Sandwiched between Wars, a Syrian-Ukrainian Faces Uncertain Future

Victoria Naji, who was born in Syria to a Palestinian father and a Ukrainian mother poses for a picture with her mother, Irina Naji at their home in Damascus, Syria and March 12, 2022. (Reuters)
Victoria Naji, who was born in Syria to a Palestinian father and a Ukrainian mother poses for a picture with her mother, Irina Naji at their home in Damascus, Syria and March 12, 2022. (Reuters)
TT

Sandwiched between Wars, a Syrian-Ukrainian Faces Uncertain Future

Victoria Naji, who was born in Syria to a Palestinian father and a Ukrainian mother poses for a picture with her mother, Irina Naji at their home in Damascus, Syria and March 12, 2022. (Reuters)
Victoria Naji, who was born in Syria to a Palestinian father and a Ukrainian mother poses for a picture with her mother, Irina Naji at their home in Damascus, Syria and March 12, 2022. (Reuters)

Born in Syria to a Palestinian father and a Ukrainian mother, Victoria Naji has spent her life in the shadow of conflict.

Aged 24 and resident in Damascus, Naji came of age during the Syrian war that marks its 11th anniversary on Tuesday having destroyed much of the country.

Recently graduated in fine arts from Damascus University, she had been planning to travel to Ukraine to seek out opportunities in her mother's homeland - until war erupted there last month.

"I said to myself 'I can move to Ukraine in the future'. Now the future is very confused," said Naji, who is Palestinian, Ukrainian and Syrian. "I see war everywhere. There is no safe place for me."

The war in Syria has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced more than half the population from their homes since spiraling out of protests against President Bashar al-Assad in March, 2011. Russia joined the war in 2015, deploying its air force to Syria in support of Assad.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which began on Feb. 24, has sent more than 2.8 million people fleeing across Ukraine's borders and trapped hundreds of thousands in besieged cities. Russia calls its actions a "special military operation" to "denazify" the country.

Naji says her friends and family had been forced to flee Kyiv to safer areas. "God willing nothing more than this happens to Ukraine," she said, as she reflected on happy memories of visits to the country.

Naji's parents married in 1983 and traveled between Ukraine and Syria before settling in Damascus in 1995. Her grandfather on her mother's side fought in World War Two.

On her father's side, the family fled the town of Nazareth in 1948 when Israel was created and 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled. They were granted citizenship in Syria.

"I should be happy to have three countries to live in, but I can't live in any of them," Naji said.

Naji has lived in relative safety since the war in Syria broke out, in an area outside Damascus that was not badly affected. One of her friends came to stay for this reason, after her brother was killed in shelling, she added.

The main frontlines of the conflict have been largely frozen for several years. But poverty and hardship are worse than at any point since the war erupted.

Speaking about the start of the war, she said: "The problem is we were young when these things began."

"We grew older and got used to them."

The Ukraine invasion marks the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two.

"I am an artist ... I don't understand why this is happening and I don't want to understand, but I have to because it is my cause - as is Palestine ... and of course Syria," she said.



Israeli Strike on Beirut Shatters Diplomatic Understandings, Sources Say

Armed men keep watch atop a building during the funeral procession of late senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, killed in an Israeli strike, in Beirut, Lebanon, 01 August 2024. (EPA)
Armed men keep watch atop a building during the funeral procession of late senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, killed in an Israeli strike, in Beirut, Lebanon, 01 August 2024. (EPA)
TT

Israeli Strike on Beirut Shatters Diplomatic Understandings, Sources Say

Armed men keep watch atop a building during the funeral procession of late senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, killed in an Israeli strike, in Beirut, Lebanon, 01 August 2024. (EPA)
Armed men keep watch atop a building during the funeral procession of late senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, killed in an Israeli strike, in Beirut, Lebanon, 01 August 2024. (EPA)

Lebanon's Hezbollah did not clear its sensitive sites or evacuate top officials in Beirut's suburbs before this week's attack that killed a top commander because it thought US-led diplomacy would keep Israel from striking the area, security sources close to the group and diplomats said.

Hezbollah's impression was that Israel would not hit the southern suburbs, or Dahiyeh, a heartland of support for the Shiite group, as it believed Israeli forces would adhere to unofficial red lines both sides have generally observed in the conflict that has escalated during the Gaza War, they said.

This assessment was relayed to Reuters by eight diplomats with knowledge of recent mediation efforts led by Washington and including France and the United Nations, as well as three security sources close to Hezbollah. They all spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the topic.

That understanding was shattered on Tuesday when an Israeli strike on Beirut's Dahiyeh killed Hezbollah's top military commander, an Iranian military adviser and five civilians. Lebanese officials and Hezbollah now question whether diplomatic assurances had been relayed to the group accurately.

"We were not expecting them to hit Beirut and they hit Beirut," Lebanon's caretaker foreign minister Abdallah Bou Habib told Reuters.

Coupled with the killing in Tehran hours later of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Palestinian armed group Hamas, it has risked sending the entire region into a violent tailspin.

Tensions began spiraling after a deadly strike on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on July 27 which Israel blamed on Hezbollah, vowing retaliation. The group denied any involvement.

Diplomats rushed to contain the fallout by urging Israel not to strike Dahiyeh as part of its response, with US envoy Amos Hochstein specifically passing on those messages, several diplomats and a Lebanese official with direct knowledge of mediation efforts told Reuters.

A Hezbollah official said mediators had informed them of such efforts. The Lebanese official and three diplomats involved in the messaging said Israel had not made any commitments.

'DIPLOMACY HAS FAILED'

Still, Hezbollah's posture signaled its comfort: in the days leading up to the strike, top officials from the group were seen moving around Dahiyeh.

Hezbollah had cleared out some of its key sites in south and east Lebanon in anticipation of possible strikes, but did not take similar measures in Beirut, two security sources told Reuters. Hezbollah figures living near the targeted building were rushed out in a panic after it was hit, the sources said.

A regional diplomat said that meant Israel had no major Hezbollah targets to hit in south or east Lebanon. Two European diplomats said Hezbollah had not taken protective measures in Beirut and "were not cautious".

Several of the diplomats, as well as a Western envoy, said they had understood Dahiyeh would be spared. "There was a clear message sent" that Israel would spare big cities including Beirut, a diplomat said.

Instead, they said, Israel shunned efforts to constrain its response. "Israelis do not listen to a word that we tell them. They are following their plan and don't listen to us," one of the European diplomats said.

The Western envoy and an Iranian official said Israel had "crossed red lines" by striking Dahiyeh. "Diplomacy has failed," the envoy told Reuters, saying the ability of countries, even the United States, to influence Israel was limited.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in a speech on Thursday marking the funeral of the slain commander Fuad Shukr, said Israel "does not know to what extent it has crossed the red lines" and that unnamed countries had asked the group not to respond to the strike - a request he rejected.

MISCALCULATION

Already, international efforts to rein in Israel's military blitz against the Gaza Strip - a response to Hamas' cross-border attack into Israel on Oct. 7 - have had limited success.

The United States has urged Israel to unblock aid deliveries into Gaza, avoid civilian casualties and refrain from launching a large-scale military offensive in Rafah, but its diplomatic efforts have yielded few results.

"The Israelis feel they are beset from all angles, politically, militarily, and it is a bit of a risky situation," a Western diplomat told Reuters.

As a result, Israel had shifted the war's rules of engagement, carrying out more audacious strikes against its Iranian, Lebanese and Palestinian foes, diplomats and analysts in the region said.

Hezbollah had "misread" Israel's mindset and thought it had done enough to deter Israel from bold strikes in Lebanon, several diplomats working on the issue and the Lebanese official said.

"Hamas, Israel, Hezbollah and Iran have all miscalculated since Oct. 7 and mis-assessed each other," the Western envoy said.