Syria’s military hospital where detainees were tortured, not treated

Syria’s military hospital where detainees were tortured, not treated
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Former detainee in Sednaya Mohammed Najib sits across from a discarded portrait of ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, in front of a facility which was used as a jail for the Tishreen Military Hospital, currently out of service, in Damascus on January 10, 2025. (AFP)
Syria’s military hospital where detainees were tortured, not treated
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Former detainees in Sednaya Osama Abdul Latif (L) and Mohammed Najib revisit a cell at a facility which was used as a jail for the Tishreen Military Hospital, currently out of service, in Damascus on January 10, 2025. (AFP)
Syria’s military hospital where detainees were tortured, not treated
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Former detainee in Sednaya Omar al-Masri revisits a cell at a facility which was used as a jail for the Tishreen Military Hospital, currently out of service, in Damascus on January 10, 2025. (AFP)
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Updated 22 January 2025
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Syria’s military hospital where detainees were tortured, not treated

Syria’s military hospital where detainees were tortured, not treated

DAMASCUS: Former Syrian detainee Mohammed Najib has suffered for years from torture-induced back pain. Yet he dreaded being taken by his jailers to a military hospital, where he received beatings instead of treatment.
The prison guards forbade him from revealing his condition, only sending him to hospital for his likely tuberculosis symptoms — widespread in the notorious Saydnaya prison where he was detained.
Doctors at Tishreen Hospital, the largest military health facility in Damascus, never inquired about the hunch on his back — the result of sustained abuse.
Freed just hours after the fall of Bashar Assad, Najib has a tennis ball-sized bulge on his lower back.
The 31-year-old can barely walk, and the pain is unbearable.
But he insisted on showing AFP around a jail in the military hospital compound.
“I hated being brought here,” Najib said as he returned with two friends who had shared the same cell with him after they were accused of ties to the armed rebellion that sought Assad’s overthrow.
“They hit us all the time, and because I couldn’t walk easily, they hit me” even more, he said, referring the guards.
Because he was never allowed to say he had anything more than the tuberculosis symptoms of “diarrhea and fever,” he never received proper treatment.
“I went back and forth for nothing,” he said.
Assad fled Syria last month after Islamist-led rebels wrested city after city from his control until Damascus fell, ending his family’s five-decade rule.
The Assads left behind a harrowing legacy of abuse at detention facilities that were sites of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances.
Hours after Assad fled, Syrian rebels broke into the notorious Saydnaya prison, freeing thousands, some there since the 1980s.
Since then, Tishreen Hospital has been out of service pending an investigation.

NEGLECT AND TORTURE
Human rights advocates say Syria’s military hospitals, most notably Tishreen, have a record of neglect and ill-treatment.
“Some medical practitioners that were in some of these military hospitals (were) assisting... interrogations and torture, and maybe even withholding treatments to detainees,” Hanny Megally of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria told AFP.
Former Saydnaya detainees told AFP about the ordeals they went through after they got sick.
It would begin with a routine examination by two of the jail’s military doctors.
One of them used to beat prisoners, sometimes to death, four ex-detainees said.
Guards relentlessly beat them from the moment they were pulled from their cells to the hospital jail, then to its main building to meet the doctors, and finally escorted back to prison.
At the hospital’s jail, those who were too ill were left to die or even killed, several former detainees said.
Three years ago, Najib and other inmates were tortured using the “tyre” method inside Saydnaya for merely talking to each other.
They were forced into vehicle tires and beaten with their foreheads against their knees or ankles.
After a first check-up by a military doctor at Saydnaya, Najib was prescribed painkillers for his back pain.
The doctor eventually accepted to transfer him to Tishreen Hospital for tuberculosis symptoms.
Former prisoners said guards looking to minimize their workload would order them to say they suffered from “diarrhea and fever” so they could transfer everyone to the same department.
When Omar Al-Masri, 39, was taken to the hospital with a torture-induced leg injury, he too told a doctor he had an upset stomach and a fever.
While he was awaiting treatment, a guard ordered him to “clean” a very sick inmate.
Masri wiped the prisoner’s face and body, yet when the guard returned, he angrily repeated the same order: “Clean him.”
As Masri repeated the task, the sick prisoner soon took his last breath. An agitated Masri called out to the guard who gave him a chilling response: “Well done.”
“That is when I learnt that by ‘clean him’, he meant ‘kill him’,” he said.
According to a 2023 report by the Association of Detainees and the Missing in Sednaya Prison, security forces at the hospital jail and even medical and administrative staff inflicted physical and psychological violence on detainees.
A civilian doctor told AFP she and other medical staff at Tishreen were under strict orders to keep conversations with prisoners to a minimum.
“We weren’t allowed to ask what the prisoner’s name was or learn anything about them,” she said, requesting anonymity for fear of reprisals.
She said that despite reports about ill treatment at the hospital, she had not witnessed it herself.
But even if a doctor was courageous enough to ask about a prisoner’s name, the scared detainee would only give the number assigned to him by the guards.
“They weren’t allowed to speak,” she said.
After a beating in his Saydnaya cell, Osama Abdul Latif’s ribs were broken, but the prison doctors only transferred him to the hospital four months later with a large protrusion on his side.
Abdul Latif and other detainees had to stack the bodies of three fellow inmates into the transfer vehicle and unloaded them at Tishreen hospital.
“I was jailed for five years,” Abdul Latif said.
But “250 years wouldn’t be enough to talk about all the suffering” he endured.


Some Palestinian prisoners freed in ceasefire arrive in Turkiye

Some Palestinian prisoners freed in ceasefire arrive in Turkiye
Updated 57 min 9 sec ago
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Some Palestinian prisoners freed in ceasefire arrive in Turkiye

Some Palestinian prisoners freed in ceasefire arrive in Turkiye
  • Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the 15 former prisoners had arrived via Egypt
  • “We think it would be beneficial for some regional countries to take a role in this matter,” Fidan said

CAIRO/ANKARA: Fifteen Palestinian prisoners freed by Israel under the Jan. 19 ceasefire agreement with Hamas arrived in Türkiye on Tuesday after being deported first to Egypt, the Turkish foreign minister and the Hamas prisoners media office said.
Among dozens of such former prisoners, they are the first to be taken in by a third country other than Egypt under the terms of the ceasefire, which bar prisoners convicted by Israel of violent attacks from returning to the Palestinian Territories.
Palestinians view those jailed for fighting Israel as resistance heroes.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the 15 former prisoners had arrived via Egypt, after Ankara responded positively to a request under the ceasefire deal provisions.
“We think it would be beneficial for some regional countries to take a role in this matter... Egypt and Qatar would play a role in that respect,” Fidan said at a joint press conference in Ankara with his Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdelatty.
The first phase of the ceasefire in Gaza has led to Hamas’ release of 18 hostages and Israel’s release of 583 jailed Palestinians, of whom at least 79 were sent to Egypt.
As well as Türkiye, some may be sent on to Algeria or Qatar, Hamas sources say.
Fidan rejected criticism by what he called “Zionist circles” of Turkiye’s decision to take in the former Palestinian prisoners, saying Ankara was acting to help end “the humanitarian drama in Gaza.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to discuss the situation in Gaza and other regional issues with US President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday.
The Gaza war started with a Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, on Israel that killed 1,200 people, and saw more than 250 taken as hostages, according to Israeli tallies. The Israeli military campaign has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians and left the enclave in ruins, Gaza authorities say.


Paramilitary shelling kills five at Sudan hospital: medical source

Paramilitary shelling kills five at Sudan hospital: medical source
Updated 04 February 2025
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Paramilitary shelling kills five at Sudan hospital: medical source

Paramilitary shelling kills five at Sudan hospital: medical source
  • The source said volunteers at Al-Nao Hospital were among the dead in the bombardment by the paramilitary RSF
  • “The shells landed in the garden adjacent to the hospital“

PORT SUDAN: Shelling by Sudanese paramilitaries killed five people outside one of the last medical facilities still operating in Khartoum’s sister city of Omdurman on Tuesday, a medical source told AFP.
Requesting anonymity for safety reasons, the source said volunteers at Al-Nao Hospital were among the dead in the bombardment by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which have been at war with the regular army since April 2023.
“The shells landed in the garden adjacent to the hospital,” the source said.
Al-Nao Hospital, which is supported by medical charity Doctors without Borders (MSF), lies in an area controlled by the Sudanese army and has been repeatedly attacked since the start of the war.
Greater Khartoum has been one of the main battlegrounds of the struggle for power between army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his former deputy. RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The war has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million.
Both sides have been accused of indiscriminately shelling health facilities and residential areas.
Gains by the army in Khartoum in recent weeks prompted the RSF to announce a counteroffensive last week.
On Saturday, at least 60 people were killed in an RSF bombardment that hit a busy market in Omdurman.
The RSF holds much of western and southern Sudan while the army retains control of the east and north.


NGOs, civil society groups urge EU to end trade with Israeli settlements

NGOs, civil society groups urge EU to end trade with Israeli settlements
Updated 04 February 2025
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NGOs, civil society groups urge EU to end trade with Israeli settlements

NGOs, civil society groups urge EU to end trade with Israeli settlements
  • Bloc is violating ICJ ruling by allowing goods to enter European market, letter warns
  • Human Rights Watch: EU should ‘live up to its obligations under international law’

LONDON: More than 160 NGOs, civil society groups and trade unions have urged the EU to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories.

The appeal came in a letter addressed to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

She was urged to take action to ensure that Europe complies with international law by ending its support for Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise.

It comes amid renewed international attention on the Palestinian question in the wake of the Gaza ceasefire.

Palestinians “continue suffering” in the enclave despite the “fragile” ceasefire, while in the West Bank Israeli authorities have “expanded their illegal settlements and intensified their repression of Palestinians,” Human Rights Watch said.

EU member states have repeatedly condemned Israeli settlements through unanimous voting. Two rounds of targeted sanctions against Israeli settlers were also launched by the bloc.

Last July, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s occupation is illegal, and called for the dismantling of settlements.

States have an obligation to prevent trade “that assists in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” the court said.

Existing EU policies breach this obligation, groups said in the letter, warning that goods exported from Israeli settlements are not excluded from entering the European market.

HRW said: “Amid sharp divisions, the EU has been unable to adopt measures that respond to Israel’s war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of genocide in Gaza.

“But the bloc should at least be coherent with its own statements, and live up to its obligations under international law, by banning trade and business with settlements, which are inexorably linked to egregious rights abuses.”


Syrian president arrives in Turkiye for talks with Erdogan

Syria’s president Ahmed Al-Sharaa (R) and interim Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani walk on the tarmac in Damascus.
Syria’s president Ahmed Al-Sharaa (R) and interim Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani walk on the tarmac in Damascus.
Updated 9 min 27 sec ago
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Syrian president arrives in Turkiye for talks with Erdogan

Syria’s president Ahmed Al-Sharaa (R) and interim Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani walk on the tarmac in Damascus.
  • Despite being constrained by its own economic crisis, Turkiye is offering to help with Syria’s recovery after a devastating civil war
  • In return, Turkiye is keen to secure Damascus’s support against Kurdish militants in northeastern Syria

ANKARA: Syrian president, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, arrived in Turkiye on Tuesday for talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his second international trip since ousting President Bashar Assad, an official told AFP.
Al-Sharaa was to meet the Turkish leader in the capital Ankara after flying in from Saudi Arabia, where he was seeking help from Gulf countries to finance the reconstruction of his war-ravaged nation and revive its economy.
Turkiye, which has close ties with Al-Sharaa, reopened its diplomatic mission in the Syrian Arab Republic and sent its spy chief and foreign minister for talks with him soon after the HTS overthrew Assad on December 8.
The pair will discuss “joint steps to be taken for economic recovery, sustainable stability and security,” Erdogan’s communications chief Fahrettin Altun said on Monday.
Despite being constrained by its own economic crisis, Turkiye is offering to help with Syria’s recovery after a devastating 13-year civil war.
In return, Turkiye is keen to secure Damascus’s support against Kurdish militants in northeastern Syria, where the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been battling Ankara-backed forces.


Israeli military says troops shoot dead gunman in West Bank

Israeli military says troops shoot dead gunman in West Bank
Updated 04 February 2025
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Israeli military says troops shoot dead gunman in West Bank

Israeli military says troops shoot dead gunman in West Bank

JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said Tuesday that its troops had killed a gunman who critically wounded two soldiers when he opened fire at a military post in the occupied West Bank.
“A terrorist fired at soldiers at a military post in Tayasir. The soldiers exchanged fire with the terrorist and killed him,” the military said in a statement.
Israeli emergency services said six people were treated at the scene and evacuated to hospitals for treatment.
Israeli army radio reported that two of the soldiers were in critical condition.
Israeli forces have been engaged in what the army says is “an operation to thwart terrorism” in the northern area of the West Bank, primarily in the area of Jenin, long a hotbed of militancy.
On Sunday, the army said that it had killed at least 50 “militants” since it launched an operation on January 21, while the Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah said Israeli forces have killed 70 people in the territory since the start of the year.
The operation has also seen troops levelling buildings in a refugee camp adjacent to Jenin.
The offensive has drawn sharp condemnation from the Palestinian Authority, which called Israel’s actions “ethnic cleansing.”
Violence has surged across the West Bank since war began in Gaza with the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 884 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the war, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
At least 30 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military raids in the territory over the same period, according to official Israeli figures.