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Syria Kurds Launch Security Sweep in ISIS Families Camp

More than thirty people were in a sweeping operation in and around the Al-Hol camp, above. (AFP)
More than thirty people were in a sweeping operation in and around the Al-Hol camp, above. (AFP)
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Syria Kurds Launch Security Sweep in ISIS Families Camp

More than thirty people were in a sweeping operation in and around the Al-Hol camp, above. (AFP)
More than thirty people were in a sweeping operation in and around the Al-Hol camp, above. (AFP)

Kurdish forces launched a security operation in a camp for suspected family members of ISIS group militants and made dozens of arrests Sunday, a war monitor and Kurdish officials said.

“More than thirty women and men have been arrested” in a sweeping anti-ISIS operation in and around the al-Hol camp, said Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“The arrests are ongoing” as part of a days-long operation by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is the Kurdish regional administration’s main fighting force, the Kurdish YPG militia and a local police force, Abdul Rahman said.

Syrians and foreigners “suspected of supporting [ISIS]” have been arrested, he said.

SDF officials confirmed the operation, with one of them saying it would run at least 10 days.

The US-led coalition battling ISIS said it was providing its SDF partners with “intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance” support, AFP reported.

“The purpose of this SDF operation is to degrade and disrupt ISIS activities within the camp to ensure the safety and security of camp residents,” coalition spokesperson Wayne Marotto told AFP, using an Arabic acronym for ISIS.

Al-Hol is the largest such settlement controlled by Kurdish authorities, who warn it is emerging as an extremist powder keg.

It holds almost 62,000 people, mostly women and children, including Syrians, Iraqis and thousands from Europe and Asia suspected of family ties with ISIS fighters.

The Observatory has recorded around 40 murders in al-Hol since the start of this year.

Kurdish authorities say ISIS sympathizers are behind most of the murders, while humanitarian sources have said tribal disputes could be behind some of the killings.

In a report published last month, the UN said it had documented cases of “radicalization, fundraising, training and incitement of external operations” at al-Hol.

It also warned over the fate of around 7,000 children living in a special annex designated for foreign ISIS relatives.

They are “being groomed as future [ISIS] operatives”, according to the United Nations.

Despite repeated calls by the UN and Kurdish authorities for countries to repatriate their nationals, only a limited number of people, mostly children, have been allowed to return.

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Arab World

‘Grave-Like’ Shelter to Tackle Winter, War in Gaza

Palestinian father Tayseer Obaid, who was displaced with his family from the northern Gaza Strip, sits with his children in a trench he dug at a makeshift camp in Deir al-Balah, southern Gaza, Palestine, Jan. 8, 2025 (AFP)
Palestinian father Tayseer Obaid, who was displaced with his family from the northern Gaza Strip, sits with his children in a trench he dug at a makeshift camp in Deir al-Balah, southern Gaza, Palestine, Jan. 8, 2025 (AFP)
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‘Grave-Like’ Shelter to Tackle Winter, War in Gaza

Palestinian father Tayseer Obaid, who was displaced with his family from the northern Gaza Strip, sits with his children in a trench he dug at a makeshift camp in Deir al-Balah, southern Gaza, Palestine, Jan. 8, 2025 (AFP)
Palestinian father Tayseer Obaid, who was displaced with his family from the northern Gaza Strip, sits with his children in a trench he dug at a makeshift camp in Deir al-Balah, southern Gaza, Palestine, Jan. 8, 2025 (AFP)

Amid freezing temperatures and heavy rain in war-torn central Gaza's Deir al-Balah, displaced Palestinian father Tayseer Obaid resorted to digging for a semblance of comfort.
In the clay soil of the encampment area where his family had been displaced by the war, Obaid dug a square hole nearly 2 meters deep and capped it with a tarpaulin stretched over an improvised wooden A-frame to keep out the rain.
“I had an idea to dig into the ground to expand the space as it was very limited,” Obaid said.
“So I dug 90 centimeters, it was okay and I felt the space get a little bigger,” he said from the shelter while his children played in a small swing he attached to the plank that serves as a beam for the tarpaulin.
In time, Obaid managed to dig 180 centimeters deep and then lined the bottom with mattresses, at which point, he said, “it felt comfortable, sort of.”
With old flour sacks that he filled with sand, he paved the entry to the shelter to keep it from getting muddy, while he carved steps into the side of the pit, AFP reported.
The clay soil is both soft enough to be dug without power tools and strong enough to stand on its own.
'Freezing to death'
For warmth, Obaid dug a chimney-like structure and fireplace in which he burns discarded paper and cardboard.
In front of the fireplace, his children rub their hands together, trying to find some warmth.
The pit provides some protection from Israeli air strikes, but Obaid said he feared the clay soil could collapse should a strike land close enough.
“If an explosion happened around us and the soil collapsed, this shelter would become our grave,” he said.
Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced by the war that has ravaged the Palestinian territory for over 14 months.
The UN’s satellite center (UNOSAT) determined in September 2024 that 66% of Gaza’s buildings had been damaged or completely destroyed by the war, in which Israel has made extensive use of air strikes as it fights Hamas.
For Palestinian civilians fleeing the fighting, the lack of safe buildings means many have had to gather in makeshift camps, mostly in central and southern Gaza.
Shortages caused by the complete blockade of the coastal territory mean that construction materials are scarce, and the displaced must make do with what is at hand.
On top of the hygiene problems created by the lack of proper water and sanitation for the thousands of people crammed into the camps, winter weather has brought its own set of hardships.
On Thursday, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, warned that eight newborns died of hypothermia and 74 children died “amid the brutal conditions of winter” in 2025.
“We enter this New Year carrying the same horrors as the last — there’s been no progress and no solace. Children are now freezing to death,” UNRWA’s spokeswoman Louise Wateridge said.
More than 45,000 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since the war began, according to data provided by the health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged these figures as reliable.
The October 7 attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.