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.



Experts: Spy Network within Hezbollah Has Helped Israel Assassinate Top Members

This picture released on Wednesday, July 31, 2024 by Hezbollah Military Media shows Fouad Shukur a Hezbollah top commander who was killed by an Israeli airstrike that hit a building on Tuesday, July 30, 2024, in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon. (Hezbollah Military Media vía AP)
This picture released on Wednesday, July 31, 2024 by Hezbollah Military Media shows Fouad Shukur a Hezbollah top commander who was killed by an Israeli airstrike that hit a building on Tuesday, July 30, 2024, in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon. (Hezbollah Military Media vía AP)
TT

Experts: Spy Network within Hezbollah Has Helped Israel Assassinate Top Members

This picture released on Wednesday, July 31, 2024 by Hezbollah Military Media shows Fouad Shukur a Hezbollah top commander who was killed by an Israeli airstrike that hit a building on Tuesday, July 30, 2024, in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon. (Hezbollah Military Media vía AP)
This picture released on Wednesday, July 31, 2024 by Hezbollah Military Media shows Fouad Shukur a Hezbollah top commander who was killed by an Israeli airstrike that hit a building on Tuesday, July 30, 2024, in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon. (Hezbollah Military Media vía AP)

Several questions have been raised about Israel's ability to assassinate top Hezbollah operatives. The latest was the assassination on Tuesday of top commander Fouad Shukur in the party’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Many people have wondered how Israel has managed to pinpoint Shukur’s exact location at a time when Hezbollah commanders should be exercising extreme caution after Israel vowed to avenge the killing of 12 youths in an attack on Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights over the weekend. Hezbollah has denied its involvement in the strike.

Wealth of information

Founder and CEO of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis (INEGMA) Riad Kahwaji told Asharq Al-Awsat that several advanced technologies are used in spy operations, such as monitoring mobile phones, face recognition cameras, drones and satellites.

However, this technology is useless to the Israelis without information about members of Hezbollah, such where they live, their telephone number and how they actually look like, he explained.

Informants and spies are on the ground to help in these assassinations, he stressed.

“Assuming that Hezbollah leaders are not using mobile phones, the only way to know that Shukur was in the targeted building was if someone had followed him and informed the Israelis of his location,” he went on to say.

There is no doubt that Israel has greatly infiltrated Hezbollah and knows its security measures, allowing it to have committed this number of assassinations of senior figures, as well as members who are not known to the public, but only to the party, Kahwaji said.

Network of agents

Retired general George Nader agrees with Kahwaji that Hezbollah has been infiltrated by a complex network of spies.

Without this network, how could Israeli drones have possibly targeted a Hezbollah member as soon as he crossed a certain location? he wondered in remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat.

No regular person could possibly know the movement of these commanders and their locations. These networks of agents are inside the party in Lebanon, as well as in Syria and Iran, he stated.

Lax measures

Head of the Middle East Center for Strategic Studies retired Brigadier General Dr. Hisham Jaber noted that there are a number of factors that have led to the success of Israeli assassinations.

Hezbollah has been breached and its agents have infiltrated the party, he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

The Israelis also have data on all the Lebanese people, including members of the resistance [Hezbollah] and its leaders. It boasts advanced technology, satellites and the support of American and European intelligence.

Lax security measures by some members of Hezbollah are also another factor that have led to assassinations, he remarked.

Given the tensions in wake of the Majdal Shams attack, a senior member such as Shukur should not have been at his home or at a place he often frequents, he explained.

Notable assassinations

Israel has succeeded since November in carrying out a number of assassinations against Hezbollah.

In November, it assassinated the son of Hezbollah MP Mohammed Raad and four others, who are members of the al-Radwan unit. They were killed in a drone strike that targeted a house they were in.

On January 2, Israel assassinated leading Hamas member Saleh al-Arouri in a strike in the heart of Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs. It fired rockets at an apartment where he was meeting with Qassam Brigades field commanders.

Days later, on January 8, Israel succeeded in killing Radwan unit commander Wissam Taweel while he was returning home to a southern Lebanon village. It killed prominent members Taleb Abdullah in June and Mohammed Nasser in July.