Spain air drops 26 tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza
Spain air drops 26 tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza/node/2483926/middle-east
Spain air drops 26 tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza
This picture taken from Israel’s southern border with the Gaza Strip shows a military aircraft releasing parachutes of humanitarian aid over the besieged Palestinian territory. (AFP)
Spain air drops 26 tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza
‘Every day people get hurt or even killed fighting to get flour, water, lentils and beans’
Updated 28 March 2024
Reuters AFP
MADRID, JERUSALEM: Spanish military planes air dropped 26 tons of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip on Wednesday and Madrid called on Israel to open land border crossings to prevent a famine, the foreign ministry said.
The operation, carried out in coordination with Jordan and co-financed by the EU, dropped more than 11,000 food rations to alleviate the “catastrophic levels of food insecurity” faced by up to 1.1 million people in Gaza, the ministry said in a statement.
“Spain insists on the opening of the land crossings as an indispensable measure to avoid a famine situation,” it added.
Even before 18 people were killed when airdrops of aid into Gaza went disastrously wrong on Monday, many had questioned the sense in using planes when food can be delivered far more rapidly by road.
With only a trickle of aid getting into the starving north and the UN warning of “imminent famine” as it accuses Israel of blocking deliveries, foreign governments have turned to airdrops as “a way to show that they’re doing something,” said Shira Efron of the Israel Policy Forum.
The problem is that “airdrops are as inefficient as they are dangerous,” according to a source from an international NGO working in Gaza who asked to remain anonymous.
And they can be deadly to the desperate people waiting on the ground.
Twelve hungry Gazans drowned trying to fish food packages from the sea on Monday and six more were killed in stampedes.
Others have been crushed by the crates after parachutes malfunctioned, with five killed and 10 injured earlier this month when crates fell “like rockets” on the Al-Shati refugee camp.
Despite the deaths and the risks, Palestinians like mechanic Ahmed Al-Rifi were back the day after the latest tragedy waiting for the next drop, on the same beaches where the 18 were killed.
“Every day people get hurt or even killed fighting to get flour, water, lentils and beans,” he said.
Taxi driver Uday Nasser said it was “deeply humiliating.”
“The strong take from the weaker ones. Sometimes they use knives or even shoot,” he said.
UNICEF’s James Elder, who is in Gaza, said “typically food aid is delivered from the air because people are cut off and it’s the only way to reach them.”
“Here the lifesaving aid they need is a matter of kilometers away. We need to use the roads,” he said.
After the latest tragedy, Hamas pleaded for foreign powers to stop the drops saying they were a “real danger to the lives of hungry citizens.”
But the plea fell on deaf ears — Jordan’s Army said five more drops were carried out on Wednesday with help from Egypt, the UAE, Germany and Spain.
The US also pledged to continue airdrops with US Central Command confirming it had dropped 46,000 powdered meals over northern Gaza on Monday.
Some of those dropping the aid admit it is little more than a gesture with so many of Gaza’s 2.4 million people starving.
US Air Force Lt. Col. Jeremy Anderson said during a drop earlier this month that the aid delivered by air was only a “drop in the bucket” of what was needed.
He said that if a parachute failed to open they try to make sure it ends up in the water where “nobody is going to get hurt.”
Tragically on Monday, people drowned as they tried to get the crates landing in the water, witnesses saying some of the dead were children.
Washington insisted on Tuesday it was working “around the clock” to increase the flow of aid into Gaza by land as well as setting up a sea corridor.
Last week, a UN-backed report said a famine was imminent and likely to occur by May in northern Gaza and could spread across the enclave by July.
Israel pressured by UN and US to step up action to tackle Gaza’s escalating humanitarian crisis
Acting humanitarian chief Joyce Msuya and US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield stepped up the pressure on Israel at an emergency meeting on the escalating humanitarian emergency
Updated 17 October 2024
AP
UNITED NATIONS: The top UN humanitarian official accused Israel on Wednesday of blocking the delivery of desperately needed aid to Gaza, and the US ambassador demanded that its government step up efforts to tackle the Palestinian territory’s ”intolerable and catastrophic humanitarian crisis.”
Acting humanitarian chief Joyce Msuya and US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield stepped up the pressure on Israel at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on the escalating humanitarian emergency, especially in northern Gaza.
The council meeting, called by Algeria, the Arab representative on the council, followed a US warning to Israel to boost aid efforts dramatically or risk losing funding for weapons from its main supplier. The Biden administration gave Israel 30 days to take a number of actions, including sending 350 trucks with food and other aid into Gaza every day.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon insisted that his country’s humanitarian efforts remain “as comprehensive as ever” and criticized the council for focusing on the humanitarian situation in Gaza while Israeli civilians “are being targeted daily by those who seek our destruction.”
He said Israel has delivered over 1 million tons of aid, including 700,000 tons of food, to Gaza since it launched its military operation after Hamas’ surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Danon accused the international community of missing the real issue — which he said was Hamas’ hijacking of aid shipments while fellow Palestinians suffer.
“This makes it incredibly difficult to ensure that the aid reaches its intended recipients,” he said. But Israel remains committed to working with its partners to deliver aid, “even under these dangerous and morally reprehensible conditions.”
Msuya, the top UN aid official, painted a grim picture, telling the council that there is barely any food left in northern Gaza where an Israeli offensive is under way. No food entered the north from Oct. 2 to Oct. 15 “when a trickle was allowed in,” she said, and “most bakeries will be forced to shut down again in the next several days without additional fuel.”
Throughout Gaza, Msuya said, less than one-third of the 286 humanitarian missions coordinated with Israeli authorities in the first two weeks of October “were facilitated without major incidents or delays.”
The level of suffering in Gaza worsens every day, she said, as Israeli bombs continue to fall, fierce fighting continues, and “supplies essential for people’s survival and humanitarian assistance are blocked at every turn.”
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, accused Israel of besieging, bombing and starving 400,000 Palestinians in northern Gaza as part of its all-out war against the Palestinian people.
“These are crimes,” he said. “This is genocide. They must be stopped — and they must be stopped now.”
Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador, pointed to some new Israeli commitments since the US warning and two dozen trucks entering northern Gaza for the first time in several weeks.
But she said Israel’s progress since last week is “insufficient” and stressed that it must follow through on its commitments, including opening more border crossings and routes and taking steps “to help secure delivery routes against armed gangs involved in violent looting.”
“A `policy of starvation’ in northern Gaza would be horrific and unacceptable and would have implications under international law and US law,” the US ambassador warned. “The government of Israel has said that this is not their policy, that food and other essential supplies will not be cut off, and we will be watching to see that Israel’s actions on the ground match this commitment.”
At the council meeting, there were repeated calls by members for action by the UN’s most powerful body to end the more than yearlong war in Gaza.
Guyana’s UN Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett lamented that 47 Security Council meetings and four legally binding resolutions in the past year, including demands for a ceasefire, “have not had the expected results, and the situation in Gaza continues to worsen with each passing day.”
“We must not allow the shredding of the moral and legal thread that holds our organization together,” she said. “The most fundamental question then that this council faces is, what will we do to stop this tide?”
Thomas-Greenfield urged all council members to support the UN as it works with Israel to step up aid deliveries. She said the US focus in the coming months will be “getting humanitarian aid in, getting hostages out, and ending the conflict.”
US forces target underground Houthi weapons storage sites in Yemen
Long-range B-2 stealth bombers used in precision strikes, says US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
The Houthi-owned Al Masirah TV earlier reported US-British air strikes targeted the capital city of Sanaa and the city of Saada
Updated 17 October 2024
Arab News
RIYADH: US military forces conducted precision strikes against five hardened underground weapons storage locations in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said early Thursday morning.
In a statement posted on the US Defense Department's website, Austin also said long-range B-2 stealth bombers were used in the airstrikes targeting facilities "housing various weapons components of types that the Houthis have used to target civilian and military vessels throughout the region."
"The employment of US Air Force B-2 Spirit long-range stealth bombers demonstrate US global strike capabilities to take action against these targets when necessary, anytime, anywhere," he said.
It wasn’t immediately clear what damage was done in the strikes. However, it is incredibly rare for the B-2 Spirit to be used in the strikes targeting the Houthis, who have been attacking ships for months in the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
"At the direction of President Biden, I authorized these targeted strikes to further degrade the Houthis' capability to continue their destabilizing behavior and to protect and defend US forces and personnel in one of the world's most critical waterways," Austin further said.
His announcement followed a report by the Houthi-owned Al Masirah TV early Thursday claiming US-British air strikes targeted Houthi positions in Yemen.
Al Masirah TV said the strikes targeted the capital city of Sanaa and the city of Saada.
The Houthis said that the strikes targeted Sanaa, Dhamar, Hodeidah and Al-Bayda, with residents reporting thick smoke and explosions rocking military bases in targeted areas.
US and British forces have deployed in the Red Sea since the Iran-backed Houthi militia began a drone and missile campaign against commercial vessels passing through the Red Sea, in sympathy with Gazans under attack from Israel.
The attacks forced many shipping companies to avoid the Red Sea and take the longer sea lane passing through the coast of South Africa.
Israeli strike targets Syria’s Latakia, fires break out, state media reports
Updated 17 October 2024
Reuters
CAIRO: An Israeli strike targeting Syria’s Mediterranean port city of Latakia early on Thursday resulted in fires breaking out there, Syrian state news agency SANA reported.
Firefighters are working on extinguishing the fires, SANA added.
Syrian state television reported the country’s air defenses had confronted Israeli targets over Latakia.
Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years, but has ramped up such raids since last year’s Oct. 7 attack by armed group Hamas on Israeli territory.
Netanyahu says ‘state-of-the-art’ Russian weapons found in Lebanon
Israel says the aim of its military campaign against Hezbollah is to make the region safe so that about 60,000 evacuated residents of northern Israel can return to their homes
Updated 17 October 2024
AFP
PARIS: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a French newspaper that Israeli forces had found “state-of-the-art” Russian weapons in searches of Hezbollah bases in south Lebanon.
Netanyahu highlighted to Le Figaro newspaper, in an interview released Wednesday, that under a 2006 UN Security Council resolution only the Lebanese army was allowed to have weapons south of the country’s key Litani river.
“However, in this area, Hezbollah has dug hundreds of tunnels and caches, where we have just found a quantity of state-of-the-art Russian weapons,” the French article quoted Netanyahu as saying.
The Washington Post, quoting Israeli officials, has reported that Russian and Chinese anti-tank weapons had been found in Israel’s raids inside Lebanon since it escalated its conflict with the Iran-backed Hezbollah last month.
The Israeli army did not immediately respond to an AFP question about the prime minister’s comments.
Israel says the aim of its military campaign against Hezbollah is to make the region safe so that about 60,000 evacuated residents of northern Israel can return to their homes.
Many left their homes because of cross-border shelling between Israel and Hezbollah after the launch of the Gaza war on October 7 last year.
“A new civil war in Lebanon would be a tragedy. It is certainly not our aim to provoke one. Israel does not intend to interfere in Lebanon’s internal affairs,” Netanyahu told Le Figaro.
“Our only aim is to allow our citizens living along the Lebanon frontier to go home and feel safe,” he added.
Hezbollah and Israel fought a gradually mounting artillery duel after the Hamas attacks on Israel set off the Gaza war.
Since Israel started raids on Hezbollah, at least 1,373 people have died in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures. The real toll is likely higher.
Why Syria’s Assad regime must toe a fine line as Israel-Iran tensions escalate
Desperate to preserve his regime, Assad has been at pains to avoid direct involvement in Gaza and Lebanon and risk Israeli retaliation
Analysts say his reluctance to meaningfully assist Hamas and Hezbollah highlights his weakness and raises doubts about his utility to Iran
Updated 17 October 2024
Robert Edwards
LONDON: Over the past year, the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad has been at pains to avoid direct involvement in Gaza and Lebanon, despite its informal alliance with Hamas and Hezbollah and professed support for their cause against Israel, not to mention the deadly Israeli strikes on Iranian military assets on Syrian territory.
Crippled by 13 years of civil war, international isolation, and economic weakness, this might seem a prudent move. Intervening in either conflict could invite a devastating retaliation from Israel and drag the country into a wider regional war.
CaptionIran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (R) meeting with Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Tehran on May 30, 2024. ( KHAMENEI.IR / AFP)
However, Assad’s absence from the battlefield has raised questions about his role within the so-called Axis of Resistance — the loose network of Iran-backed Arab proxies that includes Hamas and Hezbollah — and, by extension, his reliability as an ally of the Islamic Republic.
Ever since Iran came to Assad’s rescue in 2011-12 when an armed uprising threatened his rule, Syria has effectively been a vassal of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, used as a land bridge to deliver weapons to Hezbollah, making it a favored target for the Israeli military.
The attacks have become more frequent since the wars in Gaza and along the Israel-Lebanon border erupted in October last year — the most significant being the April 1 strike on the Iranian Embassy annex in Damascus that killed multiple high-level IRGC commanders.
Assad’s ties with Iran and Hezbollah helped him win the Syrian civil war but have made his country a target for Israeli strikes. (AFP file photo)
“Israel has been striking alleged Hezbollah and Iran-linked targets in Syria for years, but the pace of Israeli strikes has increased since 2023,” Aron Lund, a fellow at Century International, told Arab News.
“With the war in Gaza and now also the invasion of Lebanon, Israel has adopted a much more aggressive posture against Syria. Israeli jets strike with regularity and impunity, and the Syrians are just soaking it up. They can’t do much to stop it and are probably afraid to try, for fear of further escalation.”
While Lund highlights Israel’s intensifying air campaign in Syria, Karam Shaar, a political economist and non-resident senior fellow at Newlines Institute, points to a deeper concern driving the Syrian regime’s inaction.
A handout picture released by the official Facebook page for the Syrian Presidency on October 22, 2019, shows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad consulting a military map with army officers in al-Habit on the southern edges of the Idlib province. (AFP)
He suggests that Assad’s reluctance to retaliate against these Israeli strikes stems from his regime’s vulnerability.
“It knows that the Israelis might actually just topple it altogether,” Shaar told Arab News. “All it needs is a nudge for it to just come down crashing.”
Although it has enjoyed years of Russian and Iranian support, the Syrian Arab Army is today a shadow of its former self — ground down by more than a decade of underinvestment and fighting with armed opposition groups.
A United Nations Truce Supervision Organization military observer uses binoculars near the border with Syria in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on May 11, 2018. (REUTERS/File Photo)
According to Randa Slim, director of the Conflict Resolution and Track II Dialogues Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., Syria is in no position to withstand a major Israeli offensive.
“The Assad regime is weak and cannot afford to get entangled in another war at the moment,” she told Arab News. “His army is weak, with major parts of the country outside his control. His two principal allies, Russia and Iran, cannot come to his defense at this time in case Israel decides it is time to mount a major attack on Syria akin to what is taking place in Lebanon.”
Elaborating on the point, she said: “Moscow is entangled in a protracted war against Ukraine. Tehran has its own problems to contend with domestically and is facing a potential war with Israel and the US. Assad’s modus operandi for now is to avoid getting entangled in the Axis of Resistance war against Israel.”
FASTFACTS
• Hafez Assad established Alawite-minority rule in Sunni-majority Syria in 1971, serving as its president until his death in 2000.
• Bashar Assad succeeded his father but presides over a nation riven by civil war since the uprising against his rule began in 2011.
Some experts have suggested that in the case of Gaza, it is not just Syria’s military weakness that is likely preventing a meaningful contribution: Assad’s relationship with Hamas has been sour since 2011 when the Palestinian militant group sided with the Syrian uprising against his rule.
“The relationship between Hamas and the regime is bad and has been bad since 2011, since Hamas stood in support of the Syrian revolution,” Jihad Yazigi, editor in chief of The Syria Report, told Arab News.
People wave Syrian opposition and Palestinian flags at a rally marking 11 years since the start of an anti-regime uprising in Syria's rebel enclave of Idlib on March 15, 2022. Thousands of protesters in Syria's rebel enclave of Idlib marked 11 years since an anti-government uprising, buoyed by the global outcry over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. (AFP)
In the case of Lebanon, the Syrian regime’s ability to project any kind of influence is a far cry from the days before 2011 when its forces exerted considerable control from within Lebanon itself.
“Remember that before 2005, it was the Syrian army that was in Lebanon,” said Yazigi. “From there, it had a say in Lebanese affairs and to an extent on Palestinian ones. Since 2011, it’s (Lebanon’s) Hezbollah that’s been on Syrian territory.”
Syrian army troops evacuate their post in the southern Lebanese coastal town of Damur on September 22, 2004, amid international pressure for a full withdrawal and an end to Damascus's interference in Lebanese affairs. (AFP/file photo)
The consensus view of experts is that, far from playing the role of a regional kingmaker, Assad’s primary concern today is maintaining power. At the same time, just as he is reliant on Iran and Hezbollah to guarantee his survival, the IRGC and its proxies are also highly dependent on continued access to Syrian territory.
“Hezbollah has no other choice but Syria as far as their strategic depth is concerned,” said Slim.
“They need Assad’s acquiescence to maintain their Iranian weapons supply route through Syrian territory as well as to use some of the regime’s weapons production facilities in Syria to manufacture parts for their weapons.
“Given Israel’s unrelenting attacks on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon, Damascus is also the only place where Hezbollah and the IRGC can meet and coordinate their activities.”
Members of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent carry a woman into ambulance on Oct. 14, 2024, as people fleeing Israeli strikes in Lebanon walk to Syria through the Masnaa border crossing. (REUTERS)
The secular Syrian regime’s relationship with Iran and its Shiite and Sunni proxies has long been described as a marriage of convenience, underpinned by overlapping interests rather than ideological affinity. Some think Assad may very well sell out his axis allies if a better offer comes along.
“Hezbollah has long realized that Assad is neither a dependable nor a trustworthy ally,” Slim told Arab News. “He has always toyed with the idea of striking an agreement with Israel. In 2006, in the midst of Israel’s war on Lebanon, he authorized an indirect communication channel with Tel Aviv.
“Despite their reservations about his loyalty, they sent men and weapons in support of the Assad regime in 2011-12 primarily because they could not afford to lose this ‘strategic depth’ if the Assad regime were to be replaced by an anti-Iranian, Sunni-majority government in Damascus.”
Although Syria’s role in Lebanese and Palestinian affairs has effectively shifted over the years from active participant to passive supporter, this does not mean the Assad regime has shirked responsibility altogether.
“Even in this weakened state and despite the risks, the Syrian government does seem to be providing support for Hezbollah,” said Lund of Century International.
“Damascus has allowed Hezbollah and Iran to train and equip themselves on Syrian territory, and Syrian state institutions offer medical care and other services to Hezbollah fighters.
“Many of the heavy rockets that Hezbollah recently began firing on Israel are Syrian in origin, although we don’t know when they were provided.”
Hezbollah fighters carry the coffin of commander Ahmed Shehimi, who was killed in an Israeli raid in Syria early on March 29, during his funeral procession in southern Beirut, on April 1, 2024. (AFP)
Having been rescued by Iran and Hezbollah, Assad may have been expected by his benefactors to do far more to support his axis allies — at the very least as a sign of gratitude. It appears, however, that they recognized his limitations early on in the conflict.
Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s late secretary-general, said as much shortly before he was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut on Sept. 27.
“It seems that Iran and Hezbollah have, so far, agreed on a more passive role for Syria,” Armenak Tokmajyan, a nonresident scholar at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, told Arab News.
Lebanese civilians fleeing the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon are pictured at accommodations housing them in al-Harjalah, south of the Syrian capital Damascus, on October 15, 2024. (AFP)
“Just weeks before his death, Nasrallah said that ‘Syria is not required to enter the fighting because of its internal circumstances,’ adding that Syria should take on a supportive role.
“The pattern of Israeli strikes in Syria suggests that Syria is indeed playing this supportive role, such as allowing Hezbollah to store weapons on its territory.
“However, a more active involvement would likely attract unwanted Israeli attention, posing a significant risk to Assad’s regime.”
Charred cars lie in a parking lot in the aftermath of an Israeli strike in the neighborhood of Kafr Sousse in Damascus, early on July 14, 2024, in response to two drones launched towards Israel from Syrian territory. (AFP)
The expectation that he must feel eternally indebted to Iran and Hezbollah for rescuing his regime may also be an indignity too far for Assad, according to some analysts who also believe that Israeli pressure on his allies may offer just the opportunity he has been waiting for to extricate himself from Iran’s sphere of influence.
“Assad hopes that Iran and its militias will weaken after this war,” Bassam Barabandi, a former Syrian diplomat who defected from the regime in mid-2013, told Arab News, suggesting that Assad might already be quietly double-crossing the axis.
“He anticipates that Arab countries will reward him for his stance against Hezbollah and Iran by supporting the economy and reopening diplomatic channels to restore his relationships with the Arab and Western worlds.
“A significant question arises regarding how Iran would respond if it realizes that Assad has betrayed it.
Trucks wait at the entrance of the Yarmuk camp for Palestinian refugees, south of Damascus, during a delivery of humanitarian aid provided by Iran on March 26, 2024. (AFP)
Although there is ongoing discussion about the possibility of Syria moving away from Iran and closer to the Arab states, Yazigi of The Syria Report believes the Assad dynasty’s ability to distance themselves from Tehran remains limited.
“The Iranian-Syrian relationship is very important. We don’t realize it enough,” he said.
“They have had ties since the late 1970s, early 1980s. Even before Hezbollah was created, you had a strategic alliance between Syria and Iran, which dates back to the Iran-Iraq war and the Islamic Revolution. So, it is not even clear how confident and how capable Bashar is to depart too much from the Iranians.
Iranian rescuers (red) and Syrian soldiers sift through the rubble of a collapsed building in the northern city of Aleppo, searching for victims and survivors days after a deadly earthquake hit Turkey and Syria, on February 9, 2023. (AFP)
“The other aspect is if you want to build back ties with the Arab regimes, departing from the Iranians is a good thing, it’s a starter, but it’s not enough. Assad has shown a lot of difficulties making the required concessions to gain more funding from the Arabs, to make a peace deal with the Turks.”
Despite Assad’s readmission to the Arab League in 2023, one sore point that has hindered progress on the restoration of trust and economic ties is his perceived failure to crack down on the production and smuggling of narcotics, particularly Captagon, which appears to have become a valuable source of income for the sanctions-squeezed regime.
Avoiding active involvement in Gaza and Lebanon may help preserve the Assad regime in the short term, but Syria’s dire economic situation remains an existential threat.
The arrival of hundreds of thousands of people displaced from Lebanon, the bulk of them Syrians who had previously fled the civil war in their own country, could also exacerbate Syria’s internal instability.
Syrian Red Crescent personnel assist Lebanese people fleeing the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, at accommodations housing refugees in al-Harjalah, south of the Syrian capital Damascus, on October 15, 2024. (AFP)
Even though the majority are women and children, “Assad completely rejects the return of refugees, viewing them as his enemies from whom he wishes to distance himself,” Barabandi, the former Syrian diplomat, told Arab News.
For his part, Yazigi says that population movements have played a role in the past in destabilizing Syria, comparing the current situation to the wave of returnees from Lebanon following the killing of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in 2005.
“If the uprising began in 2011, it is due to many factors, one of them is the return of hundreds of thousands of Syrian workers from Lebanon after the assassination of Hariri and the withdrawal of the Syrian army,” he said.
A volunteer with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent helps people fleeing Israeli bombardment in Lebanon as they walk across a crater caused by an Israeli strike, in the area of Masnaa on the Lebanese side of the border crossing with Syria, on October 15, 2024. (AFP)
“The Syrians faced a lot of anti-Syrian acts in Lebanon, which led to hundreds of thousands of people returning and staying in Syria without a job.
“Of course, the situation has completely changed since then. Everybody is exhausted, and nobody has in mind in Syria to do anything in the form of an uprising. But it is a (potential) factor of destabilization.”
Despite Assad’s passive support for the Axis of Resistance, some say keeping him in power in his enfeebled state likely serves Israeli and US interests far better than the alternative — regime change and all its associated chaos.
“To date, Israel has found Assad a reliable enemy,” said Slim. “They have him now at a position that serves their interests: a weak ruler over a divided and bankrupt country.”
Syrian Red Crescent personnel assist Lebanese people fleeing the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, at accommodations housing refugees in al-Harjalah, south of the Syrian capital Damascus, on October 15, 2024. (AFP)
Ultimately, Syria’s limited role in the ongoing regional turmoil reflects Assad’s delicate balancing act — caught between the competing demands of regional powers, economic weakness and the need to preserve his own regime.
“There’s no doubt that Assad is grappling with multiple challenges on various fronts,” said Tokmajyan.
“A displacement crisis that brings social and economic pressures at home, while also reducing remittances from Lebanon; the loss of an important economic lifeline in Lebanon; an ally in Hezbollah, whose capabilities are being eroded; the risk of being dragged into a war.
“All of this comes on top of Syria’s existing economic troubles. But will this lead to a revolt or the regime’s collapse? It’s hard to say. Assad has proven to be resilient so far.”
