Downfall of Syria’s Assad marks end of an era

Special Downfall of Syria’s Assad marks end of an era
Demonstrators trample a carpet with a design showing President Bashar Al-Assad during a protest. (AFP)
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Updated 09 December 2024
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Downfall of Syria’s Assad marks end of an era

Downfall of Syria’s Assad marks end of an era
  • What began as a bloodless coup by Hafez Assad in 1970 has ended with his son Bashar fleeing the country
  • Bashar Assad “inherited and built upon” the record of brutal repression that was part of his father’s long rule

LONDON: In scenes reminiscent of every violent regime change in the Middle East’s recent history, on Saturday afternoon jubilant crowds in the Jaramana suburb of Damascus toppled a statue of Hafez Assad, founder of the family regime that, until this weekend, had ruled Syria for over half a century.
The beheading of the larger-than-life bust, captured in shaky smartphone footage, spoke volumes about the roots of the crisis that is now engulfing Syria.
President Bashar Assad, who fled Syria and was granted asylum along with his family by Russia on Sunday, inherited an autocratic system that his father had forged out of the chaos that was the Syrian political landscape for two decades after the country gained its independence in 1949.
Together with Lebanon, Syria, an Ottoman province since the early 16th century, was occupied by France in 1919 after the defeat of the empire in the First World War, and in 1923 became a French mandate under the auspices of the League of Nations.
The mandate triggered a multifactional revolt against French rule, which raged from 1925 to 1927 until it was finally put down by overwhelming French military force.




Bashar Assad fled to Russia on Saturday as rebels took the Syrian capital. (AFP/File)


A complex but relatively peaceful two decades followed until, in the wake of the Second World War, Syria finally won its long-promised independence in 1946.
But the golden era anticipated by Syrians failed to dawn. From 1949 to 1970, the country was wracked by a series of 20 military coups, or attempted coups.
To Syrians and international observers alike, it seemed that Syria was doomed to basket-case status. But waiting in the wings was a man who, in time, would appear to be the answer to the troubled nation’s prayers.
By all accounts, Hafez, born on Oct. 6, 1930, one of 11 children of a poor Alawite farming family, never wanted to be a dictator, or even be involved in politics.
Instead, he wanted to become a doctor, a dream that foundered on the inability of his father, Ali Sulayman, to pay for his tuition (Sulayman would later adopt his local nickname, Al-Assad, “the lion,” as his family’s surname.)
Instead, in 1950 Hafez enrolled in the fee-free Homs Military Academy, learned to fly, joined the Syrian Air Force — and found himself embroiled in the febrile atmosphere of plot and counterplot that prevailed within the military establishment.




Hafez Al-Assad and his wife Anisseh posing for a family picture with his children (L to R) Maher, Bashar, Bassel, Majd and Bushra. (AFP)


In 1955, President Adib Al-Shishakli was overthrown in a military coup that saw the return of civilian government in Syria. For the next few years, Hafez saw active service, training on MiG fighters in Russia and flying air defense missions during the Suez crisis.
Following the formation by Syria and Egypt of the short-lived United Arab Republic in 1958, the air force officer became increasingly politicized, so much so that in March 1963 he played a prominent role in the Ba’athist military coup against Syrian President Nazim Al-Kudsi.
By now, Hafez was in charge of the Syrian Air Force and a member of both the Syrian Regional Command of the Ba’ath Party and the Military Committee, a powerful Ba’athist group within the Syrian military establishment.

KEY DATES OF ASSAD FAMILY RULE

• Oct. 6, 1930: Hafez Assad, son of a poor farmer, is born in Qardaha in northwest Syria.

• 1950: Hafez Assad enters Homs Military Academy.

• February 1966: Hafez Assad appointed defense minister after military coup.

• Nov. 12, 1970: Hafez Assad leads bloodless coup, becoming president of Syria in March 1971.

• June 10, 2000: Hafez Assad dies and is succeeded by his son, Bashar Assad.

• 2012: Protests against Assad’s oppressive regime escalate into civil war.

• Dec. 6, 2024: Era of Assad dynasty ends as Damascus is seized by rebels and Bashar flees to Russia.

In February 1966, the Military Committee overthrew the Ba’ath Party’s ruling National Command, and Hafez was appointed minister of defense by coup leader Salah Jadid, chief of staff of the Syrian army.
For Jadid, the appointment would prove to be a disastrous miscalculation. On Nov. 12, 1970, Hafez mounted his own bloodless coup. At first, at least, his “Corrective Revolution” (Al-Thawra Al-Tashihiyya) appeared to promise a fresh start for all Syrians.
In the words of Patrick Seale, author of the 1988 biography “Assad of Syria: The Struggle for The Middle East,” Hafez’s rule began “with an immediate and considerable advantage: the regime he displaced was so detested that any alternative came as a relief.




Hafez’s basic accomplishment “was to transform the Syrian political order from a coup-ridden, postcolonial, semi-state into a veritable model of all authoritarian stability.” (AFP/File)


“As it was an open secret that he was more liberal than Salah Jadid, his victory ushered in a political honeymoon. People were long to breathe more freely.”
Hafez’s basic accomplishment, according to an assessment of his legacy published in 2005 by the Brookings Institution, “was to transform the Syrian political order from a coup-ridden, postcolonial, semi-state into a veritable model of all authoritarian stability.”
In the process, he established a power structure that defined “fundamental political choices” for his son.
By the time of his death in June 2000, the victim of a cardiac arrest at the age of 69, for 30 years Syria had been in the grip of “a highly developed and coercive police state apparatus,” designed to “put down perceived, potential, and real threats to the regime.”


As a result, “an ongoing record of brutal repression remains an important and inescapable part of Assad’s legacy” — and one that his son would inherit and build upon.
Like his father before him, Bashar sought a career in medicine, studying in Damascus and working as a doctor in the Syrian army before moving to the UK in the 1990s to train as an ophthalmologist.
He was never expected to enter the family business. His father was grooming his eldest son, Bassel, as his successor, but this plan was derailed when Bassel died in a car crash in 1994.




Syrian fighters set alight a picture of  Bashar Al-Assad. (AFP)


Bashar was recalled to Syria, where he entered the military academy in Homs and spent the next six years preparing to succeed his father, surrounding himself with loyal Ba’athist and Alawite supporters in the party and the military.
As the only candidate for the presidency after his father’s death on June 10, 2000, 34-year-old Bashar was a shoo-in — once the Syrian constitution had been amended to lower the age limit for the job from 40.
From the outset, Bashar followed his father’s lead. His first task was to prove himself equal to the job by cracking down ruthlessly on the outbreak of dissent that followed his father’s death.
The demands of protesters, characterized as the “Damascus Spring,” were articulated by the “Statement of 99,” a manifesto signed by intellectuals calling for a new era of freedom of speech and an end to state oppression and imprisonment of political opponents.
Multiple arrests and crackdowns brought about the demise of the Damascus Spring, but the seeds it had sown were only dormant, not dead.




Hafez Al-Assad's sons Maher (R) and Majed (3rd R), his brother Jami (2nd R), son-in-law Syrian General Assef Shawkat (2nd L), and Syrian Baath Party Deputy Secretary General Abdallah al-Ahmar (L). (AFP)


In March 2011, as part of the so-called Arab Spring, a series of mass pro-democracy protests broke out across Syria, with demonstrators demanding the end of the Assad regime.
The protests were met with a brutal crackdown, prompting a descent into what the UN officially declared to be a civil war in June 2012 — a war that has drawn in multiple different players, including Daesh and Al-Qaeda.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, by March this year, 13 years on from the start of the seemingly endless war, Syria’s war has killed more than half a million people. Among them are more than 164,000 civilians, including over 15,000 women and 25,000 children, with millions more displaced from their homes.
In its desperate bid to cling on to power, the Assad regime had used a range of barbaric weaponry, including crude but indiscriminately deadly “barrel bombs,” dropped on civilians from helicopters.
In breach of international law, the regime had also regularly deployed chemical weapons, including the neurotoxin sarin, against civilians and armed factions alike.
In 2012, in a deal to stave off threatened air attacks by the US, brokered by his ally Russia, Assad promised to give up his chemical weapons and join the Chemical Weapons Convention.




Portraits of people allegedly killed during the 1982 Hama massacre. (AFP/File)


But only the following year, in August 2013, shocking photographs emerged of child victims of chemical attacks that had been carried out against areas held by militant groups in the eastern suburbs of Damascus.
Last month, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons revealed that Assad’s pledges to hand over all such weapons had still not been met.
As Western sanctions imposed in the wake of state violence in 2011 bit deeper, the Assad regime became, in effect, a narco-state, increasingly dependent for cash flow on sales of the drug Captagon, which has devastated the lives of so many young people and their families across the Middle East.
As an Arab News Deep Dive published in February 2023 revealed, “the vast majority of the tens of millions of pills flooding the Arabian Peninsula every year are manufactured on the doorstep, mainly in Syria and with the active involvement of the regime of President Bashar Assad.”
Caroline Rose, a senior analyst at New Lines, told Arab News there was no doubt that Captagon was “being produced and trafficked by an array of individuals that are very close to the Assad regime, some of them cousins and relatives of regime members.”
Most notable among them, she said, was Bashar’s brother, Maher, affiliated with production and smuggling efforts in his role as commander of the Fourth Armored Division, a military unit whose primary mission was to protect the Syrian regime from internal and external threats.




People celebrate with anti-government fighters at Umayyad Square in Damascus. (AFP)


Since the start of the Syrian civil war a decade ago, what had begun as a trickle of captagon into the region had turned into a flood. Facing global sanctions that have left it desperate for revenue, the Syrian regime has gone into the drug-manufacturing business, working with Iranian-backed militias in Syria and Lebanon to smuggle industrial quantities of captagon into Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, by land, sea and air.
According to a report published in April 2022 by Washington think tank the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, war-torn Syria had become “the hub for industrial-sized production.” It added that “elements of the Syrian government are key drivers of the Captagon trade, with ministerial-level complicity in production and smuggling, using the trade as a means for political and economic survival amid international sanctions.”




Era of Assad dynasty ends as Damascus is seized by rebels and Basher Assad flees to Russia. (AFP/File)


In a statement in August 2012, US President Barack Obama said Bashar “has lost legitimacy (and) needs to step down. So far, he hasn’t gotten the message, and instead has doubled down in violence on his own people.”
He added: “The international community has sent a clear message that rather than drag his country into civil war he should move in the direction of a political transition. But at this point, the likelihood of a soft landing seems pretty distant.”
Today, with Bashar showing up in Moscow and Damascus in the hands of the rebels, Syrians can only pray that, with the Assad dynasty seemingly out of power after half a century of tyranny, their traumatized country’s long overdue soft landing is, finally, imminent.

 


Lebanon govt source: disarming Palestinian camps to start mid-June

Lebanon govt source: disarming Palestinian camps to start mid-June
Updated 5 sec ago
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Lebanon govt source: disarming Palestinian camps to start mid-June

Lebanon govt source: disarming Palestinian camps to start mid-June
The Lebanese and Palestinian sides agreed on starting a plan “to remove weapons from the camps, beginning mid-June,” the source told AFP
By longstanding convention, the Lebanese army stays out of the Palestinian camps

BEIRUT: The disarmament of Palestinian camps in Lebanon will begin next month based on an accord with visiting Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, a Lebanese government official told AFP on Friday.

The Lebanese and Palestinian sides agreed on starting a plan “to remove weapons from the camps, beginning mid-June in the Beirut camps, and other camps will follow,” the source told AFP, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to brief the media.

By longstanding convention, the Lebanese army stays out of the Palestinian camps — where Abbas’s Fatah movement, militant group Hamas and other armed groups are present — and leaves the factions to handle security.

Abbas has been in Beirut since Wednesday for talks on disarming the Palestinian refugee camps as Lebanon seeks to impose its authority on all its territory.

The deal came during the first meeting of a joint Lebanese-Palestinian committee announced Wednesday to follow up on the situation in the camps.

The meeting was also attended by Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.

A statement from the committee released by the premier’s office said it agreed to “launch the process of handing over weapons according to a specific timetable, accompanied by practical steps to bolster the economic and social rights of Palestinian refugees.”

Lebanon hosts about 222,000 Palestinian refugees, according to the United Nations agency UNRWA, many living in 12 overcrowded official camps.

Most are descendants of Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their land during the creation of Israel in 1948.

They face a variety of legal restrictions in Lebanon, including on employment.

Palestinian faction chiefs quit Damascus amid pressure: faction sources

Palestinian faction chiefs quit Damascus amid pressure: faction sources
Updated 3 min 47 sec ago
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Palestinian faction chiefs quit Damascus amid pressure: faction sources

Palestinian faction chiefs quit Damascus amid pressure: faction sources

DAMASCUS: Two Palestinian sources told AFP Friday the leaders of pro-Iran Palestinian factions who were close to former Tehran-backed ruler Bashar Assad have left Syria under pressure from the new authorities.
The factions, which enjoyed considerable freedom of movement under Assad, have also handed over their weapons, one of the sources said, amid US demands that Syria’s new authorities take steps against Iran-backed Palestinian groups based in the country.
A pro-Iran Palestinian factional leader who left after Assad’s December ouster said on condition of anonymity that “most of the Palestinian factional leadership that received support from Tehran has left Damascus,” while another still based there confirmed the development.
“The factions have fully handed over weapons in their headquarters or with their cadres” to the authorities, who also received “lists of names of faction members possessing individual weapons” and demanded that those arms be handed over, the first added.
A third Palestinian source from a small faction in Damascus confirmed the arms handover.
Those who have left include Khaled Jibril, son of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) founder Ahmad Jibril, as well as Palestinian Popular Struggle Front secretary-general Khaled Abdel Majid and Fatah Al-Intifada secretary-general Ziad Al-Saghir.
Washington, which considers several Palestinian factions to be “terrorist” organizations, last week announced it was lifting sanctions on Syria after earlier saying Damascus needed to respond to demands including suppressing “terrorism” and preventing “Iran and its proxies from exploiting Syrian territory.”
According to the White House, during a meeting in Saudi Arabia last week, US President Donald Trump gave new Syrian leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa a list of demands that included deporting “Palestinian terrorists.”
The first Palestinian factional leader said the chiefs joined up with groups from Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen that are also part of the Iran-backed “Axis of Resistance” against Israel.
A number of Iran-backed groups fought alongside Assad’s forces after civil war erupted in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
Sharaa’s Islamist group led the offensive that ousted Assad, a close ally of Iran, in December.
The factions “did not receive any official request from the authorities to leave Syrian territory” but instead faced restrictions and property confiscations, the first Palestinian factional leader said, noting that some factions “were de facto prohibited from operating” or their members were arrested.
The new authorities have seized property from “private homes, offices, vehicles and military training camps in the Damascus countryside and other provinces,” he said.
The Syrian authorities did not immediately provide comment to AFP when asked about the matter.


Hezbollah seeks boost in Lebanon vote as disarmament calls grow

Hezbollah seeks boost in Lebanon vote as disarmament calls grow
Updated 23 May 2025
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Hezbollah seeks boost in Lebanon vote as disarmament calls grow

Hezbollah seeks boost in Lebanon vote as disarmament calls grow
  • Iran-backed Lebanese militant group aims to maintain political sway after pounding in war with Israel
  • Reconstruction aid for Lebanon tied to Hezbollah disarmament, foreign minister says

NABATIEH: Amid the rubble left by Israeli bombardment of south Lebanon, campaign posters urge support for Hezbollah in elections on Saturday as the group aims to show it retains political clout despite the pounding it took in last year’s war.
For Hezbollah, the local vote is more important than ever, coinciding with mounting calls for its disarmament and continued Israeli airstrikes, and as many of its Shiite Muslim constituents still suffer the repercussions of the conflict.
Three rounds of voting already held this month have gone well for the Iran-backed group. In the south, many races won’t be contested, handing Hezbollah and its allies early wins.
“We will vote with blood,” said Ali Tabaja, 21, indicating loyalty to Hezbollah. He’ll be voting in the city of Nabatieh rather than his village of Adaisseh because it is destroyed.
“It’s a desert,” he said.
The south’s rubble-strewn landscape reflects the devastating impact of the war, which began when Hezbollah opened fire in support of Hamas at the start in October 2023 of the Gaza conflict and culminated in a major Israeli offensive.
Hezbollah emerged a shadow of its former self, with its leaders and thousands of its fighters killed, its influence over the Lebanese state greatly diminished, and its Lebanese opponents gaining sway.
In a measure of how far the tables have turned, the new government has declared it aims to establish a state monopoly on arms, meaning Hezbollah should disarm — as stipulated by the US-brokered ceasefire with Israel.
Against this backdrop, the election results so far indicate “the war didn’t achieve the objective of downgrading Hezbollah’s popularity in the community,” said Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center, a think tank. “On the contrary, many Shia now feel their fate is tied to Hezbollah’s fate.”
Hezbollah’s arms have long been a source of division in Lebanon, sparking a brief civil conflict in 2008. Critics say Hezbollah has unilaterally dragged Lebanon into hostilities.
Foreign Minister Youssef Raji, a Hezbollah opponent, has said that Lebanon has been told there will be no reconstruction aid from foreign donors until the state establishes a monopoly on arms.
Hezbollah, in turn, has put the onus on the government over reconstruction and accuses it of failing to take steps on that front, despite promises that the government is committed to it.

DISARMAMENT TERMS
Hage Ali said that conditioning reconstruction aid on disarmament was intended to expedite the process, but “it’s difficult to see Hezbollah accepting this.”
Hezbollah says its weapons are now gone from the south, but links any discussion of its remaining arsenal to Israel’s withdrawal from five positions it still holds, and an end to Israeli attacks.
Israel says Hezbollah still has combat infrastructure including rocket launchers in the south, calling this “blatant violations of understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”
A French diplomatic source said reconstruction would not materialize if Israel continues striking and the Lebanese government does not act fast enough on disarmament.
Donors also want Beirut to enact economic reforms.
Hashem Haidar, head of the government’s Council for the South, said the state lacks the funds to rebuild, but cited progress in rubble removal. Lebanon needs $11 billion for reconstruction and recovery, the World Bank estimates.
In Nabatieh, a pile of rubble marks the spot where 71-year-old Khalil Tarhini’s store once stood. It was one of dozens destroyed by Israeli bombardment in Nabatieh’s central market.
He has received no compensation, and sees little point in voting. Expressing a sense of abandonment, he said: “The state did not stand by us.”
The situation was very different in 2006, after a previous Hezbollah-Israel war. Aid flowed from Iran and Gulf Arab states.
Hezbollah says it has aided 400,000 people, paying for rent, furniture and renovations. But the funds at its disposal appear well short of 2006, recipients say.
Hezbollah says state authorities have obstructed funds arriving from Iran, though Tehran is also more financially strapped than two decades ago due to tougher US sanctions and the reimposition of a “maximum pressure” policy by Washington.
As for Gulf states, their spending on Lebanon dried up as Hezbollah became embroiled in regional conflicts and they declared it a terrorist group in 2016. Saudi Arabia has echoed the Lebanese government’s position of calling for a state monopoly of arms.
Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said it was up to the government to secure reconstruction funding and that it was failing to take “serious steps” to get the process on track.
He warned that the issue risked deepening divisions in Lebanon if unaddressed. “How can one part of the nation be stable while another is in pain?” he said, referring to Shiites in the south and other areas, including Beirut’s Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs, hard hit by Israel.


At least 60 people killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza as Israel lets minimal aid in

At least 60 people killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza as Israel lets minimal aid in
Updated 6 min 45 sec ago
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At least 60 people killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza as Israel lets minimal aid in

At least 60 people killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza as Israel lets minimal aid in

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: At least 60 people were killed by Israeli strikes across Gaza in a 24-hour period, Gaza’s health ministry said Friday, as Israel pressed ahead with its military offensive and let in minimal aid to the strip.

The dead included 10 people in the southern city of Khan Younis, four in the central town of Deir Al-Balah and nine in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, according to the Nasser, Al-Aqsa and Al-Ahli hospitals where the bodies were brought.

Israel is facing mounting international criticism for its latest offensive and pressure to let aid into Gaza amid a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. The strip has been under an Israeli blockade for nearly three months, according to the United Nations. Experts have warned that many of Gaza’s 2 million residents are at high risk of famine.

Even the United States, a staunch ally, has voiced concerns over the hunger crisis.

The strikes that lasted into Friday morning came a day after Israeli tanks and drones attacked a hospital in northern Gaza, igniting fires and causing extensive damage, Palestinian hospital officials said on Thursday. Videos taken by a health official at Al-Awda Hospital show walls blown away and thick black smoke billowing wreckage.

Israel said it will continue to strike Hamas until all of the 58 Israeli hostages are released — fewer than half of whom are believed to be alive, according to Israel — and until Hamas disarms.

Suspect charged with murder over deaths of Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington

The strikes come a day after two Israeli Embassy staffers were shot while leaving a reception for young diplomats at the Capital Jewish Museum, in Washington, DC. The suspect told police he “did it for Palestine,” according to court documents filed Thursday as he was charged with murder. He didn’t enter a plea.

On Thursday night, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the killings in Washington horrific and blasted France, the UK and Canada for proposing to establish a Palestinian state.

“Because by issuing their demand, replete with a threat of sanctions against Israel — against Israel, not Hamas — these three leaders effectively said they want Hamas to remain in power,” he said.

Earlier this week the three leaders issued one of the most significant criticisms by close allies of Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza and its actions in the West Bank, threatening to take “concrete actions” if the government did not cease its renewed military offensive and significantly lift restrictions on humanitarian aid.

Aid starts entering, but agencies say nothing like enough

Amid pressure, Israel started letting in aid. Israeli officials said Friday they let in more than 100 trucks of aid, including flour, food, medical equipment and drugs. The trucks came in through the Kerem Shalom crossing.

But UN agencies say the amount is woefully insufficient, compared with around 600 trucks a day that entered during a recent ceasefire and that are necessary to meet basic needs. UN agencies say Israeli military restrictions and the breakdown of law and order in Gaza make it difficult to retrieve and distribute the aid. As a result, little of it has so far reached those in need.

The World Food Program said on Friday said that 15 of its trucks were looted Thursday night in southern Gaza while going to WFP-supported bakeries.

It said that hunger and desperation about whether food was coming in is contributing to rising insecurity, and called on Israel to allow greater volumes of food to enter, faster and more efficiently.

Israel says the aid now is to bridge the gap until a US backed initiative starts soon. A group known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation will take over aid distribution in Gaza, and armed private contractors would guard the distribution. Israel says the system is needed because Hamas siphons off significant amounts of aid. The UN denies that claim.

On Friday a Geneva-based advocacy group said it was taking legal action to urge Swiss authorities to monitor the foundation.

TRIAL International, which focuses on international justice, said it made legal submissions to make sure that the privately-run foundation, which is listed in the Geneva commercial registry, abides by Swiss law, notably on the activities of private security groups.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation didn’t immediately respond to request for comment.

No movement on ceasefire negotiations in Doha

Earlier this week, Netanyahu said he was recalling his high-level negotiating team from the Qatari capital, Doha, after a week of ceasefire talks failed to bring results. A working team will remain.

Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said a “fundamental gap” remained between the two parties and that none of the proposals was able to bridge their differences.

Hamas said no real ceasefire talks have taken place since last week in Doha. The group accused Netanyahu of “falsely portraying participation” and attempting to “mislead global public opinion” by keeping Israel’s delegation there without engaging in serious negotiations.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 others. The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.


Israeli settlers sanctioned by UK spotted at illegal West Bank outpost

Israeli settlers sanctioned by UK spotted at illegal West Bank outpost
Tents are set up by Israeli settlers in the Palestinian village of Bruqin, outside the walls of an illegal settlement of the sam
Updated 23 May 2025
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Israeli settlers sanctioned by UK spotted at illegal West Bank outpost

Israeli settlers sanctioned by UK spotted at illegal West Bank outpost
  • Neria Ben Pazi, Zohar Sabah visited site near Palestinian village of Mughayyir Al-Deir
  • Israeli human rights group B’Tselem slams ‘total impunity for soldiers and settlers’

LONDON: Two Israeli settlers sanctioned by the UK this week have taken part in efforts to displace Palestinian families from the West Bank village of Mughayyir Al-Deir.

Neria Ben Pazi and Zohar Sabah were both spotted visiting an illegal outpost set up on Sunday near the community of around 150 Bedouins, The Guardian reported.

Ben Pazi’s organization Neria’s Farm was sanctioned on Tuesday after the UK suspended talks with the Israeli government on a free trade agreement over its blockade of Gaza and the extremist language of several of the country’s ministers. 

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy condemned the actions of the Israeli government and suggestions its military would “purify Gaza,” saying it “has a responsibility to intervene and halt these aggressive actions.”

Ben Pazi was sanctioned in 2024 for his role in displacing other Bedouin families in the West Bank.

According to the US State Department, “Ben Pazi has expelled Palestinian shepherds from hundreds of acres of land. In August 2023, settlers including Ben Pazi attacked Palestinians near the village of Wadi as-Seeq,” The Guardian reported.

His violence in the area even led to Israel’s regional military commander, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fuchs, banning Ben Pazi from entering the West Bank in 2023.

Sabah was sanctioned by the UK for “threatening, perpetrating, promoting and supporting acts of aggression and violence against Palestinian individuals.”

This included his role in an attack on a Palestinian school, which injured teachers and pupils and hospitalized the principal.

The settler outpost in question, less than 100 meters from Palestinian homes at Mughayyir Al-Deir, was also visited by Zvi Sukkot, an MP with the Religious Zionist Party, who caused outrage last week when he told Israel’s Channel 12: “Everyone has got used to the idea that we can kill 100 Gazans in one night during a war and nobody in the world cares.”

Ahmad Sulaiman, a 58-year-old father of 11 children who lives close to the settler outpost, said intimidation had started against his community.

“I haven’t slept since they came, and the children are terrified,” he told The Guardian. “The settlers told me: ‘This is our home.’” He added: “There is nothing I can do. They have guns and other weapons.”

Israeli human rights group B’Tselem says around 1,200 Palestinians have been forced from their homes in the West Bank since Oct. 7, 2023.

Yonatan Mizrachi, co-director of Settlement Watch, said the boldness of settlers despite international sanctions “shows the settlers’ lack of fear, and the understanding that they can do what they like.”

B’Tselem spokesperson Shai Parnes said: “Israeli policy to take as much land as possible hasn’t changed. But what has been changing under this current government is the total impunity for soldiers and settlers.”