Iraq, Iran to Search for Remains of War Missing Persons

Haj Omran border, on the border between Iran and Kurdistan, Iraq October (File photo: Reuters)
Haj Omran border, on the border between Iran and Kurdistan, Iraq October (File photo: Reuters)
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Iraq, Iran to Search for Remains of War Missing Persons

Haj Omran border, on the border between Iran and Kurdistan, Iraq October (File photo: Reuters)
Haj Omran border, on the border between Iran and Kurdistan, Iraq October (File photo: Reuters)

Technical committees from the defense ministries of Iraq and Iran have agreed to jointly search for the remains of tens of thousands of missing persons in the eight-year war between the two countries that ended in 1988.

The agreement was reached after a series of meetings held over the past 10 years in Baghdad, Erbil and Tehran.

Head of the technical committee in charge of the file on missing persons of Iraqi Defense Ministry Brigadier General Hazem Qassem, told Asharq Al-Awsat that a joint technical committee comprising experts and specialists from both countries will begin next month under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and in cooperation with the Minister of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

Qassem indicated that Iraq’s commander-in-chief of the armed forces and the defense minister issued direct orders indicating that the file of the missing persons in the Iraq-Iran war should be finalized through careful investigation.

Baghdad and Tehran agreed to start searching for the remains in Penjwen, Haji Omeran in Erbil, and mountains of Sulaymaniyah, constituting the three-border areas that witnessed fierce clashes between the two sides during the years of war, according to Qassem.

He pointed out that the information received from reliable sources confirmed there were remains of military victims buried in those areas, adding that the mechanism and search plans in those areas were discussed with the Iranian side at the meeting held in Erbil over the past two days.

The plans will be conducted under supervision of the Red Cross team which has figures and information on the war missing victims from both countries.

Official Iraqi figures state there are 50 thousand missing Iraqi persons of different military ranks, and about 55 thousand missing Iranians.

Qassem denied reports claiming authorities in Baghdad decided to compensate families of the military victims, pointing out that the existing Iraqi laws consider a missing military person dead after he’s been missing for 4 years, and pays his family financial dues according to those laws.



Israeli Airstrike Hits School Sheltering People in Gaza, Killing at Least 30 Including Children

 A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
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Israeli Airstrike Hits School Sheltering People in Gaza, Killing at Least 30 Including Children

 A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)

Israeli airstrikes hit a school being used by displaced Palestinians in central Gaza on Saturday, killing at least 30 people including several children, as the country’s negotiators prepared to meet international mediators to discuss a proposed ceasefire.

At least seven children and seven women were among the dead taken from the girls' school in Deir al-Balah to Al Aqsa Hospital. Israel's military said it targeted a Hamas command center used to direct attacks against Israeli troops and develop and store "large quantities of weapons." Hamas in a statement called the military’s claim false.

Civil defense workers in Gaza said thousands had been sheltering in the school, which also contained a medical site.

Associated Press journalists saw a dead toddler in an ambulance and bodies covered with blankets. Inside the school, shattered walls gaped and classrooms were in ruins. People searched for victims in rubble strewn with pillows and other signs of habitation.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 12 people were killed in other strikes on Saturday.

Officials from the US, Egypt, Qatar and Israel are scheduled to meet in Italy on Sunday to discuss ongoing ceasefire negotiations. CIA Director Bill Burns is expected to meet Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani, Mossad director David Barnea and Egyptian spy chief Abbas Kamel, according to officials from the US and Egypt who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the plans.

US officials on Friday said Israel and Hamas agree on the basic framework of the three-phase deal under consideration. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his speech to the US Congress vowed to press ahead with the war until Israel achieves "total victory."

After the Israeli strike on the school, Palestinian officials condemned the speech. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesperson for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said in a statement that Netanyahu's reception from supporters in the US constituted a "green light" to continue Israel's offensive.

"Every time the occupation bombs a school that shelters displaced persons, we see only some condemnations and denunciations that will not force the occupation to stop its bloody aggression," he said.

New evacuation order for part of humanitarian zone Israel's military ordered a new evacuation of part of a designated humanitarian zone in Gaza ahead of a planned strike on Khan Younis on Saturday. The order was in response to rocket fire that Israel said came from the area.

The military said it planned an operation against Hamas militants in the city, including parts of Muwasi, the crowded tent camp in an area where Israel has told thousands of Palestinians to seek refuge.

It’s the second evacuation order issued in a week that has included striking part of the humanitarian zone, a 60-square-kilometer (roughly 20-square-mile) area blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid. Israel expanded the zone in May to take in people fleeing the southernmost city of Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population at the time had crowded.

Gaza Health Ministry officials said the evacuation orders had forced at least three health centers to stop providing care and compounded issues such as piled-up waste and shortages of supplies.

According to Israeli estimates, about 1.8 million Palestinians shelter in the zone after being uprooted multiple times during Israel’s punishing air and ground campaign. In November, the military said the area could still be struck and that it was "not a safe zone, but it is a safer place than any other" in Gaza.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said it was difficult to know how many people would be affected by the evacuation order.

"These are forced displacement orders," said Juliette Touma, the agency’s director of communications. "What happens is when people have these orders, they have very little time to move."

Farther north, Palestinians mourned seven killed by Israeli airstrikes overnight on Zawaida, in central Gaza. Parents and their two children and a mother and her two children were wrapped in white burial shrouds as friends and neighbors wept.

Al Aqsa Hospital confirmed the count and AP journalists saw the bodies.

A death in the West Bank In the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said a 17-year-old was killed and nine other people wounded after an Israeli drone strike in Balata camp in Nablus. The Israeli military said one of its aircraft attacked from the air as part of its activity in Nablus.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,200 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The UN estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.

The war began with an assault by Hamas fighters on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. About 115 are still in Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.