Protesters in Lebanon Demand Expulsion of Iranian Ambassadorhttps://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2925911/protesters-lebanon-demand-expulsion-iranian-ambassador
Protesters in Lebanon Demand Expulsion of Iranian Ambassador
Protesters in front of the foreign ministry on Saturday. (AFP)
Civil movement groups staged a sit-in on Saturday in front of the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beirut to protest against “Iran’s violation of Lebanon’s land and sea borders” and the government’s failure to address the issue.
Last month, the Iranian ambassador refused to respond to a summoning by caretaker foreign minister, Charbel Wehbeh, after he insulted Maronite Patriarch Beshara Al-Rai on Al-Alam channel, which is affiliated with Iran.
In a statement on behalf of the protesters, lawyer Grace Moubarak said: “We, the free groups that emerged from the October 17 revolution, believers in sovereignty, freedom and independence, stand here today to raise our voice and to object against the Iranian ambassador’s refusal to accept his summoning after insulting our national sovereignty, in flagrant violation of Lebanon’s dignity.”
She continued: “The incident reflects the authorities’ insistence on neglecting our rights, distorting the image of Lebanon, destroying its port and half of its capital… in order to serve the Iranian axis and isolate the country from its Arab, regional and global fold.”
Protesters raised the issue of the maritime borders and the failure to sign a decree demanding the expansion of the Lebanese maritime zone in the negotiations with Israel.
“The time has come to liberate Lebanon and restore its decision-making power,” Moubarak urged, adding: “Therefore, we request signing the amendment to Decree 6433, which guarantees our southern maritime borders…, confronting the flagrant aggression of our northern maritime borders, and severing diplomatic relations with Iran, in addition to the expulsion of its ambassador.”
Protesters also called for the implementation of the constitution, national pact and international and Arab resolutions, especially UN Security Council Resolutions 1559, 1680 and 1701, and holding of an international conference on Lebanon, according to an initiative proposed by Rai.
Syrian Family Recounts the Horrors of 2013 Chemical Attack Near Damascushttps://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5095251-syrian-family-recounts-horrors-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)
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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)
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.
