim, an accountant originally from Aleppo province, said his brother participated in anti-government protests before becoming a fighter and was part of the small HTS-aligned Jaish Al-Ahrar group.
He said the faction told Abdel-Kader to report to HTS, considered a terrorist organization by several Western countries, on suspicions of collaborating with the government.
Abdel-Kader handed himself in on March 16 last year “on the understanding that he would be out... in a week at most,” Hakim said.
After detaining him for several months and then saying he was “in good health,” HTS stonewalled the family’s requests for information, according to Hakim.
Months later, a factional contact and a former fighter told the family Abdel-Kader had died due to torture.
Jaish Al-Ahrar only notified them formally on February 22 that Abdel-Kader was dead.
The family found his grave was “new but the date of death written on it was around 20 days after his arrest,” a distraught Hakim said.
Former detainees told Hakim his brother was “beaten with piping until he lost consciousness, and tied up by his hands for days without food or water.”
Abdel-Kader denied any wrongdoing “so they increased the torture until they killed him,” they told Hakim.
One former detainee said Abdel-Kader was tortured so severely that “he couldn’t walk because his feet were swollen and filled with pus.”
The day he died, the guards “tortured him for six hours” and after he was returned to the cell he “kept vomiting,” Hakim was told.
The grim treatment echoes torture that rights groups have reported in Syrian government-run prisons, particularly since 2011, with tens of thousands of people forcibly disappeared and arbitrarily detained.
Amnesty International in 2017 accused authorities of committing secret mass hangings in the notorious Saydnaya facility.
The Observatory said HTS this month released 420 prisoners in an amnesty aimed at quelling the discontent in the northwest.
But it made no difference for Noha Al-Atrash, 30, whose husband Ahmed Majluba has been detained since December 2022, accused alternately of theft and belonging to an extremist group.
“He has been arrested five times... there is no proven reason for his detention,” she said from her home in Idlib city as her two young children held photos of their father, 38.
Majluba, a laborer, was shot in the leg “during a previous period” in HTS detention, Atrash said.
“I go to the protests, I make posters with pictures of my husband on them, and I take the kids,” said Atrash who was covered head-to-toe in a niqab.
She and her children were themselves detained for around 20 days after she hounded authorities for information.
During one prison visit, she saw her husband’s hand was broken and “his face was swollen from beatings,” she said.
“They’ve asked us to pay $3,000 to have him released,” Atrash said, but added that she doesn’t have the money.
“I have no choice but to protest... I won’t give up as long as they have my husband,” she said defiantly.
The UN’s independent commission of inquiry on Syria said recently it had “reasonable grounds to believe” HTS members had committed “acts that may amount to the war crimes of torture and cruel treatment and unlawful deprivation of liberty.”
Bassam Alahmad from the Paris-based Syrians for Truth and Justice said people were “fed up with HTS violations” such as “arbitrary arrests and torture.”
He urged families and rights groups to gather independent, credible evidence for potential future investigations.
In a camp near the Turkish border, Amina Al-Hamam, 70, said her son Ghazwan Hassun was detained by HTS in 2019 on suspicion of “informing for the regime.”
“Some people tell us he’s dead, others say he’s alive,” the distressed elderly woman said, sitting with her son’s children, aged five and nine.
Days before being detained, Hassun, a defector from the Syrian police, had published a video criticizing HTS, his family said.
During Hamam’s only visit — eight months after he was detained — Hassun told her guards used a torture method notorious across Syria where the victim has their hands tied behind their back and is suspended from them for hours.
The family has heard nothing since about the 39-year-old but has vowed to keep fighting.
“I cry for him night and day,” said Hamam.
“We fled from injustice, but here we have seen worse.”


Israeli strikes batter Lebanon, killing five medics

Updated 22 November 2024
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Israeli strikes batter Lebanon, killing five medics

  • Israel has pushed on with its intense military campaign against Hezbollah, tempering hopes that efforts by a US envoy could lead to an imminent ceasefire
  • Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at Israeli troops east of Khiyam at least four times on Friday

BEIRUT: Israeli strikes battered southern Lebanon and the outskirts of the capital Beirut on Friday, killing at least five medics, as ground troops clashed with Hezbollah fighters in the south.
Israel has pushed on with its intense military campaign against the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah, tempering hopes that efforts by a US envoy could lead to an imminent ceasefire.
US mediator Amos Hochstein said earlier this week in Beirut that a truce was “within our grasp.” He traveled on to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz before returning to Washington, according to the news outlet Axios.
His trip aimed to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah along Lebanon’s southern border, which escalated dramatically when Israel ramped up its strikes in late September and sent ground troops into Lebanon on Oct. 1.
Israeli troops have fought Hezbollah in a strip of towns all along the border and this week pushed deeper to the edges of Khiyam, a town some six km (four miles) from the border. Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at Israeli troops east of Khiyam at least four times on Friday.
Lebanese security sources told Reuters that Israeli troops had also advanced in a string of villages to the west as well. They said Israel was most likely trying to isolate Khiyam ahead of a major attack on the town.
Israeli strikes on two other villages in southern Lebanon killed a total of five medics from a rescue force affiliated with Hezbollah, the Lebanese health ministry said.
The more than 3,500 people killed by Israeli strikes over the last year include more than 200 medics, the health ministry said.
Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from Israel’s north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which began firing across the border in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
Israel also mounted more strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, a once densely populated stronghold of Hezbollah.
It issued evacuation orders on the social media platform X for several buildings in the area on Friday. Reuters footage showed one of the strikes appearing to pierce the center of a multi-story building, sending the whole structure toppling in a massive cloud of smoke.


UN reports heavy clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah in south Lebanon

Updated 22 November 2024
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UN reports heavy clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah in south Lebanon

  • “We are aware of heavy shelling in the vicinity of our bases,” UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti said
  • Asked if the peacekeepers and staff at the headquarters are safe, Tenenti said: “Yes for the moment”

BEIRUT: Israeli troops fought fierce battles with Hezbollah fighters on Friday in different areas in south Lebanon, including a coastal town that is home to the headquarters of UN peacekeepers.
A spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL told The Associated Press that they are monitoring “heavy clashes” in the coastal town of Naqoura and the village of Chamaa to the northeast.
UNIFIL’s headquarters are located in Naqoura in Lebanon’s southern edge close to the border with Israel.
“We are aware of heavy shelling in the vicinity of our bases,” UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti said. Asked if the peacekeepers and staff at the headquarters are safe, Tenenti said: “Yes for the moment.”
Several UNIFIL posts have been hit since Israel began its ground invasion of Lebanon on Oct. 1, leaving a number of peacekeepers wounded.
The fighting came a day after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister and a Hamas military leader, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity over their 13-month war in Gaza and the October 2023 attack on Israel respectively.
The warrant marked the first time that a sitting leader of a major Western ally has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by a global court of justice.
Israel’s war has caused heavy destruction across Gaza, decimated parts of the territory and driven almost the entire population of 2.3 million people from their homes, leaving most dependent on aid to survive.
Israel launched its war in Gaza after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel has also launched airstrikes against Lebanon after the Hezbollah militant group began firing rockets, drones and missiles into Israel the day after Hamas’ attack last October. A full-blown war erupted in September after nearly a year of lower-level conflict.


Gaza ministry: hospitals to cut or stop services ‘within 48 hours’ over fuel shortages

Updated 22 November 2024
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Gaza ministry: hospitals to cut or stop services ‘within 48 hours’ over fuel shortages

  • All hospitals in Gaza would have to stop or reduce services “within 48 hours“

GAZA: The Hamas government’s health ministry warned Friday all hospitals in Gaza would have to stop or reduce services “within 48 hours” for lack of fuel, blaming Israel for blocking its entry.
“We raise an urgent warning as all hospitals in Gaza Strip will stop working or reduce their services within 48 hours due to the occupation’s (Israel’s) obstruction of fuel entry,” Marwan Al-Hams, director of Gaza’s field hospitals, said during a press conference.


Israel says to end ‘administrative detention’ for West Bank settlers

Updated 22 November 2024
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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 

Updated 22 November 2024
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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.