Israelis erupt in protest to demand a ceasefire after 6 more hostages die in Gaza

Israelis erupt in protest to demand a ceasefire after 6 more hostages die in Gaza
Protesters block a main road to show support for the hostages who were kidnapped during the deadly October 7 attack, in Tel Aviv, Israel September 1, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 02 September 2024
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Israelis erupt in protest to demand a ceasefire after 6 more hostages die in Gaza

Israelis erupt in protest to demand a ceasefire after 6 more hostages die in Gaza
  • Protesters demand Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reach a ceasefire with Hamas to bring the remaining captives home
  • Many blame Netanyahu for failing to reach a ceasefire during nearly 11 months of war with negotiations dragging on 

JERUSALEM: Grieving and angry Israelis surged into the streets Sunday night after six more hostages were found dead in Gaza, chanting “Now! Now!” as they demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reach a ceasefire with Hamas to bring the remaining captives home.
Israel’s largest trade union, the Histadrut, also pressured the government by calling a general strike for Monday — the first since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that started the war. The strike aims to shut down or disrupt major sectors of the economy, including banking, health care and the country’s main airport.
Tens of thousands of Israelis were expected to protest. Many blame Netanyahu for failing to reach a ceasefire during nearly 11 months of war. Negotiations have dragged on for months. Israel’s army has acknowledged the difficulty of rescuing dozens of remaining hostages and said a deal is the only way to bring a large-scale return.
“I’m crying the cry of humanity,” said one protester who gave his name as Amos as thousands, some of them weeping, gathered outside Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem.
The military said all six hostages were killed shortly before Israeli forces arrived. Netanyahu blamed the Hamas militant group for the stalled negotiations, saying “whoever murders hostages doesn’t want a deal.”

 

Militants seized Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, and four other hostages at a music festival in southern Israel. The native of Berkeley, California, lost part of his left arm to a grenade in the attack. In April, a Hamas-issued video showed him alive, sparking new protests in Israel.
The army identified the other dead hostages as Ori Danino, 25; Eden Yerushalmi, 24; Almog Sarusi, 27; and Alexander Lobanov, 33; also taken from the festival. The sixth, Carmel Gat, 40, was abducted from the nearby farming community of Be’eri.
The army said the bodies were recovered from a tunnel in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, around a kilometer (half a mile) from where another hostage was rescued alive last week.
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, a military spokesperson, said Israeli forces found the bodies several dozen meters (yards) underground as “ongoing combat” was underway, but that there was no firefight in the tunnel itself. He said there was no doubt Hamas had killed them.
Hamas has offered to release the hostages in return for an end to the war, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants.
Izzat Al-Rishq, a senior Hamas official, said the hostages would still be alive if Israel had accepted a US-backed ceasefire proposal that Hamas said it had agreed to in July.
Funerals began for the hostages, with more outrage. Sarusi’s body was wrapped in an Israeli flag. “You were abandoned on and on, daily, hour after hour, 331 days,” his mother, Nira, said. “You and so many beautiful and pure souls. Enough. No more.”
Hostages’ families urge a ‘complete halt of the country’
Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed.
Critics have accused him of putting his personal interests over those of the hostages. The war’s end likely will lead to an investigation into his government’s failures in the Oct. 7 attacks, the government’s collapse and early elections.
“I think this is an earthquake. This isn’t just one more step in the war,” said Nomi Bar-Yaacov, associate fellow in the International Security Program at Chatham House, shortly before Sunday’s protests began.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Netanyahu got into a shouting match at a security Cabinet meeting Thursday with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who accused him of prioritizing control of a strategic corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border — a major sticking point in the talks — over the lives of the hostages.
An Israeli official confirmed the report and said three of the hostages — Goldberg-Polin, Yerushalmi and Gat — had been slated to be released in the first phase of a ceasefire proposal discussed in July. The official was not authorized to brief media about the negotiations and spoke on condition of anonymity.
“In the name of the state of Israel, I hold their families close to my heart and ask forgiveness,” Gallant said Sunday.
A forum of hostage families has demanded a “complete halt of the country” to push for a ceasefire and hostage release. “Were it not for the delays, sabotage and excuses, those whose deaths we learned about this morning would likely still be alive,” it said in a statement.
Even a mass outpouring of anger would not immediately threaten Netanyahu or his far right government. He still controls a majority in parliament. But he has caved in to public pressure before. Mass protests led him to cancel the dismissal of his defense minister last year, and a general strike last year helped lead to a delay in his controversial judicial overhaul.
A family’s high-profile campaign
Goldberg-Polin’s parents, US-born immigrants to Israel, became perhaps the most high-profile relatives of hostages on the international stage. They met with US President Joe Biden and Pope Francis and on Aug. 21, they addressed the Democratic National Convention — after sustained applause and chants of “bring him home.”
His mother, Rachel, who bowed her head during the ovation and touched her chest, said “Hersh, if you can hear us, we love you, stay strong, survive.”
Biden on Sunday said he was “devastated and outraged.” The White House said he spoke with Goldberg-Polin’s parents and offered condolences.
Some 250 hostages were taken on Oct. 7. Israel now believes 101 remain in captivity, including 35 who are thought to be dead. More than 100 were freed during a ceasefire in November in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Eight have been rescued by Israeli forces. Israeli troops mistakenly killed three Israelis who escaped captivity in December.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, when they stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not say how many were militants. It has displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, often multiple times, and plunged the besieged territory into a humanitarian catastrophe.


Israeli forces kill at least 19 people in Gaza, rescue workers say

Israeli forces kill at least 19 people in Gaza, rescue workers say
Updated 5 sec ago
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Israeli forces kill at least 19 people in Gaza, rescue workers say

Israeli forces kill at least 19 people in Gaza, rescue workers say

CAIRO: Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 19 Palestinians overnight and on Tuesday, medics said, as Israeli tanks pushed into areas in central and southern parts of the enclave.
Overnight, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 10 people in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, where Israeli forces have operated since October, and injured dozens of others in a multi-floored building, medics said.
Another airstrike on a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip killed at least seven people. It wounded several others, medics and the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said, while another killed two people in Rafah south of the enclave.
In Deir Al-Balah city in central Gaza, Israeli naval forces detained six Palestinian fishermen who tried to sail into the Mediterranean Sea earlier on Tuesday, according to residents.
Hamas-led gunmen killed some 1,200 people and took over 250 hostages back to Gaza when they attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Israeli tallies. More than 44,700 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive on Gaza that followed, Gaza health authorities say.


Netanyahu to take the stand in his corruption trial for the first time

Netanyahu to take the stand in his corruption trial for the first time
Updated 10 min 48 sec ago
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Netanyahu to take the stand in his corruption trial for the first time

Netanyahu to take the stand in his corruption trial for the first time
  • Bribery, fraud and breach of trust charges date to 2019
  • He remains PM unless convicted and appeals fail

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu takes the stand on Tuesday for the first time in his long-running corruption trial. Here is what you need to know about the charges that have divided the Israeli public at a time of Middle East turmoil.

What are the charges?
Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust — all of which Netanyahu denies. The trial began in 2020 and involves three criminal cases. He denies the charges and has pleaded not guilty.

Case 4000
Prosecutors allege Netanyahu granted regulatory favors worth around 1.8 billion shekels (about $500 million) to Bezeq Telecom Israel (BEZQ.TA). In return, prosecutors say, he sought positive coverage of himself and his wife Sara on a news website controlled by the company’s former chairman, Shaul Elovitch. In this case, Netanyahu has been charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

Case 1000
Netanyahu has been charged with fraud and breach of trust over allegations that he and his wife wrongfully received almost 700,000 shekels ($210,000) in gifts from Arnon Milchan, a Hollywood producer and an Israeli citizen, and Australian billionaire businessman James Packer. Prosecutors said gifts included champagne and cigars and that Netanyahu helped Milchan with his business interests. Packer and Milchan face no charges.

Case 2000
Netanyahu allegedly negotiated a deal with Arnon Mozes, owner of Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, for better coverage in return for legislation to slow the growth of a rival newspaper. Netanyahu has been charged with fraud and breach of trust.

Will a verdict come soon?
Unlikely. Unless Netanyahu seeks a plea deal, it could be many more months before the judges rule.

How can he be on trial and remian Prime Minister?
Under Israeli law, a prime minister is under no obligation to stand down unless convicted. If he or she appeals their conviction, they can keep their office throughout the appeals process.

Could he go to jail?
Bribery charges carry a prison sentence of up to 10 years and/or a fine. Fraud and breach of trust are punishable by up to three years in jail.

What has the impact been?
The shock attack by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the ensuing Gaza war, swept Netanyahu’s trial off the agenda, as Israelis came together in grief and trauma. Before the war, Netanyahu’s legal troubles bitterly divided Israelis and shook Israeli politics through five rounds of elections.
After Netanyahu’s decisive 2022 victory at the ballot box, his far-right government launched a judicial campaign to curb the powers of the court. It sparked mass protests in Israel and fears among Western allies for the country’s democratic health. Netanyahu denied any link between the judicial overhaul and his trial. He largely abandoned the plan after war broke out, but has revived some anti-judiciary rhetoric in recent weeks.


HTS leader vows to pursue former Syria officials for torture, war crimes

HTS leader vows to pursue former Syria officials for torture, war crimes
Updated 10 December 2024
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HTS leader vows to pursue former Syria officials for torture, war crimes

HTS leader vows to pursue former Syria officials for torture, war crimes
  • Sharaa held talks on Monday with outgoing prime minister Mohammed Al-Jalali
  • Israel continued to carry out air strikes aimed at destroying the former government’s military capabilities
  • Thousands of Syrians gathered Monday outside a jail synonymous with the worst atrocities of Assad’s rule to search for relatives

DAMASCUS: Syria’s Islamist militant leader on Tuesday vowed to pursue former senior government officials responsible for torture and war crimes, a day after he began talks on the transfer of power following president Bashar Assad’s ouster.
Assad fled Syria as the Islamist-led opposition alliance swept into the capital Damascus, bringing a spectacular end on Sunday to five decades of brutal rule by his clan.
He oversaw a crackdown on a democracy movement that erupted in 2011, sparking a war that killed 500,000 people and forced half the country to flee their homes, millions of them finding refuge abroad.
“We will not hesitate to hold accountable the criminals, murderers, security and army officers involved in torturing the Syrian people,” rebel leader Abu Mohammed Al-Golani, now using his real name Ahmed Al-Sharaa, said Tuesday in a statement on Telegram.
“We will offer rewards to anyone who provides information about senior army and security officers involved in war crimes,” he said, adding the incoming authorities would seek the return of officials who have fled abroad.
Sharaa held talks on Monday with outgoing prime minister Mohammed Al-Jalali “to coordinate a transfer of power that guarantees the provision of services” to Syria’s people, according to an earlier statement on Telegram.
While Syria had been at war for over 13 years, the government’s collapse came in a matter of days in a lightning offensive led by Sharaa’s Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS).
Even as some Syrians rejoiced and others rushed to search for loved ones in Assad’s notorious jails, Israel continued to carry out air strikes aimed at destroying the former government’s military capabilities, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Early Tuesday, AFP journalists heard more loud explosions in Damascus.

Israeli strikes
The Syrian Observatory said Tuesday that Israel had “destroyed the most important military sites in Syria” with a flurry of air strikes since the fall of Assad.
It said Israel has carried out “about 250 air strikes on Syrian territory” over the last 48 hours.
They targeted weapons depots, boats from the Assad government’s navy, and a research center that Western countries suspected of having links to chemical weapons production, it said.
Near the port city of Latakia, Israel targeted an air defense facility and damaged Syrian naval ships as well as military warehouses.
In and around the capital Damascus, strikes targeted military installations, research centers, and the electronic warfare administration.
Israel, which borders Syria, also sent troops into a buffer zone east of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights after Assad’s fall, in what Foreign Minister Gideon Saar described as a “limited and temporary step” for “security reasons.”
Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which had been allied to Assad, condemned the strikes late Monday and lambasted Israel for “occupying more land in the Golan Heights.”

Prison nightmare
At the core of the system of rule that Assad inherited from his father Hafez was a brutal complex of prisons and detention centers used to eliminate dissent by those suspected of stepping out of the ruling Baath party’s line.
Thousands of Syrians gathered Monday outside a jail synonymous with the worst atrocities of Assad’s rule to search for relatives, many of whom had spent years in the Saydnaya facility outside Damascus, AFP correspondents said.
Rescuers from the Syrian White Helmets group had earlier said they were looking for potential secret doors or basements in Saydnaya.
“I ran like crazy” to get to the prison, said Aida Taha, 65, searching for her brother who was arrested in 2012.
“But I found out that some of the prisoners were still in the basements. There are three or four floors underground.”
Crowds of freed prisoners wandered the streets of Damascus distinguishable by the marks of their ordeal: maimed by torture, weakened by illness and emaciated by hunger.

'We are reborn'
In central Damascus on Monday, despite all the uncertainty over the future, the joy was palpable.
“It’s indescribable. We never thought this nightmare would end. We are reborn,” Rim Ramadan, 49, a civil servant at the finance ministry, told AFP.
“We were afraid for 55 years of speaking, even at home. We used to say the walls had ears,” Ramadan said, as people honked car horns and rebels fired their guns into the air.
Syria’s parliament, formerly pro-Assad like the prime minister, said it supports “the will of the people to build a new Syria toward a better future governed by law and justice.”
The Baath party said it will support “a transitional phase in Syria aimed at defending the unity of the country.”
Syrian state television’s logo on the Telegram messaging app now displays the rebel flag.
During the offensive launched on November 27, rebels met little resistance as they wrested city after city from Assad’s control, opening the gates of prisons along the way and freeing thousands, many of them held on political charges.
Some, like Fadwa Mahmoud, whose husband and son are missing, posted calls for help on social media.
“Where are you, Maher and Abdel Aziz? It’s time for me to hear your news. Oh God, please come back,” wrote Mahmoud, herself a former detainee.
Rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda, HTS is proscribed by Western governments as a terrorist group but has sought to soften its image in recent years.
Germany and France said in a statement they were ready to cooperate with Syria’s new leadership “on the basis of fundamental human rights and the protection of ethnic and religious minorities.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in Saudi Arabia on Monday, said HTS must reject “terrorism and violence” before Britain can engage with the group designated “terrorist” by London.
Washington’s top diplomat, Antony Blinken, said the United States — with hundreds of troops in Syria as part of a coalition against Daesh group jihadists — is determined to prevent IS from re-establishing safe havens.
“We have a clear interest in doing what we can to avoid the fragmentation of Syria, mass migrations from Syria and, of course, the export of terrorism and extremism,” Blinken said.

Assad in Moscow?
The United Nations said that whoever ends up in power in Syria must hold the Assad regime to account. But how the ousted leader might face justice remains unclear, especially after the Kremlin refused on Monday to confirm reports by Russian news agencies that he had fled to Moscow.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, however, said that if Russia granted asylum to Assad and his family, it would be a decision taken by President Vladimir Putin.
The Syrian embassy in Moscow raised the opposition’s flag, and the Kremlin said it would discuss the status of its bases in Syria with the new authorities.
Russia played an instrumental role in keeping Assad in power, directly intervening in the war starting in 2015 and providing air cover to the army during the rebellion.
 


Thousands scour Syria’s most horrific prison but find no sign of their loved ones

Thousands scour Syria’s most horrific prison but find no sign of their loved ones
Updated 10 December 2024
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Thousands scour Syria’s most horrific prison but find no sign of their loved ones

Thousands scour Syria’s most horrific prison but find no sign of their loved ones

DAMASCUS: They came from all over Syria, tens of thousands. The first place they rushed to after the fall of their longtime tormentor, former President Bashar Assad, was here: Saydnaya Prison, a place so notorious for its horrors it was long known as “the slaughterhouse.”
For the past two days, all have been looking for signs of loved ones who disappeared years or even decades ago into the secretive, sprawling prison just outside Damascus.
But hope gave way to despair Monday. People opened the heavy iron doors lining the hallways to find cells inside empty. With sledgehammers, shovels and drills, men pounded holes in floors and walls, looking for what they believed were secret dungeons, or chasing sounds they thought they heard from underground. They found nothing.
Insurgents freed dozens of people from the Saydnaya military prison on Sunday when Damascus fell. Since then, almost no one has been found.
“Where is everyone? Where are everyone’s children? Where are they?” said Ghada Assad, breaking down in tears.
She had rushed from her Damascus home to the prison on the capital’s outskirts, hoping to find her brother. He was detained in 2011, the year that protests first erupted against the former president’s rule – before they turned into a long, grueling civil war. She didn’t know why he was arrested.
“My heart has been burned over my brother. For 13 years, I kept looking for him,” she said. When insurgents last week seized Aleppo — her original hometown — at the start of their swiftly victorious offensive, “I prayed that they would reach Damascus just so they can open up this prison,” she said.
Civil defense officials helping in the search were as confused as the families over why no further inmates were being found. It appeared fewer were held here in recent weeks, they said.
But few were giving up, a sign of how powerfully Saydnaya looms in the minds of Syrians as the heart of Assad’s brutal police state. The sense of loss over the missing — and the sudden hope they might be found — brought a kind of dark unity among Syrians from across the country.
During Assad’s rule and particularly after the 2011 protests began, any hint of dissent could land someone in Saydnaya. Few ever emerged.
In 2017, Amnesty International estimated that 10,000-20,000 people were being held there at the time “from every sector of society.” It said they were effectively slated for “extermination.”
Thousands were killed in frequent mass executions, Amnesty reported, citing testimony from freed prisoners and prison officials. Prisoners were subjected to constant torture, intense beatings and rape. Almost daily, guards did rounds of the cells to collect bodies of inmates who had died overnight from injuries, disease or starvation. Some inmates fell into psychosis and starved themselves, the human rights group said.
“There is not a home, there is not a woman in Syria who didn’t lose a brother, a child or a husband,” said Khairiya Ismail, 54. Two of her sons were detained in the early days of the protests against Assad – one of them when he came to visit her after she herself had been detained.
Ismail, accused of helping her son evade military service, spent eight months in Adra prison, northeast of Damascus. “They detained everyone.”
An estimated 150,000 people were detained or went missing in Syria since 2011 — and tens of thousands of them are believed to have gone through Saydnaya.
“People expected many more to be here ... They are clinging to the slightest sliver of hope,” said Ghayath Abu Al-Dahab, a spokesman for the White Helmets, the search and rescue group that operated in rebel-held areas throughout the war.
Five White Helmet teams, with two canine teams, came to Saydnaya to help the search. They even brought in the prison electrician, who had the floor plan, and went through every shaft, vent and sewage opening. So far, there were no answers, Abu Al-Dahab said.
He said the civil defense had documents showing more than 3,500 people were in Saydnaya until three months before the fall of Damascus. But the number may have been less by the time the prison was stormed, he said.
“There are other prisons,” he said. “The regime had turned all of Syria into a big prison.” Detainees were held in security agencies, military facilities, government offices and even universities, he added.
Around the Y-shaped main building of the prison, everyone kept trying, convinced they could find some hidden chamber with detainees, dead or alive.
Dozens of men tried to force a metal gate open until they realized it led only to more cells upstairs. Others asked the insurgents guarding the prison to use their rifle to lever open a closed door.
A handful of men were gathered, excavating what looked like a sewage opening in a basement. Others dug up electrical wiring, thinking it might lead to hidden underground chambers.
In a scene throughout the day, hundreds cheered as men with sledgehammers and shovels battered a huge column in the building’s atrium, thinking they had found a secret cell. Hundreds ran to see. But there was nothing, and tears and loud sighs replaced the celebrations.
In the wards, lines of cells were empty. Some had blankets, a few plastic pots or a few names scribbled on walls. Documents, some with names of prisoners, were left strewn in the yard, the kitchen and elsewhere. Families scoured them for their loved ones’ names.
A brief protest broke out in the prison yard, when a group of men began chanting: “Bring us the prison warden.” Calls on social media urged anyone with information of the secret cells of the prison to come forth and help.
Firas Al-Halabi, one of the prisoners freed when insurgents first broke into Saydnaya, was back on Monday visiting. Those searching flocked around him, whispering names of relatives to see if he met them.
Al-Halabi, who had been an army conscript when he was arrested, said he spent four years in a cell with 20 others.
His only food was a quarter loaf of bread and some burghul. He suffered from tuberculosis because of the cell conditions. He was tortured by electrocution, he said, and the beatings were constant.
“During our time in the yard, there was beating. When going to the bathroom, there was beating. If we sat on the floor, we got beaten. If you look at the light, you are beaten,” he said. He was once thrown into solitary for simply praying in his cell.
“Everything is considered a violation,” he said. “Your life is one big violation to them.”
He said that in his first year in the prison guards would call out hundreds of names over the course of days. One officer told him it was for executions.
When he was freed Sunday, he thought he was dreaming. “We never thought we would see this moment. We thought we would be executed, one by one.”
Noha Qweidar and her cousin sat in the yard on Monday, taking a rest from searching. Their husbands were detained in 2013 and 2015. Qweidar said she had received word from other inmates that her husband was killed in a summary execution in prison.
But she couldn’t know for sure. Prisoners reported dead in the past have turned up alive.
“I heard that (he was executed) but I still have hope he is alive.”
Just before sundown on Monday, rescue teams brought in an excavator to dig deeper.
But late at night, the White Helmets announced the end of their search, saying in a statement they had found no hidden areas in the facility.
“We share the profound disappointment of the families of the thousands who remain missing and whose fates are unknown.”


Hundreds of Syrians line up at Turkish border crossings as Erdogan expects more to go home

Hundreds of Syrians line up at Turkish border crossings as Erdogan expects more to go home
Updated 10 December 2024
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Hundreds of Syrians line up at Turkish border crossings as Erdogan expects more to go home

Hundreds of Syrians line up at Turkish border crossings as Erdogan expects more to go home

CILVEGOZU BORDER CROSSING, Turkiye: Hundreds of Syrian refugees gathered at two border crossings in southern Turkiye on Monday, eagerly anticipating their return home following the fall of Bashar Assad’s government.
Many arrived at the Cilvegozu and Oncupinar gates at daybreak, draped in blankets and coats. Some camped by the barriers, warming at makeshift fires. The crossings correspond to the Bab Al-Hawa and Bab Al-Salameh gates on the Syrian side.
Among those waiting at Cilvegozu was 28-year-old Muhammed Zin, who fled Damascus in 2016 and has been living and working in Istanbul.
“Assad was shooting us, killing us,” he told The Associated Press. “I will return to Syria now. Thank God, the war is over.”
Assad’s fall has sparked widespread joy among Turkiye’s 3 million Syrian refugees, with many taking to the streets of Istanbul and other cities to celebrate. On Sunday, Syrians removed the government’s flag from the Syrian Consulate in Istanbul, replacing it with the opposition’s flag.
At the Oncupinar border gate, Mustafa Sultan, 29, said he was crossing into Syria to find his older brother who was imprisoned in Damascus under Assad’s rule.
“I haven’t seen him for 13 years. The prisons have been emptied so I am going to go see whether he’s alive,” he said.
Turkish officials have not said how many Syrians have returned since Assad’s downfall on Sunday. But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the numbers would increase as Syria stabilizes, and announced plans to reopen a third border crossing to prevent congestion.
“As Syria gains more stability, God willing, voluntary, safe and honorable returns will increase,” Erdogan said in a televised address following a Cabinet meeting.
Turkiye welcomed Syrian refugees with open arms in the early years of Syria’s civil war that broke out in 2011 — becoming host to the world’s largest number of refugees. Ankara believed the conflict would end quickly and the influx would be temporary.
But as Turkiye faced economic challenges, public opinion toward the refugees soured, forcing Erdogan’s government to seek ways to ensure their safe and voluntary repatriation.
Turkish officials now hope that a significant number of Syrians will return voluntarily.
“We will continue our efforts to ensure the safe and voluntary return of Syrians and to rebuild the country,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Monday.
At Cilvegozu, some refugees wheeled their suitcases while others carried belongings in sacks. Authorities set up a checkpoint some 5 kilometers (3 miles) away, only allowing Syrians with proper documents to the border gate, HaberTurk television reported.
Zakariya Mori Al-Shami, 31, who arrived in Turkiye in 2019, was waiting to cross with his wife and two children to return to Aleppo. He hopes to rebuild his home, which was destroyed during the conflict.
Anxious to rejoin his family in Damascus, Mohammed al Muhbuhar, 27, said he headed to the border “immediately” after Assad left.
“There is no more torture. God willing, Syria will be better,” he said.
Hundreds of displaced Syrians were also returning Monday from Lebanon.
Sami Abdel-Latif, a construction worker from Hama who hoped to join his wife and four children, said while the future in Syria is uncertain, “anything is better than Bashar.” He said he expected some chaos initially but that eventually the situation would settle down.
“Look at Aleppo now,” Abdel-Latif said, referring to the first major city taken by opposition forces more than a week ago, where life has continued more or less as normal.
Malak Matar, who was preparing to return to Damascus, said: “You feel yourself psychologically free — you can express yourself,” saying people had waited 14 years for that.
Now, he said, “Syrians have to create a state that is well-organized and takes care of their country. It’s a new phase.”