Rebel-backed Mohammad al-Bashir takes charge as Syria’s interim Prime Minister, Hezbollah chief says group lost its supply route through Syria, Israeli army committed 220 cease-fire violations of ceasefire in southern Lebanon, Lebanese army deploys in Khiam border town after Israeli withdrawal, Syrian Druze leaders call for annexation to Israel over security concerns, Israel continues to displace residents of southern Syrian territory captured in recent days, American released from Syrian prison is flown out of the country, Russia has reached out to HTS regarding maintaining its military presence in Syria, Intense Israel strikes on military sites in the coastal region of Tartous, Syrian Kurds preparing for dialogue with HTS following Assad’s fall, 58 people in Gaza massacred by Israel as airstrikes targeted aid trucks carrying flour, Egypt’s Sisi discusses Gaza ceasefire efforts, hostages with top US officials, Israel bombards schools and homes in Gaza a day after Nuseirat massacre, Jenin Brigades commander killed as PA forces raid occupied West Bank camp, At least nine killed in drone attack on hospital in Sudan’s Darfur
For the first time since the winter of 2011, the squares of Syria – of all Syria – were united in the chant of liberation, unity, and newfound dignity. The main difference since then has been the addition of the word ‘victory’ to the motto – this is how last Friday, December 13, was baptized: Friday of victory – as well as the greater courage with which the name of the deposed dictator, Bashar al-Assad, the last heir to a dynasty in power for 54 years, has been defaced: on posters, on banners, on the two-star tricolor finally replaced by the revolutionary flag.
And yet, the joy was not complete: although the time has finally come to publicly commemorate the victims of the regime’s brutal repression – their dignity overturned, from the accusation of terrorism to the celebration of political martyrdom – for the first time in decades, the unthinkable applications of the regime’s structured violence machine, forced upon political opponents – children included – came to light. And the enthusiasm of celebration was stained with the anguish of those still waiting for news of their loved ones. The fate of tens of thousands is in fact still hanging in the balance: as is the wish of finding, alive or dead – their bodies hopefully intact -, the disappeared ones.
According to a report released by The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), at least 157,634 people arrested in Syria since March 2011 were still under arrest or forcibly disappeared as of August 2024: including almost 5,300 children and more than 10,000 women. Of those, more than 86 percent were carried out by the Syrian regime, although all forces in the war took part in the machine of forced disappearance: the self-proclaimed Islamic State, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, all armed opposition factions, united in the Syrian National Army, and even the Hay’at Tahri al-Sham – now welcomed as a liberation movement, waiting for the whole world to see the face that the new Syria will take on, whether under their command or not.
Whether and how the war crimes of those responsible – the officers, prison guards, torturers, army commanders, those who arrested returnees at the border, under the false promise that nothing would happen to them – will be held accountable and punished, it is still too early to tell, while summary executions alternate with promises of amnesty: and tens of thousands of documents, serving as a way to condemn the regime’s officials, are being destructed in the chaos of war.
How the country will be rebuilt, who will pay; which alliances will be considered exploitable – and which powers will be turned their backs on; what will be the fate of the occupied Golan, over which looms the – now real – threat of a new Israeli invasion. What space will be given to minorities; whether the Palestinian resistance will really be disarmed, as is beginning to circulate; which model will inspire the government that will follow the transition – whether the Lebanese one, caught in the web of foreign influences and sectarian divisions, that of an orderly transition under UN aegis, or the Libyan one, hostage to a myriad of warlords, foreign forces and extremist groups, all engaged in a violent competition for control of resources and power. Or whether a fourth way has yet to be defined.
And again, who will inherit the billion-dollar business of Captagon production, or whether the industries that are beginning to come to light will be dismantled; how many more mass graves still have to be found, before we have any idea of the limits the regime has been capable of – if it is still possible to talk about limits and capabilities; what will happen to the millions of Syrian refugees in Europe and the rest of the world, whose asylum applications are beginning to be frozen.
These are all open questions, their answers yet to be seen. For what started in the winter of 2011, in the same squares that today can finally chant victory, and costed 13 years of at least 230,000 dead and 12 million forcibly displaced, was not a revolution, but a long, bloody coup d’état: the revolution, the real one, starts now.
In Lebanon
Israel violations continue: The Israeli army on Friday committed five more violations of the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire, which took effect last month to end a year-long conflict between the Israeli army and Hezbollah. According to the official Lebanese National News Agency (NNA), the Israeli violations concentrated in the districts of Tyre and Sidon in southern Lebanon, including air raids and drone flights.
The Israeli army carried out a raid on a valley between the towns of Al-Shaitiyeh and Jabal Al-Botom in the Tyre district. In the Sidon district, an Israeli raid targeted the Al-Sanibar area, in the outskirts of the town of Al-Zrariyeh, from the direction of the town of Ansar. Another raid was documented on the town of Naqoura, according to NNA.
Lebanese authorities have reported around 220 Israeli violations of the cease-fire since the deal came into force on November 27.
Under the ceasefire terms, Israel is required to withdraw its forces south of the Blue Line – a de facto border – in phases, while the Lebanese army is to deploy in southern Lebanon within 60 days. The US and France are responsible for overseeing the agreement’s implementation, but details on enforcement mechanisms are unclear.
Returning to Khiyam: On Wednesday evening, the Israeli occupation forces began withdrawing from the southern city of Khiam, in the first executive steps to a ceasefire agreement and the deployment of the Lebanese army on the border. The state-run National News Agency reported that a UNIFIL Engineering Regiment team entered Khiam from the north to inspect the road and confirm the enemy army’s withdrawal.” A Lebanese force waited to receive the green light from UNIFIL before entering.
The first phase of the army’s deployment began with engineering teams, who opened roads and inspected unexploded ordnance, and ensured that all Israeli forces have left before more Lebanese soldiers are stationed, the army said in a statement. According to the US-brokered ceasefire deal, in line with UN Resolution 1701, the Israeli army has 60 days to exit south Lebanon, where the Lebanese Armed Forces will gradually deploy thousands of its troops. Hezbollah must move its fighters and heavy weapons behind the Litani River.
Despite coming into effect on 27 November, Israel has continued to violate the ceasefire deal. Hundreds of violations have included home detonations, shooting at civilians, and airstrikes believed to be in line with Israel’s scorched earth strategy. On the same day the Israeli army withdrew from Khiam, three people were killed in Bint Jbeil, one person in the neighboring Aynata, and another person in Beit Lif.
Hezbollah speaks: On Saturday, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said that the Lebanese armed group had lost its supply route through Syria, in his first comments since the toppling of President Bashar al-Assad nearly a week ago by a sweeping rebel offensive.
Under Assad, Iran-backed Hezbollah used Syria to bring in weapons and other military equipment from Iran, through Iraq and Syria and into Lebanon. But on December 6, anti-Assad fighters seized the border with Iraq and cut off that route, and two days later, Islamist opposition forces captured the capital Damascus.
“Yes, Hezbollah has lost the military supply route through Syria at this stage, but this loss is a detail in the resistance’s work,” Qassem said in a televised speech on Saturday, without mentioning Assad by name. “A new regime could come and this route could return to normal, and we could look for other ways,” he added.
Hezbollah started intervening in Syria in 2013 to help Assad fight rebels seeking to topple him at that time. Last week, as rebels approached Damascus, the group sent supervising officers to oversee a withdrawal of its fighters there. Now that more than 50 years of Assad family rule has been replaced with a transitional caretaker government put in place by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a former al-Qaeda affiliate that spearheaded the rebel offensive, Qassem said Hezbollah “cannot judge these new forces until they stabilize” and “take clear positions” – yet said he hoped that the Lebanese and Syrian peoples and governments could continue to cooperate.
“We also hope that this new ruling party will consider Israel an enemy and not normalize relations with it. These are the headlines that will affect the nature of the relationship between us and Syria,” Qassem said.
In Syria
A new Syria: Syria’s new interim leader announced on Tuesday he was taking charge of the country as caretaker prime minister with the backing of the former rebels who toppled President Bashar al-Assad one week ago. In a brief address on state television, Mohammad al-Bashir, a figure little known across most of Syria who previously ran an administration in a pocket of the northwest controlled by Islamist opposition forces, said he would lead the interim authority until March 1. “Today we held a cabinet meeting that included a team from the Salvation government that was working in Idlib and its vicinity, and the government of the ousted regime,” he said, adding that “the meeting was under the headline of transferring the files and institutions to caretake the government.”
Bashir ran the rebel-led Salvation Government before the 12-day lightning rebel offensive swept into Damascus. Behind him were two flags – the green, black and white flag flown by opponents of Assad throughout the civil war, and a white flag with the Islamic oath of faith in black writing, typically flown in Syria by Sunni Islamist fighters.
In the Syrian capital, banks reopened for the first time since Assad’s overthrow. Shops also opened again, traffic returned to the roads, cleaners were out sweeping the streets and there were fewer armed men about. Sources close to the rebels told Reuters their command had ordered fighters to withdraw from cities, and for police and internal security forces affiliated with the main rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Shams (HTS) to deploy there.
United, separated: With the departure of the Syrian regime’s security forces following the fall of Bashar al-Assad, the Israeli army has entered the separation zone on the Golan Heights, between the area occupied by Israel and Syrian territory. It was since 1973, during the Yom Kippur war – also known as October war – that the Israeli forces had not operated in the area.
A recent gathering in Hader, a Druze village on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, featured community leaders publicly advocating for annexation to Israel. Videos circulating on social media showed a local dignitary addressing a crowd, declaring, “if we have to choose, we will choose the lesser evil – to be annexed to the [Israeli] Golan,” claiming “Israel will protect the dignity of the Druze.” The speaker described Israel as a safer alternative to Islamist armed groups, which he accused of threatening their families and communities. The crowd responded with chants of agreement.
The convention reflected the fears of Druze communities in the region, which previously remained loyal to the Assad regime: according to local sources, some of these villages now fear retaliation from other Syrians opposed to Assad. Nevertheless, in Druze-majority Suwayda, residents have held near-weekly protests for years in support of the revolution. Like much of the country, the region has suffered under tyrannical rule, poverty, and Assad’s henchmen.
The Druze in Syria make up around four percent of the population, and are concentrated primarily in Suwayda and Quneitra, with some around Damascus and in the northwestern Idlib governorate. There remain four Druze towns in the occupied Golan, where most residents have long refused Israeli citizenship.
In fact, the Druze community of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights cherished the fall of the regime. In Majdal Shams, for example – at the center of the media’s attention when last summer a rocket killed 12 children in a football field -, people vigorously celebrated Assad’s overthrow by Islamist-led forces over the weekend, gathering in the main square to sing and wave the distinctive five-colored flag of the Druze.
Israel conquered most of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 six-days war and annexed those areas in 1981, in a move only the United States has recognized. Many in the area still hold Syrian nationality, and residents have the right to apply for Israeli citizenship – and the obligation to serve in the IDF. The occupied Golan is also home to numerous Israeli settlements including Trump Heights, inaugurated in 2019 in honor of then-US president Donald Trump who recognized Israel’s annexation.
From its side, the Israeli government has expressed no interest in giving up its control on the Golan Heights. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered Israeli troops to seize the UN-patrolled buffer zone separating the Israeli and Syrian-controlled Golan at the weekend. Afterwards, Netanyahu said that the annexed Golan would remain Israeli “for eternity.”
All winter: Israeli forces will stay in Mount Hermon in Syria “throughout all winter,” Tel Aviv’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Friday, calling the land grab a historic moment for Israel. Katz posted a photo of himself with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Golan Heights. “A view of the summit of the Syrian Mount Hermon, which returned to Israeli control after 51 years,” the photo was captioned, as Katz described the matter as an “exciting, historic moment.”
“Given what is happening in Syria, there is great security importance for us to remain on the top of Mount Hermon, a strategic location overlooking Damascus,” a statement from Katz’s press office said. Quickly after the Assad regime was toppled in Damascus on Sunday, Israel swooped in and captured the Syrian side of Mount Hermon which spans neighboring Lebanon.
Since then, it has gradually seized more land along the UN buffer zone that had once separated the Golan from the rest of Syria, particularly in the Quneitra governorate. Israel has also launched hundreds of airstrikes in the rest of Syria, claiming to have destroyed Syria’s strategic weapons, including naval warships and 90 percent of Syria’s surface-to-air missiles.
The Israeli government has dubbed its Syria operations ‘Operation Bashan Arrow,’ referencing a Biblical name of the region. Netanyahu himself – wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Gaza – has claimed that the Israeli military presence inside Syria was only temporary and for security reasons. But many Syrians are doubtful, and worried that this is the start of a plan to annex more land.
Intense airstrikes: Intense Israeli strikes targeted military sites in Syria’s coastal Tartous region overnight from Sunday to Monday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “Israeli fighter jets launched strikes” on several locations, including air defense units and “surface-to-surface missile depots,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. The NGO described the operation as “the heaviest strikes since 2012” in the Tartous coastal region, which also hosts a Russian naval base.
The powerful bombings were seen and heard from Akkar, in the north of Lebanon.
The Kurdish question: Syrian Kurdish groups have welcomed the ousting of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, viewing it as a historic opportunity for change after 54 years of rule by the Assad dynasty. However, concerns remain among Kurdish communities about potential opposition to Kurdish rights from the Islamist rebels who led the regime’s overthrow. At the same time as the uprising against the regime, in fact, the Turkish-led Syrian National Army (SNA) launched an offensive against Kurdish-majority territories in northern Syria.
As Aleppo collapsed to the lightning HTS-led offensive, the SNA seized on the momentum to capture the town of Tel Rifaat and surrounding villages from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). 125,000 Kurds have already fled from that area: they are enduring freezing winter conditions on their way to the relative safety of the Kurdish-administered territories east of the Euphrates River. It is still unclear if HTS can provide security guarantees for any Kurds who decide to remain in their homes in the city.
The SNA consists of numerous armed groups that Turkey has used as proxies, mainly against the YPG and the larger multi-ethnic Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the military arm of the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), which governs a significant portion of the country: and of which the YPG is the backbone. Turkey used these rebels to invade the northwestern Kurdish enclave of Afrin in 2018, displacing tens of thousands of its native population, primarily into the adjacent Tel Rifaat area. These same Kurds now find themselves displaced once again.
However, following Assad’s fall on Sunday, Mazloum Abdi, the top commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said that “this change is an opportunity to build a new Syria based on democracy and justice that guarantee the rights of all Syrians.” On Thursday, the AANES announced its decision to raise the new Syrian flag adopted by the rebels. Both the SDF and AANES have in fact expressed their readiness to engage in dialogue with the new authorities in Damascus over the status of Syrian Kurds and other ethnic and religious minorities in territories under their administration.
Kamal Akif, a spokesperson for the AANES, confirmed in a statement on Friday that “the autonomous administration currently works to prepare for the dialogue period.”
During the 13-year civil war, moreover, the US got involved with Syria’s Kurds, allying with them to combat the Islamic State (IS). While fighting against the IS group, Syrian Kurds also expanded the terrain under their control, including Arab-majority areas like Raqqa and Deir al-Zour.
All these issues, past and present, remain at the root of the problems the Syrian Kurds are now dealing with. Now that the Assad regime has gone, they are being squeezed between Syrian Arab groups and Turkey, with the US as their only ally. In fact, one of the questions that most worries Syria’s Kurds is how long the American alliance will last after President-elect Donald Trump reenters the White House. There are fears the incoming Trump administration will withdraw US soldiers from Syria altogether, abandoning the Kurds. Currently, there are still an estimated 900 US soldiers in the country.
American citizen released: The US military has transported Travis Timmerman, an American who had disappeared seven months ago into former President Bashar al-Assad’s notorious prison system, out of Syria. 29 years old, he was among the thousands released last week by HTS, a US official said Friday, and was flown out of Syria on a US military helicopter, according to a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing operation.
Timmerman was detained after he crossed into Syria while on a Christian pilgrimage from a mountain along the eastern Lebanese town of Zahle in June. He told The Associated Press that he was not ill-treated while in Palestine Branch, a notorious detention facility operated by Syrian intelligence. In his prison cell, Timmerman said, he had a mattress, a plastic drinking container and two others for waste. He had been held separately from Syrian and other Arab prisoners and said he didn’t know of any other Americans held in the facility.
The Russian move: While the release of Timmerman might improve the relations between HTS and the United States, Russia’s role in the newly-liberated Syria risks being undermined. The Kremlin has in fact established direct contacts with the political committee of Syria’s rebel group, the Interfax news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov as saying on Thursday.
Interfax reported that Bogdanov, speaking to journalists, said that Moscow aimed to maintain its military bases in Syria to continue “fighting international terrorism.” Bogdanov said contacts with HTS, the most powerful force in the country after the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad, were “proceeding in constructive fashion,” and that he hoped the group would fulfil its pledges to “guard against all excesses,” maintain order and ensure the safety of diplomats and other foreigners.
Bogdanov said Russia hoped to maintain its two bases in Syria – a naval base in Tartus and the Khmeimim Air Base near the port city of Latakia – to keep up efforts against international terrorism. Maintaining that fight, he said, “requires collective efforts and in this connection, our presence and the Khmeimim base played an important role in the context of the overall fight against international terrorism.”
Russia has been implicated in almost a decade of brutal aerial assaults on civilian areas held by Syrian Islamist-opposition forces, killing thousands, including dozens this month, after it intervened on behalf of Bashar al-Assad in 2015.
In The Region
Another flour massacre: Gaza’s Civil Defense agency said a series of Israeli airstrikes on Thursday killed at least 58 people, including 12 guards securing aid trucks. The latest bloodshed came despite growing optimism that negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release deal might finally succeed, with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan saying on Thursday that the regional ‘context’ had changed in favor of an agreement.
Seven guards were killed in a strike in Rafah, in southern Gaza, while another attack left five guards dead in nearby Khan Yunis, agency spokesman Mahmud Basal said. “The occupation once again targeted those securing the aid trucks,” Basal told AFP, though the military said it “does not strike humanitarian aid trucks.” Around 30 people, most of them children, were wounded in the two strikes: the trucks carrying flour were on their way to UNRWA warehouses. Witnesses later told AFP that residents looted flour from the trucks after the strikes.
The Israeli military said its forces “conducted precise strikes” overnight on armed Hamas militants present in an Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in southern Gaza.
The United Nations and aid agencies have repeatedly warned about the acute humanitarian crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip, exacerbated by the war that has persisted for more than 14 months. “Conditions for people across the Gaza Strip are appalling and apocalyptic,” UNRWA spokeswoman Louise Wateridge told journalists during a visit to Nuseirat in central Gaza. She added that life-saving aid to “besieged areas in north Gaza governorate has been largely blocked” since the Israeli military launched a sweeping assault there in early October.
In southern Gaza, UNRWA said earlier this week it had successfully delivered enough food aid for 200,000 people. But on Thursday it said “a serious incident” meant that only one truck out of a convoy of 70 travelling along Gaza’s southern border reached its destination.
Towards a ceasefire deal: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi discussed with visiting US officials on Saturday efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and a prisoner exchange deal in the Palestinian enclave, Sisi’s office said. The officials who met Sisi in Cairo included US national security adviser Jake Sullivan and US Middle East envoy Brett McGurk.
Moreover, new hope for an agreement had senior Biden administration officials fanning out across the Middle East this week with the goal of closing on a critical pact by the end of 2024. According to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, Hamas has now agreed to Israeli forces staying in the Gaza Strip temporarily after fighting ends and to provide a complete list of hostages, including Americans, who will be released.
“There is a confidence we have not seen since May when the President Joe Biden presented his proposal,” the Biden administration official told NBC News, acknowledging that Trump’s warning that he wants to see a deal before he takes office was “a big factor” in recent concessions. The Oval Office has only one occupant at a time and Trump won’t take over until January 20, but Biden has appeared deferential to letting his successor get involved in negotiations and has not pushed back on his efforts to be engaged in talks.
Ongoing violence: Yet, as diplomacy aimed at ending the war appeared to be gaining pace again, the violence continued. Israel is still attacking homes and schools across the Gaza Strip, killing and injuring several people just one day after dozens were massacred in a strike on Nuseirat camp.
On Thursday, Israeli airstrikes on two homes near Nuseirat refugee camp – which was again hit later in the evening – and Gaza City killed 21 people. Fifteen people, at least six of them children, were also killed by an Israeli bombing of a building sheltering displaced people near the camp. Another strike late on Thursday killed at least 25 people and wounded 50 others in the same area, the Civil Defense said.
Dawn raids on Saturday killed four members of the Saadallah family in their home in Jabalia, two people in a school northeast of Gaza City and one person sheltering in a tent south of Khan Younis, Palestinian news agency Wafa said. Later that day, the military killed seven people in a strike on Al-Majida Wasila School in the northern Al-Rimal neighborhood west of Gaza City, according to Wafa.
The news agency also reported a drone attack on a group of civilians at the Jalaa Junction northwest of Gaza City, which killed one woman and injured several others. Another civilian was killed in an airstrike west of Al-Nuseirat camp. A further five citizens were injured in a drone attack on the Al-Mawasi area west of Rafah city.
In northern Gaza, which has been under an even tighter siege over the past two months, Israeli forces blew up buildings and burned dozens of homes in and around Beit Lahiya while firing at Kamal Adwan Hospital, according to Wafa. Reporting from Deir el-Balah, local reporters mentioned stepped-up overnight attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital, near Beit Lahiya, the previous day, which saw medical staff injured and an ambulance set ablaze. The Israeli military was reportedly trying to take ambulances out of service. The director of the hospital’s intensive care unit, Dr. Ahmed Al-Kahlout, was killed in a drone strike last month.
Jenin, Jenin: Fighting has erupted in the Jenin refugee camp between Palestinian security forces and the Jenin Brigades, leaving commander Yazid Ja’ayseh dead and several other people injured. The fighting at dawn came five days after Palestinian Authority (PA) forces surrounded the camp and is, according to PA spokesperson Brigadier General Anwar Rajab, the penultimate stage of ‘Operation Protect the Homeland,’ launched to “eradicate sedition and chaos” in the West Bank.
PA forces reportedly prevented residents from bidding farewell to Ja’ayseh, with claims that his body was being withheld. The Popular Resistance Committees condemned the killing as “a serious violation of all national norms and traditions” that is “in line with the Zionist agenda that aims to eliminate the resistance in the West Bank.” In a separate statement, Hamas described Ja’ayseh as a “martyr leader” and condemned his killing as “shameful” adding that it would “fuel internal disputes.”
Tensions have further escalated in the occupied territory after the PA arrested several armed fighters earlier this month. On Thursday, the PA also admitted that its forces were responsible for the death of a 19-year-old Palestinian youth, Rahbi Shalabi, during clashes with fighters in Jenin. After the clashes that killed Shalabi and wounded a 16-year-old relative of his, Hamas condemned the PA security forces, which is dominated by its political rival Fatah.
The Palestinian Authority’s campaign on Jenin has coincided with the Israeli Army invading towns in Khalil and Nablus, carrying out suppression and arresting operations.
War-torn Sudan: At least nine people have been killed and 20 others injured following a drone strike that hit a hospital in the city of el-Fasher in Sudan’s northern Darfur region. The Federal Ministry of Health blamed the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for the attack, which took place on Friday. Officials say the group fired four rocket-propelled grenades towards the city’s main healthcare facility.
A resistance committee in el-Fasher, involved in relief efforts, said the attack targeted the Saudi hospital, forcing it to suspend medical services. It was the last remaining open hospital in the city.
The Sudanese army and RSF have been fighting in el-Fasher since May 10. The city has been a hub for humanitarian efforts in Darfur by the United Nations and other international aid agencies.
Friday’s strike was only the latest in a wave of devastating attacks in the region last week. On Monday, more than 100 people – including women and children – were killed in an air strike on an open-air market in Kabkabiya, a town in northern Darfur, about 180 km from el-Fasher, according to the rights group Emergency Lawyers. Human rights groups condemned the Sudanese army for the attack. “Bombing a market full of civilians is one of the clearest examples of a war crime that exists,” said Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International regional director for East and Southern Africa.
On Tuesday, the RSF also shelled the Zamzam displacement camp in north Darfur. The attack killed five people, according to the civil society group Darfur General Coordination of Camps for the Displaced and Refugees. The mounting civilian casualties come amid continuing clashes across the country between the Sudanese army and RSF.
Also on Tuesday, the RSF targeted an army-controlled area within the city of Omdurman in Khartoum – Sudan’s second-most populous city – with heavy artillery fire. State-aligned Khartoum Governor Ahmed Othman Hamza said the attack killed at least 65 people.
More than 16,000 people have been killed since the conflict began, with another 10 million displaced and 25 million in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the UN.
What We’re Reading
A cost for stabilization: Maan Barazy analysed how, while the Syria coup revives geopolitical trade and redesign economic supply routes and partners, in Lebanon a cost for stabilization will see more dumping of the dollar. In fact, whether the money markets will relax after a change of regime in Syria or not, Lebanon continues to face depressed economic activity stemming from the onset of the economic crisis in late 2019.
The gene of escaping: Reine Abbas drew for NOW a political cartoon emphasizing how last week has demonstrated that even leaders who once considered themselves untouchable and immovable can be overthrown in a matter of hours – or even minutes. Fleeing their countries in cowardice, they now find themselves as refugees, a fitting reversal of fate for those who caused so much harm during their rule.
Hypocrisy on full display: NOW’s Ramzi Abou Ismail wrote that “Lebanon today stands divided by selective outrage and polarizing rhetoric.” The Syrian conflict and its aftermath have brought these contradictions to the forefront, particularly in the way many justify atrocities committed by the Assad regime while expressing fear of hypothetical futures under an Islamic regime in Syria. In his opinion, this selective humanitarianism, coupled with weaponized accusations of treason, has fractured Lebanon’s political and social fabric, leaving little room for meaningful dialogue or accountability.
Drinking Pepsi in Dahieh: Framing the history and successes of BDS movement, as well as the crimes the company PepsiCo is built on in the occupied Palestinian Territories, Valeria Rando discussed the limits, exceptions and paradoxes of boycotting.
Lebanon +
Al-Jazeera’s The Inside Story podcast released an episode about the fate of the Syrian refugees in Europe. As more than a million Syrians have sought asylum in Europe in the past 13 years, several European countries paused Syrian asylum requests days after the al-Assad dynasty collapsed. At least eight nations have already frozen Syrian asylum applications. Bernard Smith, in conversation with Louise Calvey – executive director of refugee rights charity Asylum Matters, Bushra Alzoubi – Syrian refugee and human rights activist, and Daniel Sohege – specialist in international refugee law and protection, tried to answer the questions: what triggered the decisions? Do European governments believe Syria is safe for refugees to return? And if they do choose to go home, what lies ahead?
