Foreign
Syria War: Battle For Aleppo; How Much Longer Can East Aleppo Hold Out?
With hospitals destroyed, winter weather setting in and food running low, people in east Aleppo are running out of time.
Hamza Abduljabbar’s gnarled hands wipe the dust off the dashboard of his white Isuzu minibus.
Back hunched from decades sitting behind the wheel, Abduljabbar still wakes up each morning at 6am to check on his vehicle – the windows of which have long since been blown out by nearby air strikes – when his rounds of east Aleppo’s Fardous neighbourhood would normally have begun.
“Everything is dusty these days. The bombing never stops,” he says. “Anyway, there’s no fuel, so the car just sits here.” Five years of war and five months of siege have aged the 45-year-old father of three well beyond his years. He hasn’t worked in months.
Government forces, backed by Russian air power and allied militias, began a new push last week to take control of the whole of Syria’s second city, the latest offensive in the uprising-turned-war that has killed more than 400,000 people and forced nearly five million Syrians out of the country in search of safety.
The renewed bombing campaign has killed more than 400 civilians and allowed the government to take over the strategic Hanano housing district – which could effectively enable government troops to split the rebel-held east in two.
“The rebels have failed to break the siege and are losing territory, and the international community has failed to send in supplies or aid,” said Abduljabbar. “My family and I are surviving day to day here under the barrel bombs and the planes. There’s nowhere else to go.”
The situation in the besieged, rebel-held neighbourhoods of east Aleppo has “gone from terrible to terrifying to now barely survivable by human beings”, UN humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien told the UN Security Council during his monthly briefing earlier this week.
Food rations pre-positioned in the city by the World Food Programme before UN access was cut off in July ran out on November 13, and aid workers have said that people in the city’s east are “just days” away from starvation.
Food in local markets is scarce and prices have skyrocketed. Fuel and cooking gas are hard to come by in most areas. “There’s no flour, no bread. Most of the bakeries have been destroyed and those that still stand are closed because there isn’t any supplies,” said Samah al-Ahmad.
The 32-year-old mother of four says that the only time she leaves her home in al-Ansari area is to scavenge for basics such as sugar and powdered milk.
Essentials such as salt, which three weeks ago cost 76 cents a kilo, now cost nearly $10 a kilo. The price of one kilo of sugar has jumped to well over $13. Baby formula, nearly impossible to find these days, is about $10 a package. Just three weeks ago the same package cost less than $2. One kilo of meat – a rare commodity – is upwards of $40.
All of the appliances in Samah’s home have been piled into a corner. There hasn’t been any electricity for months and every household chore is done by hand. “The latest bombing has been particularly cruel,” said Samah. “There is no safe place here any more.”
Samah’s husband, injured in an air strike last month, is bedridden. “I can’t go to the hospital to get medicine because most have been destroyed … Those that still function lack some of the most basic medicines.”
There are no fully functioning hospitals in east Aleppo. The last operating medical facility was partially destroyed by an air strike on November 19, leaving up to 275,000 people without access to surgery or specialised care.
The 30 doctors who remain in the city operate in underground facilities and are running low on even the most basic of supplies – including antibiotics, IV fluids and blood bags.
“They are rationing basic supplies … If someone comes in for emergency care after a bombing and [the doctors] fear that more serious patients might soon be arriving, they might hold off on using anesthesia and save it for a patient who is in greater need,” says Elise Baker, a Syria researcher with Physicians for Human Rights.
‘Everything is dusty these days. The bombing never stops,’ Abduljabbar says [Reuters]
As supplies continue to dwindle, doctors have reportedly begun using half-doses of antibiotics in an effort to conserve what little resources they have left.
The government blockade on the city’s rebel-controlled eastern neighbourhoods, in place since July, has forced doctors to “cut corners that just shouldn’t be cut”, says Baker, the effects of which could have lasting implications.
“We’ve heard anecdotally that people are developing resistance to antibiotics … using half-doses increases antibiotic resistance, which is a problem that will extend well beyond the end of the conflict.”
As food and fuel quickly run out and winter weather sets in, Abduljabbar believes it’s only a matter of time before Aleppo becomes Syria’s next Daraya.
“There will be a solution in the regime’s favour and the city will be under the regime’s rule whether the rebels want it or not. But it won’t be easy,” he says.
Government forces and members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group surrounded and blockaded Daraya, the rebel-held Damascus suburb, for four years until August when, due to increasing pressure on the ground – only one UN aid shipment had been let in since the beginning of the siege – rebel fighters agreed to give up their heavy weapons and be transferred to the opposition-held province of Idlib.
But while the government and its allies certainly have the upper hand in Aleppo, according to Sam Heller, Syria analyst and fellow with The Century Foundation, it’s not clear what the endgame will look like just yet.
“The regime will not accept a partially autonomous opposition zone in half of the city, and so it’s pushing for a conclusive victory. But the bussing evacuations that have taken place elsewhere have only been arranged on a much smaller scale, and in areas that were already mostly subdued militarily,” says Heller.
The UN estimates that there are nearly 8,000 rebel fighters in besieged east Aleppo, 900 of whom are members of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham – the al-Qaeda-affiliated group formerly known as al-Nusra Front.
“Nothing like this has happened in an area of the size and complexity of east Aleppo, and, with multiple major armed factions inside, it seems unlikely any deal will be coordinated easily or smoothly.”
By the time the Daraya deal took place in August, the suburb’s population – once nearly a quarter of a million – was down to 8,000 people. There were only 800 rebel fighters.
It’s not clear what the endgame in east Aleppo will look like just yet [Reuters]
Both the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian backers understand that waging an assault on an urban area the size of east Aleppo will be a long and bloody battle, according to Yezid Sayigh, a senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center. “It took them years to take Daraya,” says Sayigh. “East Aleppo is far bigger and far more difficult an area to take.”
“They’re going to focus on siege tactics to basically engineer a political deal in which the opposition agrees to surrender some of its heavy weapons, while certain categories of fighters are allowed safe passage to other rebel-controlled areas.”
With two months to go before US President Barack Obama hands over the reins to President-elect Donald Trump – and even then, there is a high likelihood that Trump’s Syria policy will play even more into the hands of Assad and Putin than Obama’s – Russia and Assad “aren’t pressed for time”.
“Why would they take high risks or risk high casualties?” asks Sayigh, if starve-or-surrender policies have already proved successful in places such as Daraya and Moadamiya.
Humanitarian corridors unilaterally declared open by Russia over the summer saw few people leave Aleppo’s besieged east. Damascus and Moscow blamed the rebels for “holding civilians hostage”, while rebels and civilians in east Aleppo said the safe routes weren’t actually all that safe.
“If there was a real desire by people to leave, more people would have crossed by now,” says Sayigh. “People may still be able to hold out for a while.”
Earlier this week, families attempting to escape form east Aleppo via the Kurdish-controlled neighbourhood of Sheikh Maqsoud were forced back by gun fire.
Whether it is by siege-and-starvation or military might, the loss of east Aleppo will come at a “terrible human cost”, according to Heller. But it will also be “a major symbolic defeat for the Syrian opposition”.
“A Syrian opposition that had lost its foothold in the country’s largest city will become a mostly rural insurgency, contesting Syria’s periphery instead of its main population centres and loci of control. But that’s pretty well where we are anyway. So the question is what’s next.”
Sitting in her first-storey apartment under a blanket to protect herself from the cold, Samah, frail and anxious, believes that the fall of east Aleppo is only a matter of time.
“The international community is witnessing massacre after massacre … the rebels are losing neighbourhoods … it’s only a matter of time before the regime takes the east,” she says.
Whether it is cleaning the house or fetching water from a mosque down the street, she works from the moment she wakes until the moment she goes to sleeps to keep herself from thinking. She is worn to the bone. She is exhausted.
“In the meantime though, we’ll continue to suffer. It really doesn’t matter any more to me [who controls the area] as long as I can get food for my family and have a safe place to live. As long as the fear and the horror end.”
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.
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”.
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.
Abhorrent. This is a call to commit a war crime by @yoavgallant. The @IntlCrimCourt should take note.
Quote by @OmarSShakir ⤵️ https://t.co/kKVo6YtpI1 pic.twitter.com/neHQMwnXVn
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) October 9, 2023
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.
Grotesque. These threatened acts would amount to flagrant war crimes by Hamas’ armed wing. The @IntlCrimCourt will be watching.
Quote from @OmarSShakir ⤵️ https://t.co/FuNtvHe0YG pic.twitter.com/6cnHODLWyZ
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) October 9, 2023
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.
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.
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.
The world is seeing appalling images.
Thousands of rockets raining down on Israeli cities. Hamas terrorists killing not only Israeli soldiers, but civilians on the streets and in their homes.
It’s unconscionable. Israel has a right to defend itself – full stop.
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 7, 2023
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.
The world is seeing appalling images.
Thousands of rockets raining down on Israeli cities. Hamas terrorists killing not only Israeli soldiers, but civilians on the streets and in their homes.
It’s unconscionable. Israel has a right to defend itself – full stop.
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 7, 2023
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?”
The hypocrisy and double standards of western governments and media platforms dealing with situations in Ukraine-Russia and Palestine-Israel blow the mind. Absolute disgrace.
— Said Yacoubi (@AlyacoubiSaid) October 8, 2023
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.
Just to clarify:
Palestine did not mount an attack on Israel. An Iranian proxy militia did. Palestinians are by and large huddled in their homes praying that an Israeli airstrike won't kill them or theirs. Hamas is the culprit here. This isn't a decentralized grassroots thing.
— Romeo Kokriatski (@VagrantJourno) October 9, 2023
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.
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