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Children Play in Rubble of Gaza for Eid Holiday

Displaced Palestinian children play as they help disassemble their tent in southern Gaza's Rafah before heading to Khan Younis on April 11, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)
Displaced Palestinian children play as they help disassemble their tent in southern Gaza's Rafah before heading to Khan Younis on April 11, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)
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Children Play in Rubble of Gaza for Eid Holiday

Displaced Palestinian children play as they help disassemble their tent in southern Gaza's Rafah before heading to Khan Younis on April 11, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)
Displaced Palestinian children play as they help disassemble their tent in southern Gaza's Rafah before heading to Khan Younis on April 11, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)

Girls played on a makeshift seesaw in a Gaza bomb site this week while boys chased across rubble with plastic guns, their games reflecting an Eid al-Fitr holiday dominated by the war that has devastated the enclave.

Six months of an Israeli air and ground campaign in Gaza have changed all aspects of life, with most people driven from their homes, parts of the enclave facing famine, and disease spreading through the tent cities where many now live.

Eid al-Fitr, the festival that ends the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, is usually a time for family celebrations including gifts of new toys for children.

This year, few can afford new toys, or find any in market stalls since Israel halted commercial imports into Gaza as part of its offensive to destroy Hamas, launched after the group mounted an armed rampage in Israel on Oct. 7.

"We built this game because all our toys have been destroyed and our houses have been destroyed and there's nothing for us to play with except this pipe," said Magd Dahman, 14, one of a group of children who made the seesaw in the rubble of a bomb site.

The children of that part of Jabalia refugee camp, near Gaza City in the most damaged northern part of the tiny, crowded Gaza Strip, crowd around the seesaw in a Reuters video, sitting three-in-a-row on the long pipe it is made from.

One boy, Mohamed Abu al-Qomsan, 14, plays a drum with his hands and signs sang as others gather round, and two small girls in striped jumpers take over the seesaw.

"There isn't an atmosphere of Eid or the joy that comes with it," he says. "As you can see, children are playing on the rubble and rocks. I'm entertaining them."

Earlier in the week, boys with bright plastic guns staged a mock battle across the rubble of Jabalia camp, re-enacting those fought across the same territory over recent months between Hamas fighters and invading Israeli forces.

"Some of these children's fathers have been martyred. Their mothers have been martyred," said Abdulrahman Abu Karsh, an activist organizing children's entertainment in Rafah in the south of Gaza. "There's sadness everywhere."

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Türkiye and Russia Engage in Delicate Maneuvers over Syria after Assad’s Downfall

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan shake hands as they pose for photos during a meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, on July 3, 2024. (Sergey Guneyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan shake hands as they pose for photos during a meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, on July 3, 2024. (Sergey Guneyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
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Türkiye and Russia Engage in Delicate Maneuvers over Syria after Assad’s Downfall

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan shake hands as they pose for photos during a meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, on July 3, 2024. (Sergey Guneyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan shake hands as they pose for photos during a meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, on July 3, 2024. (Sergey Guneyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

The rapid downfall of Syrian leader Bashar Assad has touched off a new round of delicate geopolitical maneuvering between Russia's Vladimir Putin and Türkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
With the dust still settling from the stunning events in Damascus, the outcome for now seems to be favoring Ankara, which backed the victorious opposition factions, while Moscow suffered a bruising blow to its international clout.
“In the game of Czars vs. Sultans, this is Sultans 1 and Czars 0,” said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute. “Far from being allies, Türkiye and Russia are competitors. And in this case, Türkiye has outsmarted Russia.”
The Assad regime’s demise opens another chapter in the complex relationship between Putin and Erdogan, with wide-ranging implications not just for Syria but also for Ukraine and the two leaders' ties with Washington.
Russia and Türkiye share economic and security interests — along with an intense rivalry. The personal relationship between Putin and Erdogan often sees them both praising each other, even as they jockey for political and economic gains.
“There are currently only two leaders left in the world -- there is me and there is Vladimir Putin,” Erdogan said recently, reflecting the respect for the Kremlin leader. Putin, in turn, has often praises Erdogan’s political prowess.
Conflicts and deals Russia and Türkiye backed opposing sides in Syria’s civil war that started in 2011, putting them on a collision course. Tensions spiraled when a Turkish fighter jet shot down a Russian warplane near the Türkiye-Syria border in November 2015, soon after Moscow launched its air campaign to support Assad.
The Kremlin responded with sweeping economic sanctions that halted Turkish imports, drove Turkish companies from the lucrative Russian market and cut the flow of Russian tourists to Türkiye’s resorts.
Faced with massive economic damage, Erdogan apologized months later. Soon after, Putin staunchly supported him when he faced an attempted military coup in July 2016, helping to warm ties quickly.
In 2018, Moscow and Ankara negotiated a ceasefire and de-escalation deal for the opposition-held Idlib province in northwestern Syria on the border with Türkiye and sought to anchor the often-violated agreement with follow-up deals in the next few years.
But even as they cooperated on Syria, Moscow and Ankara also vied for influence in Libya, where Russia supported forces loyal to military commander Khalifa Hifter while Türkiye backed his Tripoli-based foes. Türkiye also aggressively sought to increase its leverage in the former Soviet Central Asian nations competing with Russia and China.
In 2020, Moscow backed off when Türkiye’s ally Azerbaijan routed ethnic Armenian forces in the fighting over the breakaway region of Karabakh. Even though Armenia hosted a Russian military base, the Kremlin has engaged in a delicate balancing act, seeking to maintain warm ties with both Azerbaijan and Türkiye.
While their political interests often clashed, economic ties boomed, with Russia boosting natural gas exports to Türkiye via a Black Sea pipeline; by building Türkiye’s first nuclear plant; and by providing the NATO member with advanced air defense systems — to Washington’s dismay.
Relations amid the war in Ukraine
Ties with Türkiye grew even more important for Putin after he invaded Ukraine in 2022, Europe’s largest conflict since World War II.
The West responded with economic sanctions that barred Russia from most Western markets, restricted its access to international financial system, shut transport routes and halted exports of key technologies. Türkiye, which didn’t join the sanctions, has emerged as Russia’s key gateway to global markets, strengthening Erdogan’s hand in negotiations with Putin.
While Türkiye backed Ukraine’s territorial integrity and supplied Kyiv with weapons, Erdogan echoed Putin in accusing the US and NATO of fomenting the conflict. Putin has praised Erdogan for offering to mediate a settlement.
In March 2022, Türkiye hosted Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Istanbul that soon collapsed, with both Putin and Erdogan blaming the West for their failure.
Later that year, Ankara pooled efforts with the United Nations to broker a deal that opened the door for Ukrainian grain exports from its Black Sea ports, an agreement that helped drive down global food prices before falling apart the following year.
Türkiye’s balancing act in Ukraine is driven by its dependence on the vast Russian market, supplies of natural gas and a flow of tourists.
Russia’s focus on Ukraine has eroded its clout in regions where Türkiye and other players have tried to take advantage of Moscow's withering influence.
In September 2023, Azerbaijan reclaimed control over all of Karabakh in an one-day blitz while Russian regional peacekeepers stood back. That hurt Russia’s ties with Armenia, which has shifted increasingly toward the West.
Moscow's new look at Syria
Focused on Ukraine, Russia had few resources left for Syria at a time when Hezbollah similarly pulled back its fighters amid the war with Israel and Iranian support for Assad also weakened.
Russia tried to sponsor talks on normalizing relations between Türkiye and Syria, but Assad stonewalled them, refusing any compromise.
Assad’s intransigence helped trigger the Türkiye-backed opposition’s offensive in November. The underfunded and demoralized Syrian army quickly crumbled, allowing the opposition to sweep across the country and capture Damascus.
Even as it has offered asylum to Assad and his family, Russia has reached out to Syria's new leaders, seeking to ensure security for its troops still there and extend leases on its naval and air bases.
At his annual news conference Thursday, Putin said Russia offered Syria's new leaders to use the bases for humanitarian aid deliveries and suggested Moscow could offer other incentives.
While Assad's demise dealt a heavy blow to Russia, some believe Moscow could navigate the rapidly changing environment to retain at least some clout.
“Syria’s opposition forces well understand that the country’s future is uncertain,” said Nikolay Kozhanov, a consulting fellow with Chathan House’s Russia and Eurasia program, in a commentary. “They want Russia, if not as a friend, then a neutral party.”
He noted that “Moscow’s main goal will be to maintain at least a minimal level of influence through a military presence, for example, at its existing bases, or through contacts with other regional players, such as Türkiye.”
Cagaptay observed that while Türkiye would like to see an end to Russia’s military presence in Syria, Ankara’s position will depend on how relations evolve with Washington.
“If we see a reset in US-Turkish ties where Türkiye thinks it can comfortably lean on the U.S. against Russia, I can see Erdogan adopting a kind of more boisterous tone vis a vis Putin,” he said.
But if the US maintains its alliance with the Kurds and stands against Türkiye’s effort to push back on Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria, “Ankara may decide that it needs to continue to play all sides as it has been doing for about a decade now,” Cagaptay said.
Putin noted Russia understands Türkiye’s motives in securing its borders, but he also warned that the Kurds could offer strong resistance if attacked.
Emre Ersen, a Russia expert at Istanbul’s Marmara University, also noted that while Assad’s fall will diminish Moscow’s influence, “the relationship between Türkiye and Russia will not be devastated by the events in Syria.”
“Obviously, they still need to reach out to each other regarding the crisis in Ukraine, but also because they have very significant economic relations,” Ersen said, adding that Erdogan could be expected to seek more concessions from Russia on energy and trade issues.