New Demographics Alter Syria's Identity

Archive photo of Iran's Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani in Sit Zaynab near Damascus. (Iranian TV)
Archive photo of Iran's Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani in Sit Zaynab near Damascus. (Iranian TV)
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New Demographics Alter Syria's Identity

Archive photo of Iran's Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani in Sit Zaynab near Damascus. (Iranian TV)
Archive photo of Iran's Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani in Sit Zaynab near Damascus. (Iranian TV)

The long years of war in Syria did not only leave behind millions of victims and vast destruction, but also created new demographic realities that changed the identity of areas nationwide.

In the Syrian capital’s southern countryside lies a town, Sit Zaynab, which is home to the Shrine of Sayyida Zaynab and is the destination of thousands of Iranian, Iraqi, Lebanese, Afghan, and Pakistani visitors.

Many recount how the town feels like it no longer feels Syrian. The only character reminiscent of the town’s Syrian identity is the handful of Golan refugees who relocated to Sit Zaynab after the June 1967 war and the other internally displaced people who moved there during the years of war.

Another new development that altered the town’s identity was the influx of foreign fighters, who “liberated” the city from the armed opposition factions that controlled it for two years (from the start of the Syrian uprising in March 2011 until the beginning of 2013).

The foreign fighters who flocked to Sit Zaynab from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and worked under Iran's command, were driven by defending the shrine, while the fighters of the armed opposition factions believed that the liberation of the town was a prelude to the liberation of southern Damascus.

Even though the conflict over the town has become a thing of the past, locals in Sit Zaynab have grown accustomed to segregation brought about by zones of influence. Neighborhoods have been isolated by military checkpoints and cement blocks.

While the presence of armed groups has apparently declined in the town’s streets, locals told Asharq Al-Awsat that a new dispute has arisen between influential strongmen and Syrian security authorities.

Although years have passed since the regime’s army and Iranian militias regained control of Sit Zaynab, foreign fighters are preventing shop owners, who have left the town, from returning.

Local sources said the leaders of foreign fighters had bought off several shops in the town and are in the process of taking over more.

Sit Zaynab is considered one of the top four Shiite destinations in the world, after Iraq’s Najaf and Karbala and Iran’s Mashhad.

Annual rent in Sit Zaynab ranges between SYP 10 million and SYP 20 million. The town is home to around 500 shops, more than half of which are shut.

Besides looking to own shops, foreign fighters are also transforming the town’s large residential complexes into hotels for hosting visitors, pilgrims, and even more foreign fighters.

Sub-boulevards now include one or two hotels to accommodate “visitors” and foreign fighters.

Nowadays, Sit Zaynab has around 40-50 hotels that were established by leaders of foreign fighters who paid large sums of money to seize the premises. They also bought smaller properties within the town to accommodate themselves.

These moves by warlords indicate that they are eyeing control over the town’s post-war economy.

Socially, a heterogeneous mixture exists in the town. It is made up from the remnants of Sit Zaynab’s original residents, the Golanis displaced in 1967, the Idlibis displaced from the villages of Al-Fua and Kefraya, the Palestinian refugees, and the Iranian, Iraqi, Lebanese, Pakistani and Afghan fighters.

Economists told Asharq Al-Awsat that deteriorating economic conditions could exacerbate friction between these demographics. But an economic and commercial boom can ease these tensions.

In addition to the groups of foreign fighters, Syrian security services are active inside the town, but their role is no more powerful to the role of the groups controlling Sit Zaynab.

Local sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that “the security services support the survival of original locals and those arriving from inside Syria.”

In Old Damascus, it has been almost a year since the checkpoints run by Iran and its affiliated militias have disappeared from the neighborhoods of Touma, al-Joura, al-Amin, al-Amarah and Zayn al-Abedeen. This was followed by a slight return of groups of pilgrims from Lebanon, Iraq and Iran after they resumed shrine tourism programs that were suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Not only did Iran’s affiliates remove their checkpoints from Old Damascus, but also Iranian goods were withdrawn from the capital’s markets. Between 2011 and 2016, Iranian goods had swept Damascene markets.

Iranian exports to Syria increased between 2011 and 2017, from $361 million to $869 million.

Syria turned into a veritable market for Iranian products, and the value of Iranian goods exported to Syria from 2012 to August 2017 amounted to about $313 million, while Syrian exports did not exceed $91 million.

However, these goods were not accepted and popular, and notably, most of the population turned to smuggled goods from neighboring countries.

In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, however, well-informed experts dismissed the importance of the apparent retreat of foreign fighters in Old Damascus.

They point to talks about Iran buying, through networks of institutions, dealers, and Iranian banks, real estate, homes, shops, and hotels in Old Damascus.

Observers believe that Iran will likely restore its influence in the areas from which it has retreated. With Russia preoccupied with its war in Ukraine, Tehran is carrying out the process of filling the vacuum left by Moscow in Syria.



Palestinians Hope ‘No Other Land’ Oscar Win Brings Help as They Face Possible Israeli Expulsion 

Salem Adra, left, brother of Palestinian activist Basel Adra, who won Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars for "No Other Land" talks with a local Palestinian shepherd as they stand near an Israeli settlers' outpost at the West Bank village of al-Tuwaneh, Monday, March 3, 2025. (AP)
Salem Adra, left, brother of Palestinian activist Basel Adra, who won Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars for "No Other Land" talks with a local Palestinian shepherd as they stand near an Israeli settlers' outpost at the West Bank village of al-Tuwaneh, Monday, March 3, 2025. (AP)
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Palestinians Hope ‘No Other Land’ Oscar Win Brings Help as They Face Possible Israeli Expulsion 

Salem Adra, left, brother of Palestinian activist Basel Adra, who won Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars for "No Other Land" talks with a local Palestinian shepherd as they stand near an Israeli settlers' outpost at the West Bank village of al-Tuwaneh, Monday, March 3, 2025. (AP)
Salem Adra, left, brother of Palestinian activist Basel Adra, who won Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars for "No Other Land" talks with a local Palestinian shepherd as they stand near an Israeli settlers' outpost at the West Bank village of al-Tuwaneh, Monday, March 3, 2025. (AP)

Just last week, Israeli troops came and tore down a Palestinian family’s shed in this remote, hilly corner of the West Bank, residents say. It was the latest instance of destruction targeting a collection of hamlets whose population is threatened with expulsion.

Palestinians in the Masafer Yatta area cheered the Oscar win of the documentary “No Other Land,” which depicts life in the beleaguered community, and hoped it will bring them some help.

In al-Tuwaneh, one of the hamlets that make up Masafer Yatta, Salem Adra said his family stayed up all night for the Oscar ceremony. They watched as his older brother, Basel Adra, the film’s co-director, came on stage to accept the award for best documentary.

“It was such a huge surprise, such joy,” he said.

“No Other Land” follows Basel Adra as he risks arrest to document the destruction of Masafer Yatta at the southern edge of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, joined by his co-director, Israeli journalist and filmmaker, Yuval Abraham.

The joint Palestinian-Israeli production has won a string of international awards, starting at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2024. Five years in the making, it gained greater resonance amid Israel’s devastating military campaign in Gaza that forced almost its entire population from their homes, as well as increasing raids in the West Bank that have caused the displacement of tens of thousands of Palestinians.

At the same time, the film has raised hackles in Israel, scarred by the bloody the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas that triggered the war.

Salem Adra, who at times helped his brother film for the movie, said he hoped the Oscar win “opens the world’s eyes to what’s happening here in Masafer Yatta.”

“It’s a win for all of Palestine and for everyone who lives in Masafer Yatta,” he said.

He said that since the film was first released, threats and pressure against his family have increased. Their car has been stoned by settlers. After the movie won an award at the Berlin International Film Festival a year ago, the military returned over and over to the family home, and once detained his father, searching his phone and asking, “Why are you filming?”

The Israeli military designated Masafer Yatta as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s and ordered residents, mostly Arab Bedouin, to be expelled. Israel said the Bedouin did not have permanent structures in the area. But families say they have lived and herded their sheep and goats across the area long before Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war.

After a 20-year legal battle by residents, Israel’s Supreme Court upheld the expulsion order in 2022. The around 1,000 residents have largely remained in place, but troops regularly move in to demolish homes, tents, water tanks and olive orchards — and Palestinians fear outright expulsion could come at any time.

Salem Adra said the latest destruction came Wednesday, when troops tore down the shed of a family in a nearby hamlet.

Standing on a stony ridge above al-Tuwaneh, Salem Adra said Jewish settlers backed by the military have set up 10 outposts around the village since Oct. 7, 2023.

Shepherd Raed al-Hamamdeh, 48, led his herd of goats across the rocky land. He pointed to one outpost — with tents and a trailer flying the flag of an Israeli military unit — on the other side of a small valley. Farmers no longer tend the olive grove in the valley for fear of being attacked.

Al-Hamamdeh said the military uses drones to drive off herds if they get too close to the outposts. “Settlers attack. When we herd sheep, we can’t go far as you can see. Only up to this point can we reach,” he said. He pointed to the rubble of a house that he said settlers had destroyed, driving out the family and burning their furniture.

In Israel, the film garnered little media attention since its release — and what attention it did get has been angry. When it won the documentary prize at the Berlin festival, its Israeli director Abraham came under fire for an acceptance speech that called for an end to the war in Gaza without mentioning Hamas’ initial attack and taking of the hostages held in Gaza.

In his Oscar acceptance speech, Abraham spoke of both. But that did little to calm criticism in Israel. Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar called the win “a sad moment for the world of cinema.” He said the film distorted reality and accused its creators of using “defamation” of Israel as a way help promote the documentary.

Usually, Israeli films that are nominated for prestigious international prizes receive boastful accolades in Israel.

But after the Hamas attack, “everyone is in mourning or in trauma, we can hardly hear any other voice on any other subject,” Raya Morag, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who specializes in cinema and trauma, said last week.

On Monday, she said it wasn’t yet clear if the win will bring the documentary more attention in Israel. But, she said, “it won’t be possible for people to ignore the message of the two directors, including for people that haven’t seen the film.”

In his acceptance speech Sunday night, Basel Adra called on the world “to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.”

He said he hoped his newborn daughter would “not have to live the same life I am living now ... Always feeling settler violence, home demolitions and forceful displacement.”

On Monday, his brother Salem walked down from the ridge along with his 4-year-old son to a family home.

He checked the CCTV cameras the family has set up around the house to watch for settlers. They were still filming.