How have post-Oct. 7 events affected the chances of Palestinian statehood?

Special How have post-Oct. 7 events affected the chances of Palestinian statehood?
The West Bank separation wall is viewed by Palestinians as undermining the two-state solution. (AFP file photo)
Short Url
Updated 29 July 2024
Follow

How have post-Oct. 7 events affected the chances of Palestinian statehood?

How have post-Oct. 7 events affected the chances of Palestinian statehood?
  • Since the attack triggered the war in Gaza, there has been unprecedented pressure on Israel to resolve the decades-old dispute
  • But experts say reviving the two-state solution would require a significant change of government and attitudes among the Israeli people

LONDON: On Oct. 6 last year, the prospect of ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict via the two-state solution seemed as far from becoming a reality as ever. Yet in the wake of the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, and Israel’s retaliation in Gaza, new life has been breathed into the concept.

Indeed, such has been the scale of public outcry at the suffering and destruction meted out on the people of Gaza and the West Bank since the conflict began that calls to revive the peace process and establish an independent Palestinian state appear to have grown louder.

“In my view the likelihood of Palestinian statehood has increased,” Itamar Rabinovich, president of the Israel Institute and Israel’s ambassador to the US from 1993 to 1996, told Arab News. “It is going to take time. But the issue of a two-state solution will have to be put back on the table.”




This photo taken on January 25, 2004, shows then Tel Aviv University President Itamar Rabinovich (L) and Jordanian Foreign Affairs minister Marwan Jamil Muasher at the "Breaking the Vicious Circle of the Arab-Israeli Conflict" conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. (AFP file)

Israel’s far-right coalition government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu has been resistant to the idea of a Palestinian state, doubling down on its strategy of containment. A change of government, however, could get the long-stalled peace process back on track.

“Probably as long as the Netanyahu government in its present composition is in power, this is not going to move,” said Rabinovich. “But hopefully this will change in the coming months and a new Israeli government, I think, is likely to take a different view of the matter.”

For Burcu Ozcelik, senior research fellow for Middle East security at London’s Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, it is “very difficult to talk about anything positive against the backdrop of destruction and loss of life in Gaza.




Palestinians check the destruction after an Israeli strike on a building next to a school sheltering displaced people, in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on July 4, 2024. (AFP)

“But one silver lining has been the redirection of attention to the issue of Palestinian statehood, which over the past few years has been subject to a consensus almost of silence among policymakers, diplomats and observers,” he told Arab News.

“The Abraham Accords, for example, while generally a positive development for the region in terms of Israel’s relations with Arab countries, pushed the Palestinian claim for self-determination onto the backburner.”

Since Oct. 7, international pressure has been building on Israel — most dramatically in the May ruling by the International Court of Justice that Israel should halt its Rafah offensive, and the decision by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to seek arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defense minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.




Judges of the International Court of Justice attend a hearing in The Hague, Netherlands, (ICJ) on May 17, 2024, on South Africa’s request to order a stop to the Israeli assault on the Gaza city of Rafah. (AFP/File)

But there has also been unprecedented pressure, not only for a political “day after” solution to the war in Gaza, but also to a conflict that has raged for decades and destabilized the entire region.

On May 28, three European countries — Spain, Norway and Ireland — joined the 140 nations that have recognized Palestine as a sovereign state since the declaration of statehood by the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1988.

In a statement, Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Store, spoke for all three nations when he said that, in the midst of the war, “we must keep alive the only alternative that offers a political solution for Israelis and Palestinians alike: Two states, living side by side, in peace and security.”

Since the start of the war in Gaza, nine states have recognized Palestinian statehood.

Opinion

This section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)

On April 18, the Palestinian Authority’s latest bid to convert its non-member observer status into full UN membership was supported by 12 votes, but vetoed by the US.

However, US deputy ambassador Robert Wood told the UN Security Council the veto “does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood but instead is an acknowledgment that it will only come from direct negotiations between the parties.”

Less than a month later, on May 10, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution by 143 votes to nine that upgraded the rights of the state of Palestine as an observer body, and urged the Security Council to “consider favorably” its elevation to full membership.




The results of a vote on a resolution for the UN Security Council to reconsider and support the full membership of Palestine into the United Nations is displayed during a special session of the UN General Assembly, at UN headquarters in New York City on May 10, 2024. (AFP)

Speaking in support of the resolution, Saudi Arabia’s UN ambassador, Abdulaziz Al-Wasil, said it sought “to implement the will of the international community and contribute to building true peace in the Middle East based on the two-state solution.”

It was, he added, “high time for the international community to re-establish the truth because the world can no longer ignore the suffering of the Palestinian people that has lasted for decades.” 

Sir John Jenkins, a former British consul-general in Jerusalem and ambassador to both Saudi Arabia and Iraq, agrees that Palestinian statehood is the only long-term solution for Israel’s security.

However, he believes achieving this will require a significant change of government, and a massive change of heart among the Israeli people.

“Israeli opinion has been shifting steadily to the right since the 1990s,” Jenkins told Arab News. “Initially that was because of the large influx of Soviet Jews into Israel, who tended to be extremely right-wing, and all voted for Likud. And then you had the Second Intifada, which was a real blow to the peace camp in Israel.”

Since October, “all the Israelis I have spoken to have said the same thing, that this was a profound trauma that has significantly shifted public opinion in Israel away from any conception of a Palestinian state.”

That being said, “although Israel has won a lot of battles since 1982, they have not won the war, and they can’t win the war. They cannot defeat all their enemies, and in the long run the answer to this is a Palestinian state, because that’s the way in which you neutralize the opposition.”

Any calculations about the possibility of progress toward a two-state solution must now also factor in recent political developments in America, where the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the Democratic ticket will have one of two likely consequences.

The re-election of Donald Trump, probably America’s most pro-Israel president to date, would likely impede progress on Palestinian statehood.




Pro-Palestinian demonstrators protest near the US Capitol before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress on July 24, 2024, in Washington, DC. (AFP)

But although Trump saw a spike in his support following the failed assassination attempt on July 13, polls show his lead over likely Democratic nominee Kamala Harris is slightly less than his already marginal lead over Biden. 

As vice president, Harris has been a more vocal critic of events in Gaza than Biden.

In March during a meeting with Benny Gantz, then still a member of Israel’s war cabinet, she called for a pause in the fighting and “expressed her deep concern about the humanitarian conditions in Gaza.”

In a speech earlier that same month, she condemned the “humanitarian catastrophe” unfolding in Gaza, saying “too many innocent Palestinians have been killed … Our hearts break for the victims of that horrific tragedy.”




US Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet in Washington on July 25, 2024. (AFP)

As vice president, Harris has sat in on at least 20 calls between Biden and the Israeli prime minister and, according to sources quoted in The New York Times, has “emerged as one of the leading voices for Palestinians in closed-door meetings.”

During a meeting with Netanyahu on Thursday she was expected to say “it is time for the war to end in a way where Israel is secure, all hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can enjoy their right to dignity, freedom and self-determination.”

Harris knows she will not move the dial on Palestinian statehood among Republican voters, whose representatives gave Netanyahu such a warm welcome on Wednesday, but she will have a keen eye on swing states such as Michigan, where Biden has been losing support among Arab communities over his stance on Gaza.

It was telling that she chose not to be present for Netanyahu’s speech to the joint session of Congress on Wednesday, but she will have noted the subdued mood among those Democrats who did not boycott the address, and the angry demonstrations outside the US Capitol, where thousands branded the Israeli leader a war criminal.

The right-wing in Israel, and its supporters in the US, are as deeply entrenched ideologically as its liberal critics.

Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, who supervised US policy in the Middle East during the presidency of George W. Bush, delivered a scathing denunciation of what he called the “two-state delusion” in an article published in Tablet, the New York-based Jewish magazine, in February.

The growing call in the West for a two-state solution was “mostly a magical incantation,” Abrams wrote, and political pressure was growing “to skip niceties like negotiations and move quickly to implement the ‘two-state solution.’”

Abrams’ views reflect those of many on Israel’s right, and as such may portend an impending internal struggle over the issue of Palestinian statehood.

Creating a Palestinian state, he concluded, “will not end the ‘Israeli-Palestinian conflict’ because it will not end the Palestinian and now Iranian dream of eliminating the State of Israel. On the contrary, it can be a launching pad for new attacks on Israel and will certainly be viewed that way by the Jewish state’s most dedicated enemies.”




Pro-Palestinian demonstrators protest in front of the White House to denounce US President Joe Biden meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, DC, on July 25, 2024. (AFP)

Abrams told Arab News he believed that “the insistence on one sole outcome, the ‘two-state solution,’ has made it nearly impossible for people to think sensibly and creatively about more logical alternatives that are safer and more realistic.”

One such alternative would be partition, similar to the proposal by the Peel Commission in 1937. But instead of being an independent, sovereign state “it seems to me that the Palestinian entity should be part of a confederation, perhaps, and most logically, with Jordan. The model of Kurdistan is worth exploring.”

In an interview with Politico in January, Netanyahu’s predecessor Ehud Omert said that despite the widespread revulsion in Israel at Hamas’ actions on and after Oct. 7, there remained only one feasible route to peace — with or without the support of the Israeli electorate or its right wing.

“It isn’t fashionable to trust Palestinians, any Palestinians,” he said. “This is the time when you’re meant to hate them. But … When I argue with people, I say, ‘What is the solution? What do you think can be done? Do you think that we can continue to control 4.5 million people without rights, with unlimited occupation, forever?’ Then they, of course, don’t have an answer.”




While Israeli settlements have continued to spring up in Palestinian territories in the West Bank (left), many Palestinian homes, such as these ones in Hebron, are being demolished by Israeli authorities. (AFP)

It was not, he insisted, a question of convincing the Israeli people to accept a two-state solution. “You just have to do it,” he said. “This is an act of leadership. This is what we’re missing now.”

On July 18, just days before Netanyahu left for Washington, the Israeli parliament voted by 68 to nine for a resolution, co-sponsored by an alliance of right-wing parties, rejecting the establishment of a Palestine state “at this time.”

As Olmert said in January, “the two-state solution was never a popular idea for a majority of Israelis.” But, he added, “I’ve learned in my political career that reality is created sometimes by the sheer determination and forceful decisions made by leaders. What’s popular, what isn’t popular, doesn’t really matter.

“Had we sealed a deal in the past, the majority would have gone along.”

But Rabinovich warns that the growth in size, power and influence of Israel’s settler movement, endorsed and encouraged by members of the current government, has created the potential for a dangerous confrontation in Israeli society should any Israeli leader try to emulate Olmert’s 2008 plan, under which Israel would have evacuated the settlements in 94 percent of the West Bank, resettling the 40,000 occupants in the remaining 6 percent annexed to Israel.

The plan would have increased territorial contiguity for a future Palestinian state, but “unfortunately,” said Rabinovich, it was rejected by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.




Palestinians look at burnt out vehicles in a car park following an attack by Israeli settlers in the town of Burqah, east of the West Bank city of Ramallah, on June 7, 2024. (AFP)

Such a scheme “would be much more difficult now, with a large number of scattered, illegal settlements, which the present Israeli government refuses to call illegal, but which are.”

Such a compromise, he said, “is still feasible. But it will take a very determined Israeli prime minister and could very well cause even a civil war in Israel, because the settlers and the right wing could fight violently against this.”

There is one thing on which many commentators agree. There can be no progress toward a two-state solution until Netanyahu is gone — and he will last only as long as the war in Gaza lasts.

“This is probably the end of his government,” said Rabinovich, “and one reason he continues the fighting is because he doesn’t want to get to that point.

“But when the war is over, the demands for a serious commission of inquiry and demonstrations will intensify, and I think political developments in Israel will be expedited.”
 

 


What to know about sudden rebel gains in Syria’s 13-year war and why it matters

What to know about sudden rebel gains in Syria’s 13-year war and why it matters
Updated 30 November 2024
Follow

What to know about sudden rebel gains in Syria’s 13-year war and why it matters

What to know about sudden rebel gains in Syria’s 13-year war and why it matters
  • It was the first opposition attack on Aleppo since 2016, when an air campaign by Russian warplanes helped Syrian President Bashar Assad retake the northwestern city
  • The roughly 30 percent of the country not under Assad is controlled by a range of opposition forces and foreign troops, including Turkish and US forces and their allies

WASHINGTON: The 13-year civil war in Syria has roared back into prominence with a surprise rebel offensive on Aleppo, one of Syria’s largest cities and an ancient business hub. The push is among the rebels’ strongest in years in a war whose destabilizing effects have rippled far beyond the country’s borders.
It was the first opposition attack on Aleppo since 2016, when a brutal air campaign by Russian warplanes helped Syrian President Bashar Assad retake the northwestern city. Intervention by Russia, Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah militia and other groups has allowed Assad to remain in power, within the 70 percent of Syria under his control.
The surge in fighting has raised the prospect of another violent front reopening in the Middle East, at a time when US-backed Israel is fighting Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Robert Ford, the last-serving US ambassador to Syria, pointed to months of Israeli strikes on Syrian and Hezbollah targets in the area, and to Israel’s ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon this week, as factors providing Syria’s rebels with the opportunity to advance.
Here’s a look at some of the key aspects of the new fighting:
Why does the fighting at Aleppo matter?
Assad has been at war with opposition forces seeking his overthrow for 13 years, a conflict that’s killed an estimated half-million people. Some 6.8 million Syrians have fled the country, a refugee flow that helped change the political map in Europe by fueling anti-immigrant far-right movements.
The roughly 30 percent of the country not under Assad is controlled by a range of opposition forces and foreign troops. The US has about 900 troops in northeast Syria, far from Aleppo, to guard against a resurgence by the Daesh group. Both the US and Israel conduct occasional strikes in

 

Syria against government forces and Iran-allied militias. Turkiye has forces in Syria as well, and has influence with the broad alliance of opposition forces storming Aleppo.
Coming after years with few sizeable changes in territory between Syria’s warring parties, the fighting “has the potential to be really quite, quite consequential and potentially game-changing,” if Syrian government forces prove unable to hold their ground, said Charles Lister, a longtime Syria analyst with the US-based Middle East Institute. Risks include if Daesh fighters see it as an opening, Lister said.
Ford said the fighting in Aleppo would become more broadly destabilizing if it drew Russia and Turkiye — each with its own interests to protect in Syria — into direct heavy fighting against each other. 

The US and UN have long designated the opposition force leading the attack at Aleppo — Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, known by its initials HTS — as a terrorist organization.
Its leader, Abu Mohammed Al-Golani, emerged as the leader of Al-Qaeda’s Syria branch in 2011, in the first months of Syria’s war. His fight was an unwelcome intervention to many in Syria’s opposition, who hoped to keep the fight against Assad’s brutal rule untainted by violent extremism.
Golani early on claimed responsibility for deadly bombings, pledged to attack Western forces and sent religious police to enforce modest dress by women.
Golani has sought to remake himself in recent years. He renounced his Al-Qaeda ties in 2016. He’s disbanded his religious police force, cracked down on extremist groups in his territory, and portrayed himself as a protector of other religions. That includes last year allowing the first Christian Mass in the city of Idlib in years.
What’s the history of Aleppo in the war?
At the crossroads of trade routes and empires for thousands of years, Aleppo is one of the centers of commerce and culture in the Middle East.
Aleppo was home to 2.3 million people before the war. Rebels seized the east side of the city in 2012, and it became the proudest symbol of the advance of armed opposition factions.
In 2016, government forces backed by Russian airstrikes laid siege to the city. Russian shells, missiles and crude barrel bombs — fuel canisters or other containers loaded with explosives and metal — methodically leveled neighborhoods. Starving and under siege, rebels surrendered Aleppo that year.
The Russian military’s entry was the turning point in the war, allowing Assad to stay on in the territory he held.
This year, Israeli airstrikes in Aleppo have hit Hezbollah weapons depots and Syrian forces, among other targets, according to an independent monitoring group. Israel rarely acknowledges strikes at Aleppo and other government-held areas of Syria.


As Syrian rebels sweep into Aleppo, army closes airport and roads, sources say

As Syrian rebels sweep into Aleppo, army closes airport and roads, sources say
Updated 30 November 2024
Follow

As Syrian rebels sweep into Aleppo, army closes airport and roads, sources say

As Syrian rebels sweep into Aleppo, army closes airport and roads, sources say

AMMAN: Syrian authorities closed Aleppo airport as well as all roads leading into the city on Saturday, three military sources told Reuters, as rebels opposed to President Bashar Assad said they had reached the heart of Aleppo.
The opposition fighters, led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, carried out a surprise sweep through government-held towns this week and reached Aleppo nearly a decade after having been forced out by Assad and his allies.
Russia, one of Assad’s key allies, has promised Damascus extra military aid to thwart the rebels, two military sources said, adding new hardware would start arriving in the next 72 hours.
The Syrian army has been told to follow “safe withdrawal” orders from the main areas of the city that the rebels have entered, three army sources said.
The rebels began their incursion on Wednesday and by late Friday an operations room representing the offensive said they were sweeping through various neighborhoods of Aleppo.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Rebels opposed to Assad return to city after nearly a decade

• Aleppo airport has been closed, military sources say

• Damascus expects Russian hardware to arrive soon, sources say

They are returning to the city for the first time since 2016, when Assad and his allies Russia, Iran, and regional Shiite militias retook it, with the insurgents agreeing to withdraw after months of bombardment and siege.
Mustafa Abdul Jaber, a commander in the Jaish Al-Izza rebel brigade, said their speedy advance this week had been helped by a lack of Iran-backed manpower in the broader Aleppo province. Iran’s allies in the region have suffered a series of blows at the hands of Israel as the Gaza war has expanded through the Middle East.
The opposition fighters have said the campaign was in response to stepped-up strikes in recent weeks against civilians by the Russian and Syrian air force on areas in rebel-held Idlib, and to preempt any attacks by the Syrian army.
Opposition sources in touch with Turkish intelligence said Turkiye, which supports the rebels, had given a green light to the offensive.
But Turkish foreign ministry spokesperson Oncu Keceli said on Friday that Turkiye sought to avoid greater instability in the region and had warned recent attacks undermined de-escalation agreements.
The attack is the biggest since March 2020, when Russia and Turkiye agreed to a deal to de-escalate the conflict.

CIVILIANS KILLED IN FIGHTING
On Friday, Syrian state television denied rebels had reached the city and said Russia was providing Syria’s military with air support.
The Syrian military said it was fighting back against the attack and had inflicted heavy losses on the insurgents in the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib.
David Carden, UN Deputy Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis, said: “We’re deeply alarmed by the situation unfolding in northwest Syria.”
“Relentless attacks over the past three days have claimed the lives of at least 27 civilians, including children as young as 8 years old.”
Syrian state news agency SANA said four civilians including two students were killed on Friday in Aleppo by insurgent shelling of university student dormitories. It was not clear if they were among the 27 dead reported by the UN official.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that Moscow regarded the rebel attack as a violation of Syria’s sovereignty.
“We are in favor of the Syrian authorities bringing order to the area and restoring constitutional order as soon as possible,” he said.

 

 


2 migrants dead, one missing off Tunisia: reports

2 migrants dead, one missing off Tunisia: reports
Updated 30 November 2024
Follow

2 migrants dead, one missing off Tunisia: reports

2 migrants dead, one missing off Tunisia: reports
  • Tunisia and neighboring Libya have become key departure points for migrants
  • Each year, tens of thousands of people attempt to make the crossing

TUNIS: Two unidentified bodies were recovered off Tunisia’s eastern coast after a migrant boat capsized, local media reported on Friday, with one person still missing and 28 rescued.
Most of the passengers were Tunisian, according to the reports, which said that the boat had set sail from Teboulba, a coastal town some 180 kilometers south of the capital Tunis.
Tunisia and neighboring Libya have become key departure points for migrants, often from other African countries, who risk perilous Mediterranean Sea journeys in the hopes of reaching better lives in Europe.
Each year, tens of thousands of people attempt to make the crossing. Italy, whose Lampedusa Island is only 150 kilometers (90 miles) from Tunisia, is often their first port of call.
In late October, the bodies of 15 people believed to be migrants were recovered by authorities in Monastir, eastern Tunisia.
And in late September, 36 would-be migrants — mainly Tunisians — were rescued off Bizerte in northern Tunisia.
Since January 1, at least 103 makeshift boats have capsized and 341 bodies have been recovered off Tunisia’s coast, according to the interior ministry.
More than 1,300 people died or disappeared last year in shipwrecks off the North African country, according to the Tunisian FTDES rights group.
The International Organization for Migration has said that more than 30,309 migrants have died in the Mediterranean in the past decade, including more than 3,000 last year.


Iraq tries to stem influx of illegal foreign workers

An Iraqi policeman checks the ID of a driver at a checkpoint in Mosul on February 22, 2018. (AFP)
An Iraqi policeman checks the ID of a driver at a checkpoint in Mosul on February 22, 2018. (AFP)
Updated 30 November 2024
Follow

Iraq tries to stem influx of illegal foreign workers

An Iraqi policeman checks the ID of a driver at a checkpoint in Mosul on February 22, 2018. (AFP)
  • The Labor Ministry says the influx is mainly from Syria, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, also citing 40,000 registered immigrant workers

KARBALA: Rami, a Syrian worker in Iraq, spends his 16-hour shifts at a restaurant fearing arrest as authorities crack down on undocumented migrants in the country better known for its own exodus.
He is one of hundreds of thousands of foreigners working without permits in Iraq, which, after emerging from decades of conflict, has become an unexpected destination for many seeking opportunities.
“I’ve been able to avoid the security forces and checkpoints,” said the 27-year-old, who has lived in Iraq for seven years and asked that AFP use a pseudonym to protect his identity.
Between 10 in the morning and 2 a.m. the next day, he toils at a shawarma shop in the holy city of Karbala, where millions of pilgrims congregate every year.
“My greatest fear is to be expelled back to Syria, where I’d have to do military service,” he said.

BACKGROUND

Authorities are trying to regulate the number of foreign workers as the country seeks to diversify from the dominant hydrocarbons sector.

The Labor Ministry says the influx is mainly from Syria, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, also citing 40,000 registered immigrant workers.
Now, the authorities are trying to regulate the number of foreign workers as the country seeks to diversify from the currently dominant hydrocarbons sector.
Many, like Rami, work in the service industry in Iraq.
One Baghdad restaurant owner admitted that he has to play cat and mouse with the authorities during inspections, asking some employees to make themselves scarce.
He said that not all those who work for him are registered because of the costly fees involved.
Some of the undocumented workers in Iraq first came as pilgrims. In July, Labour Minister Ahmed Assadi said his services investigated information that “50,000 Pakistani visitors” stayed on “to work illegally.”
Despite threats of expulsion because of the scale of the issue, the authorities, at the end of November, launched a scheme for “Syrian, Bangladeshi, and Pakistani workers” to regularize their employment by applying online before Dec. 25.
The ministry says it will take legal action against anyone who brings in or employs undocumented foreign workers.
Rami has decided to play safe, even though “I want” to acquire legal employment status.
“But I’m afraid,” he said. “I’m waiting to see what my friends do, and then I’ll do the same.”
Current Iraqi law caps the number of foreign workers a company can employ at 50 percent, but the authorities now want to lower this to 30 percent.
“Today we only allow qualified workers for jobs requiring skills” that are not currently available, Labor Ministry spokesman Nijm Al-Aqabi said.
It’s a sensitive issue — for the past two decades, even a foreign workforce has dominated the robust oil sector. But now the authorities are seeking to favor Iraqis.
“There are large companies contracted to the government” which have been asked to limit “foreign worker numbers to 30 percent,” said Aqabi.
“This is in the interests of the domestic labor market,” he said, as 1.6 million Iraqis are unemployed.
He recognized that each household has the right to employ a foreign domestic worker, claiming this was work Iraqis did not want to do.
One agency launched in 2021 that brings in domestic workers from Niger, Ghana, and Ethiopia confirms the high demand.
“Before, we used to bring in 40 women, but now it’s around 100” a year, said an employee at the agency.
The employee said it was a trend picked up from rich countries in the Gulf.
“The situation in Iraq is getting better, and with higher salaries, Iraqi homeowners are looking for comfort.”
A domestic worker earns about $230 a month, but the authorities have quintupled the registration fee, with a work permit now costing more than $800.
In the summer, Human Rights Watch denounced what it called a campaign of arbitrary arrests and expulsions targeting Syrians, even those with the necessary paperwork.
HRW said that raids targeted both homes and workplaces.
Ahmed — another pseudonym — is a 31-year-old Syrian who has been undocumented in Iraq for the past year and a half.
He began as a cook in Baghdad and later moved to Karbala.
“Life is hard here — we don’t have any rights,” he said
“We come in illegally, and the security forces are after us.”
His wife did not accompany him. She stayed in Syria.
“I’d go back if I could,” said Ahmed. “But life there is very difficult. There’s no work.”

 


Family returns to Lebanon to find a crater where their 50-year-old home once stood

Family returns to Lebanon to find a crater where their 50-year-old home once stood
Updated 29 November 2024
Follow

Family returns to Lebanon to find a crater where their 50-year-old home once stood

Family returns to Lebanon to find a crater where their 50-year-old home once stood
  • Intense Israeli airstrikes over the past two months leveled entire neighborhoods in eastern and southern Lebanon, as well as the southern suburbs of Beirut, which are predominantly Shiite areas of Lebanon where Hezbollah has a strong base of support

BAALBEK, Lebanon: In eastern Lebanon’s city of Baalbek, the Jawhari family gathered around a gaping crater where their home once stood, tears streaming as they tried to make sense of the destruction.
“It is heart-breaking. A heartache that there is no way we will ever recover from,” said Lina Jawhari, her voice breaking as she hugged relatives who came to support the family.
“Our world turned upside down in a second.”
The home, which was a gathering place for generations, was reduced to rubble by an Israeli airstrike on Nov. 1, leaving behind shattered memories and twisted fragments of a once-vibrant life.
The family, like thousands of Lebanese, were returning to check on their properties after the US-mediated ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect early Wednesday.

BACKGROUND

Israeli airstrikes have left a massive trail of destruction across Lebanon.

Intense Israeli airstrikes over the past two months leveled entire neighborhoods in eastern and southern Lebanon, as well as the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Nearly 1.2 million people have been displaced.
The airstrikes have left a massive trail of destruction across the country.
A photo of the Jawhari family’s home — taken on a phone by Louay Mustafa, Lina’s nephew — is a visual reminder of what had been. As the family sifted through the rubble, each fragment recovered called them to gather around it.
A worn letter sparked a collective cheer, while a photo of their late father triggered sobs. Reda Jawhari had built the house for his family and was a craftsman who left behind a legacy of metalwork. The sisters cried and hoped to find a piece of the mosque-church structure built by their father. Minutes later, they lifted a mangled piece of metal from the debris. They clung to it, determined to preserve a piece of his legacy.
“Different generations were raised with love ... Our life was filled with music, dance, and dabke (traditional dance). This is what the house is made up of. And suddenly, they destroyed our world. Our world turned upside down in a second. It is inconceivable. It is inconceivable,” Lina said.
Despite their determination, the pain of losing their home and the memories tied to it remains raw.
Rouba Jawhari, one of four sisters, had one regret.
“We are sad we did not take my mom and dad’s photos with us. If only we took the photos,” she said, clutching an ID card and a bag of photos and letters recovered from the rubble.
“It didn’t cross our mind. We thought it was two weeks and we will be back.”
The airstrike that obliterated the Jawhari home came without warning, striking at 1:30 p.m. on what was otherwise an ordinary Friday.
Their neighbor, Ali Wehbe, also lost his home. He had stepped out for food a few minutes before the missile hit and rushed back to find his brother searching for him under the rubble.
“Every brick holds a memory,” he said, gesturing to his library.
“Under every book you would find a story.”