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Egypt Insists on Protecting Water Interests, Receives Jordanian Support

Jordan’s King Abdullah II receives Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs in Amman on Sunday, July 19, 2020 (AFP)
Jordan’s King Abdullah II receives Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs in Amman on Sunday, July 19, 2020 (AFP)
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Egypt Insists on Protecting Water Interests, Receives Jordanian Support

Jordan’s King Abdullah II receives Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs in Amman on Sunday, July 19, 2020 (AFP)
Jordan’s King Abdullah II receives Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs in Amman on Sunday, July 19, 2020 (AFP)

Cairo has conveyed a firm message to Adis Abbaba stressing its resolve to protect its “water interests,” while receiving Jordanian support in its attempts to conclude a final agreement.

This came on the eve of a mini-African summit (Tuesday) to discuss means of bridging the gap between Egypt and Ethiopia on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) conflict.

Talks over the past two weeks, under the African Union auspices and the presence of African, European, and American observers, have failed to achieve any significant progress.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi chaired Sunday a meeting of the National Defense Council to review the political, security and military situation in the country.

According to presidential spokesman Bassam Radi, Sisi was briefed on the latest developments in the GERD issue, the current course of tripartite negotiations, and efforts to develop a comprehensive agreement that meets aspirations and demands of Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia in developing and maintaining fair and balanced water rights.

The Council affirmed Egypt’s ongoing work to reach a comprehensive agreement on the outstanding issues, the most important of which is the rules for filling and operating the GERD without affecting the three countries’ water and development interests or undermining regional security and stability.

The high-level meeting was attended by the parliament speaker, the prime minister, the defense minister, commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, head of the General Intelligence, ministers of foreign affairs, finance, and interior, commander of the Naval Forces, commander of the Air Defense Forces, commander of the Air Force, directors of the Armed Forces Operations Authority, Military Intelligence and Reconnaissance Department, as well as the Council’s secretary-general.

Egypt and Sudan have been seeking to reach a legally binding agreement on the rules for filling and operating the dam before Ethiopia starts filling its reservoir. They have repeatedly announced rejection to Ethiopia's “unilateral” intention to fill the dam reservoir without signing a comprehensive final agreement.

Ethiopia says the $4 billion hydropower project, which will have an installed capacity of 6,450 megawatts, is essential to its economic development.

It says the dam offers a critical opportunity to pull millions of its nearly 110 million citizens out of poverty.

While downstream Egypt, which depends on the Nile to supply its farmers and a booming population of 100 million with freshwater, asserts that the dam poses an existential threat.

Meanwhile, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi hailed Egypt’s “rational stance” and affirmed that its water security is part of the Arab strategic security.

This came during a joint press conference with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry, who visited Amman on Sunday and was received by Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

“Egypt and Jordan’s security is linked,” Safadi stressed, noting the Kingdom’s support for its brothers in Egypt under the guidance of King Abdullah to face all the challenges.

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Syrian Family Recounts the Horrors of 2013 Chemical Attack Near Damascus

Hussein Arbeeni, 41, shows how he blocked a room door by tapes where 23 people locked themselves inside it to prevent leakage of the sarin struck during a 2013 chemical weapons attack that was blamed on then President Bashar al-Assad's forces, in Zamalka neighborhood, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP)
Hussein Arbeeni, 41, shows how he blocked a room door by tapes where 23 people locked themselves inside it to prevent leakage of the sarin struck during a 2013 chemical weapons attack that was blamed on then President Bashar al-Assad's forces, in Zamalka neighborhood, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP)
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Syrian Family Recounts the Horrors of 2013 Chemical Attack Near Damascus

Hussein Arbeeni, 41, shows how he blocked a room door by tapes where 23 people locked themselves inside it to prevent leakage of the sarin struck during a 2013 chemical weapons attack that was blamed on then President Bashar al-Assad's forces, in Zamalka neighborhood, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP)
Hussein Arbeeni, 41, shows how he blocked a room door by tapes where 23 people locked themselves inside it to prevent leakage of the sarin struck during a 2013 chemical weapons attack that was blamed on then President Bashar al-Assad's forces, in Zamalka neighborhood, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP)

A Syrian family that survived a 2013 chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds of people near the country’s capital, Damascus, says the ordeal they experienced haunts them to this day.

The Aug. 21, 2013 attack targeted several Damascus suburbs, including Zamalka, where the Arbeeni family lives. Government forces of then-President Bashar Assad were blamed for the attack.

The Arbeenis remember how they locked themselves inside a windowless room in their home for hours, escaping the fate of dozens of their neighbors who perished in what was one of the deadliest moments of Syria’s civil war.

The gas that was used — sarin, an extremely toxic nerve agent — can kill in minutes.

The Syrian government denied it was behind the attack and blamed opposition fighters, an accusation the opposition rejected as Assad's forces were the only side in the brutal civil war to possess sarin. The United States subsequently threatened military retaliation, with then-President Barack Obama saying Assad’s use of chemical weapons would be Washington’s “red line.”

“It was a horrifying night,” Hussein Arbeeni, 41, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The surface-to-surface missiles fell close to his family’s home without exploding, instead leaking the poisonous gas. Shortly after that, he says the family members had difficulties breathing, their eyes started to ache and their hearts beat faster and faster.

Hassan Arbeeni, 42, shows a crater where a surface-to-surface missile loaded with sarin struck, during a 2013 chemical weapons attack that was blamed on then President Bashar al-Assad's forces, in Zamalka neighborhood, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP)

Arbeeni, his parents, his siblings and their families, as well as a neighbor — 23 people in all — rushed into the only room in their home without windows and closed the door.

He says he taped all around the door, soaked some clothes in water and rolled them up under the door to prevent the gas from coming in. “I even taped the keyhole,” he said.

A few months earlier, Arbeeni said, the local first responders of the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as White Helmets, had instructed residents in the opposition-held suburbs of Damascus what to do in case of a chemical attack.

He remembers them saying they should cover their nose and mouth with a cloth soaked in water with white vinegar, and breathe through that.

They huddled for three hours inside the room — time that seemed endless that night. Outside, many people were dying.

“It is all because of God and this locked room,” Arbeeni says of their survival.

Around daybreak, the White Helmets members rushed into their house, found the family inside the room on the ground floor and told them to leave the area immediately.

They ran into the street and saw dead bodies lying all around. A passing truck took the family on and gave them a ride. Their neighbor, who had fainted from the shock of the horrific scene, was taken away by paramedics.

“I was scared to look,” said Arbeeni’s mother, Khadija Dabbas, 66.

The family stayed for a few weeks some miles away from Zamalka but then came back.

Despite Obama's threat, in the end, Washington settled for a deal with Moscow for Russia-backed Assad to give up his chemical weapons’ stockpile.

But Assad's government was widely believed to have kept some of the weapons and was accused of using them again — including a 2018 chlorine gas attack over Douma, another Damascus suburb, that killed 43 people.

Today, Arbeeni — remembering all the neighbors, friends and townspeople who perished — says he wants the “harshest punishment” for those behind the attack in Zamalka.

“All those children and innocent people who were killed should get justice,” he said, looking at his 12-year-old son, Laith, a baby at the time of the attack.

An aerial view shows a mass grave where are buried those who were killed by the sarin struck during a 2013 chemical weapons attack that was blamed on then President Bashar al-Assad's forces, in Zamalka neighborhood, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2024. (AP)

The new authorities in Syria are led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, or HTS, which late last month launched a stunning offensive from its northwestern stronghold that blitzed across large swaths of Syria and toppled Assad. They have vowed to bring to justice former Syrian government officials blamed for atrocities.

But times are still unsettled — a few short weeks after Assad's ouster, no one knows what Syria's future will look like.

“The overthrow of the Assad government creates the possibility of justice for thousands of victims of atrocities, including those killed by chemical and other banned weapons,” says Adam Coogle, deputy director with the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch.

“But justice will only happen if the new authorities prioritize it and urgently act to preserve evidence,” Coogle added. He urged for immediate access for UN agencies and international experts who would create a comprehensive plan to ensure that Syrians can seek justice and accountability.

On Wednesday, about a dozen people visited the Martyrs Cemetery in Zamalka and the graves of people from the area killed during Syria's nearly 14-year war.

Arbeeni's brother, Hassan, pointed to part of the cemetery that holds a mass grave. There are no names of the dead there, only a sign in Arabic that reads: “August 2013.”

“The martyrs of the chemical attack are here,” Hassan said, and recited a Muslim prayer for the dead.