BEIRUT: Daesh fighters have killed nearly 4,100 people in Syria since 2019 when the jihadists lost their last stronghold in the country, a war monitor said Saturday.
Daesh overran large swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014, proclaiming a so-called caliphate and launching a reign of terror in June of that year.
In March 2019, the jihadist group lost its last scraps of Syrian territory in a Kurdish-led military campaign backed by a US-led coalition, but remnants continue to launch deadly attacks from desert hideouts.
Daesh fighters “have killed about 4,100 people in more than 2,550 operations in areas controlled by the regime or” the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration since 2019, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a report.
Most of the victims are soldiers, government loyalists and Kurdish-led fighters, but the toll also includes 627 civilians, the Britain-based Observatory said.
More than half of the 4,085 victims fell in Syria’s vast Badia desert, which runs from the outskirts of Damascus to the Iraqi border.
A total of “2,744 people have been killed by the Daesh group since its formal collapse in 2019, in various areas of the Syrian desert,” said the monitor, which relies on a network of sources inside the country.
Daesh fighters have killed more than 2,500 government loyalists and soldiers in the Badia since their so-called caliphate fell, according to the Observatory.
“Hardly a day goes by without bombings, ambushes, targeted operations or surprise attacks” by the jihadists in the region, the report said.
“These operations are met with periodic security campaigns carried out by regime forces and groups loyal to them deep in the desert, with... Russian warplanes targeting the desert on a near-daily basis,” it added.
The group has sustained heavy damage, losing more than 2,000 fighters including top leaders since 2019, the report found.
A United Nations report released in January said Daesh’s combined strength in Iraq and Syria was between 3,000 and 5,000 fighters, with the Badia serving as a logistics and operations hub for the group in Syria.
Syria’s war has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions more since it broke out in March 2011 with Damascus’s brutal repression of anti-government protests.
Daesh killed more than 4,000 since Syria territorial defeat: monitor
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Daesh killed more than 4,000 since Syria territorial defeat: monitor
- Most of the victims are soldiers, government loyalists and Kurdish-led fighters, but the toll also includes 627 civilians
Turkiye arrests 67 after mob attacks Syrian properties
ISTANBUL: Turkish police were holding 67 people Monday after a mob went on the rampage in a central Anatolian city after a Syrian man was accused of harassing a child.
A group of men targeted Syrian businesses and properties in Kayseri on Sunday evening, with videos on social media showing a grocery store being set on fire.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the latest bout of violence against Turkiye’s large community of Syrian refugees.
“No matter who they are, setting streets and people’s houses on fire is unacceptable,” he said, warning that hate speech should not be used for political gains.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said the Syrian national, identified only by his initials as I.A., was caught by Turkish citizens and delivered to the police.
Yerlikaya said on X that the Syrian man was suspected of harassing a Syrian girl, who was his relative.
He said Turks who gathered in the area acted “illegally” and in a manner “that does not suit our human values,” damaging houses, shops and cars belonging to Syrians.
Sixty-seven people were detained after the attacks, he said.
“Turkiye is a state of law and order. Our security forces continue their fight against all crimes and criminals today, as they did yesterday.”
In one of the videos a Turkish man was heard shouting: “We don’t want any more Syrians! We don’t want any more foreigners.”
Local authorities called for calm and revealed the victim was a five-year-old Syrian national.
Turkiye, which hosts some 3.2 million Syrian refugees, has been shaken several times by bouts of xenophobic violence in recent years, often triggered by rumors spreading on social media and instant messaging applications.
In August 2021, groups of men targeted businesses and homes occupied by Syrians in the capital Ankara, after a brawl which cost the life of a 18-year-old man.
The fate of Syrian refugees is also a burning issue in Turkish politics, with Erdogan’s opponents in last year’s election promising to send them back to Syria.
KSrelief treats thousands as health work continues in Yemen, Syria
- The dialysis center in Al-Ghaydah, in Yemen’s eastern province of Al-Mahra, treated 125 patients
RIYADH: A dialysis service by Saudi aid agency KSrelief treated scores of patients during May, Saudi Press Agency reported.
The dialysis center in Al-Ghaydah, in Yemen’s eastern province of Al-Mahra, treated 125 patients, including 53 who underwent a collective total of 441 scheduled kidney dialysis sessions and three emergency sessions.
Additionally, 75 patients were examined and received medical consultations at the center’s kidney disease clinic, said the report.
Of the total number of patients, 45 percent were male and 55 percent female. Residents made up 84 percent of those who were treated, while 1 percent were refugees and 15 percent were displaced.
Meanwhile KSrelief has continued to implement a project to enhance healthcare services for Syrian refugees and the host community in the town of Arsal, in Baalbek, Lebanon.
During May 2024, the Arsal Healthcare Center saw 12,789 patients who accessed services including clinics, pharmacy, laboratory, nursing, community health and psychological health programs.
The patients comprised 41 percent male and 59 percent female, with r
Some 41 percent of the patients were male and 59 percent female. Refugees made up 75 percent of the total, while the remaining 25 percent were residents.
More Palestinians forced onto jeep bonnet by Israeli soldiers: BBC report
LONDON: Two Palestinian men shot during a military operation in the occupied West Bank told the BBC how Israeli soldiers forced them onto the bonnet of an army jeep and then drove along village roads at high speeds.
Their testimonies come in the wake of footage showing 23-year-old Mujahid Abadi Balas clinging to the bonnet of what appears to be the same Israeli army jeep which has sparked international outrage.
Samir Dabaya, currently hospitalized in Jenin, recounted how he was shot in the back by Israeli forces during the operation in Jabariyat on Saturday. He said he lay face-down for hours, bleeding, until soldiers approached him. On finding the 25-year-old alive, they allegedly beat him with a gun before lifting him onto the vehicle.
“They took off my (trousers). I wanted to hold onto the car, but [one soldier] hit my face and told me not to. Then he started driving,” said Dabaya. “I was waiting for death.”
Dabaya provided the BBC with security camera footage purportedly showing him semi-naked on a fast-moving jeep which was marked with the number 1.
Another Palestinian, Hesham Isleit, also told the BBC he was shot twice during the Jabariyat operation and forced onto the same jeep.
Isleit described there being “shooting from all sides” and said he was collected by an army unit as he tried to flee after being shot in the leg.
He said the jeep was so hot “it felt like fire.”
“I was barefoot and undressed. I tried to put my hand on the jeep and I couldn’t, it was burning hot. I was telling them it was very hot, and they were forcing me to get on — telling me that if I didn’t want to die, I should do it,” he said.
Responding to the original video of Balas, the Israeli army stated he was tied to the jeep in “a violation of orders and procedures” and that an investigation would be conducted into the incident.
Gaza hospital chief among Palestinians freed by Israel
- Mohammed Abu Salmiya, other freed detainees cross back into Gaza from Israel just east of Khan Younis
JERUSALEM: Israel released the head of Gaza’s biggest hospital, who had been detained for more than seven months, among dozens of Palestinian prisoners returned Monday to the besieged territory for treatment.
His release was confirmed on social media by Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and by a medical source inside the Gaza Strip.
Al-Shifa director Mohammed Abu Salmiya was detained in November.
Successive raids have seen the hospital where he worked largely reduced to rubble since Israel launched its assault on Gaza after the October 7 Hamas attacks on southern Israel.
Salmiya and the other freed detainees crossed back into Gaza from Israel just east of Khan Younis, a medical source at the Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir El-Balah said.
Five detainees were admitted to Al-Aqsa hospital and the others were sent to hospitals in Khan Younis, the source added.
An AFP correspondent at Deir El-Balah saw some detainees have emotional reunions with their families.
Israel’s military said it was “checking” reports about the prisoner release.
However, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir confirmed the release when he posted on X, formerly Twitter, that Salmiya’s release “with dozens of other terrorists is security abandonment.”
Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals in the Gaza Strip as a cover for military operations and infrastructure.
The militant group, which has run the territory since 2007, denies the allegations.
In May, Palestinian rights groups said a senior Al-Shifa surgeon had died in an Israeli jail after being detained. Israel’s army said it was unaware of the death.
The war started with Hamas’s October 7 attack which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,877 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Israel strikes Gaza as militants claim rocket barrage
- The rockets were aimed at Israeli communities near the Gaza border
- Witnesses report constant Israeli tank fire in Gaza City’s Shujaiya district
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Israeli forces struck southern Gaza’s main city Monday after a rocket barrage claimed by militant group Islamic Jihad, and as shelling and fighting raged on across the besieged Palestinian territory.
A group of Palestinian detainees meanwhile returned to the Gaza Strip, including the director of its biggest hospital who recounted “severe torture” in Israeli custody.
The Israeli military said that about “20 projectiles were identified crossing from the area of Khan Yunis” in a rare salvo after nearly nine months of devastating conflict.
The rockets were aimed at Israeli communities near the Gaza border and were fired in retaliation for Israeli “crimes... against our Palestinian people,” said Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad which has fought alongside Hamas.
Most launches were intercepted, the Israeli military said, reporting no casualties and saying artillery was “striking the sources of the fire.”
Elsewhere in Gaza, witnesses and the civil defense agency reported Israeli air strikes including in the southern Rafah area and the central Nuseirat refugee camp.
Witnesses reported constant Israeli tank fire in Gaza City’s Shujaiya district where battles raged for a fifth day, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged Israeli forces were engaged in a “difficult fight.”
The military said troops “eliminated numerous terrorists” in raids in Shujaiya, where air strikes also killed “approximately 20” militants.
Israeli forces were also operating in Rafah and in central Gaza, a statement added.
Netanyahu, who recently declared that the “intense phase” of the war was winding down, said on Sunday troops were “operating in Rafah, Shujaiya, everywhere in the Gaza Strip.”
“This is a difficult fight that is being waged above ground... and below ground” in tunnels.
The war started with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,900 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Months of on-and-off talks toward a truce and hostage release deal have made little progress, with Hamas saying Saturday there was “nothing new” in a revised plan US mediators presented late last month.
The United Nations and relief agencies have voiced alarm over the dire humanitarian crisis and threat of starvation the war and Israeli siege have brought for Gaza’s 2.4 million people.
Israel’s ground operation in Rafah since early May has led to the closure of a key aid crossing, and a US-built temporary pier meant to facilitate humanitarian shipments was again removed from the Gaza coast over the weekend because of high seas.
The war has also led to soaring tensions on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where the army has traded fire with the Hezbollah movement, an Iran-backed Hamas ally.
In a displacement camp in Gaza’s Deir Al-Balah, pharmacist Sami Hamid said skin infections were on the rise, particularly among children, “because of the hot weather and lack of clean water.”
“The number of skin infections has increased, especially scabies and chickenpox,” as have hepatitis cases probably linked to untreated sewage flowing right beside tents, said Hamid.
Wafaa Elwan, displaced from Gaza City, said “no clean water” or basic hygiene products were available at the tent city.
“We no longer wash our children as before” and “treatment is not widely available,” Elwan said.
“My son... can’t stop scratching.”
