‘Nowhere to go’: Village in Syria’s Idlib swept away by flood after devastating quake destroys dam

Special ‘Nowhere to go’: Village in Syria’s Idlib swept away by flood after devastating quake destroys dam
Residents of Al-Taloul in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib were left homeless and exposed to freezing winter conditions after Monday’s earthquake destroyed a dam and flooded their village. (Supplied)
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Updated 11 February 2023
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‘Nowhere to go’: Village in Syria’s Idlib swept away by flood after devastating quake destroys dam

‘Nowhere to go’: Village in Syria’s Idlib swept away by flood after devastating quake destroys dam
  • Residents of Al-Taloul have been left homeless amid freezing winter temperatures following Monday’s earthquake 
  • Little relief has arrived in northwest Syria, home to approximately 4.5 million people already dependent on aid

AL-TALOUL, Syria: A village in Syria’s Idlib has been swept away after its local dam, damaged by Monday’s massive earthquakes, suddenly gave way on Thursday. Within hours, the rising floodwaters had engulfed homes and displaced the entire population.

Following the earthquakes, which hit southeast Turkiye and northern Syria in short succession earlier this week, residents of the village near Salqin have been forced to take shelter in a local olive grove after the Orontes River inundated their homes.

Najmuddine bin Abdul Rabiei, a 26-year-old resident, told Arab News his village has suffered significant damage caused by the earthquake. He said villagers were in desperate need of humanitarian assistance, including tents to protect them from the elements. 

“All our houses are drowned in water,” Abdul Rabiei told Arab News. “Where can the people go? They have no shelter.” 

Fearing the same fate as the people of Al-Taloul, residents of other villages along the Orontes River have fled to higher ground in Jisr Al-Shughour and Darkush.

The magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck parts of southeastern Turkiye, northwestern Syria and neighboring areas in the early hours of Monday, followed by a magnitude 7.5 quake just hours later. 




Even before the quake, 2 million people were already lacking adequate housing during the harsh Syrian winter. (Supplied)

At least 19,388 people have been confirmed killed in Turkiye as of Friday, according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, surpassing the toll from the country’s devastating 1999 earthquake. At least 3,377 people are known to have died in Syria.

In rebel-held northwestern Syria, rescue workers said more than 2,037 people died and 2,950 were injured, according to the Washington Post. In government-controlled Syria, state media reported 1,347 deaths and 2,295 people injured.

Although rescuers and aid workers have been arriving in neighboring Turkiye to help with the relief effort, precious little assistance has arrived in northern Syria, home to approximately 4.5 million people, 90 percent of whom were already dependent on humanitarian aid.

“The international community has pledged substantial assistance to Turkiye, and rightly so — but as per usual, Syrians appear to be an afterthought,” Charles Lister, a senior fellow and director of the Syria and countering terrorism and extremism programs at the Middle East Institute, wrote in Foreign Policy magazine this week.

For communities like Al-Taloul, this means many have been forced to sleep outdoors in freezing temperatures.

Areas of northwestern Syria have recently been experiencing temperatures as low as minus 4. The winter freeze has left thousands of people spending nights in their cars or huddling around fires that have become ubiquitous across the quake-hit region.  

The Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, has been deployed to Al-Taloul to help evacuate civilians trapped in vehicles and buildings and to clear the local sewage network in order to drain the floodwaters.

The White Helmets on Friday accused the UN of botching its response in northwest Syria.




The magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck parts of southeastern Turkiye, northwestern Syria and neighboring areas in the early hours of Monday, followed by a magnitude 7.5 quake just hours later. (Supplied)

“The UN has committed a crime against the Syrian people in the northwest,” the group’s chief Raed Saleh told the Agence France-Presse news agency, claiming UN agencies had not delivered any quake-specific relief to survivors since the disaster hit before dawn on Monday. 

“The UN must apologize to the Syrian people,” Saleh added.

The people of Al-Taloul were already impoverished prior to the quake, having lived effectively under siege in the opposition-held region for the past 12 years of civil war in Syria.

Hatem Al-Ali, a 62-year-old resident, told Arab News the earthquake is the final straw for the community. 

“Al-Taloul is an extremely poor village where people have nothing,” he said. “The money is gone, and whatever people had has gone up in smoke. And believe me, some people cannot even purchase a loaf of bread.”

The most urgent need right now, he says, is for sufficient shelter, food, and clean drinking water to prevent hypothermia, hunger, and the spread of disease. “We ask the people in charge to help these poor people,” Al-Ali added. 

More than a decade of civil war and aerial bombardment had already destroyed hospitals and prompted electricity and water shortages in Syria’s northwest, leaving communities wholly unprepared for a natural disaster of this magnitude.




Residents of the village near Salqin have been forced to take shelter in a local olive grove after the Orontes River inundated their homes. (Supplied)

“After 12 years of brutal conflict in which the Syrian regime has used almost every weapon available against its own population, the level of destruction meted out by the earthquake upon Syria’s northwest has no close comparison,” Lister wrote in his Foreign Policy article.

“When it comes specifically to opposition-controlled northwestern Syria, a natural disaster like this could not have hit a more vulnerable population. Before the earthquake, the region represented one of the world’s most acute humanitarian crises. 

“More than 4.5 million civilians live there, in a pocket of territory that represents no more than 4 percent of Syria — and nearly 3 million of them are displaced. At least 65 percent of basic infrastructure lay destroyed or heavily damaged.”

Even before the quake, 2 million people were already lacking adequate housing during the harsh Syrian winter. This includes 800,000 people — most of them children — who live in makeshift shelters without reliable access to heat, electricity, clean water or sanitation services.

“This is truly a nightmare scenario,” Lister said. “A catastrophic natural disaster strikes one of the world’s most vulnerable populations, leaving thousands of leveled buildings and thousands of casualties amid bitter winter weather, and not a single route is open for aid.”

The UN World Food Program has appealed for $77 million to provide food rations and hot meals for 874,000 people affected by the deadly quake. 

The number in need of aid “includes 284,000 newly displaced people in Syria and 590,000 people in Turkiye, which includes 45,000 refugees and 545,000 internally displaced people,” it said. 

Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Program, on Friday bemoaned Syria’s “forgotten crisis.” 




“Syrians appear to be an afterthought,” said Charles Lister, Director of the Syria and Counterterrorism and Extremism programs at the Middle East Institute

As the WHO prepared to fly medical supplies to Syria from Dubai, Ryan said a huge backlog of aid was waiting to reach Syria’s rebel-held northwest.

“The world’s forgotten about Syria,” Ryan told reporters in Dubai, during preparations for the aid flight. “Frankly, the earthquake’s brought attention back. But those millions of people in Syria have been struggling now for years. That’s become a forgotten crisis.”

Syria is now facing a “secondary disaster” of lives lost due to a lack of medical supplies, said Ryan. 

“We have to recognize the scale of this disaster is so large, it’s overwhelming everyone’s capacity. If they don’t have equipment, they can’t do their job — it’s like asking a fireman to rush to a fire without a fire hose.” 

Turkiye’s Bab Al-Hawa, the only border crossing through which UN humanitarian aid is allowed into northern Syria, was initially closed as a result of damage sustained in the earthquake. 




In rebel-held northwestern Syria, rescue workers said more than 2,037 people died and 2,950 were injured, according to the Washington Post. (Supplied)

As the bulk of the aid entering Syria must pass through Damascus, which strictly controls its distribution to governorates, the closure of Bab Al-Hawa made it even harder to deliver adequate and timely aid to the hardest-hit areas.  

The first international aid deliveries to rebel-held northwestern Syria following the quake arrived on Thursday. The Syrian government said it had also approved the delivery of humanitarian aid to quake-hit areas outside its control. 

A second UN aid convoy crossed into rebel-held Syria from Turkiye on Friday. The 14-truck convoy carried non-food items such as “humanitarian kits, solar lamps, blankets and other assistance,” International Organization for Migration spokesman Paul Dillon said in a statement. 

The aid “will be sufficient for about 1,100 families in the quake-hit areas in Idlib,” he added.  

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged the Security Council to authorize the opening of new cross-border humanitarian aid points between Turkiye and Syria. Turkiye said it was working on opening two new routes into rebel-held parts of Syria.


Iran says reviving nuclear deal ‘useless’

Updated 8 sec ago
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Iran says reviving nuclear deal ‘useless’

Iran says reviving nuclear deal ‘useless’
TEHRAN: Iran said Saturday that attempting to revive its landmark nuclear deal with world powers that was effectively scrapped by former US president Donald Trump was increasingly “useless.”
“Today, the more we advance, the more the JCPOA becomes useless,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a speech to students at the University of Tehran, using the initials of the official name of the nuclear deal.
In 2015, Iran agreed to curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for a lifting of sanctions.
But while the deal was signed with several world powers — including China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany — it was rendered effectively useless when the United States unilaterally withdrew under Trump in 2018.
With the US reimposing sanctions, international banks and businesses have stayed away from Iran for fear of falling foul of US regulators.
Tentative efforts to revive the deal by Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, have been at a standstill since mid-2022.
“Because (Iran’s) red lines have sometimes been ignored by the other side, we are not currently on the path to return to the agreement,” Amir-Abdollahian said.
“Of course, this does not mean that we have set the agreement aside. If the agreement serves our interests, (we will accept it) with all its flaws,” he added.
The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, called in October on the international community not to fail in Iran as it did in North Korea, which now has nuclear weapons.
Iran says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, but since 2021 the UN body has struggled to monitor the development of its capabilities.

Turkiye’s Erdogan denounces UN ‘Israel protection council’

Turkiye’s Erdogan denounces UN ‘Israel protection council’
Updated 6 min ago
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Turkiye’s Erdogan denounces UN ‘Israel protection council’

Turkiye’s Erdogan denounces UN ‘Israel protection council’
  • “Since October 7, the security council has become an Israel protection and defense council,” Erdogan said
  • “Is this justice?” asked Erdogan, adding that “the world is bigger than five,” a reference to the five veto-wielding nations in the UN Security Council

ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday denounced the UN Security Council after the United States vetoed a cease-fire resolution for Gaza, describing the international body as the ‘Israel protection council’.
“Since October 7, the security council has become an Israel protection and defense council,” Erdogan said.
The United States on Friday vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in the intense fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Washington thus dashed a growing clamour for a halt to fighting that had been led by UN chief Antonio Guterres and Arab nations.
“Is this justice?” asked Erdogan, adding that “the world is bigger than five,” a reference to the five veto-wielding nations in the UN Security Council.
“Another world is possible, but without America,” the Turkish leader said.
“The United States stands by Israel with its money and military equipment. Hey, America! How much are you going to pay for that?” he added.
“Every day the Declaration of Human Rights is violated in Gaza,” he said, as the world this weekend celebrates the 75th anniversary of the declaration.
The UN resolution for a cease-fire was submitted more than two months after the start of the war in Gaza triggered by Hamas’s bloody attack on Israeli soil on October 7, which, according to the Israeli authorities, killed 1,200 people.
Since then Hamas has put the death toll in Gaza at 17,490, mostly women and children.


Israelis on edge as fears grow of wider Lebanon conflict

Israelis on edge as fears grow of wider Lebanon conflict
Updated 24 min 50 sec ago
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Israelis on edge as fears grow of wider Lebanon conflict

Israelis on edge as fears grow of wider Lebanon conflict
  • In peacetime, visitors flock to the town to enjoy its pleasant climate and good surfing
  • For over two months, residents have been living under the threat of near-daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and Hezbollah

NAHARIYA, Israel: In the seaside haven of Nahariya, the shock still lingers on Daniel Bussidan’s face. A recent rocket attack killed his friend’s father, and now this Israeli beach town, the closest to Lebanon, stands on edge.
“I’m scared from the attack,” said the 26-year-old who works in his father’s pastry shop on the Mediterranean resort’s eucalyptus-lined main street.
His friend’s father was killed when a rocket struck his farm while he was working, Bussidan told AFP.
“He died on the spot,” Bussidan said.
In peacetime, visitors flock to the town to enjoy its pleasant climate and good surfing.
But for over two months, residents have been living under the threat of near-daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and powerful Lebanese movement Hezbollah.
The Iran-backed Shiite group says it entered the fray in support of Hamas on October 8, the day after the Palestinian militants launched their attack in Israel which killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.
Aiming to destroy Hamas, Israel launched a military offensive that the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza says has killed 17,490 people, mostly women and children, and left the Palestinian territory in ruins.
In northern Israel, residents fear a wider conflict emerging along the border with Lebanon, which snakes along a hill in the distance from Nahariya.
More than 120 people have been killed on the Lebanese side of the border since October 7, mostly Hezbollah fighters and more than a dozen civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israel says six of its soldiers and four Israeli civilians have been killed in the area, and Lebanon lost its first soldier in the exchanges on Tuesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hezbollah that if it “chooses to start a global war, then it will turn Beirut and South Lebanon... into Gaza and Khan Yunis with its own hands.”
Business has slumped along the Nahariya seafront, and many more rifles have appeared, slung over people’s shoulders.
Resident Nathalie Betito, 44, believes Hezbollah fighters could infiltrate the border. But she made a point of celebrating Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, with around 100 people at the central synagogue this week.
She and her husband Arie, 47, immigrated from France five years ago. Nahariya represents an attractive destination, with special tax breaks due to its exposed position.
Arie, who now helps new arrivals at the town hall, said residents were nonetheless living in peril.
Hezbollah has thousands of “missiles pointed at us,” he said, stressing that he did not believe in escalating the conflict into a “total” war.
“The price to pay would be huge,” he said. “Neither side wants that.”
But people in Nahariya are preparing for the worst. Efi Dayan, 60, said he “knows there’s going to be a war here.”
“We’re getting ready with food, clothes. We’re waiting for it,” he said calmly under the winter sun.
But the military job in Gaza needs to be completed first, said Bussidan, a former soldier himself.
“We have to finish Hamas and take care of all civilians on both sides,” he said.


New Gaza aid crossing at Kerem Shalom being tested, not open yet — UN official

New Gaza aid crossing at Kerem Shalom being tested, not open yet — UN official
Updated 09 December 2023
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New Gaza aid crossing at Kerem Shalom being tested, not open yet — UN official

New Gaza aid crossing at Kerem Shalom being tested, not open yet — UN official
  • New crossing will allow trucks from Jordan into Gaza

CAIRO: A new process for inspecting aid for Gaza at the Kerem Shalom crossing is being tested, but efforts to get permission for trucks to enter through the crossing and ramp up relief are still ongoing, a senior UN official told Reuters on Saturday.
Under the new system, trucks would come to the Kerem Shalom crossing on the border between Israel, Gaza and Egypt for the first time from Jordan, before entering Gaza from Rafah, about 3 km (1.86 miles) away.
But the trucks would need to be allowed to enter Gaza directly through Kerem Shalom to alleviate an increasingly desperate situation in the coastal enclave, said Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the UN World Food Programme.
Israel has so far rebuffed pleas from the United Nations and others to open Kerem Shalom, but they both signalled on Thursday that Kerem Shalom could soon help process delivery of humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
Until now, limited quantities of aid have been delivered from Egypt through the Rafah crossing, which is ill-equipped to process large numbers of trucks.
Trucks have been driving more than 40 km (24.85 miles) south to Egypt’s border with Israel before returning to Rafah, leading to bottlenecks and delays.
A process to test the inspection system at Kerem Shalom for trucks arriving from Jordan is underway, said Skau, who visited Gaza on Friday.
“It’s good, it’s useful because it would also be the first time that we can then bring in a pipeline from Jordan. But we need that entry point as well because that would make all the difference,” he said in an interview.
“If you get that open, then it’s just a matter of how much is available and how much can be absorbed on the other side in an orderly fashion, but then certainly that capacity would not be the issue,” he added.
“We have front-loaded with our internal resources so that we have food available in Egypt and in Jordan to reach some 1,000,000 people in one month. We are ready to roll. The trucks are ready to move.”
Skau said the situation inside Gaza was increasingly chaotic as people grabbed what they could from aid distribution points, with larger numbers of people displaced southwards close to the border with Egypt and aid trucks at risk of being stopped by desperate residents if they even slow down at an intersection.
“There is a question for how long this can continue, because the humanitarian operation is collapsing,” he said.
“Half of the population are starving, nine out of 10 are not eating every day. Obviously the needs are massive.”


US ‘responsible for bloodshed’ of Gaza children after UN veto: Abbas

US ‘responsible for bloodshed’ of Gaza children after UN veto: Abbas
Updated 09 December 2023
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US ‘responsible for bloodshed’ of Gaza children after UN veto: Abbas

US ‘responsible for bloodshed’ of Gaza children after UN veto: Abbas
  • Abbas said the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in general had reached an alarming stage that requires an international conference and guarantees by world powers

Ramallah/Palestinian Territories: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Saturday that the United States was “responsible for the bloodshed” of children in the Gaza Strip after it vetoed a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Palestinian territory at a special meeting of the UN Security Council.
“The president has described the American position as aggressive and immoral, a flagrant violation of all humanitarian principles and values, and holds the United States responsible for the bloodshed of Palestinian children, women and elderly people in the Gaza Strip,” said a statement from Abbas’s office.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday called for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and an international peace conference to work out a lasting political solution leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
In an interview with Reuters at his office in Ramallah, Abbas, 87, said the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in general had reached an alarming stage that requires an international conference and guarantees by world powers.
Besides Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, he said Israeli forces have intensified their attacks everywhere in the occupied West Bank over the past year with settlers escalating violence against Palestinian towns.
He reiterated his longstanding position in favor of negotiation rather than armed resistance to end the longstanding occupation.
“I am with peaceful resistance. I am for negotiations based on an international peace conference and under international auspices that would lead to a solution that will be protected by world powers to establish a sovereign Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” he said.
Abbas was speaking as Israel increased its strikes on Gaza. In two months of warfare, it has killed more than 17,000 people, wounded 46,000 and forced the displacement of around 1.9 million people, over half of them now sheltering in areas in central Gaza or close to the Egyptian border.
A senior US official said the idea of an international conference had been discussed among different partners but the proposal was still at a very preliminary stage.
“It’s one of many options on the table that we and others would consider with an open mind, but no decision has been made about that,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
Israel launched its campaign to annihilate the Hamas movement that rules Gaza after Hamas fighters went on a rampage through Israeli towns on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and seizing 240 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Abbas said that based on a binding international agreement, he would revive the weakened Palestinian Authority, implement long-awaited reforms and hold presidential and parliamentary elections, which were suspended after Hamas won in 2006 and later pushed the PA out of Gaza.
He said the PA had abided by all the peace deals signed with Israel since the 1993 Oslo Accord and the understandings that followed over the years but that Israel had reneged on its pledges to end the occupation.

DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS
Asked whether he would risk holding elections given the possibility that Hamas could win as it did in 2006, he said: “Whoever wins wins, these will be democratic elections.”
Abbas said he had planned to hold elections in April 2021 but the European Union envoy told him before the due date that Israel was objecting to voting in East Jerusalem so he was forced to call it off.
He insisted that there would not be elections without East Jerusalem, saying the PA held three rounds of elections in the past that included East Jerusalem before Israel imposed the ban.
Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. It later annexed it, declaring the whole of the city as its capital, a move not recognized internationally. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
Abbas did not give a concrete vision of a post-war plan discussed with US officials under which the PA would take over control of the strip, home for 2.3 million people. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel would not accept rule over Gaza by the Palestinian Authority as it stands.
“The United States tells us that it supports a two-state solution, that Israel is not allowed to occupy Gaza, to keep security control of Gaza or to expropriate land from Gaza,” he said in reference to a plan floated by Israel to establish a security zone in Gaza after the war.
“America doesn’t force Israel to implement what it says.”
He said the PA was still present in Gaza as an institution and still pays monthly salaries and expenses estimated at $140 million for employees, pensioners and for needy families. The PA still has three ministers present in Gaza, he added.
“We need rehabilitation, we need big support to return to Gaza,” Abbas said.
“Gaza today is not the Gaza that you know. Gaza was destroyed, its hospitals, its schools, its infrastructure, its buildings, its roads and mosques were destroyed. There is nothing left. When we return we need resources, Gaza needs reconstruction.”
“The United States which fully supports Israel bears the responsibility of what is happening in the enclave,” Abbas said.
“It is the only power that is capable of ordering Israel to stop the war and fulfil its obligations, but unfortunately it doesn’t. America is an accomplice of Israel.”