Damascus under Fire for Poor Handling of Bread, Gasoline Shortages

Men arrange bread to cool down in Damascus, Syria. (Reuters)
Men arrange bread to cool down in Damascus, Syria. (Reuters)
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Damascus under Fire for Poor Handling of Bread, Gasoline Shortages

Men arrange bread to cool down in Damascus, Syria. (Reuters)
Men arrange bread to cool down in Damascus, Syria. (Reuters)

The Syrian government ordered that daily family bread rations be reduced after failing to provide subsidized bread and gasoline to the people. The move sparked outrage among the public, who accused Damascus of “starving” the people to cover up for its shortcomings.

The state news agency SANA announced a new mechanism for people to buy bread that went into effect on Saturday. A family of one or two people will be allowed one packet of bread per day, while a family of three or four will be allowed two. A family of five or six will be allowed three and a family of seven or more will be allowed four.

Prior to the new decision, families all received four packets of bread.

The decision applied to all bakeries in Damascus, the Damascus countryside and Latakia.

The government said the move was part of its efforts to “fairly” meet the needs of the people and “prevent the manipulation of bread prices”.

In recent weeks, government-held regions in Syria have seen people, who are already suffering from poverty due to years of war, clamoring to secure bread at subsidized prices. Queues not seen in nine years of war would line up at bakeries. Many bakeries have also been forced to close due to a flour shortage.

The price of an eight-loaf packet of subsidized bread is sold at 50 pounds. The same packet is sold at 500 pounds on the black market.

The government’s latest move sparked ire on the streets. A teacher told Asharq Al-Awsat: “They claim that they are seeking fairness and preventing price manipulation, but the truth is clear to see. The government is seeking to cover its shortcomings at the expense of the people.”

He said some families have become so impoverished that they can only rely on government subsidies. Very few families can afford a 500-pound packet of bread, he added.

The United Nations estimates that 87 percent of people in government-held territories are living under the poverty line. Their income is no more than 60,000 pounds, while a family of five needs at least 500,000 pounds to support itself.

Prior to the eruption of the conflict in 2011, Syria used to produce 4 million tons of wheat per year, of which 1.5 million tons was exported. According to the UN, Syria produced 1.2 million tons of wheat in 2019, the lowest figure in 29 years. Government-held regions need 1 to 1.5 million tons of wheat.

The regions of al-Jazira, Hasaka, Deir Ezzor and Raqqa, all of which are now controlled by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, as well as Aleppo, produce the bulk of Syria’s wheat for the country’s 23 million people.

Gasoline shortage
On top of a bread crisis, the people also have to contend with a severe gasoline shortage that has led to long queues of cars lined up at gas stations. Amid the hardship, some Syrians have joked that the country should enter the record books for the longest queues at stations.

The government has limited private vehicles to 30 liters of gasoline every four days, with residents saying hundreds of motorists wait for hours before gas stations are opened.

The shortages were worsened by major maintenance at the Baniyas refinery, the country’s largest, which supplied two-thirds of the country’s gasoline needs, said oil minister Bassam Touma.

Touma said once unavoidable maintenance work at the 130,000 barrel per day capacity refinery had been completed in the next 10 days, capacity would rise by 25%. Shipments from several undisclosed sources would also help ease the crisis later this month, he added.

Oil production collapsed after Damascus lost most of its oil producing fields in a stretch east of the Euphrates River in Deir Ezzor. These oil fields are now in the hands of US backed SDF, who continue to sell part of the oil to Damascus.

Syria had previously relied on Iranian oil shipments but tightening sanctions on Iran, Syria and their allies have dried up supplies in the past year.

Oil traders say oil imports through Beirut port, a major conduit, have also been disrupted in the wake of a major explosion last August.

Washington has long accused Syria of smuggling oil through Lebanon across a porous border area where Damascus’s ally Iranian-backed Hezbollah holds sway.

A shortfall in foreign currency had also forced Damascus to import less fuel in the last two months, further worsening supplies, two traders said.



Palestinian Families Flee West Bank Homes in Droves as Israel Confronts Militants

Israel expanded its West Bank operation, which began last month, to Nur Shams in recent days © Zain JAAFAR / AFP
Israel expanded its West Bank operation, which began last month, to Nur Shams in recent days © Zain JAAFAR / AFP
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Palestinian Families Flee West Bank Homes in Droves as Israel Confronts Militants

Israel expanded its West Bank operation, which began last month, to Nur Shams in recent days © Zain JAAFAR / AFP
Israel expanded its West Bank operation, which began last month, to Nur Shams in recent days © Zain JAAFAR / AFP

By car and on foot, through muddy olive groves and snipers’ sight lines, tens of thousands of Palestinians in recent weeks have fled Israeli military operations across the northern West Bank — the largest displacement in the occupied territory since the 1967 Mideast war.

After announcing a widespread crackdown against West Bank militants on Jan. 21 — just two days after its ceasefire deal with Hamas in Gaza — Israeli forces descended on the restive city of Jenin, as they have dozens of times since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

But unlike past operations, Israeli forces then pushed deeper and more forcefully into several other nearby towns, including Tulkarem, Far’a and Nur Shams, scattering families and stirring bitter memories of the 1948 war over Israel’s creation, The AP reported.

During that war, 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes in what is now Israel. That Nakba, or “catastrophe,” as Palestinians call it, gave rise to the crowded West Bank towns now under assault and still known as refugee camps.

“This is our nakba,” said Abed Sabagh, 53, who bundled his seven children into the car on Feb. 9 as sound bombs blared in Nur Shams camp, where he was born to parents who fled the 1948 war.

Tactics from Gaza Humanitarian officials say they haven’t seen such displacement in the West Bank since the 1967 Mideast war, when Israel captured the territory west of the Jordan River, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, displacing another 300,000 Palestinians.

“This is unprecedented. When you add to this the destruction of infrastructure, we’re reaching a point where the camps are becoming uninhabitable," said Roland Friedrich, director of West Bank affairs for the UN Palestinian refugee agency. More than 40,100 Palestinians have fled their homes in the ongoing military operation, according to the agency.

Experts say that Israel's tactics in the West Bank are becoming almost indistinguishable from those deployed in Gaza. Already, President Donald Trump's plan for the mass transfer of Palestinians out of Gaza has emboldened Israel's far-right to renew calls for annexation of the West Bank.

"The idea of ‘cleansing’ the land of Palestinians is more popular today than ever before," said Yagil Levy, head of the Institute for the Study of Civil-Military Relations at Britain’s Open University.

The Israeli army denies issuing evacuation orders in the West Bank. It said troops secure passages for those wanting to leave on their own accord.

Seven minutes to leave home. Over a dozen displaced Palestinians interviewed in the last week said they did not flee their homes out of fear, but on the orders of Israeli security forces. Associated Press journalists in the Nur Shams camp also heard Israeli soldiers shouting through mosque megaphones, ordering people to leave.

Some displaced families said soldiers were polite, knocking on doors and assuring them they could return when the army left. Others said they were ruthless, ransacking rooms, waving rifles and hustling residents out of their homes despite pleas for more time.

“I was sobbing, asking them, ‘Why do you want me to leave my house?’ My baby is upstairs, just let me get my baby please,’” Ayat Abdullah, 30, recalled from a shelter for displaced people in the village of Kafr al-Labd. “They gave us seven minutes. I brought my children, thank God. Nothing else."

Told to make their own way, Abdullah trudged 10 kilometers (six miles) on a path lighted only by the glow from her phone as rain turned the ground to mud. She said she clutched her children tight, braving possible snipers that had killed a 23-year-old pregnant woman just hours earlier on Feb. 9.

Her 5-year-old son, Nidal, interrupted her story, pursing his lips together to make a loud buzzing sound.

“You’re right, my love," she replied. “That’s the sound the drones made when we left home.”

Hospitality, for now In the nearby town of Anabta, volunteers moved in and out of mosques and government buildings that have become makeshift shelters — delivering donated blankets, serving bitter coffee, distributing boiled eggs for breakfast and whipping up vats of rice and chicken for dinner.

Residents have opened their homes to families fleeing Nur Shams and Tulkarem.

“This is our duty in the current security situation,” said Thabet A’mar, the mayor of Anabta.

But he stressed that the town’s welcoming hand should not be mistaken for anything more.

“We insist that their displacement is temporary,” he said.

Staying put When the invasion started on Feb. 2, Israeli bulldozers ruptured underground pipes. Taps ran dry. Sewage gushed. Internet service was shut off. Schools closed. Food supplies dwindled. Explosions echoed.

Ahmad Sobuh could understand how his neighbors chose to flee the Far’a refugee camp during Israel's 10-day incursion. But he scavenged rainwater to drink and hunkered down in his home, swearing to himself, his family and the Israeli soldiers knocking at his door that he would stay.

The soldiers advised against that, informing Sobuh's family on Feb. 11 that, because a room had raised suspicion for containing security cameras and an object resembling a weapon, they would blow up the second floor.

The surveillance cameras, which Israeli soldiers argued could be exploited by Palestinian militants, were not unusual in the volatile neighborhood, Sobuh said, as families can observe street battles and Israeli army operations from inside.

But the second claim sent him clambering upstairs, where he found his nephew’s water pipe, shaped like a rifle.

Hours later, the explosion left his nephew's room naked to the wind and shattered most others. It was too dangerous to stay.

“They are doing everything they can to push us out,” he said of Israel's military, which, according to the UN agency for refugees, has demolished hundreds of homes across the four camps this year.

The Israeli army has described its ongoing campaign as a crucial counterterrorism effort to prevent attacks like Oct. 7, and said steps were taken to mitigate the impact on civilians.

A chilling return The first thing Doha Abu Dgheish noticed about her family's five-story home 10 days after Israeli troops forced them to leave, she said, was the smell.

Venturing inside as Israeli troops withdrew from Far'a camp, she found rotten food and toilets piled with excrement. Pet parakeets had vanished from their cages. Pages of the Quran had been defaced with graphic drawings. Israeli forces had apparently used explosives to blow every door off its hinges, even though none had been locked.

Rama, her 11-year-old daughter with Down syndrome, screamed upon finding her doll’s skirt torn and its face covered with more graphic drawings.

AP journalists visited the Abu Dgheish home on Feb. 12, hours after their return.

Nearly two dozen Palestinians interviewed across the four West Bank refugee camps this month described army units taking over civilian homes to use as a dormitories, storerooms or lookout points. The Abu Dgheish family accused Israeli soldiers of vandalizing their home, as did multiple families in Far’a.

The Israeli army blamed militants for embedding themselves in civilian infrastructure. Soldiers may be “required to operate from civilian homes for varying periods," it said, adding that the destruction of civilian property was a violation of the military's rules and does not conform to its values.

It said “any exceptional incidents that raise concerns regarding a deviation from these orders” are “thoroughly addressed,” without elaborating.

For Abu Dgheish, the mess was emblematic of the emotional whiplash of return. No one knows when they’ll have to flee again.

“It’s like they want us to feel that we’re never safe,” she said. ”That we have no control.”