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Violence in Syria rises, aid dries up as civil war begins 14th year
For years, Syria’s civil war has been a largely frozen conflict, the country effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus government of President Bashar Assad, various opposition groups and Syrian Kurdish forces.
But as the conflict entered its 14th year on Friday, observers say violence has been on the rise again while the world’s attention is mostly focused on other crises, such as Russia’s onslaught on Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
In the village of al-Nayrab in the northwestern, opposition-held enclave of Idlib, Ali al-Ahmad burns olive branches in a stove to keep his partially destroyed house warm.
NEARLY 30,000 CHILDREN ARE SUFFERING HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN SYRIA, UN-BACKED COMMISSION SAYS
He has been living in the damaged house, struck in a recent round of shelling by government forces. It’s in better condition than many of the surrounding houses that were reduced to rubble, he says. When a new round of bombing starts, he leaves for a while to stay in one of the nearby displacement camps until the situation calms and he can return and repair the damage.
«We return for a day or two, then they start shelling us,» he said. «We leave for a few days, then return to our village to find our homes destroyed.»
The U.N.-backed body known as the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria said this week that since October, the country has seen the worst wave of violence since 2020.
The Syrian civil war has entered its fourteenth year. The U.N.’s World Food Program estimates that over 12 million Syrians lack regular access to food. In December, the World Food Program announced that it would stop its main assistance program in Syria in 2024. (AP Photo)
The war, which has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million, began as peaceful protests against Assad’s government in March 2011.
The protests — part of the Arab Spring popular uprisings that spread across much of the Middle East that year — were met by a brutal crackdown, and the revolt quickly spiraled into a full-blown civil war, which was further complicated by the intervention of foreign forces on all sides of the conflict, as well as a rising militancy, first by al-Qaida-linked groups and then the Islamic State group until its defeat in 2019.
Russia, along with Iran, became Assad’s biggest ally in the war, Turkey backed an array of Syrian opposition groups while the United States supported Syrian Kurdish forces in the fight against IS. Israel has carried out airstrikes targeting the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Iranian forces in Syria.
Over the years, the battlefields became stalemated in the war-ravaged nation.
The recent surge in violence began with a drone strike on a military academy graduation ceremony in government-held city of Homs in October that killed dozens.
Syrian government and allied Russian forces then launched a bombardment of the opposition-held northwest that hit «well-known and visible hospitals, schools, markets and camps for internally displaced persons,» the commission said.
Elsewhere, increasingly frequent Israeli strikes targeted Iran-linked targets in government-held parts of Syria — attacks that sometimes also hit civilians. Turkey stepped up its attacks on U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria, while militants from IS sleeper cells have launched sporadic attacks in different parts of the country.
In recent weeks, opposition-held areas have also seen unrest, with protests breaking out in Idlib against the leadership of the al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group that governs the area.
With all the multiple and complex layers of the conflict, there is no resolution of the crisis in sight for Syria.
David Carden, the U.N.’s Deputy Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria crisis, said during a recent visit to northwest Syria that the U.N.’s humanitarian response plan for 2023, which had appealed for more than $5 billion, only received 38% of the funds sought — the lowest level since the United Nations started issuing the appeals.
«There are 4.2 million people in need in northwest Syria, and 2 million of those are children,» of whom 1 million are not going to school, he said. «This is a lost generation.»
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Compounding Syria’s misery was the devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake on Feb. 6, 2023, that killed more than 59,000 people in Turkey and Syria. Some 6,000 of them were killed in Syria alone, mainly in the northwest, where most of the 4.5 million people rely on humanitarian aid to survive.
United Nations agencies and other humanitarian organizations have been struggling to fund programs that provide a lifeline in Syria, blaming donor fatigue, the COVID-19 pandemic, and conflicts elsewhere that have erupted in recent years.
The U.N.’s World Food Program, which estimates that over 12 million Syrians lack regular access to food, announced in December that it would stop its main assistance program in Syria in 2024.
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Netanyahu slams ‘terrorist-supporting’ UN council that accused Israel of committing sexual crimes
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is facing intense backlash from Israel over its report accusing Israel of employing sexual violence against Palestinians since October 2023. The report, entitled «’More than a human can bear’: Israel’s systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence since October 2023» contains serious allegations against the Jewish state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement on the report, calling the UNHRC «an antisemitic, corrupt, terrorist-supporting and irrelevant body.»
«Instead of focusing on crimes against humanity and the war crimes committed by the Hamas terrorist organization during the worst massacre against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, the UN once again chooses to attack the State of Israel with false accusations, including outrageous and baseless allegations of sexual violence. This is not a Human Rights Council – it is a Blood Rights Council,» Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a statement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference in Jerusalem on December 9, 2024. (MAYA ALLERUZZO/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
UN FINALLY RECOGNIZES THAT ISRAELI WOMEN WERE RAPED, SEXUALLY ATTACKED BY HAMAS TERRORISTS
Multiple Israeli officials said the report constituted a «blood libel» and said it ignored the acts of sexual violence on Oct. 7.
US Ambassador Designate to the United Nations Elise Stefanik also condemned the «baseless report» as «antisemitic and anti-Israel slander.»
«The so-called ‘Human Rights Council’ has failed to condemn the barbaric atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists against Israel including the brutal slaughter, torture, kidnapping of thousands of innocent civilians, and Hamas’ horrific use of rape and sexual violence against Israeli women and girls, yet disgracefully attacks Israel with unfounded smears,» Stefanik said in a statement.
Additionally, Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon called the report «another vile and distorted document from the UN.»
«This report is not even worth the paper it was printed on. Anyone who supported this false publication is complicit in whitewashing Hamas’ war crimes and trampling on the truth,» Danon said in a statement. «The UN is busy looking for ways to blame Israel instead of facing reality. History will judge you.»
Israeli Permanent Member to the United Nations Danny Danon speaks during a session of the Security Council at the New York City headquarters. (Israel United Nations mission)
UNITED NATIONS SLAMMED FOR SILENCE OVER HAMAS RAPES, MUTILATION AND MURDER OF ISRAELI WOMEN, CRITICS SAY
UNWatch Executive Director Hillel Neuer told Fox News Digital, «the U.N. inquiry is as objective as a Stalinist show trial, and that’s why they completely twisted the facts to falsely accuse Israel of the crimes that Hamas actually committed.»
The report documents a wide range of alleged abuses by Israeli troops, which it calls the Israel Security Forces (ISF), rather than the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the military’s actual name in both Hebrew and English. The report also condemned how Israel was carrying out the war, saying that the destruction led to «disproportionate violence against women and children.»
Additionally, there are complaints in the report of forced public stripping. However, Israel has said that this is necessary to ensure detainees are not hiding explosives. Former IDF Spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus was quoted in the report as saying this in a 2023 CNN interview. Even the report acknowledges that «strip-searches for security justifications are not unlawful,» but claims that Israel’s process was not up to international standards.
A view of the United Nations Headquarters building in New York City, United States on July 16, 2024. (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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Chair of the Commission Navi Pillay condemned the «deplorable increase in sexual and gender-based violence.» She also says that Israel uses sexual violence to «terrorize» Palestinians and to create «a system of oppression that undermines their right to self-determination.»
«For decades, the head of the Inquiry, Navi Pillay, has been the world’s leading champion of the 2001 UN ‘Durban Declaration’ slander that a Jewish state is a racist state. Inquiry members have referred to the ‘Jewish lobby’ controlling social media and then complained that antisemitism is ‘always raised as a diversion,’» Anne Bayefsky, Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and President of Human Rights Voices told Fox News Digital.
The commission claims that sexual violence, including rape, is part of the IDF’s «standard operating procedures towards Palestinians.»
Bayefsky alleges the commission «ignored hundreds of thousands of submissions which challenged their conclusions… They have also refused to hear testimony from NGOs that would have contradicted the veracity of their pre-determined end product.»
«The Independent International Commission of Inquiry is an independent body mandated by the Human Rights Council, over which the secretary-general has no authority,» Secretary-General António Guterres’ spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told Fox News Digital. «The secretary-general has spoken out repeatedly at the horrors we have seen in this conflict. He continues to be deeply alarmed by the humanitarian situation in Gaza and reiterates his call for all parties to respect international humanitarian law and international human rights law. He underlines that there needs to be accountability.»
Desarrollo urbano en una zona volcánica
Bomberos inspeccionan el campanario de una iglesia. Foto: EFE
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