How the life and death of Walid Daqqah in an Israeli jail encapsulates Palestinian Prisoners’ Day

Special How the life and death of Walid Daqqah in an Israeli jail encapsulates Palestinian Prisoners’ Day
Walid Daqqa. (Social Media)
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Updated 17 April 2024
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How the life and death of Walid Daqqah in an Israeli jail encapsulates Palestinian Prisoners’ Day

How the life and death of Walid Daqqah in an Israeli jail encapsulates Palestinian Prisoners’ Day
  • Palestinian detainees and prisoners have been subjected to gruesome levels of inhumane treatment, says Amnesty
  • Daqqah is the 251st Palestinian to have died in Israeli custody since 1967 — and the 14th since the Gaza war began

LONDON: When he was arrested by Israeli forces on March 25, 1986, Walid Daqqah was just 24 years old. When he died of cancer on April 7 this year, aged 62 and still a prisoner, he had spent all of the intervening 38 years in Israeli custody.

In the process Daqqah earned the dubious distinction of becoming Israel’s longest-serving Palestinian prisoner and was one of only a handful of inmates who had been in prison since before the Oslo Accords in the 1990s.

On Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, the story of Daqqah’s life and death has profound significance for every Palestinian jailed by Israel — and especially for the record number thrown behind bars since Oct. 7.

According to the Palestinian Commission of Detainee Affairs, Daqqah is the 251st Palestinian to have died in Israeli custody since 1967 and the 14th since the Hamas attack on Israel last year.

Daqqah was sentenced to life in prison in March 1987, following the abduction and killing of an Israeli soldier by a unit of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 1984.




A freed prisoner waves from a bus during a welcome ceremony following the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails in exchange for Israeli hostages held in Gaza by Hamas last year. (AFP)

He was not found guilty of killing the soldier but of commanding the unit, a charge he consistently denied. Furthermore, Amnesty International said “his conviction was based on British emergency regulations dating back to 1945, which require a much lower standard of proof for conviction than Israeli criminal law.”

What happened next, said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty’s senior director for research, advocacy, policy and campaigns, was “a cruel reminder of Israel’s disregard of Palestinians’ right to life.”

Daqqah’s original 37-year sentence had been due to expire in March 2023, but in 2018 was extended by two years after he was implicated in a scheme to smuggle mobile phones to prisoners desperate to contact their families.

He was, in effect, sentenced to die in prison.

In 2022 Daqqah had been diagnosed with terminal bone marrow cancer, but his appeal for parole on humanitarian grounds was rejected, even after he had served his original sentence.

“It is heart-wrenching that Walid Daqqah has died in Israeli custody despite the many calls for his urgent release on humanitarian grounds,” Guevara-Rosas said.




Ahmed Manasra was accused of taking part in the stabbing of two Israelis in 2015. (AFP)

“For Daqqah and his family, the last six months in particular were an endless nightmare, during which he was subjected to torture or other ill-treatment, including beatings and humiliation by the Israeli Prison Service, according to his lawyer.

“He was not permitted a phone call with his wife since Oct. 7. His final appeal for parole on humanitarian grounds was rejected by the Israeli Supreme Court, effectively sentencing him to die behind bars.”

Even when Daqqah was on his deathbed, “Israeli authorities continued to display chilling levels of cruelty … not only denying him adequate medical treatment and suitable food, but also preventing him from saying a final goodbye to his wife Sanaa Salameh and their 4-year-old daughter Milad,” Guevara-Rosas said.

Milad was the couple’s small miracle. When they were denied the privilege of conjugal rights, their child was conceived after a unique prison “breakout” — her father’s sperm was smuggled out of prison.

He was, however, only allowed to see his daughter once in person, in October 2022, and even then only after “a daunting legal battle.”

Worse, his wife, Sanaa Salameh, “who tirelessly campaigned for his release, could not embrace her dying husband one last time before he passed,” Guevara-Rosas said.

In death, Daqqah will live on in the collective memory of his people as one of the million or more Arab citizens imprisoned by Israel since 1948 and whose incarceration has been commemorated every year since 1974 on April 17 as Palestinian Prisoners’ Day.




the Ofer military prison located between Ramallah and Baytunia in the occupied West Bank. (AFP)

This year, there are more Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons than ever before.

According to figures released by the Israel Prison Service, as of this month, Israel is holding 9,312 “security inmates” in jails under its jurisdiction, including Ofer Prison in the West Bank.

That figure does not include the thousands of Palestinians detained by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip, who are believed to be held incommunicado in military camps, including the Sde Teiman base in the desert.

On April 4 a group of nongovernmental organizations including the Committee Against Torture wrote to Israel’s Military Advocate General demanding the immediate closure of the facility. They cited the testimonies of innocent Palestinians who had been released from the camp who painted “a horrifying picture of inhumane prison conditions, humiliation and torture.”

The detainees, they said, “are held in a kind of cage, crowded, sitting on their knees in a painful position for many hours every day. They are handcuffed at all hours of the day and blindfolded. This is how they eat, relieve themselves and receive medical care.”

Even without this unknown number of detainees, the 9,312 prisoners acknowledged by the IPS is a record, beating even the previous highest number, established during the Gaza War of 2008-09.

Of these, just 2,071 have been tried and sentenced. A further 3,661 are what are euphemistically termed “administrative detainees” who have not been charged, tried or found guilty of any offense.

According to B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, administrative detention is when “a person is held without trial, without having committed an offense, on the grounds that he or she plans to break the law in the future.”

The tactic is disturbingly reminiscent of the 2002 science fiction film “Minority Report,” in which police arrest people for crimes that psychic “precogs” predict they might commit.




Israeli soldiers arrest Palestinian youth during an incursion in the West bank town of Nablus in 2007. (AFP)

Amnesty said it was a particularly invidious legal device under which military authorities “may place individuals in administrative detention for up to six months at a time, if the commander has ‘reasonable grounds to believe that reasons of regional security or public security require that a certain person be held in detention.’”

The order may be extended for an additional six-month period “from time to time” and there is no time limit to administrative detention.

“The person is detained without legal proceedings, by order of the regional military commander, based on classified evidence that is not revealed to them.

“This leaves the detainees helpless — facing unknown allegations with no way to disprove them, not knowing when they will be released and without being charged, tried or convicted.”

A smaller but significant number of residents from the Gaza Strip — 849 — are being held under Israel’s controversial Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law, which was introduced in 2002 and also allows arbitrary detention without trial.

Amnesty said the official figure was doubtless wide of the mark.

“We know there are thousands of Palestinians from Gaza held arbitrarily under said unlawful law for weeks and months on end,” a spokesperson told Arab News.

For many, incarceration is just the beginning of the nightmare.

“Palestinian detainees and prisoners have been subjected to gruesome levels of inhumane treatment that reached unprecedented levels of cruelty as part of the Israeli authorities’ retaliation campaign against Palestinians following Oct. 7,” Waed Abbas, a research and campaigns officer at Amnesty’s regional office in Ramallah and Jerusalem, told Arab News.

Drawing on the testimonies of Palestinians who have been released from prison and detention, and evidence gleaned through rarely allowed visits by lawyers, Amnesty said “a chilling image of a terrifying reality” was emerging.

“They’ve been tortured, starved, denied adequate medical care, cut off from the outside world, including from their families, put in solitary confinement, humiliated and degraded,” Abbas said.

The use of torture, she said, “has witnessed a spine-chilling spike and at least 40 Palestinian prisoners and detainees have died in Israeli custody over the past six months, either in military detention centers or in prisons run by the Israel Prison Service.”

And this is only the number of deaths officially acknowledged by the Israeli authorities. “The actual death toll may yet be higher,” Abbas said.




Wissam Tamimi, 17, reunited with his mother Hunaida and his younger brother and sister. (CNN videograb)

In many cases, the imprisonment of individuals has continued even after their death. “Families have been denied the right to mourn them with peace and dignity as Israel continues to withhold their bodies.”

Noa Sattath, executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, said the deteriorating conditions facing Palestinians in Israeli prisons was of “grave concern.”

Recent policy changes instigated by the IPS following an order by Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s right-wing minister of national security, “have resulted in the arbitrary denial of basic rights, including access to medical care and legal counsel,” he told Arab News.

ACRI had petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court, protesting against “the policy of starving security prisoners, highlighting testimonies of extreme hunger and poor food quality among detainees,” and also called for the immediate resumption of Red Cross visits to Palestinian detainees.

“Even, and perhaps especially, amid conflicts and hostage situations, upholding detainees’ rights remains imperative for ensuring justice and dignity for all,” Sattah said.

For Miriam Azem, international advocacy and communications associate at Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, the extent to which the wider world is turning a blind eye to Israel’s abuse of human rights and legal norms is shocking.

“To be frank, this has gone under the radar, in terms of both the mainstream global media and most of the Western world, including the UN,” she said.

In a bid to put the issue on the global agenda, on Feb. 19, four NGOs, including Adalah and Physicians for Human Rights Israel, submitted a joint plea for action to Dr Alice Edwards, the UN special rapporteur on torture, drawing her attention to the “marked and severe escalation in the abuse of Palestinian detainees and prisoners incarcerated in Israeli prisons and detention facilities” since Oct. 7.

Among other things, the signatories urged Edwards to “call on Israel to immediately halt the systematic abuse, torture and ill-treatment inflicted upon Palestinian prisoners and detainees,” to ensure that “all persons deprived of liberty are afforded all legal safeguards from the very outset” and guarantee adequate medical care generally and “specifically for victims of abuse, torture and ill-treatment.”

As part of the appeal the NGOs documented 19 “very concrete” cases backed by “substantive evidence and testimonies of torture and ill treatment.”

The dossier makes for disturbing reading.

“Prisoner A,” released from Gilboa Prison, and other inmates “were subjected to beatings in their cells (and) were forced to curse themselves and to crawl while carrying an Israeli flag on their back and were threatened with beatings if they failed to do so.”




A Palestinian prisoner hugs his mother after being released from an Israeli jail in exchange for Israeli hostages released by Hamas from the Gaza Strip last year. (AFP)

Throughout Detainee E’s detention in the Russian Compound Detention Center in Jerusalem between Oct. 29 and Nov. 12, 2023, “he was beaten on four occasions by wardens, including kicking, punching and the use of batons.”

In a hearing at Judea Military Court on Nov. 13, “female detainee A’s attorney reported that A had sustained repeated abuse; among other incidents, wardens had beaten A in her cell, without cameras, while she was naked.”

Two days later, at a hearing at Haifa District Court, it was reported that another female detainee from Hasharon Prison “had been threatened with rape and bodily assault.”

Several of the highlighted cases documented in distressing detail incidents of sexual abuse and daily violence suffered by male prisoners in Ketziot Prison.

Azem said that given the difficulties of collecting evidence, the 19 submitted cases were merely a representative sample of a far larger problem.

“One of the themes we have highlighted in the document is that prisoners face extreme threats of reprisals for speaking out.”

On March 8, the UN rapporteur said she was investigating the allegations of torture and mistreatment of Palestinian detainees in Israel and was in talks to visit the country.

In a statement to Reuters, the UN human rights office said it had received “numerous reports of mass detention, ill-treatment and enforced disappearance of Palestinians in northern Gaza by the Israeli military and has recorded the arrests of thousands in the West Bank.”

Responding to the allegations in a statement to AFP, a spokesperson for the Israel Prison Service said: “All prisoners are detained according to the law.”

It said the service was “not aware of the claims” against it, but stressed that any complaints filed by detainees “will be fully examined and addressed by official authorities.”

In many ways the life and death of Walid Daqqah symbolizes the wider suffering of the tens of thousands of men, women and children who have followed him into Israeli custody over the almost four decades since he was first incarcerated.

How he lived his limited life behind bars, however, lives on as an example of how hope can survive in even the most seemingly hopeless of circumstances.




Israeli border policemen detain a Palestinian stone-throwing youth during clashes on October 5, 2009 in the east Jerusalem Shuafat refugee camp. (AFP)

In an obituary published on April 8, the day after his death, Amnesty said that while behind bars Daqqah “wrote extensively about the Palestinian experience in Israeli prisons.”

“He acted as a mentor and educator for generations of young Palestinian prisoners, including children,” it said.

“His writings, which included letters, essays, a celebrated play and a novel for young adults, were an act of resistance against the dehumanization of Palestinian prisoners.”

A line he once wrote shines as a beacon of hope for the tens of thousands of Palestinians who since 1986 have followed him into captivity: “Love is my modest and only victory against my jailer.”

The children in Israel’s prisons
Ongoing hostage-for-prisoners exchange opens the world’s eyes to arrests, interrogations, and even abuse of Palestinian children by Israeli authorities

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Netanyahu says Hamas gave body of ‘Gazan woman’ not hostage Shiri Bibas

Netanyahu says Hamas gave body of ‘Gazan woman’ not hostage Shiri Bibas
Updated 56 min 14 sec ago
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Netanyahu says Hamas gave body of ‘Gazan woman’ not hostage Shiri Bibas

Netanyahu says Hamas gave body of ‘Gazan woman’ not hostage Shiri Bibas
  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that Hamas had handed over the body of a “Gazan woman” the day before and not that of hostage Shiri Bibas as agreed in the truce deal

JERUSALEM:Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that Hamas had handed over the body of a “Gazan woman” the day before and not that of hostage Shiri Bibas as agreed in the truce deal.
“In an unimaginably cynical manner, they did not return Shiri to her small children, the little angels, and instead placed the body of a Gazan woman in a coffin,” Netanyahu said in a video statement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas on Friday of committing a "cruel and evil" violation of the Gaza ceasefire deal by failing to return the body of hostage Shiri Bibas.
"We will act with determination to bring Shiri home, along with all of our captives - both the living and the fallen - and ensure that Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and evil violation of the agreement," Netanyahu said in a video statement.
Hamas on Thursday handed over bodies it said were of four hostages, including three members of the Bibas family - Shiri Bibas and her two young sons - along with an elderly captive.
While the identities of the Bibas boys and the elderly hostage were confirmed by Israeli forensic experts, the fourth body was not that of Shiri Bibas, according to Israeli officials.
Netanyahu said it was, in fact, that of a Gazan woman.
"The cruelty of the Hamas monsters knows no bounds," he said.
"Not only did they abduct the father, Yarden Bibas, the young mother, Shiri, and their two small infants in an unimaginably cynical manner, but they also failed to return Shiri to her small children, the little angels, and instead placed the body of a Gazan woman in a coffin," he said.
The two boys - Kfir and Ariel - had become symbols of the hostage crisis along with their mother.
During their attack on October 7, 2023, that triggered the Gaza war, Hamas filmed and later broadcast footage showing the Bibas family's abduction from their home near the Gaza border.
Ariel was then aged four, while Kfir was the youngest hostage at just nine months old.
Their father, who was also seized during the attack, was released earlier this month.
The elderly hostage whose remains were returned on Thursday was identified as Oded Lifshitz, a veteran journalist and long-time defender of Palestinian rights.
Palestinian militants staged a ceremony to return the four bodies at a former cemetery in the southern Gazan city of Khan Yunis.
The repatriation of the bodies was part of the six-week initial phase of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which took effect on January 19 and has so far led to the release of 19 living Israeli hostages in exchange for more than 1,100 Palestinian prisoners.


Syria’s Christians mark a decade since a horrific Daesh attack and worry about their future

Syria’s Christians mark a decade since a horrific Daesh attack and worry about their future
Updated 21 February 2025
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Syria’s Christians mark a decade since a horrific Daesh attack and worry about their future

Syria’s Christians mark a decade since a horrific Daesh attack and worry about their future
  • The former Islamist insurgents who now run the country have repeatedly said religious rights will be protected.
  • This month, northeast Syria’s remaining Christians will mark the 10th anniversary of the Daesh attack on over 30 villages along the Khabur river.

TEL TAL: It was a mournful moment for Christians in Syria. A bell that once summoned residents to worship rang out, but the church was no longer there.
The Saint Odisho church was blown up by the Daesh group a decade ago, leaving Tel Tal village almost empty of residents.
A local Christian who fled the attack, Ishaq Nissan, walked the streets and pointed to uninhabited homes, explaining where families had gone: US, Australia, Canada or Europe.
This month, northeast Syria’s remaining Christians will mark the 10th anniversary of the Daesh attack on over 30 villages along the Khabur river. On Feb. 23, 2015, dozens of Christians were killed or wounded and over 200 were taken hostage. Churches were blown up, and thousands of people fled.
The anniversary comes as Christians worry about the future of Syria following the ouster of longtime president Bashar Assad in December by insurgents led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group. HTS leader Ahmad Al-Sharaa is now interim president, and most government members come from Islamic factions.
Al-Sharaa has repeatedly said religious rights will be protected in post-Assad Syria. Though HTS had been an Al-Qaeda affiliate, it is opposed to IS and fought deadly battles with it over the years. IS was defeated in Syria in 2019, but sleeper cells still carry out attacks.
Since Assad’s fall, there have been some attacks by others targeting Christians. In December, a Christmas tree was set on fire in Suqailabiyah village. Authorities called it an isolated incident.
“We hope as Christians that there will be cooperation between all parties of Syria in what gives everyone their rights,” Syriac Orthodox Archbishop Maurice Amsih, who leads the church in the northeast, told The Associated Press.
Amsih said Christians in Syria are opposed to Islamic rule: “We want them to treat us in a civil way.”
Western countries have pressed Syria’s new authorities to guarantee the rights of religious and ethnic minorities, as well as those of women. The vast majority of Syrians are Sunni Muslims, while about a quarter of the population is Christian, Druze or Alawite.
Christians made up about 10 percent of Syria’s prewar population of 23 million, co-existing with the Muslim majority and enjoying freedom of worship under the Assad government. The last parliament speaker under Assad was Christian.
But since civil war began in 2011 with a popular uprising against Assad and a government crackdown, hundreds of thousands of Christians have left the country. The rise of IS, and its attack 10 years ago, helped to drive them out.
“We were living in peace and never expected this dark day to happen in our modern history,” said Elias Antar Elias, a Tel Tal resident who represents the villages of the Khabur river region in the Kurdish-led administration in northeast Syria.
The 78-year-old and his family fled in the middle of the night as the extremists stormed one Christian village after another, horrifying the population that had lived in relative peace for decades.
Elias, a retired teacher, fled with his family to the northeastern city of Hassakeh and stayed until Kurdish and Christian fighters regained control of their hometown months later.
“We saw the beheaded bodies of Christians on the side of the road as dogs were eating them,” Elias said, calling it “an image that pains our hearts.”
Elias said Tel Tal had about 400 residents before the IS attack. Today, there are about 30.
At the spot where the Saint Odisho church once stood, Elias recalled its importance: “This is where we baptized our children. This is where I got married.”
Asked why his family didn’t leave for good like many others, he replied: “I’m in love with this place. Our graves and martyrs are here. This is our land.”
The archbishop said 34 Christian villages along the Khabur river were home to 45,000 Assyrians before the 2015 attack.
Amsih said about 2.2 million Christians were in Syria before the civil war, and he estimated that two-thirds of them have left the country.
In nearby Tel Nasri, Christian residents have left and the village is full of displaced people from other regions. The Church of Virgin Mary still stands but is badly damaged after being blown up in 2015.
Some Christians who witnessed the violence say they have no plans to leave Syria, even with uncertainty ahead under new leaders.
Janet Chamoun was praying in a church in Qamishli in 2015 when a car bomb exploded outside, throwing her and her daughter to the floor. Glass shattered and some people were injured.
“Despite the fear we decided to stay,” Chamoun said outside the repaired Virgin Mary Syriac church, where she still comes every day to pray.
“Our home and roots are here,” she said.


Israel says it has struck Lebanon-Syria border crossings used by Hezbollah

Israel says it has struck Lebanon-Syria border crossings used by Hezbollah
Updated 21 February 2025
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Israel says it has struck Lebanon-Syria border crossings used by Hezbollah

Israel says it has struck Lebanon-Syria border crossings used by Hezbollah
  • War monitor SOHR says the strikes put an “illegal crossing” near Lebanon’s frontier town of Wadi Khaled, which borders Syria’s Homs provincel “out of service”
  • The raids came “after a convoy of smugglers’ vehicles was observed headed from Syria toward Lebanon,” added the SOHR, which has a network inside Syria

BEIRUT: Israel said Friday it struck crossings on the Lebanon-Syria border used by Hezbollah to smuggle weapons, with a Syria war monitor reporting an unspecified number of people wounded in the attack.
The Israeli military said its air forces “struck crossing points in the area of the Lebanon-Syria border” used by the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group “in attempts to smuggle weapons into Lebanese territory.”
“These activities constitute a blatant violation of the ceasefire understandings between Israel and Lebanon,” the statement added.
A fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has been in place since November 27, after more than a year of hostilities including two months of all-out war. Both sides have accused the other of violating the deal.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said the overnight strikes put an “illegal crossing” near Lebanon’s frontier town of Wadi Khaled, which borders Syria’s Homs province, “out of service” and wounded a number of people.
The raids came “after a convoy of smugglers’ vehicles was observed headed from Syria toward Lebanon,” added the Britain-based Observatory, which has a network of sources inside Syria.
Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman reported “heavy material damage to buildings and vehicles.”
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported “enemy aircraft flying at low altitude over the city of Hermel” and villages in the Bekaa Valley in the country’s northeast near the Syrian border.
Under the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire, Lebanon’s military was to deploy in south Lebanon alongside UN peacekeepers as the Israeli army withdrew over a 60-day period that was later extended to February 18.
Hezbollah was to pull back north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle remaining military infrastructure in the south.
Israel announced just before the latest deadline that it would temporarily keep troops in “five strategic points” near the border.
Earlier this month, the Israeli military said it carried out an air strike targeting a tunnel on the Syria-Lebanon border used by Hezbollah to smuggle weapons.
In January, Israel carried out air strikes in Lebanon targeting areas in the east and south according to Lebanese state media, with the Israeli military saying it hit Hezbollah targets including smuggling routes along the border with Syria.
Syria shares a 330-kilometer (205-mile) border with Lebanon, with no official demarcation.
Hezbollah lost a supply route when opposition forces in December ousted Bashar Assad in Syria, where Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes since war broke out in 2011.
Hezbollah holds sway in large parts of the Lebanese-Syrian border region, and had fought alongside Assad’s troops during the war.
 


Israeli prime minister tells military to carry out West Bank operation after bus explosions

Israeli prime minister tells military to carry out West Bank operation after bus explosions
Updated 21 February 2025
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Israeli prime minister tells military to carry out West Bank operation after bus explosions

Israeli prime minister tells military to carry out West Bank operation after bus explosions
  • No casualties were reported

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the military to carry out an “intensive” operation in the West Bank after explosions on buses close to Tel Aviv on Thursday, in what Netanyahu’s office described as an attempted mass attack.
No casualties were reported.
The Israeli police earlier said there had been explosions on three buses in two Israeli suburbs outside Tel Aviv and that four explosive devices had been found. Local media reported the explosions had occurred on buses in depots and were empty.
The explosions were a stark reminder of the devastating bus bombings in Israel that were a hallmark of the Palestinian uprising of the 2000s, although such attacks are now rare.
The military said in a statement that it was assisting the police and Shin Bet intelligence agency in the investigation. The police said it was searching for suspects, advising the public to remain vigilant.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosions. Netanyahu met with the defense minister, head of the military and Shin Bet and the police commissioner following the explosions, his office said. A police spokesperson said that improvised explosive devices with timers had been identified and public transportation had been searched for any further devices.
A video published by local media showed what appeared to be a bus on fire at a depot and a photo of a burned out bus.
The military said it would intensify counter-terrorism operations in the West Bank and that it had blocked entry points in certain areas, without specifying where. The military has been conducting a large scale military operation in the West Bank over the past month that it says is targeting militants.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forced to leave their homes in West Bank refugee camps, while homes and infrastructure have been demolished.
The bus blasts come amid a fragile ceasefire in Gaza between the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel after 16 months of war. Hamas on Thursday released the bodies of four hostages.
The ceasefire has held since it was implemented on January 19 despite accusations traded by Israel and Hamas of violations.


UN calls for rapid economic recovery in Syria to reverse losses from 14 years of conflict

A displaced Syrian stands inside her dilapidated apartment, overlooking the destruction in Homs' Khaldiyeh neighborhood. (AFP)
A displaced Syrian stands inside her dilapidated apartment, overlooking the destruction in Homs' Khaldiyeh neighborhood. (AFP)
Updated 21 February 2025
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UN calls for rapid economic recovery in Syria to reverse losses from 14 years of conflict

A displaced Syrian stands inside her dilapidated apartment, overlooking the destruction in Homs' Khaldiyeh neighborhood. (AFP)
  • UN Development Program says that at current growth rates it will take until 2080 for the country’s economy to return to prewar levels
  • Regional Director Abdallah Al-Dardari tells Arab News Syria’s journey to recovery is arduous, urges countries to understand effects of sanctions and act accordingly

NEW YORK CITY: A newly published report from the UN Development Programme warned that at current growth rates, the Syrian economy will not recover to prewar levels until 2080, leaving the country stuck in a state of prolonged hardship and instability.

It also underscored the urgent need for a rapid economic recovery to help reverse the decades of progress that were lost as a result of the 14-year civil war. The conflict shattered nearly four decades of economic, social and human development, causing irreparable damage to the nation’s infrastructure, economy and social fabric.

The report, titled “The Impact of the Conflict in Syria: A Devastated Economy, Pervasive Poverty, and a Challenging Road Ahead to Social and Economic Recovery,” offers a detailed analysis of the socioeconomic state of the country, and outlines a road map for rebuilding its economy and infrastructure.

According to the UNDP’s preliminary socioeconomic impact assessment, gross domestic product in Syria has halved since the war began in 2011, representing a loss of $800 billion over the past 14 years.

Poverty has reached alarming levels, with the national poverty rate soaring from 33 percent before the war to 90 percent. Extreme poverty has also skyrocketed, with 66 percent of the population now affected, up from just 11 percent prior to the conflict. Three out of four people in the country rely on humanitarian aid and are in urgent need of support for critical aspects of life such as healthcare, education, employment, food security and housing. The country also has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, with one in four Syrians jobless.

Achim Steiner, the administrator of UNDP, said that the requirements for Syria’s recovery extend beyond the immediate need for humanitarian aid.

“Restoring productivity for jobs and poverty relief, revitalizing agriculture for food security, and rebuilding infrastructure for essential services such as healthcare, education and energy are key to a self-sustaining future, prosperity and peace,” he said.

The damage to Syria’s infrastructure, which has left many essential services nonfunctional, is among the primary obstacles to recovery. The report highlights a staggering array of damage: nearly 50 percent of schools are closed, one-in-three housing units have been destroyed, and nearly half of the nation’s water-treatment plants and sewage systems are no longer operational. Energy production has plummeted by 80 percent, with power plants and transmission lines heavily damaged. These failures in basic services exacerbate poverty levels and block any meaningful path toward recovery.

The UNDP report also highlighted the devastating loss of life during the war, and the decline in health infrastructure. Nearly 618,000 Syrians died during the conflict, and 113,000 were forcibly disappeared, their whereabouts still unknown. Meanwhile, the collapse of the healthcare system has exacerbated the crisis; a third of all medical facilities have been damaged and almost half of ambulance services are no longer operational.

The education sector was also hit hard, leaving 40-50 percent of children between the ages of 6 and 15 unable to attend school. The widespread destruction of housing has left 5.7 million people in need of shelter support.

Essential infrastructure, including water-treatment plants, sewer systems and power plants, has been severely damaged, leaving millions without access to clean water, sanitation or reliable energy supplies.

Syria’s position on the Human Development Index has plummeted to its lowest point since 1990, further illustrating the catastrophic effects of the war on the nation’s development.

The economic outlook remains grim but hope can be found in the potential for robust growth if the correct strategies are implemented, the UNDP said. Its report calls for an ambitious approach to development, as growth rates will need to increase sixfold if they are to recover within a decade.

At the current rate of annual growth, 1.3 percent, it would take more than 50 years to restore GDP to prewar levels. To recover within 15 years, Syria would need to achieve a growth rate of 5 percent, and a tenfold increase in growth would be required for the country to reach the level of development it could have attained in the absence of the war.

Abdallah Al-Dardari, UNDP’s assistant administrator and director of its regional bureau for Arab states, stressed the important need for comprehensive reforms, and said: “Syria’s future hinges on a robust development-recovery approach.

“This demands a comprehensive strategy addressing governance reform, economic stabilization, sector revitalization, infrastructure rebuilding, and strengthened social services.”

He told Arab News that this strategy for recovery will rely on investments and on good management of those investments, as he underscored the institutional requirements Syria will need to meet to attract private investment in infrastructure.

“If you want to invest $100million or $200 million in (a) highway, you need to first of all be sure that you can go to the court, and the court will treat you equally if you have a litigation with your counterpart, which is the government,” Al-Dardari said.

“You need to make sure that there are internationally recognized arbitration systems. You need to make sure that your money can come in and leave the country. You need to make sure that your banking system respects the highest standards of banking.

“I can give you a very long list of things that need to be done and are not there yet. So this is an arduous journey. This is not an easy journey.”

Al-Dardari also told Arab News about the effects of international sanctions, imposed on the Assad regime during the war, on the economy and the ways in which they are hampering recovery progress.

“I'll give you an example,” he said. “Who is going to bring those investments of $36 billion while they are not really sure that the banking sector is free to bring in money, to use the SWIFT (banking system) to transfer funds and to invest?

“How do you make sure that your shipments into Syria of raw materials or semi-manufactured products are protected? How do you make sure that your exports from Syria can arrive at their destinations, and money will be paid for those exports?

“So at every step of the way in recovery, sanctions will play a role. The chilling effect of sanctions, what we call the ‘overload lines,’ will accompany those sanctions. So our core message (to countries) here is: Please understand the impact of sanctions and act accordingly.”