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Syria troops quit Druze heartland after violence leaves over 500 dead

Syrian troops on Thursday pulled out of the Druze heartland of Sweida on the orders of the Islamist-led government, following days of deadly clashes that killed more than 500 people, according to a war monitor.The southern province has been gripped by deadly sectarian bloodshed since Sunday, with hundreds reportedly killed in clashes pitting Druze fighters against Sunni Bedouin tribes and the army and its allies.The city of Sweida was desolate on Thursday, AFP correspondents on the ground reported, with shops looted, homes burnt and bodies in the streets.”What I saw of the city looked as if it had just emerged from a flood or a natural disaster,” Hanadi Obeid, a 39-year-old doctor, told AFP.In a televised speech, interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa said community leaders would resume control over security in Sweida “based on the supreme national interest”, after the deployment of government troops on Tuesday fuelled the intercommunal bloodshed and prompted Israeli military intervention.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 594 people had been killed in clashes in Sweida province since Sunday.The UN’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, said that “nearly 2,000 families have been displaced” by the violence across the southern province.Israel had hammered government troops with air strikes during their brief deployment in Sweida and also struck targets in and around Damascus, including the military headquarters, warning that its attacks would intensify until the government pulled back.The Observatory reported that three people were killed in Damascus by the Israeli strikes.Syria’s state-run news agency SANA later reported the first Israeli attack on the area since government forces withdrew, with strikes on the outskirts of Sweida.The Syrian presidency meanwhile accused Druze fighters in Sweida of violating the ceasefire that led to the withdrawal of government forces.In a statement, the presidency accused “outlaw forces” of violating the agreement through “horrific violence” against civilians.The presidency also warned against “continued blatant Israeli interference in Syria’s internal affairs, which only leads to further chaos and destruction and further complicates the regional situation”.- Promise of ‘protection’ -Sharaa, whose Islamist-led interim government has had troubled relations with minority groups since it toppled longtime president Bashar al-Assad in December, pledged to protect the Druze.”We are keen on holding accountable those who transgressed and abused our Druze people, as they are under the protection and responsibility of the state,” said Sharaa, whose Hayat Tahrir al-Sham movement was once linked to Al-Qaeda.More than 1,700 mostly Alawite civilians were massacred in their heartland on the Mediterranean coast in March, with government-affiliated groups blamed for most of the killings. Government forces also battled Druze fighters in Sweida and near Damascus in April and May, leaving more than 100 people dead.Government troops had entered Sweida on Tuesday with the stated aim of overseeing a truce, following days of deadly sectarian clashes.But witnesses said that government forces instead joined the Bedouin in attacking Druze fighters and civilians.Addressing the Druze, Sharaa attempted to reassure the minority community, vowing that “protecting your rights and freedom is one of our priorities”.- US mediation -The Syrian president hit out at Israel’s military intervention, saying that it would have pushed “matters to a large-scale escalation, except for the effective intervention of American, Arab and Turkish mediation, which saved the region from an unknown fate”.The United States — a close ally of Israel that has been trying to reboot its relationship with Syria — said late on Wednesday that an agreement had been reached to restore calm in the area, urging “all parties to deliver on the commitments they have made”.On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Syria had agreed to withdraw its troops and that the de-escalation “seems to be continuing”. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that the ceasefire was a result of his country’s “powerful action”, while Leavitt sought to claim credit for Washington.A US State Department spokesperson said that Washington “did not support (the) recent Israeli strikes”.Israel, which has its own Druze community, has presented itself as a defender of the group, although some analysts say that is a pretext for pursuing its own military goal of keeping Syrian government forces away from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.On Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of “using the Druze as an excuse” for “expanding its banditry” in Syria. Because of the violence, dozens of Druze gathered in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Thursday hoping to catch a glimpse of relatives on the Syrian-held side who might try to cross the barbed-wire frontier. Qamar Abu Saleh, a 36-year-old educator, said that some people “opened the fence and entered, and people from Syria also started crossing here”.”It was like a dream, and we still can’t believe it happened.”burs-nad/rlp/bc

Mothers of Israeli soldiers fighting on all fronts to stop Gaza war

“We mothers of soldiers haven’t slept in two years,” said Ayelet-Hashakhar Saidof, a lawyer who founded the Mothers on the Front movement in Israel.A 48-year-old mother of three, including a soldier currently serving in the army, Saidof said her movement brings together some 70,000 mothers of active-duty troops, conscripts and reservists to demand, among other things, a halt to the fighting in Gaza. Her anxiety was familiar to other mothers of soldiers interviewed by AFP who have refocused their lives on stopping a war that many Israelis increasingly feel has run its course, even as a ceasefire deal remains elusive.In addition to urging an end to the fighting in Gaza, Mothers on the Front’s foremost demand is that everyone serve in the army, as mandated by Israeli law.That request is particularly urgent today, as draft exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jews have become a wedge issue in Israeli society, with the military facing manpower shortages in its 21-month fight against the militant group Hamas.As the war drags on, Saidof has become increasingly concerned that Israel will be confronted with long-term ramifications from the conflict. “We’re seeing 20-year-olds completely lost, broken, exhausted, coming back with psychological wounds that society doesn’t know how to treat,” she said. “They are ticking time bombs on our streets, prone to violence, to outbursts of rage.”- Mounting toll -According to the army, 23 Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza over the past month, and more than 450 have died since the start of the ground offensive in October 2023.Saidof accuses the army of neglecting soldiers’ lives.Combat on the ground has largely dried up, she said, and soldiers were now being killed by improvised explosives and “operational mistakes”. “So where are they sending them? Just to be targets in a shooting range?” she asked bitterly.Over the past months, Saidof has conducted her campaign in the halls of Israel’s parliament, but also in the streets. Opening the boot of her car, she proudly displayed a stockpile of posters, placards and megaphones for protests.”Soldiers fall while the government stands,” one poster read.Her campaign does not have a political slant, she maintained.”The mothers of 2025 are strong. We’re not afraid of anyone, not the generals, not the rabbis, not the politicians,” she said defiantly.- ‘Wars without goals’ -Saidof’s group is not the only mothers’ movement calling for an end to the war. Outside the home of military chief of staff Eyal Zamir, four women gathered one morning to demand better protection for their children.”We’re here to ask him to safeguard the lives of our sons who we’ve entrusted to him,” said Rotem-Sivan Hoffman, a doctor and mother of two soldiers. “To take responsibility for military decisions and to not let politicians use our children’s lives for political purposes that put them in unnecessary danger” .Hoffman is one of the leaders of the Ima Era, or “Awakened Mother”, movement, whose motto is: “We don’t have children for wars without goals.””For many months now, we’ve felt this war should have ended,” she told AFP. “After months of fighting and progress that wasn’t translated into a diplomatic process, nothing has been done to stop the war, bring back the hostages, withdraw the army from Gaza or reach any agreements.”Beside her stood Orit Wolkin, also the mother of a soldier deployed to the front, whose anxiety was visible.”Whenever he comes back from combat, of course that’s something I look forward to eagerly, something I’m happy about, but my heart holds back from feeling full joy because I know he’ll be going back” to the front, she said.At the funeral of Yuli Faktor, a 19-year-old soldier killed in Gaza the previous day alongside two comrades, his mother stood sobbing before her son’s coffin draped in the Israeli flag. She spoke to him in Russian for the last time before his burial.”I want to hold you. I miss you. Forgive me, please. Watch over us, wherever you are.”

Iraq shopping mall fire kills more than 60

A fire tore through a newly opened shopping mall in the eastern Iraqi city of Kut overnight, killing at least 61 people, authorities said Thursday as grief-stricken families buried their loved ones.Officials said many people suffocated in bathrooms, while one person told AFP his five relatives died in an elevator.The blaze — the latest in a country where safety regulations are frequently neglected — broke out late on Wednesday and lasted into the early morning.The cause was not immediately known, but one survivor told AFP an air conditioner had exploded on the second floor before rapidly engulfing the five-storey Corniche Hypermarket Mall in flames.A civil defence spokesperson told state media that the fire erupted in the perfume and cosmetics section on the second floor.Most victims were on the upper floors, while many on the ground floor managed to escape, he said.Several people told AFP they lost family members — and in some cases whole families — who had gone to shop and dine at the mall days after it opened in Kut, around 160 kilometres (100 miles) southeast of Baghdad.Yasser al-Mulla, who went to the holy of Najaf to bury his relatives, told AFP “in the midst of the horror and intensity, people began to flee upwards instead of down”. “It is a tragedy.”The interior ministry said in a statement that “the tragic fire claimed the lives of 61 innocent citizens, most of whom suffocated in bathrooms.”Most of the victims were later buried in the holy city of Najaf, around 150 kilometres (95 miles) southwest of Kut, an AFP correspondent said.Local health official Jabar al-Yassiri said later in a press conference that the remains of 18 people were yet to be identified.An AFP correspondent reported seeing charred bodies at the province’s forensic department.- ‘We couldn’t escape’ -Ali Kadhim, 51, said he had been shuttling between the mall and the main hospital, where the victims were taken, looking for his cousin, his wife and their three children.Back at the mall, he waited anxiously as rescuers searched for victims in the wreckage, with an ambulance on standby.”We don’t know what happened to them,” he said.Wasit provincial governor Mohammed al-Miyahi told INA the victims included men, women and children.Civil defence teams rescued more than 45 people who were trapped inside the building, which includes a restaurant and a supermarket, the interior ministry said.The ward of the main hospital was overwhelmed, while an AFP correspondent witnessed distraught relatives waiting at the forensic department for news, some collapsing in grief.One man broke down, pounding his chest and screaming.Nasir al-Quraishi, a doctor in his 50s, said he lost five family members in the fire.”A disaster has befallen us,” he told AFP. “We went to the mall to have some food, eat dinner and escape power cuts at home.”An air conditioner exploded on the second floor and then the fire erupted — and we couldn’t escape.”- Lax safety regulations -Moataz Karim, 45, rushed to the mall at midnight, only to be met with the news that three of his relatives were missing.Hours later, he identified the charred bodies of two relatives, one of whom had begun working at the shopping centre three days ago.”There is no fire extinguishing system,” he said angrily, as he waited for further news outside the forensic department.Safety standards in Iraq’s construction sector are often disregarded, and the country, whose infrastructure is in disrepair after decades of conflict, often experiences fatal fires and accidents.Fires increase during the blistering summer as temperatures approach 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).In September 2023, a fire killed at least 100 people when it ripped through a crowded Iraqi wedding hall, sparking a panicked stampede for the exits.In July 2021, a fire in the Covid unit of a hospital in southern Iraq killed more than 60 people.Governor Miyahi said local authorities would file a lawsuit against the mall’s owner and the building contractor.”The tragedy is a major shock… and requires a serious review of all safety measures,” he said.The government has declared three days of mourning. Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani ordered a “thorough probe” into the fire to identify “shortcomings”.Several countries, including Egypt, Iran and France, offered condolences to Iraq and the victims’ families.The US embassy in Baghdad likewise offered “its deepest condolences and heartfelt sympathies to the families and loved ones of the victims”.

France court orders release of Lebanese militant after 40 years in jail

A French appeals court Thursday ordered the release of pro-Palestinian Lebanese militant Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, imprisoned for 40 years for the 1982 killings of two foreign diplomats.Abdallah, 74, is one of the longest-serving prisoners in France, where most convicts on life sentences are freed after less than 30 years.He has been up for release for 25 years, but the United States — a civil party to the case — has consistently opposed him leaving prison.Abdallah was detained in 1984 and sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for his involvement in the murders of US military attache Charles Robert Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov in Paris.Lebanese of Maronite Christian heritage, he has always insisted he is not a “criminal” but a “fighter” for the rights of Palestinians, whom he said were targeted, along with Lebanon, by the United States and Israel.The Paris Appeals Court ordered he be freed from a prison in the south of France on July 25, on condition that he leave French territory and never return.It said the length of his detention had been “disproportionate” and that he no longer represented a danger to the public.On Thursday, Abdallah told left-wing deputy Andree Taurinya, who visited him in prison, that his liberation was the result of efforts by his supporters.”The fact that they accepted to free me is thanks to this growing mobilisation,” he told the MP, in the presence of an AFP reporter.Several sources before the hearing said that it was planned for him to be flown to Paris and then to Beirut.Prosecutors can file an appeal with France’s highest court, but any such request is not expected to be processed fast enough to halt his release next week.- ‘Delighted’ -The detainee’s brother, Robert Abdallah, in Lebanon told AFP he was overjoyed.”We’re delighted. I didn’t expect the French judiciary to make such a decision nor for him to ever be freed, especially after so many failed requests for release,” he said.”For once, the French authorities have freed themselves from Israeli and US pressure,” he added.Lebanese authorities have repeatedly said Abdallah should be freed from jail, and had written to the appeals court to say they would organise his return home.Abdallah’s lawyer Jean-Louis Chalanset also welcomed the decision, calling it a “political scandal he was not released earlier”.Israel’s embassy in Paris meanwhile released a statement saying it regretted the decision to release Abdallah.”Such terrorists, enemies of the free world, should spend their life in prison,” it said.Lebanon’s charge d’affaires in Paris, Ziad Taan, told AFP the country was “extremely satisfied” by the decision, adding that Abdallah will be “welcome” in Lebanon.In November last year, a French court ordered Abdallah to be released on condition that he leave France.But France’s anti-terror prosecutors, arguing that he had not changed his political views, appealed the decision, which was suspended.A verdict was supposed to have been delivered in February, but the Paris appeals court postponed it over compensation payments.- ‘Past symbol’ -The court re-examined the latest request for his release last month.During the closed-door hearing, Abdallah’s lawyer told the judges that 16,000 euros had been placed in the prisoner’s bank account at the disposal of civil parties in the case, including the United States, according to several sources who attended.Abdallah was wounded as a teenager when Israel invaded Lebanon in 1978 in the early years of the country’s civil war.As an adult, he founded the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF), a Marxist pro-Syria and anti-Israel group that has now been dissolved.After his arrest in 1984, French police discovered submachine guns and transceiver stations in one of his Paris apartments.The appeals court in February however noted that the FARL “had not committed a violent action since 1984” and that Abdallah “today represented a past symbol of the Palestinian struggle”.Lebanon hosts tens of thousands of Palestinians, according to the United Nations, most descendants of those who fled or were expelled from their land during the creation of Israel in 1948.

Israeli strike on Gaza’s only Catholic church kills three

An Israeli strike on Gaza’s only Catholic church killed three people on Thursday, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said, as Israel said it “never targets” religious sites and regretted any harm to civilians.Pope Leo XIV said he was “deeply saddened” by the loss of life, which a witness said was the result of a tank shell hitting the church. AFP footage showed those injured being treated at Gaza City’s Al-Ahli Hospital, also known as the Baptist Hospital, with one receiving oxygen and blood while lying under a foil blanket. Mourners knelt next to two white body bags laid out on the floor.”In the morning a tank shell targeted us and hit the church and a number of civilians were killed and wounded,” said Shadi Abu Daoud, a displaced man whose 70-year-old mother was killed in the strike.The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem named the dead as Najwa Abu Daoud, Saad Issa Kostandi Salameh and Foumia Issa Latif Ayyad.”This morning, at approximately 10:20 am (0720 GMT), the Compound of the Holy Family in Gaza… was struck by the Israeli army,” it said in a statement.”As of this hour, three individuals lost their lives as a result of the injuries sustained and ten others were wounded,” including the community’s parish priest, Father Gabriel Romanelli, it added, revising a previous toll of two.An AFP photograph showed Father Romanelli with a bandage around his lower leg at Al-Ahli Hospital.Gaza civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal confirmed that three people were killed in an Israeli strike on the church in Gaza City, with which the late Pope Francis kept regular contact through the war. Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, told Vatican News that: “What we know for sure is that a tank, the IDF says by mistake, but we are not sure about this, they hit the Church directly”.- ‘Serious act’ -The patriarchate, which has jurisdiction for Catholics in Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Jordan and Cyprus, said it “strongly condemns this strike and this targeting of innocent civilians”.The site was sheltering around 600 displaced people, the majority of them children and 54 with special needs.”The people in the Holy Family Compound are people who found in the Church a sanctuary — hoping that the horrors of war might at least spare their lives, after their homes, possessions and dignity had already been stripped away,” a statement read.It came as Gaza’s civil defence agency reported that Israeli strikes elsewhere across the Palestinian territory killed at least 22 people.Israel expressed “deep sorrow” over the damage and civilian casualties, adding that the military was investigating, as foreign leaders, including from France and Italy called the strike “unacceptable”.”Israel never targets churches or religious sites and regrets any harm to a religious site or to uninvolved civilians,” the Israeli foreign ministry said on X.Out of the Gaza Strip’s population of more than two million, about 1,000 are Christians. Most of them are Orthodox but according to the Latin Patriarchate, there are about 135 Catholics in the territory.Pope Francis repeatedly called for an end to the war which erupted in October 2023 and in his final Easter message, a day before his death on April 21, he condemned the “deplorable humanitarian situation” in the Palestinian territory.- ‘Totally unacceptable’ -Monsignor Pascal Gollnisch, the head of Catholic charity l’Oeuvre d’Orient, told AFP the raid was “totally unacceptable”.”It is a place of worship. It is a Catholic church known for its peaceful attitude, for being a peacemaker. These are people who are at the service of the population,” he said.”There was no strategic objective, there were no jihadists in this church. There were families, there were civilians.”More than 21 months of war have created dire humanitarian conditions for Gaza’s population, displacing most residents at least once and triggering severe shortages of food and other essentials.The war was triggered by a Hamas attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 58,667 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency and other parties.burs-acc/phz/ysm

Slovenia bars two far-right Israeli ministers

Slovenia announced on Thursday that it would ban two far-right Israeli ministers from entering in what authorities said was a first in the European Union.National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich will be declared “persona non grata,” the Slovenian government said in a statement, accusing them of inciting “extreme violence and serious violations of the human rights of Palestinians” with “their genocidal statements”.In June, Australia, Canada, Britain, New Zealand and Norway imposed similar sanctions on  Smotrich and Ben Gvir, key coalition partners in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.Ben Gvir and Smotrich have drawn international criticism for their hard-line stance on the Gaza war and comments about settlements in the occupied West Bank, the other Palestinian territory.Smotrich, who lives in a West Bank settlement, has supported the expansion of settlements and has called for the territory’s annexation.”This is the first measure of this nature in the EU,” Slovenia’s Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon said of the ban.On May 21, President Natasa Pirc Musar in an address to the European parliament urged the EU to take stronger action, condemning “the genocide” in Gaza.Slovenia was in May among six European countries to say that they “firmly reject any demographic or territorial change in Gaza” after Israel announced plans to expand its military offensive in the Palestinian territory.Last year, Slovenia announced it was recognising a Palestinian state after Ireland, Norway and Spain, in moves partly fuelled by condemnation of Israel’s bombing of Gaza after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.Nearly 150 countries recognise a Palestinian state.

‘Like a dream’: Druze reunited across Golan Heights buffer zone

Dozens of Druze crowded the Israeli-controlled side of the armistice line in the occupied Golan Heights on Thursday, hoping to catch a glimpse of relatives on the Syrian-held side who might try to cross the barbed-wire frontier. Young men drove around the area near the de facto border, waving the Druze flag with its five colourful stripes representing the pillars of their Druze faith, an esoteric offshoot of Shiite Islam.The area has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, separating the Golan Druze from their relatives across the demilitarised buffer zone.In the crowds, everyone asked for news of their families across the frontier, where days of violence in Syria’s Druze-majority Sweida province have left hundreds dead since Sunday, according to a monitor.”Because of the dramatic situation in Syria, the murders, massacres and the violence, many people headed towards the border,” said Qamar Abu Saleh, a 36-year-old educator, who lives in Majdal Shams.”They opened the fence and entered, and people from Syria also started crossing here.”It was like a dream, and we still can’t believe it happened”, she said enthusiastically, adding she came that day in the hope that the border would permanently reopen.”It was completely crazy,” Amali Shufek, another resident, told AFP.Shufek, in her 50s, hoped to meet her uncle’s family living on the Syrian-controlled side just a few kilometres away.She left her parents on chairs facing the fence, again guarded by the Israeli army, hoping it would open again so that she might meet her cousins.”I’ve only seen photos of them,” she added.- Talking all night -Nearby, a group of men hugged one another while a small Druze child from across the frontier waved an Israeli flag.The boy’s father, who did not disclose his name for security reasons, said they had come from the village of Hader, and that he had just spent a few hours with his cousins in Majdal Shams.”We didn’t sleep all night, we only talked,” he said.”I have goose bumps just seeing him here”, said his cousin who lives on the Israeli-controlled side, adding that he wished for peace in the area so that these visits could become commonplace.In the afternoon, several Druze under Israeli army supervision were escorted through a hole in the ceasefire line fence back to Syrian-controlled territory.Israel, which is home to over 150,000 Druze, including those in the occupied Golan Heights, has presented itself as a defender of the minority group and bombed Syrian forces during the clashes in Sweida.Those living in Israel hold Israeli citizenship, but most of the roughly 23,000 from the occupied Golan do not and still identify as Syrians.Some analysts say that Israel is using the Druze as a pretext to pursue its own military goal of keeping Syrian government forces as far from their shared frontier as possible.Following former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s overthrow in December, the Israeli military took control of the UN-monitored demilitarised zone in the Golan Heights and conducted hundreds of strikes on military targets in Syria.Israel and Syria signed an armistice in 1974 after the Arab-Israeli war of the previous year, but never a formal peace treaty.Though Israel has made contact with Syria’s new Islamist-led authorities, it has treaded with caution and is now showing clear antagonism towards them.- ‘Same family’ -A few local elders and Druze clerics wearing traditional clothing — a white veil covering the mouth for women and a red tarboush cap wrapped in a white cloth for men — had also come to watch the horizon.While the Druze are spread across Syria, Lebanon and Israel, they “all belong to the same family”, Salim Safadi, a resident of a nearby village, told AFP.”I think we have some sort of agreement with Israel; when they have a problem we help them, and when we have a problem they help us,” the 60-year-old lawyer said, pointing to the fact that many Druze serve in Israel’s armed forces and police.He said he felt grateful for Israel’s intervention in Syria’s clashes, and that it was its involvement that brought the ceasefire announced Wednesday.”We condemn what is happening in Syria, it’s a barbaric act”, said Intisar Mahmud, a woman in her sixties shocked by the recent days’ events.”Even animals don’t do this — they killed innocents”, she added.”We ask the entire world to stand by our relatives in Syria”, she said, adding that the current borders did not always exist and calling on people of the region to be like “the fingers of one hand”.