Syrians in Turkiye fear for future after Erdogan plans talks with Assad

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An aerial view shows the Atme camp for displaced Syrians close to the border with Turkey in Syria's northwestern Idlib province, on April 19, 2020. (AFP file photo)
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Family and friends say goodbye as Syrian refugee voluntarily board buses returning to neighbouring Syria on August 6, 2019 in the Esenyurt district of Istanbul. (AFP file photo)
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Updated 09 July 2024
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Syrians in Turkiye fear for future after Erdogan plans talks with Assad

  • The number of Syrian arrivals has worried Turks, who wonder if they will ever return home, prompting Erdogan to promise talks and an eventual “honorable” voluntary return for most

ISTANBUL: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s sudden plan to invite his estranged Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad for talks has raised fears among Syrians in Turkiye of being sent back, a week after a spate of anti-migrant violence already left them shaken.
Ankara severed ties with Damascus in 2011 after Syria’s civil war began and Turkish forces backed anti-Assad forces in the north. However, in the last two weeks, Erdogan has stressed the need for reconciliation with Turkiye’s neighbor.
On Sunday, he was quoted as saying he would invite Assad “any time” to work on returning to past relations with Syria, which has been severed by the war that drew in the US, Russia, Turkiye, and several armed groups.
“There are fears that Erdogan will make a deal with Assad and send the Syrians back” to Damascus-held parts of the country, said Samir Al-Abdullah, of the nonprofit Harmoon Center for Contemporary Studies in Istanbul.
“There are also those who fear they will be stripped of their Turkish citizenship,” he said of some of Turkiye’s more than 3 million Syrian war migrants.
Turkiye hosts more refugees than any other nation.
The number of Syrian arrivals has worried Turks, who wonder if they will ever return home, prompting Erdogan to promise talks and an eventual “honorable” voluntary return for most.
Ahmad, 19, a Syrian student in Istanbul’s Eyupsultan district, said his family is considering selling their properties in Turkiye due to the anti-immigrant unrest.
“They are scared even though they have Turkish citizenship,” he said, declining to give a surname for security reasons.
In Istanbul’s densely populated Sultanbeyli district, which houses many Syrian refugees, residents said attackers broke the windows of a Syrian-owned barber shop and chanted anti-immigrant slogans. A Syrian mother said her son, 8, now “wants to stay indoors because he believes people might do us harm.”
Erdogan said public order is a red line for the country.
Syria has said any normalization in ties can only come after Turkiye agrees to pull out thousands of troops from the rebel-held areas — a precondition Ankara has called unacceptable, citing security concerns over Syrian Kurdish fighters.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights, a UK-based advocacy group, said on Friday Syria is not safe for the return of millions of refugees from Turkiye.
Last week, Erdogan — who had somewhat hardened his stance on migrants ahead of presidential elections last year — has said that 670,000 people have returned to settlements in northern Syria, and another 1 million people are expected to return.

 


Israeli strikes batter Beirut in heaviest bombardment so far

Updated 4 sec ago
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Israeli strikes batter Beirut in heaviest bombardment so far

  • On Sunday, a grey haze hung over city and rubble was strewn across streets in southern suburbs, while smoke columns rose over area
  • Israel said its air force had ‘conducted a series of targeted strikes on a number of weapons storage facilities belonging to the Hezbollah’

BEIRUT: Israeli air attacks battered Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight and early on Sunday, the most intense bombardment of the Lebanese capital since Israel sharply escalated its campaign against Iran-backed group Hezbollah last month.
During the night, the blasts sent booms across Beirut and sparked flashes of red and white for nearly 30 minutes visible from several kilometers away.
It was the single biggest attack of Israel’s assault on Beirut so far, witnesses and military analysts on local TV channels said.
On Sunday a grey haze hung over the city and rubble was strewn across streets in the southern suburbs, while smoke columns rose over the area.
“Last night was the most violence of all the previous nights. Buildings were shaking around us and at first I thought it was an earthquake. There were dozens of strikes — we couldn’t count them all — and the sounds were deafening,” said Hanan Abdullah, a resident of the Burj Al-Barajneh area in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Videos posted on social media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed fresh damage to the highway that runs from Beirut airport through its southern suburbs into downtown.
Israel said its air force had “conducted a series of targeted strikes on a number of weapons storage facilities and terrorist infrastructure sites belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization in the area of Beirut.”
Lebanese authorities did not immediately say what the missiles had hit or what damage they caused.
This weekend’s intense bombardment came just ahead of the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on southern Israel in which some 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli figures.
The target of Israel’s airstrikes across Lebanon and its ground invasion in the south of the country is the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, Iran’s chief ally in the region. The assault has killed hundreds of people including civilians and has displaced 1.2 million, Lebanese officials say.
For days Israel has bombed the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh — considered a stronghold for Hezbollah but also home to thousands of ordinary Lebanese, Palestinian and Syrian refugees — killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Sept. 27.
A Lebanese security source said on Saturday that Hashem Safieddine, Nasrallah’s potential successor, had been out of contact since Friday, after an Israeli airstrike on Thursday near the city’s international airport that was reported to have targeted him.
Israel continues to bomb the area of the strike, preventing rescue workers from reaching it, Lebanese security sources said.
Hezbollah has not commented on Safieddine.
His loss would be another blow to the group and its patron Iran. Israeli strikes across the region in the past year, sharply accelerated in recent weeks, have devastated Hezbollah’s leadership.

Gaza war
Israel’s war in Gaza, launched after the Oct. 7 attacks and aimed at eliminating Hamas, another Iran-backed group, has killed nearly 42,000 people, Palestinian authorities say. The coastal enclave lies in ruins.
At least 26 people were killed and 93 others wounded when Israeli airstrikes hit a mosque and a school sheltering displaced people in the Gaza Strip early on Sunday, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said.
Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel a day after the Oct. 7 attacks and after Israel had begun bombing Gaza, saying it was acting in solidarity with the Palestinian group.
Cross-border fire continued between Israel and Hezbollah for months, but were mostly limited to the Israel-Lebanon border area before the recent upsurge.
Israel says it stepped up its assault on Hezbollah last month to enable the safe return of tens of thousands of citizens to homes in northern Israel, bombarded by the group since last Oct. 8.
Israeli authorities said on Saturday that nine Israeli soldiers had been killed in southern Lebanon so far.
In northern Israel, air raid sirens sounded on Sunday and the Israeli military said it had intercepted rockets fired from Lebanese territory.
Iran has signalled it does not want a direct war with Israel but has launched responses on occasion to Israeli attacks. It fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday that did little damage.
Israel has been weighing options for its response.


UN refugee chief says humanitarian law violated in strikes on Lebanon

A man stares at the devastation in the aftermath of an Israeli strike that targeted the Sfeir neighbourhood.
Updated 16 min ago
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UN refugee chief says humanitarian law violated in strikes on Lebanon

BEIRUT: The United Nations’ refugee chief Filippo Grandi said on Sunday that many strikes on Lebanon had violated international humanitarian law, in apparent reference to Israel’s bombardment of large parts of the country.
Grandi’s statement comes as Israeli air attacks battered Beirut’s southern suburbs overnight and early on Sunday in the most intense bombardment of the Lebanese capital since Israel sharply escalated its campaign against Hezbollah last month.
During the night, the blasts sent booms across Beirut and sparked flashes of red and white for nearly 30 minutes visible from several kilometers away.
It was the single biggest attack of Israel’s assault on Beirut so far, witnesses and military analysts on local TV channels said.
On Sunday a grey haze hung over the city and rubble was strewn across streets in the southern suburbs, while smoke columns rose over the area.
“Last night was the most violence of all the previous nights. Buildings were shaking around us and at first I thought it was an earthquake. There were dozens of strikes — we couldn’t count them all — and the sounds were deafening,” said Hanan Abdullah, a resident of the Burj Al-Barajneh area in Beirut’s southern suburbs.


Too hot by day, Dubai’s floodlit beaches are packed at night

Updated 33 min 10 sec ago
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Too hot by day, Dubai’s floodlit beaches are packed at night

  • The city has more than 800 meters of designated night beaches fitted with shark nets and illuminated by giant, bright floodlights
  • The idea, in one of the world’s hottest regions, with temperatures climbing ever higher through climate change, has proved popular

Dubai: Roasted by summer temperatures too hot for the beach, Dubai has turned to an innovative solution: opening them at night, complete with floodlights and lifeguards carrying night-vision binoculars.
The idea, in one of the world’s hottest regions, with temperatures climbing ever higher through climate change, has proved popular — more than one million people have visited the night beaches since last year, an official said.
Even with much of the region preoccupied with the widening conflict that pits Israel against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, the United Arab Emirates’ giant neighbor, the night beaches remain busy on weekend evenings.
“The temperature drops down in the evening after the sun sets. So, yeah, it’s amazing,” said Mohammed, 32, from Pakistan, who brought his children to enjoy the sea without having to worry about the burning Gulf sun.
For residents of Dubai, a coast-hugging, desert metropolis of about 3.7 million people, the hot season from June to October is an annual trial.
With temperatures regularly topping 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), often with high humidity, outdoor activities are severely limited.
The city now has more than 800 meters (yards) of designated night beaches fitted with shark nets and illuminated by giant, bright floodlights.
“While you’re... bathing inside the water, you can see the sand even on your foot and your hands and everything,” said Mohammed, who has lived in Dubai for a decade.
Lifeguards are posted 24 hours a day and, beyond the floodlights’ glare, they use the night-vision binoculars to keep an eye on swimmers or kayakers further out in the water.
Officials are also testing an artificial intelligence camera system meant to detect when people are in distress.
At nearly midnight on a recent Friday, with temperatures still above 30C (86F), Umm Suqeim beach was packed with people — mainly expatriates, who make up about 90 percent of the UAE’s population.
Mary Bayarka, a 38-year-old fitness coach from Belarus, was enjoying being outside after a “long, hot day,” even if the Gulf seawater was a little warm.
“It feels like (I’m) in a bath,” she said.
Nearby, Filipino saleswoman Laya Manko was burying her body in the sand. The beach is an escape for the 36-year-old, one of the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers who keep Dubai’s economy ticking.
“Every weekend we come here to have fun,” she said. “Sometimes we sleep here with my friends.
“Because you work hard in Dubai, you feel you need to relax. Yes, this is my stress reliever,” said Manko.
For the authorities, the night beaches are another way to tempt tourists, especially in summer when the stifling heat usually keeps them indoors.
“I believe we are one of the only cities in the world to have such infrastructure on public beaches at night,” said Hamad Shaker, an official from the Dubai municipality.
Dubai used to empty out in summer as expats fled the heat in droves, said Manuela Gutberlet, a tourism researcher at the University of Breda in the Netherlands.
But with attractions such as the world’s tallest building, giant malls and indoor amusement parks, it has become “a year-round urban destination,” attracting more than 17 million visitors last year, she said.
However, climate change could limit its ambitions, Gutberlet warned, citing the unprecedented rains that paralyzed the city for several days in April.
Extreme weather events and a further rise in temperatures could discourage some visitors, she said, highlighting the need to “adapt quickly to new risks.”
Meanwhile, Frenchman Laziz Ahmed, 77, found himself on the night beach during his first holiday in Dubai, where he was visiting relatives.
“During the day, I don’t go out much,” he said, adding that in the evening “I make up for it.”


Israeli strike hits car factory in Syria: monitor

An Israeli strike in Syria on Sunday targeted trucks transporting aid for Lebanese people. (File/AFP)
Updated 06 October 2024
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Israeli strike hits car factory in Syria: monitor

  • Israeli aircraft launched “air strikes with three missiles targeting... three trucks loaded with food and medical supplies inside an Iranian car factory,” the monitor said

BEIRUT: An Israeli strike in Syria on Sunday targeted trucks transporting aid for Lebanese people, wounding three aid workers, a war monitor said, the latest such attack on the country.
Israeli aircraft launched “air strikes with three missiles targeting... three trucks loaded with food and medical supplies inside an Iranian car factory... in southern Homs,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The attack destroyed the trucks and wounded three aid workers, said the British-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.
“The trucks crossed over from Iraq to provide humanitarian aid to Lebanese people” affected by intensifying Israeli strikes, it added.
On Friday, Lebanon said an Israeli air strike on the Syrian border cut off the main international road linking the two countries.
Israel has repeatedly targeted the border area in recent days because it says Hezbollah is bringing in weapons across the border from ally Syria.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria since the start of country’s civil war in 2011, mainly targeting army positions and Iran-backed fighters, including those of Hezbollah.
Israeli authorities rarely comment on individual strikes but have said repeatedly they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence in Syria.


Iran’s Khamenei decorates commander for Israel attack

Updated 06 October 2024
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Iran’s Khamenei decorates commander for Israel attack

  • The decoration was bestowed because of “the brilliant ‘Honest Promise’ operation”

TEHRAN: Iran’s supreme leader has decorated the Revolutionary Guards aerospace commander for the Islamic republic’s missile attacks on arch-foe Israel, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s website said on Sunday.
“Ayatollah Khamenei presented the Order of Fath (“Conquest” in Farsi) to General Amirali Hajjizadeh, commander of the Guards Aerospace Force,” it said.
The decoration was bestowed because of “the brilliant ‘Honest Promise’ operation,” the website said.
Hajjizadeh, 62, has headed the Guards aerospace unit since its creation in 2009.
On Tuesday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired some 200 missiles at Israel in retaliation for an Israeli air strike that killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and IRGC top general Abbas Nilforoushan in Beirut.
It was Iran’s second direct attack on Israel in six months, after a missile and drone assault in April in retaliation for a deadly strike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus, which Tehran blamed on Israel.
Israel has vowed to respond after Tuesday’s Iranian missile attack.