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Rescuers Denounce Aid ‘Failure’ in Syria’s Devastated Northwest

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4 years ago

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A member of the Syria Civil Defence, known as the White Helmets, stands near the rubble of a collapsed building on February 7, 2023, in the town of Jandaris, as search-and-rescue operations continue following the deadly earthquakes

Civil defence members in northwest Syria criticise the UN and international community for a slow aid response after two deadly earthquakes.

Syrians living in the rebel-held northwest region have decried the lack of humanitarian aid for victims of two powerful earthquakes that struck Turkey and Syria, describing catastrophic scenes in an area already ravaged by 12 years of civil war.

On Sunday, United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths acknowledged the shortcomings, saying the Syrian population in the territory feel “abandoned” because the assistance they had hoped for had not yet arrived.

“We have so far failed the people in northwest Syria. They rightly feel abandoned. Looking for international help that hasn’t arrived,” he said in a tweet.

“My duty and our obligation is to correct this failure as fast as we can. That’s my focus now,” he added during a visit to the border area, five days after devastating magnitude 7.8 and 7.6 earthquakes – and numerous aftershocks – rocked Turkey and Syria, killing more than 33,000 people including at least 4,500 in Syria alone.

Before the earthquakes, humanitarian aid had entered the northwest mainly through the Bab al-Hawa land crossing with Turkey, the only internationally agreed-upon access point.

But no aid convoys arrived for the first three days, with the UN saying roads on the Turkish side were unpassable. The first trucks finally started coming through via Turkey on Thursday, but needs still far outstrip supplies.

However, according to Raed al-Saleh, head of the Syria Civil Defence or White Helmets, the two convoys that went through on Thursday and Friday – a total of 20 trucks – carried “scheduled aid”, which is periodically delivered to families in refugee camps and which includes sugar, flour and cooking oil.

“It wasn’t aid for the families and people in the towns and cities which were in the disaster zone of the quake,” he said on Saturday.

On Sunday, al-Saleh responded to Griffiths’s tweeted apology, saying: “After meeting today with @UNReliefChief at Turkish-Syrian border, we appreciate the apology for the shortcomings and mistakes.”

He went on to urge the UN to work to open more land crossings into northwestern Syria other than Bab al-Hawa, which is the only one approved by a UN Security Council resolution.

https://twitter.com/RaedAlSaleh3/status/1624762249976897536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1624762249976897536%7Ctwgr%5E54c0a513ae2f319babbb804a4913ab49b364b911%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F2%2F12%2Fwhite-helmets-critical-of-lack-of-un-aid-in-syrias-northwest

Aid to government-held areas
The Syrian government in Damascus has also been receiving aid from international donors, and there is still uncertainty about whether that will be equitably distributed to all the stricken parts of the country, including the rebel-held northwest.

Officials from the UN entered the government-controlled city of Aleppo on Saturday, after issuing a warning saying up to 5.3 million people in the country may have been made homeless as a result of the quakes.

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is also in Aleppo, arriving on a plane carrying about 35 tonnes of vital medical equipment, according to Syria’s state-run SANA news agency, which added that a second plane will arrive in two days.

On a visit to Kahramanmaras, the epicentre of the initial quake, Griffiths said he hoped aid delivered to the Syrian government would go to both government and opposition-held areas, but this was “not clear yet”.

But in the rebel-held northwest, where four million people need humanitarian relief, there have been no aid deliveries from government-controlled areas.

The severe delay in aid coming through has prompted rescuers and members of the White Helmets to criticise the UN and the international community for not responding quickly enough to urgent needs.

There had been calls from the opposition for the opening of more land crossings since the day of the earthquakes, but Bab al-Hawa remains the only recognised one until a UN decision is sought.

“We have sent out requests for relief aid to various countries and world organisations, including the UN, since the quake first happened in order to save and rescue as many people under the rubble as possible,” said Fatima Obeid, a 26-year-old White Helmets volunteer.

“The situation is unbearably disastrous. From 12 years of war to this earthquake, the Syrian people in this region are suffering.”

Speaking from the town of Sarmada, Obeid said whole families are buried under the rubble of collapsed and destroyed buildings.

“The hardest moment for me personally was finding a husband and wife, both dead under the rubble with their arms sheltering their young son – who was alive,” she said.

Obeid said that the 72-hour window after the quake struck was crucial, and now the chances of finding more people alive are very slim.

“We could have saved many more people if we had the technology and heavy machinery needed to lift debris,” she said. “All of the aid and necessary provisions given to the overcrowded relief centres are donated by volunteers, civil organisations and charities on the ground.”

‘Biased humanitarian action’
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the Security Council – which will meet next week to discuss Syria – to authorise the opening of new cross-border aid points between Turkey and Syria.

The Syrian government announced on Friday that it approved the delivery of humanitarian assistance to quake-hit areas outside its control. But a UN spokesperson said on Sunday that earthquake aid from government-held parts of Syria into the northwest territory had been held up by “approval issues” with the hardline armed group Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

A UN spokesperson in Damascus declined to comment, saying the UN “continues to work with relevant parties to have access to the area”.

An HTS official in the northwest’s Idlib region told Reuters news agency it would not allow any shipments from government-held parts of Syria, and aid would be coming in from Turkey to the north.

“Turkey has opened all the roads and we won’t allow the regime to take advantage of the situation to show they are helping,” the HTS member said.

Al-Saleh of the White Helmets denounced what he called “aid politics” at the expense of the most vulnerable and in need.

“Humanitarian aid doesn’t enter this region unless there is a vote from the UN Security Council, negotiations, blackmail – all the while compromising Syrian lives,” he said.

The lack of food and clean drinking water, compounded with no shelters and the bitter subzero temperatures, is pushing a largely displaced population who fled the war to the brink.

Al-Saleh said he expected the UN to be “neutral” in its humanitarian work and not “politically biased”.

“Many people’s lives were dependent on it, and it is the main reason for the huge number of deaths,” he said.

“The victims were let down by the UN, which dithered for days, saying the roads were blocked and the crossings were closed. The UN did not hear the screams of the people trapped under the collapsed buildings, crying out for help,” he said, his voice breaking.

“We had hoped to get just one UN official to visit the area. But there is evidently a bias regarding humanitarian action.”

‘Children are crying’
At least 1,300 buildings in the northwest territory were completely destroyed, and 500 others partially destroyed, with some towns and villages now resembling ghost towns, al-Saleh said.

“The entire situation is catastrophic,” he said, referring to people sleeping outside on the roads or inside their cars because they don’t have any shelter.

“Children are crying from the freezing winter cold. It is those who barely have anything that are giving us what little they have, such as donating their fuel to us, even if they themselves lose what little heat they had in the first place.”

On the Turkish side of Bab al-Hawa, in Cilvegozu, Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker said that instead of aid trucks entering Syria, only the bodies of Syrians who died in the quake in Turkey are being transported in.

“What we’ve been seeing is black body bags being handed over on the back of trucks and then driven into Syria to be buried at home,” she said.

“We spoke to officials on the other side of the border, the Bab al-Hawa crossing, and they said so far 950 bodies of Syrians killed in the earthquake have been brought across to be buried at home.”

Dekker described “heartbreaking” scenes of relatives opening up the body bags to see death certificates on their loved ones.

“Death is everywhere here,” she said.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

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Foreign

Israel’s War On Gaza: List of Key Events, Day 101

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3 years ago

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15th January 2024

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Israel's war on Gaza: List of key events, day 101 | Israel War on Gaza News | Al Jazeera

Dozens of Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli strikes in central and south Gaza as Red Sea tensions rise.

Here’s how things stand on Monday, January 15, 2024:

Latest updates and human impact

  • Israeli attacks continue unabated overnight killing and wounding dozens of civilians in central and southern Gaza. At least 22 people were killed and a large number injured as a result of Israeli forces targeting al-Thalatheni Street in the central Gaza Strip.
  • Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired an antiship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea, which was shot down by a US fighter jet, announced US Central Command (CENTCOM) on X.
  • This was the first US-acknowledged Houthi attack since the US strikes on Yemen on Friday.
  • Hamas released a 37-second video showing three Israeli captives held in Gaza on Sunday, saying they would reveal the fate of the captives on Monday and urging the Israeli government to stop the offensive.
  • The Israeli military says it has shifted to a new phase of the war focused on the southern end of Gaza, where almost 2 million internally displaced Palestinians are running out of safe spaces to shelter.
  • The Gaza Ministry of Health has said almost 24,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive. More than 60,000 people have been wounded in 100 days of war.

Diplomacy

  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that his country will pursue its war against Hamas until victory and will not be stopped by anyone, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
  • The White House said on Sunday that “it’s the right time” for Israel to scale back its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
  • Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS) said in a statement on Sunday that one of the biggest obstacles to the timely delivery of sufficient aid to Gaza was Israeli inspection of the aid. The statement came after Israel blamed Cairo for the delay in aid delivery to Gaza during its defence at the ICJ.
  • US Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted on X on Monday, calling for the release of the remaining captives held in Gaza on the 100th day since they were taken by Hamas. He did not mention the Palestinian casualties.
  • Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who described herself as a “friend of Israel” to the press, will travel to Jordan, Israel, the occupied Palestinian Territories and the United Arab Emirates this week, her office said on Monday.

West Bank raids and violence

  • Israeli forces arrested 25 students staging a sit-in in protest against high tuition fees at An-Najah University in Nablus. Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut reported that the protesting students received a text message from Israeli forces telling them to “surrender now”.
  • Israeli forces have reportedly raided the family home of Nael al-Barghouti, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, in the village of Kobar, in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.
  • The Israeli army said on Friday that it killed three Palestinian men who infiltrated a West Bank settlement and fired upon soldiers.
  • The Israeli military killed two Palestinians after accusing them of ramming their car through a checkpoint near Hebron.
  • Local sources reported that Israeli forces bulldozed two Palestinian-owned houses during a Sunday midnight raid in the city of Qalqilya, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
  • Armed Israeli settlers broke into the village of Burin, south of Nablus, and attacked Palestinian residents’ houses and properties after midnight on Sunday, Wafa reported.
  • “Violent raids and arrests have become part of the fabric of daily life in the occupied West Bank,” Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said. At least 347 Palestinians have been killed and thousands have been arrested since October 7.

 

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
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Hamas Says Will Kill Hostages if Israeli Attacks On Gaza Civilians Continue

Published

3 years ago

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10th October 2023

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Flames and smoke billow during Israeli attacks against Gaza on October 9, 2023

Human Rights Watch terms Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s call for a ‘complete siege’ on Gaza a ‘war crime’.

The Hamas movement has threatened to kill an Israeli hostage every time Israel bombs a Palestinian home without warning as Israel mobilised some 300,000 reservists and imposed a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, denying the enclave’s millions of residents access to food, water and fuel.

The warning from Hamas came on Monday as the death toll from the armed group’s surprise weekend attack climbed to 900 in Israel and revenge attacks by Israeli forces on the besieged Gaza Strip killed more than 700 people and left some 3,700 others wounded.

Residential apartment blocks, hospitals, schools and a mosque have been among the sites attacked by Israeli fighter jets, artillery and drones, according to media reports and witnesses.

Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubaida issued the threat to kill Israelis from the dozens held captive by the armed group. He said an Israeli hostage would be killed for every Israeli bombing of a civilian house without warning.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said more than 100 people were taken captive by Hamas during the deadly cross-border incursion over the weekend.

As Israeli forces conducted intense retaliatory attacks on Gaza on Monday, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant drew international condemnation by announcing a total blockade of the densely populated and besieged enclave, which is home to 2.3 million people.

Gallant said Israel would impose a “complete siege” on Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply distressed” by the siege announcement and warned that Gaza’s already dire humanitarian situation will now “only deteriorate exponentially”.

A mourner carries the body of Palestinian boy Saad Lubbad, who health officials said was killed in Israeli strikes, during his funeral in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, October 9, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
A mourner carries the body of Palestinian boy Saad Lubbad, who health officials said was killed in an Israeli attack, during his funeral in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on October 9, 2023 [Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters]

Guterres also said some 137,000 people were taking shelter with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) at schools across Gaza.

UNRWA said on Tuesday that almost 190,000 people have been displaced in Gaza amid the Israeli attacks and the figure is expected to grow further as the violence intensifies.

Nearly half a million people have also not received food rations this week in Gaza as UN food distribution centres have been forced to remain closed amid the Israeli onslaught, UNRWA said.

Human Rights Watch said Israel’s total blockade on the necessities of life for everyday people in Gaza was a war crime.

“Defense Minister Gallant’s statements are abhorrent,” Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

“Depriving the population in an occupied territory of food and electricity is collective punishment, which is a war crime, as is using starvation as a weapon of war. The International Criminal Court should take note of this call to commit a war crime,” he said.

Shakir also condemned the threat by Hamas to kill hostages, warning that such action was also a war crime.

“All hostages should be safely released to their families,” he said.

On the diplomatic front, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Hamas and Israel to immediately end violence and protect civilians, the Egyptian presidency said.

Erdogan urged Israel against “indiscriminately” attacking civilians and delivered measured criticism of Hamas, urging both sides to respect the “ethics” of war.

The United Kingdom, French, German, Italian and US governments issued a joint statement on Monday recognising the “legitimate aspirations” of the Palestinian people and supporting equal measures of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

INTERACTIVE_DEATH_TOLL_INJURED_ISRAEL_PALESTINE_OCT10_2023_0415
They said they would remain “united and coordinated” to ensure Israel can defend itself.

But the prospect that fighting could spread also alarmed the region and the world.

Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel in response to at least three of its members being killed in Israeli shelling of Lebanon.

Israel said one of its deputy commanders was also killed in an earlier cross-border raid from Lebanon.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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Western Leaders Accused of Hypocrisy Over Response To Palestine, Ukraine

Published

3 years ago

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10th October 2023

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US President Joe Biden holds a bilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City, the US, September 20, 2023

Social media users, including journalists and observers, are calling out what they call a ‘double standard’.

After Saturday’s surprise attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Israel, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to the social media platform X to offer “condolences go out to everyone who lost relatives or close ones in the terrorist attack”.

He also stated, “Israel’s right to self-defence is unquestionable.”

Many world leaders, including US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, shared similar sentiments.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated, “Israel has the right to defend itself – today and in the days to come. The European Union stands with Israel.”

Accusations of Western ‘double standards’

Some social media users have criticised these statements, saying they highlight a double standard.

Ukraine’s right to defend itself is praised by most international leaders while Russia’s invasion is condemned, but commentators said the same cannot be said about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Aaron Bastani, a leftist British journalist, said on X that there’s a “clear double standard in endorsing terrorism against civilian targets in Ukraine … and condemning it by Palestinians”.

Many users said Western diplomats and media support the Ukrainians who defend their land, but label the Palestinians fighting against Israel as “terrorists”.

https://twitter.com/KhaledBeydoun/status/1710787817415082349?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710787817415082349%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

An illustration of a woman’s face, in which one eye is closed beside a Palestinian flag, and one eye open beside a Ukrainian flag, has been regularly shared as a symbol of the West’s alleged double standards in how the two conflicts are viewed.

https://twitter.com/OnlinePalEng/status/1710994682883273172?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710994682883273172%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

Clips also emerged on social media from a CNN interview with Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, in which he posed the rhetorical question, “Why does the United States support Ukraine in fighting occupation – while here they support the occupier, who continues to occupy us?”

It is not the first time Western nations have been accused of double standards in their stance on the Ukraine war.

Earlier in the year, Amnesty International published a report highlighting the West’s “double standards” on global human rights.

Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, told Al Jazeera at the time that the occupation of Palestinian territory was a “particularly important one”.

“Without making any comparison between Russia’s aggression and Israel … it is clear the Palestinian people are under a regime of oppression – a regime of occupation and a regime of apartheid,” Callamard told Al Jazeera.

Over the last three days, X users recirculated earlier statements calling out what they called Western hypocrisy, sharing video by the Irish lawmaker Richard Boyd Barrett from March 2022 in which he berated the Irish government’s double standards regarding Ukraine and Palestine:

“You’re happy to use the most strong and robust language to describe the crimes against humanity of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, but you will not use the same strength of language when it comes to describing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.”

Barrett on Sunday again called out what he described as “shocking double standards of Western leaders supporting Ukraine resistance but condemning Palestinian[s].”

Meanwhile, others warned against comparing conflicts.

https://twitter.com/denfordauthor/status/1710993737738768607?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710993737738768607%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

And some cautioned that Hamas and the Palestinians should not be seen as one and the same.

Ukrainian footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko, who plays for Arsenal, posted on Instagram, stating he “stands with Israel”.

Zinchenko has been a vocal supporter of his home country in its ongoing defence against Russia, and he participated in a Game4Ukraine charity match in London earlier this year to raise money for Ukraine.

After online backlash, with some questioning an alleged double standard in his support of Israel, the footballer removed the post and switched his social media account to private.

Several people claimed that Zinchenko’s football club, in not responding to his comments, was guilty of hypocrisy after they had distanced themselves from former player Mesut Ozil’s comments in 2019 over alleged human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in China.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
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