Syria, Russia under Pressure over Use of Chemical Weapons

A Syrian girl holds an oxygen mask over the face of an infant at a make-shift hospital after a gas attack on Douma in the eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of Damascus on January 22, 2018. (AFP)
A Syrian girl holds an oxygen mask over the face of an infant at a make-shift hospital after a gas attack on Douma in the eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of Damascus on January 22, 2018. (AFP)
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Syria, Russia under Pressure over Use of Chemical Weapons

A Syrian girl holds an oxygen mask over the face of an infant at a make-shift hospital after a gas attack on Douma in the eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of Damascus on January 22, 2018. (AFP)
A Syrian girl holds an oxygen mask over the face of an infant at a make-shift hospital after a gas attack on Douma in the eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of Damascus on January 22, 2018. (AFP)

Syria and Russia faced renewed pressure over allegations of chemical weapons use as member countries of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) met on Monday.

Damascus faced calls for sanctions at the OPCW after investigators accused the Syrian regime of sarin attacks in 2017.

Russia and Syria have repeatedly denied the accusations, alleging that Western powers have politicized the Hague-based OPCW.

Syria had failed to meet 90-day deadline set in July to declare the weapons used in the attacks on the village of Lataminah and to reveal its remaining stocks, OPCW chief Fernando Arias said.

"The Syrian Arab Republic has not completed any of the measures," Arias told the meeting.

He said "gaps, inconsistencies and discrepancies" remained in Syria's account of its progress on its 2013 agreement to give up all chemical weapons following a suspected sarin attack that killed 1,400 people in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta.

France proposed that the OPCW should "suspend the rights and privileges" of Syria for failing to meet the deadline, French ambassador Luis Vassy said, adding that the proposal was backed by 43 states.

These would include Syria's voting rights in the OPCW, depriving it of a voice at a body where it has been deflecting allegations of toxic arms use for years.

Russia meanwhile came under pressure over the poisoning of opposition figure Alexei Navalny, which the politician and western governments have blamed on the Kremlin.

The OPCW has confirmed traces of the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok in samples taken from Navalny in hospital in Germany, where he is recovering.

Arias said the OPCW was still in talks with Russia to send a fact-finding team there to investigate the incident, he said.

In a joint statement, 55 countries including the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia and many in Europe said they "condemn in the strongest possible terms" the attack on Navalny.

They urged Russia "to assist... by disclosing in a swift and transparent manner the circumstances of this chemical weapons attack" on Russian territory.

The OPCW has 193 member states and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 for its work in destroying the world's stocks of chemical weapons.



Israeli Army Bombards Homes in North Gaza, Airstrike Kills 15, Medics Say

A Palestinian boy inspects the destruction at the site of an Israeli strike that targeted a home in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on December 2, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)
A Palestinian boy inspects the destruction at the site of an Israeli strike that targeted a home in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on December 2, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)
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Israeli Army Bombards Homes in North Gaza, Airstrike Kills 15, Medics Say

A Palestinian boy inspects the destruction at the site of an Israeli strike that targeted a home in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on December 2, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)
A Palestinian boy inspects the destruction at the site of an Israeli strike that targeted a home in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on December 2, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)

Israeli forces bombarded houses in overnight attacks in the northern Gaza Strip, killing at least 15 people in one of the buildings in the town of Beit Lahiya, Palestinian medics said on Monday.

Several others were wounded in the attack and others were missing after a house providing shelter to displaced people was struck, with rescue workers unable immediately to reach them, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said.

The three barely operational hospitals in the area were unable to cope with the number of wounded, they added.

Clusters of houses were bombed and some set ablaze in Jabalia and in Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, where the Israeli army has been operating for several weeks, residents said.

They said Israeli drones had dropped bombs outside a school sheltering displaced families, suggesting this was intended to scare them into leaving.

The Palestinians say Israel's army is trying to clear people out of the northern edge of Gaza with forced evacuations and bombardments to create a buffer zone. The Israeli army denies this.

The Israeli military, which began its offensive against Hamas in Gaza after the group's attack on southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, 2023, has said its latest operations in northern Gaza are meant to prevent militants regrouping and waging attacks from those areas.

Israel's military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 44,400 people and displaced most of the population, Gaza officials say. Vast swathes of the enclave lie in ruins.

About 1,200 people were killed and over 250 taken hostage in the Hamas attack on the October 2023 attack on Israel, according to Israeli tallies.

NEW CEASEFIRE PUSH

Israel agreed a ceasefire with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah last week, but the conflict in Gaza has continued.

Officials in Cairo have hosted talks between Hamas and the rival Fatah group led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the possible establishment of a committee to run post-war Gaza.

Egypt has proposed that a committee made up of non-partisan technocrat figures, and supervised by Abbas's authority, should be ready to run Gaza straight after the war ends. Israel has said Hamas should have no role in governance.

An official close to the talks said progress had been made but no final deal had been reached. Israel's approval would be decisive in determining whether the committee could fulfill its role. Egyptian security officials have also held talks with Hamas on ways to reach a ceasefire with Israel.

A Palestinian official close to the mediation effort told Reuters Hamas stood by its condition that any agreement must bring an end to the war and involve an Israeli troop withdrawal out, but would show the flexibility needed to achieve that.

Israel has said the war will end only when Hamas no longer governs Gaza and poses no threat to Israelis.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Sunday there was some indication of progress towards a hostage deal but that Israel's conditions for ending the war had not changed.

White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan said he thought the chances of a ceasefire and hostage deal were now more likely.