Syria’s Tragedy… A Bottomless Abyss

Women walk near rubble inside the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on the southern outskirts of Damascus, Syria November 2, 2022. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
Women walk near rubble inside the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on the southern outskirts of Damascus, Syria November 2, 2022. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
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Syria’s Tragedy… A Bottomless Abyss

Women walk near rubble inside the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on the southern outskirts of Damascus, Syria November 2, 2022. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
Women walk near rubble inside the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on the southern outskirts of Damascus, Syria November 2, 2022. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi

Every time we think that the Syrian crisis has hit rock bottom, we discover that we’re wrong. The latest cholera outbreak in the war-torn nation and refugee camps in neighboring countries is yet another evidence that the Syrian crisis is a bottomless abyss.

This was a Western diplomat’s comment after returning from Syria, a country he had visited from time to time in recent years as part of his work as an envoy.

According to the diplomat, years of war in Syria resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, half the population abandoning their homes, and more than seven million IDPs. Two million IDPs in Syria are staying at random camps, while around seven million refugees have sought asylum in neighboring countries.

Moreover, Syria’s infrastructure has sustained severe damage, health services are near non-existent, schools remain shut, and the country is divided into three microstates hosting foreign armies and militias.

“We previously thought that the painful stalemate was the Syrian rock bottom, then the situation sank further with the spread of the coronavirus pandemic and the economic collapse in neighboring Lebanon,” the diplomat noted, adding that the war in Ukraine had also increased the suffering of Syrians in all regions.

“The Ukraine crisis had overshadowed the Syrian crisis before the international community,” they explained.

Syria’s new rock bottom is a dire cholera outbreak. According to the UN, this epidemic is spreading rapidly throughout Syria and Syrian refugee camps, especially in Lebanon. More than 24,000 suspected cholera cases have been reported, infections have been confirmed in all 14 Syrian governorates, and at least 80 people have died.

The UN has raised the alarm, appealing to donors to provide funds for health services. But the latest numbers could have been promising. The money donors promised to deliver at the previous conference was about four billion dollars, of which only a third has been deposited. At best, half of the donations will reach Syria by the end of 2022.

Donor countries are preoccupied with economic crises, collapses, and pledges in the Ukrainian war.

Syria is already forgotten. For the first time, the Brussels Conference on Syria was not held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. Also, high-profile political meetings on Syria were not convened.

Even the constitutional committee meeting, which included talks among the Syrian factions in Geneva, was shelved. Moscow had canceled the meeting in protest of the position of Switzerland and the West in Ukraine.

The illusion of a political process with international facilitation faded. The mirage of global sponsorship for the implementation of Resolution 2254 has dissipated.

In the face of US-Western divisions, Ukraine and global economic crises emerge as a priority, leaving no room for significant initiatives in Syria.

The greatest ambition for Syria now lies in small steps here and there. Neighboring countries are looking for steps to stop the Syrian crisis from slipping past borders. They are taking measures to stop drug smuggling, terrorism, and the positioning of militias.

Major powers lowered the ceiling of their Syrian diplomacy, searching for small trade-offs instead.

What can Moscow and Damascus offer if Washington and Brussels agree to increase the share of funds allocated to early recovery projects? What price can be expected if Washington exempts some medical gear from its sanctions list or if a European capital increases the number of visas granted to Syrian diplomats? What guarantees does Damascus provide if some refugees return?

Over ten years, the discourse around enabling “regime change” in Syria shifted to “changing Damascus’ behavior” and “improving the Syrian government’s conduct.”

Talk of dismantling refugee camps shifted toward improving the quality of these camps for the displaced.

As for the reconstruction of Syria, ambitious plans for rebuilding the nation were reduced to repairing a school here and there, renovating rooms in hospitals, extending water networks, or installing faucets in tanks.

Furthermore, UN Security Council permanent members are talking about improving humanitarian aid access across the lines between the three micros-states present in Syria instead of talking about a united Syria and complete sovereignty over borders and airspace.

Military contacts between the major and regional actors are no longer aimed at discussing military withdrawals and exits from Syria. Rather, they are limited to “preventing clashes” between them and finding mechanisms for “coexistence” between rivals.

In the face of such a scene, a cholera outbreak is hardly reaching the bottom line of the Syrian tragedy.



Israel’s Netanyahu Claims No One in Gaza Is Starving. Data and Witnesses Disagree 

Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, July 28, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, July 28, 2025. (Reuters)
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Israel’s Netanyahu Claims No One in Gaza Is Starving. Data and Witnesses Disagree 

Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, July 28, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinians gather to receive food from a charity kitchen, amid a hunger crisis, in Gaza City, July 28, 2025. (Reuters)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says no one in Gaza is starving: “There is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza. We enable humanitarian aid throughout the duration of the war to enter Gaza – otherwise, there would be no Gazans.”

US President Donald Trump on Monday said he disagrees with Netanyahu’s claim of no starvation in Gaza, noting the images emerging of emaciated people: “Those children look very hungry.”

After international pressure, Israel over the weekend announced humanitarian pauses, airdrops and other measures meant to allow more aid to Palestinians in Gaza. But people there say little or nothing has changed on the ground. The UN has described it as a one-week scale-up of aid, and Israel has not said how long these latest measures would last.

"This aid, delivered in this way, is an insult to the Palestinian people,” said Hassan Al-Zalaan, who was at the site of an airdrop as some fought over the supplies and crushed cans of chickpeas littered the ground.

Israel asserts that Hamas is the reason aid isn’t reaching Palestinians in Gaza and accuses its fighters of siphoning off aid to support its rule in the territory. The UN denies that looting of aid is systematic and that it lessens or ends entirely when enough aid is allowed to enter Gaza.

Here's what we know:

Deaths are increasing The World Health Organization said Sunday there have been 63 malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza this month, including 24 children under the age of 5 — up from 11 deaths total the previous six months of the year.

Gaza's Health Ministry puts the number even higher, reporting 82 deaths this month of malnutrition-related causes: 24 children and 58 adults. It said Monday that 14 deaths were reported in the past 24 hours. The ministry, which operates under the Hamas government, is headed by medical professionals and is seen by the UN as the most reliable source of data on casualties. UN agencies also often confirm numbers through other partners on the ground.

The Patient’s Friends Hospital, the main emergency center for malnourished kids in northern Gaza, says this month it saw for the first time malnutrition deaths in children who had no preexisting conditions. Some adults who died suffered from such illnesses as diabetes or had heart or kidney ailments made worse by starvation, according to Gaza medical officials.

The WHO also says acute malnutrition in northern Gaza tripled this month, reaching nearly one in five children under 5 years old, and has doubled in central and southern Gaza. The UN says Gaza's only four specialized treatment centers for malnutrition are “overwhelmed.”

The leading international authority on food crises, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, has warned of famine for months in Gaza but has not formally declared one, citing the lack of data as Israel restricts access to the territory.

Aid trucks are swarmed by hungry people The measures announced by Israel late Saturday include 10-hour daily humanitarian pauses in fighting in three heavily populated areas, so that UN trucks can more easily distribute food.

Still, UN World Food Program spokesperson Martin Penner said the agency's 55 trucks of aid that entered Gaza on Monday via the crossings of Zikim and Kerem Shalom were looted by starving people before they reached WFP warehouses.

Experts say that airdrops, another measure Israel announced, are insufficient for the immense need in Gaza and dangerous to people on the ground. Israel’s military says 48 food packages were dropped Sunday and Monday.

Palestinians say they want a full return to the UN-led aid distribution system that was in place throughout the war, rather than the Israeli-backed mechanism that began in May. Witnesses and health workers say Israeli forces have killed hundreds by opening fire on Palestinians trying to reach those food distribution hubs or while crowding around entering aid trucks. Israel’s military says it has fired warning shots to disperse threats.

The UN and partners say that the best way to bring food into Gaza is by truck, and they have called repeatedly for Israel to loosen restrictions on their entry. A truck carries roughly 19 tons of supplies.

Israel’s military says that as of July 21, 95,435 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the war began. That’s an average of 146 trucks per day, and far below the 500 to 600 trucks per day that the UN says are needed.

The rate has sometimes been as low as half of that for several months at a time. Nothing went in for 2 1/2 months starting in March because Israel imposed a complete blockade on food, fuel and other supplies entering Gaza.

Delivering aid is difficult and slow The UN says that delivering the aid that is allowed into Gaza has become increasingly difficult.

When aid enters, it is left just inside the border in Gaza, and the UN must get Israeli military permission to send trucks to pick it up. But the UN says the military has denied or impeded just over half the movement requests for its trucks in the past three months.

If the UN succeeds in picking up the aid, hungry crowds and armed gangs swarm the convoys and strip them of supplies. The Hamas-run civilian police once provided security along some routes, but that stopped after Israel targeted them with airstrikes.