Syria…Small Details of Big Disappointments

 Vehicles queue for petrol at a gas station in Damascus, Syria, February 19, 2017. Picture taken February 19, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki
Vehicles queue for petrol at a gas station in Damascus, Syria, February 19, 2017. Picture taken February 19, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki
TT

Syria…Small Details of Big Disappointments

 Vehicles queue for petrol at a gas station in Damascus, Syria, February 19, 2017. Picture taken February 19, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki
Vehicles queue for petrol at a gas station in Damascus, Syria, February 19, 2017. Picture taken February 19, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki

Three small Syrian details, in Damascus, Daraa, and As-Suwayda, are linked by a thread that leads to major conclusions. With the beginning of the second decade of the Syrian tragedy, the local “players” started to adapt to live under collapses and ruptures, for many years, backed by the external “stakeholders”, who are competing to shape the new Syrian fabric.

The details of Damascus are the darkness, the “ice queues” and the talk of migration. For the first time in a hundred years, the Syrian capital sleeps in complete darkness. Electricity is available for two out of 24 hours, in the richest Damascene neighborhoods, which are inhabited by the traditional high officials and the war’s “nouveaux riches”.

If the rise in food prices, the lack of fuel, and the queues for bread and gasoline are not something new, Damascus streets are seeing people waiting in long lines for cold cubes that protect against heat and preserve food.

The bet was on a radical government change that puts at the top of its priorities addressing daily problems and offering solutions or attempts to solve issues related to corruption and administrative stagnation. However, the government lineup disappointed the audience and fell short of touching daily concerns.

There are no immediate breakthroughs in the daily search of gas cylinders and bread, nor solutions to the energy crisis and the exchange rate of the lira, nor political progress in the country, which is torn by three or four spheres of influence.

What is also new in Damascus is the open talk about migration. Before, people used to speak quietly about it, while now they loudly declare their wish in the streets, and in front of guests. It is not surprising that a Syrian human rights organization announced that the people residing in the country advised Syrians abroad not to return.

However, the people of Daraa al-Balad were surprised by a desire from Damascus for a military return to its neighborhoods, which opponents considered the “cradle of the revolution” a decade ago.

Behind this desire lies a thread that extends beyond Daraa and its neighborhoods. Damascus, backed by Tehran, wants to return to the borders of Jordan and the line of disengagement in the occupied Golan, as part of Iranian efforts to establish “strategic fronts” in southern Syria, southern Lebanon, Iraq, and Gaza... and others.

Moscow, for its part, has other calculations. It is still looking for local arrangements in agreement with its ally in Daraa, Ahmed Al-Awda. Those arrangements may be sufficient for the return of “state control” and the preservation of the Russian-American-Jordanian agreement concluded in the south in 2018, and which guarantees the elimination of terrorism and the exit of Iran’s factions, in exchange for the return of the government and the presence of a local authority.

Moscow is betting that such arrangements would give appetite for Arab countries for “normalization” and support the Russian model in Syria and reconstruction plans.

Russia succeeded in postponing a military resolution in southwestern Syria, but it was not able to abolish it, as happened in its northwest with its understanding with Ankara, and in its northeast through its agreement with Washington.

The Daraa diaries are marked with clashes, assassinations, sieges, negotiations, and the swaying between a new settlement and another incursion. Amid this situation, a political party suddenly emerged in Jabal Al-Arab in As-Suwayda, supported by an armed faction, whose members are Druze, in uniform, and well-trained.

This political party is the Syrian Brigade Party, and its armed wing is the Anti-Terrorism Force, which includes about 2,500 fighters, with attractive salaries for each element and leader.

The two organizations, which were formed over the last month, share unified rhetoric.

The first is “an independent military force with its leadership, and its affiliates, all of whom are from As-Suwayda Governorate, aiming to fill the security vacuum in the area.”

The second is a political party that was established “in cooperation with international and regional sides, to realize a dream – that is the revival of As-Suwayda’s historical political role after “the collapse of state institutions and the inability to secure bread, medicine, electricity and water and all the necessities of life, in light of an irremediable corrupt system.”

As-Suwayda’s diaries are about kidnappings, control centers and youth recruitment, and the struggle over drug and hashish smuggling lines to neighboring countries. It is a struggle related to building spheres of influence, but also pertains to the seizure of financial resources and the competition between the war “nouveaux-riches.”

Other details contribute to the interpretation of these diaries, such as the agreement of Turkish and Russian soldiers to exchange water for electricity in the east of the Euphrates, and the two parties’ understanding to allow a Turkish company to provide electricity in Idlib.

Are the four threads of Syria still intertwine in its capital, Damascus? A question with an answer that will disappoint and shock many Syrians at home and abroad.



Little Hope in Gaza that Arrest Warrants will Cool Israeli Onslaught

Palestinians gather to buy bread from a bakery, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip November 22, 2024. REUTERS/Hussam Al-Masri Purchase Licensing Rights
Palestinians gather to buy bread from a bakery, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip November 22, 2024. REUTERS/Hussam Al-Masri Purchase Licensing Rights
TT

Little Hope in Gaza that Arrest Warrants will Cool Israeli Onslaught

Palestinians gather to buy bread from a bakery, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip November 22, 2024. REUTERS/Hussam Al-Masri Purchase Licensing Rights
Palestinians gather to buy bread from a bakery, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip November 22, 2024. REUTERS/Hussam Al-Masri Purchase Licensing Rights

Gazans saw little hope on Friday that International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Israeli leaders would slow down the onslaught on the Palestinian territory, where medics said at least 24 people were killed in fresh Israeli military strikes.

In Gaza City in the north, an Israeli strike on a house in Shejaia killed eight people, medics said. Three others were killed in a strike near a bakery and a fisherman was killed as he set out to sea. In the central and southern areas, 12 people were killed in three separate Israeli airstrikes.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces deepened their incursion and bombardment of the northern edge of the enclave, their main offensive since early last month. The military says it aims to prevent Hamas fighters from waging attacks and regrouping there; residents say they fear the aim is to permanently depopulate a strip of territory as a buffer zone, which Israel denies.

Residents in the three besieged towns on the northern edge - Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun - said Israeli forces had blown up dozens of houses.

An Israeli strike hit the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, one of three medical facilities barely operational in the area, injuring six medical staff, some critically, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement, Reuters reported.

"The strike also destroyed the hospital's main generator, and punctured the water tanks, leaving the hospital without oxygen or water, which threatens the lives of patients and staff inside the hospital," it added. It said 85 wounded people including children and women were inside, eight in the ICU.

Later on Friday, the Gaza health ministry said all hospital services across the enclave would stop within 48 hours unless fuel shipments are permitted, blaming restrictions which Israel says are designed to stop fuel being used by Hamas.

Gazans saw the ICC's decision to seek the arrest of Israeli leaders for suspected war crimes as international recognition of the enclave's plight. But those queuing for bread at a bakery in the southern city of Khan Younis were doubtful it would have any impact.

"The decision will not be implemented because America protects Israel, and it can veto anything. Israel will not be held accountable," said Saber Abu Ghali, as he waited for his turn in the crowd.

Saeed Abu Youssef, 75, said even if justice were to arrive, it would be decades late: "We have been hearing decisions for more than 76 years that have not been implemented and haven't done anything for us."

Since Hamas's October 7th attack on Israel, nearly 44,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, much of which has been laid to waste.

The court's prosecutors said there were reasonable grounds to believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution, and starvation as a weapon of war, as part of a "widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza".

The Hague-based court also ordered the arrest of the top Hamas commander Ibrahim Al-Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif. Israel says it has already killed him, which Hamas has not confirmed.

Israel says Hamas is to blame for all harm to Gaza's civilians, for operating among them, which Hamas denies.

Israeli politicians from across the political spectrum have denounced the ICC arrest warrants as biased and based on false evidence, and Israel says the court has no jurisdiction over the war. Hamas hailed the arrest warrants as a first step towards justice.

Efforts by Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt backed by the United States to conclude a ceasefire deal have stalled. Hamas wants a deal that ends the war, while Netanyahu has vowed the war can end only once Hamas is eradicated.