الكاتب: kafej

Idlib, Syria — Syrian government forces and Russia have stepped up the bombardment of northwest Syria, killing dozens of people, including children, and wounding hundreds of others, opposition leaders and emergency volunteers have said, at a time when Israel’s war on Gaza is holding the world’s attention.

Russian and Syrian attacks in October focused on cities and villages in the countryside of Idlib and Aleppo. This escalation resulted in the total deaths of 66 civilians, including 23 children and 13 women, and left more than 270 people injured, with 79 children and 47 women among the casualties, according to a Syrian volunteer emergency rescue group.

While the pace of aerial and artillery bombardment in northwest Syria has decreased since the beginning of November, Syrian regime forces have shifted their attention to targeting civilian vehicles using guided missiles.

Syrian Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, said that from the beginning of the current year until November 8, their teams responded to 17 guided-missile attacks by regime forces. These attacks resulted in the deaths of four civilians, including a White Helmets volunteer, and injured 15 civilians, including two children.

Idlib is the last province controlled by opposition fighters in Syria, governed by a ceasefire agreement between Turkey and Russia since March 5, 2020. However, this agreement is occasionally violated by Syrian government forces.

“The military escalation by al-Assad regime, the Russians, and the Iranians against civilians in northern Syria has not stopped for a single day, but it intensifies and weakens from time to time based on international, regional, and local circumstances,” said Mustafa al-Bakour, a leader in Syrian opposition factions in northwest Syria, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Al-Bakour told Al Jazeera that Russia and the Syrian regime exploited the world’s preoccupation with the war in Gaza to escalate in northwest Syria, aiming to exert pressure on Turkey and Syrian opposition factions regarding issues such as opening the international road between Syria and Turkey. The M4 and M5 are among the most crucial arteries for international trade in Syria, serving as a transportation link connecting the country to Northern Europe, South Asia and the Arabian Gulf.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the recent escalation has displaced over 120,000 civilians from their cities and villages to shelters and camps near the Syrian-Turkish border.

“Based on the facts on the ground, I do not believe the conditions are suitable now or even in the near future for any military action by either side,” said al-Bakour. “However, I am not ruling out the continuation of shelling operations by al-Assad and Russian forces on civilians in northern liberated Syria.”

On November 6, the Russian news agency Interfax quoted Admiral Vadim Kulit, the deputy director of the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria, saying that Russian air forces carried out airstrikes on a drone warehouse in Idlib province, which was purportedly used for attacks on Syrian government-controlled sites. Al-Bakour denied to Al Jazeera the Russian claims of Syrian opposition factions possessing drones.

Military bases and strategic gains

Since its military intervention in Syria in 2015, Russia has sought to establish numerous military bases on its ally’s territory, including the Hmeimim Air Base in the Latakia countryside, as well as a naval base in Tartus, the only Russian deployment point in the Mediterranean.

“Russian intervention in Syria was not out of love for Bashar al-Assad’s regime but to gain strategic assets that were previously beyond Russia’s reach, such as military presence in the Middle East and, especially, obtaining a naval base in the Mediterranean to monitor NATO forces’ movements,” said Turki Mustafa, an Idlib-based political analyst and historian.

Mustafa told Al Jazeera that Russia consistently claims, when bombing cities and villages in northwest Syria, to be fighting “terrorism”, but in reality, it aims to draw attention to itself as a key regional and international player, even at the expense of civilians. “I rule out Russia launching a ground military campaign in northwest Syria, given Moscow’s need for Ankara and its strategic role in several files, most notably the Ukrainian file,” said Mustafa.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights has documented the killing of about 7,000 civilians, including 2,046 children and 978 women, by Russian forces alone since the start of its military intervention in Syria to support al-Assad regime eight years ago.

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Video shows the first rainfall on Gaza since October 7 as displaced Palestinians are faced with yet another challenge, a rainy winter.

Gaza’s hospitals have been a flashpoint of fighting, claims and counterclaims.

Tens of thousands of people sought shelter in medical facilities after being driven from their homes by the risk of airstrikes.

But many have fled elsewhere as hospitals ran out of fuel and power and the fighting circled closer.

Al Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza, is now surrounded by Israeli troops as gunfire and explosions rage around it.

The hospital’s last generator ran out of fuel at the weekend, leading to the deaths of at least 32 patients, including three babies, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry.

Al Quds hospital is also now also closed to new patients. The Red Cross tried to evacuate about 6,000 people from the hospital but said its convoy had to turn back because of shelling and fighting.

Hospitals have protected status in wartime – but there are caveats to when this applies.

Here Sky News looks at what the rules are, and what both sides are saying.

Follow Israel-Gaza latest: Communications in Gaza could fail in two days

What are the rules on the protection of hospitals?

The International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute states it is a war crime for combatants to “intentionally direct attacks against… hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives”.

Under international humanitarian law (IHL) hospitals have protected status during war.

This means they cannot be attacked or otherwise prevented from performing their medical functions, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

However, hospitals can lose those protections if they are used in a way that is harmful to the enemy – this includes being used to hide fighters or store weapons, the ICRC said.

But this does not give the other party free licence to attack, ICRC legal officer Cordula Droege said.

A warning must be given – first to stop the misuse of the hospital and then to allow evacuation of staff and patients if the misuse continues.

Any attack must be proportionate, Ms Droege added. If harm to civilians from an attack is disproportionate to the military objective, it is illegal under international law.

Also, using hospitals for military purposes is a violation of international humanitarian law, according to Amnesty International.

What does Israel say?

Israel claims Hamas uses hospitals for military purposes – but has not provided verified visual evidence of this.

It says Hamas has built a vast underground command complex centre below al Shifa hospital, connected by tunnels.

Israel also claims hundreds of Hamas fighters sought shelter at al Shifa after the 7 October attack.

The IDF released footage on Monday of a children’s hospital that its forces entered over the weekend, showing weapons it said it found inside, as well as rooms in the basement where it believes Hamas was holding hostages.

“Hamas uses hospitals as an instrument of war,” said Israel’s chief military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari from a room at the Rantisi Children’s Hospital where explosive vests, grenades and RPGs were displayed on the floor.

Israel also accuses Hamas of using ambulances to carry fighters, using this as justification for a strike on an ambulance convoy that officials in the Hamas-run health ministry said killed and injured scores of people.

What does Hamas say?

Both Hamas and al Shifa hospital staff deny Israeli allegations militants are operating a command centre from within its grounds.

Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official, rejected the Israeli claims about al Shifa as “false and misleading propaganda”.

“The occupying forces have no evidence to prove it,” he said. “We have never used civilians as human shields because it goes against our religion, morality and principles.”

In a statement on its Telegram channel, Hamas said the video of Rantisi hospital showed “fabricated scenes that misled public opinion”, adding that it was a “failed attempt” by Israel to justify the targeting of hospitals.

At al Shifa, spokesperson for the health ministry Ashraf al Qidra said Israeli snipers and drones were firing into the hospital, making it impossible for medics and patients to move around.

Israel said the east side of the hospital was a safe passage for people to leave al Shifa, but people who tried to leave said Israeli forces had fired at evacuees and that it was too dangerous to move the most vulnerable patients.

The World Health Organisation said there was “no safe passage out of the hospital”.

Goudhat Samy al Madhoun, a healthcare worker, told the AP news agency that about 50 people left on Monday and were fired at several times, wounding one man who had to be left behind.

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What has the international response been?

The international NGO Human Rights Watch has called for the attacks on “medical facilities, personnel, and transport” to be investigated as war crimes.

Israel’s claims about Hamas activity in hospitals are contested, Human Rights Watch said.

“Human Rights Watch has not been able to corroborate them, nor seen any information that would justify attacks on Gaza hospitals,” it said.

It added that Israel’s general evacuation warning to hospitals in northern Gaza was “not an effective warning” because it did not account for the safety needs of patients and medical staff.

The 27 European Union nations have jointly condemned Hamas for what they described as the use of hospitals and civilians as “human shields”.

US president Joe Biden said hospitals “must be protected” as he called for “less intrusive action” in relation to hospitals.

Insecurity Insight collects data on attacks on healthcare in Israel and Gaza. Its data – which it notes is not complete – from 7 October to 5 November records 219 incidents of violence against or obstruction of access to healthcare facilities in Gaza and 10 in Israel.

Former police officer had been serving a 20-year sentence over his role in the killing of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

A man convicted for his role in the killing of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya has been pardoned after fighting in Ukraine, according to his lawyer and local media reports.

Politkovskaya, who was well known for reporting on abuses in Russia’s war in Chechnya early in Vladimir Putin’s presidency, was shot dead outside her flat in Moscow in 2006.

The killing triggered an outcry in the West and underlined the growing dangers of reporting in Russia as Putin gradually clamped down on independent media.

Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, a former police officer, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2014 for organising the killing.

“As a special forces fighter, [Khadzhikurbanov] was invited to sign a contract to participate in the special military operation… When the contract expired, he was pardoned by presidential decree,” Khadzhikurbanov’s lawyer Alexei Mikhalchik told the AFP news agency.

Khadzhikurbanov was convicted along with four other men from Chechnya, a mostly Muslim region in the northern Caucasus where Russia and its local allies crushed two rebellions, in 1994-96 and, under Putin, in 1999-2009.

In 2018, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg found that, while the authorities had found and convicted a group of men who had directly carried out the contract killing, they had “failed to take adequate investigatory steps to find the person or persons who had commissioned the murder”.

Politkovskaya, who did much of her work for the independent investigative magazine Novaya Gazeta, now banned in Russia, won more than a dozen international prizes for reporting on abuses committed in Chechnya by Russian and allied forces as well as by rebels, despite repeated detentions and death threats.

Prisoner recruits

Many Russian prisoners have been sent to fight in Ukraine since Moscow launched its offensive last February, with critics warning some have committed new crimes after returning from the front.

The Kremlin last week acknowledged the use of prisoner recruits to fight in Ukraine and said convicts who “atone for their crime on the battlefield with blood” could be pardoned.

“They are atoning with blood in storm brigades, under bullets and under shells,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.

Russia has probably recruited 100,000 people from prisons to fight in Ukraine, Olga Romanova, the head of an independent prisoners’ rights group has estimated.

Local Russian media outlets have reported several instances of released prisoners going on to commit serious offences, including murders, after having left the army.

The earthquake swarm in southwest Iceland has eased – but the threat of an eruption remains high.

Most of the tremors in the last few hours have been too small to feel – nothing like the almost constant jolts that prompted the emergency evacuation of 4,000 people from the town of Grindavik in the early hours of Saturday.

But scientists say three previous eruptions in the area in recent years have all followed the same pattern, with magma breaking through the surface a few days after the volcanic rumblings had died down.

Iceland volcano latest: Cracks appear in roads amid fears of imminent eruption

One suggestion is that the upward pressure has eased as the magma has spread out horizontally through a tunnel in the bedrock. But as more molten material pushes up from deep within the Earth, that pressure could increase once more.

The Icelandic authorities have judged that the risk has temporarily eased enough to allow Grindavik’s inhabitants to dash back to their houses to pick up pets, valuables, and essential items left behind when they fled.

They’re being escorted in by search and rescue teams, street by street, with only one person per household allowed and they’re given just five minutes to gather what they can.

It’s hugely distressing for the community. Whatever people leave behind they may never see again.

The authorities are also taking the opportunity to try to protect a power plant within the high risk zone by building a two-mile long gravel wall several metres high.

The hope is that it would divert a lava flow away from the facility, which provides heat and electricity to 35,000 homes.

Read more:
Iceland volcano: How big could eruption be?
What is happening under the surface in Iceland?

Scientists are closely studying data from a network of sensors.

Some of those detect tremors, which continue to be concentrated along the magma tunnel.

And others are GPS stations picking up signals from satellites. They allow scientists to measure how much the ground is lifting and falling as the magma moves beneath. In some places that’s up to a metre.

The measurements suggest that 75 cubic metres a second of molten rock is flowing into the magma tunnel.

And scientists say everything points to an eruption in the coming days. They just don’t know precisely where or when.