Turkey hits Kurds in northern Syria with a cruel weapon: water

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Syrian Kurds queue under blistering heat for water delivered by trucks near the town of Ras Al-Ain in Hasakah, northeastern Syria, after Turkish occupation forces cut off the water supply for their community. (Photo courtesy of Jamal Photography)
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Updated 05 October 2020
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Turkey hits Kurds in northern Syria with a cruel weapon: water

  • Water disruptions in Hasakah spell more suffering for civilians unless Turkish forces withdraw from NE Syria
  • Turkey’s stated aim of creating a safe zone along the border now entails cutting off water as a pressure tactic

DUBAI: Near the town of Ras Al-Ain in Hasakah, in northeastern Syria, empty jerry cans were piled high on the roadside, where women and their restless children waited in the blistering heat for trucks to bring water to their parched community. Just a few days earlier, Turkish occupation forces had once again cut off the water supply from the Alouk pumping station, five kilometers away.

This critical facility normally supplies drinking water to nearly 1 million people in Hasakah. Without it, the province goes thirsty.

“We had no water for a month,” recalled Ahmed Zubair, 22, who works at a local phone shop. “Without water, we can’t protect ourselves against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). This is a reason for the spread of disease, because there’s not enough water for cleaning, only for drinking. This is a danger for children and for society in general.”

Xelil Osman, a local delivery driver, said: “We were delivering water to the people with trucks. The water situation is really bad, and we always worry it won’t be enough for the people. If there is water, we deliver it. But if there is none, we have nothing to deliver.”

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It was no accident of fate that water had to be delivered by road to tens of thousands of Kurdish residents in Ras Al-Ain and surrounding areas in Hasakah for nearly four weeks since Aug. 13.

In October last year, Turkey and its Syrian rebel proxies launched their self-proclaimed Operation Peace Spring, targeting the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeastern Syria. The SDF is mostly made up of members of the People’s Protection Units, which Turkey considers a terror group because of its ideological connection to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, whose armed struggle since 1984 for greater Kurdish rights evolved into an insurgency over time.

The SDF had spearheaded the US-backed coalition campaign against Daesh in northern Syria, destroying the militants’ last holdouts in Deir ez-Zor in March 2019. However, in a “betrayal” that stunned coalition partners and shocked the US foreign-policy establishment, Washington did nothing when Ankara launched a massive assault on the SDF in October 2019, forcing it to withdraw from its positions along the Turkey-Syria border.

Just a few hours into Turkey’s cross-border offensive, artillery shells hit the Alouk pumping station, immediately putting it out of service. Although the facility has since been repaired with international oversight, it remains under Turkish control.

Under the circumstances, the area’s limited water reserves can be exploited at will, regardless of what international humanitarian laws guarding civilian infrastructure say. This puts additional pressure on the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES), which currently administers the area also known as Rojava.




A Kurdish boy takes his turn to get his share of water delivered by trucks near the town of Ras Al-Ain in Hasakah, northeastern Syria. (Photo courtesy of Jamal Photography)

“The NES has dug a few water wells as an alternative, but this does not provide enough water,” Wladimir van Wilgenburg, a political analyst and journalist who covers Kurdish affairs, told Arab News. “The only solution is for the international community to put pressure on the Turkish government to stop cutting off water to parts of northern Syria.”

When the taps ran dry in August, the international community began applying pressure on Ankara, but with little success. James Jeffrey, the US special envoy for Syria, reportedly urged the Turkish leadership to resume water supplies, while Russian military engineers in the area set to work on a pipeline to help quench Ras Al-Ain’s thirst.

Russia backs Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, whose regime is locked in a low-intensity war with Turkish forces in the northwestern province of Idlib and in a three-way contest with the Turks and the SDF over control of northeast Syria.

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Russia is keen to win favor with the Kurds to help promote a diplomatic solution to the civil conflict in Syria. Moscow believes the Kurds must be included in constitutional talks with the regime, otherwise a mutually accepted government and a unified country will not be possible.

The stated aim of Ankara’s Operation Peace Spring was to force the SDF back from the Turkish border by creating a self-declared safe zone reaching some 30 kilometers into Syrian territory.

Almost a year on, and with the US now bolstering its Syria deployments with Sentinel radars, additional fighter patrols, and Bradley Fighting Vehicles in its escalating rivalry with Russia, the area remains anything but safe.




A Turkish military battle tank is seen along the M4 highway, which links the northern Syrian provinces of Aleppo and Latakia, in this March 15, 2020 file photo. (AFP)

“I am from Ras Al-Ain. After Turkey occupied my town and cut off the water from the Alouk pumping station, people in Hasakah, who have already been living in difficult conditions, did not have any water for drinking or washing, and this was all in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis,” Muhammed Baqi, of the Hevy Organization for Relief and Development, told Arab News.

“The Kurdish administration tried to drill a water well called Al-Himme Water Station, but it did not work because the water they drilled was not drinkable — it was only good for washing,” he said. “The amount of water from this well was also not enough. Alouk continues to be the main source for water in Hasakah.”

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Disputes over the supply of electricity to the Alouk pumping station appear to have inflamed an already tense situation.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based watchdog, the Turkish side cut off Hasakah’s water supply to pressure the NES to supply more electricity from its Mabrouka power plant to areas controlled by Turkey’s Syrian proxies. But Turkey’s Ministry of National Defense insisted in early August that Alouka was under maintenance and that Hasakah was continuing to receive water.

“Though the Alouk pumping station has been fixed under international mediation, Turkey regularly cuts the water flow to NES areas and prevents repairs from taking place,” said Thomas McClure, a researcher at the Rojava Information Center.

“Turkey has cut off the water supply from Hasakah 13 times this year, according to the UN, in order to exert political pressure on the NES.

“Most recently, the whole Hasakah region spent two weeks in the sweltering August heat totally without water, and some neighborhoods spent over two months without a drop of water being delivered.”

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As COVID-19 cases rise and temperatures remain high, all efforts to reopen the Alouk pumping station have failed. Meanwhile, the Kurdish Red Crescent and other aid agencies have struggled to find alternative water sources for the region.

The Al-Himme Water Station offers a partial solution for now. “However, it doesn’t cover more than 25 percent of the people’s needs,” said Bassam Al-Ahmad, director of Syrians for Truth and Justice, a nongovernmental organization working on documenting human rights violations in Syria.

“The long-term solution is for Turkey to withdraw from northern Syria. It is Syrian land. At the moment we need a strong international position against Turkish assaults.”

Pressing for justice, local aid agencies say Turkey has not only broken international humanitarian law by denying Hasakah access to running water but has actually committed a war crime. They say that since the water-pumping stations and dams of northeastern Syria are located near the front lines, their protection is vital for the well-being of the local population.

“According to international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, to cut the water supply to a civilian population is a crime against humanity and a war crime,” Sara Montinaro, a lawyer and project manager for the Kurdish Red Crescent, told Arab News.




Residents queue for water near the town of Ras Al-Ain in Hasakah, northeastern Syria, after Turkish occupation forces cut off the water supply for their community. (Photo courtesy of Jamal Photography)

According to the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols, military operations must be conducted in accordance with international humanitarian law and avoid the destruction of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, including water and sanitation.

“With the current COVID-19 situation, the situation on the ground is even worse than before, yet Turkey does not seem to be changing its behavior towards the Syrian Kurds,” Montinaro said.

“There are now several statements from the UN asking Turkey to stop cutting off water from the people, but until now they haven’t done anything. What is happening is a violation of international humanitarian law.”

For now, the women on the roadside near Ras Al-Ain must continue intermittently to rely on water trucked in by road until a more sustainable source can be found and secured — or Turkey lifts its boot off the hose.

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Twitter: @rebeccaaproctor

 


Settlers and Palestinians clash in West Bank village

Updated 7 sec ago
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Settlers and Palestinians clash in West Bank village

  • Several Israeli military jeeps arrived at the scene and soldiers fired a few shots in the air, causing Palestinians to withdraw back to the village

SINJIL, Palestinian Territories: Dozens of Israeli settlers and Palestinians clashed Friday in the occupied West Bank village of Sinjil, where a march against recent settler attacks on nearby farmland was due to take place.
AFP journalists saw local residents and activists begin their march before locals reported that settlers had appeared on a hill belonging to the village.
Palestinian youths marched toward the hill to drive away the settlers, setting a fire at its base while the settlers threw rocks from the high ground.
Local Palestinians told AFP that settlers also started a fire.
Several Israeli military jeeps arrived at the scene and soldiers fired a few shots in the air, causing Palestinians to withdraw back to the village.
Anwar Al-Ghafri, a lawyer and member of Sinjil’s city council, told AFP that such incidents are not new, but have intensified in recent days in the area, just north of the West Bank city of Ramallah.
“A group of settlers, with support and approval from the Israeli army, are carrying out organized attacks on citizens’ land,” he told AFP.
“They assault farmers, destroy crops, and prevent people from reaching or trying to reach their land,” he said, describing the events that had prompted Friday’s march.
The settlers involved in Friday’s clashes could not be reached for comment.

Israeli authorities recently erected a high fence cutting off parts of Sinjil from Road 60, which runs through the entire West Bank from north to south, and which both settlers and Palestinians use.
Mohammad Asfour, a 52-year-old resident, told AFP that the fence was isolating his community, like other Palestinian cities and towns that recently had gates erected by Israel to control access to the outside.
“Sinjil is suffering greatly because of this wall. My house is near it, and so are my brothers’ homes. The settler has the right to come to Sinjil — but the sons of Sinjil aren’t allowed to climb up this hill,” Asfour said.
Violence in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has soared since the Hamas attack of October 2023 triggered the Gaza war.
Since then, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 947 Palestinians, including many militants, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Over the same period, at least 35 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations, according to Israeli figures.
 

 


Syrian authorities evacuate citizens amid major forest fires

Updated 51 min 15 sec ago
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Syrian authorities evacuate citizens amid major forest fires

  • “Our teams recorded losses in the orchards due to the widespread spread of the forest fire in several areas of the Latakia countryside,” the civil defense added, calling on citizens to report anyone they suspect of starting fires

DAMASCUS: Syrian rescuers evacuated residential areas in Latakia province because of major forest fires, authorities said on Friday.
Fires have spreading across large parts of Syria, particularly on the coast, for several days, with firefighters struggling to control them due to strong winds and a drought.
Abdulkafi Kayyal, director of the Directorate of Disasters and Emergencies in Latakia province, told the state SANA news agency that fires in the Qastal Maaf area had moved close to several villages, prompting the evacuations.
Syria’s civil defense warned residents of “the spread of rising smoke emissions to the northern section of the coastal mountains, the city of Hama, its countryside, and southern Idlib areas.”
“Our teams recorded losses in the orchards due to the widespread spread of the forest fire in several areas of the Latakia countryside,” the civil defense added, calling on citizens to report anyone they suspect of starting fires.
Syrian minister of emergency situations and disasters Raed Al-Saleh said on X that he was following events and “we will exert our utmost efforts to combat these fires.”
With man-made climate change increasing the likelihood and intensity of droughts and wildfires worldwide, Syria has been battered by heatwaves, low rainfall and major forest fires.
In June, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization told AFP that Syria had “not seen such bad climate conditions in 60 years,” noting that an unprecedented drought was on course to push more than 16 million people into food insecurity.
The country is also reeling from more than a decade of civil war leading up to the end of the iron-fisted rule of Bashar Assad in December.
Kayyal said the presence of mines and unexploded ordnance was hindering the work of rescuers, along with strong winds spreading the fires.

 


Turkish prosecutors add charges of forging diploma against jailed Istanbul mayor

Updated 04 July 2025
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Turkish prosecutors add charges of forging diploma against jailed Istanbul mayor

  • Imamoglu denies the allegations against him, which his party says are orchestrated to protect Erdogan in power
  • His indictment over his diploma was reported by Milliyet newspaper

ANKARA: Turkish prosecutors charged Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu on Friday with falsifying his university diploma, a new case threatening more years in prison for President Tayyip Erdogan’s main rival, already jailed pending corruption charges he denies.

Imamoglu, at the center of a sprawling legal crackdown on the main opposition party, has been jailed since March 23 pending trial. He denies the allegations against him, which his party says are orchestrated to protect Erdogan in power.

His indictment over his diploma was reported by Milliyet newspaper, which said prosecutors were seeking eight years and nine months of prison time for the new charges. Reuters could not immediately obtain the document.

On March 18, Istanbul University said it had annulled Imamoglu’s diploma. He was detained a day later on the corruption charges, triggering Turkiye’s largest protests in a decade, and later jailed pending trial.

His detention has drawn sharp criticism from opposition parties and some foreign leaders, who call the case politically motivated and anti-democratic. The government denies the case is political.

Imamoglu is the main opposition Republican People’s Party’s presidential candidate in any future election. He won re-election as mayor in March last year by a wide margin against a candidate from Erdogan’s ruling AK Party.


Gaza’s Nasser Hospital operating as ‘one massive trauma ward’

Updated 04 July 2025
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Gaza’s Nasser Hospital operating as ‘one massive trauma ward’

  • 613 killed at aid distribution sites, near humanitarian convoys, says UN human rights office

GENEVA: Nasser Hospital in Gaza is operating as “one massive trauma ward” due to an influx of patients wounded at non-UN food distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

The US- and Israeli-backed GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of deliveries that the UN says is neither impartial nor neutral. It has repeatedly denied that incidents involving people killed or wounded at its sites have occurred.
The GHF said on Friday that “the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys,” and said the UN and humanitarian groups should work “collaboratively” with the GHF to “maximize the amount of aid being securely delivered into Gaza.” The UN in Geneva was immediately available for comment.

FASTFACT

Hundreds of patients, mainly young boys, were being treated for traumatic injuries, including bullet wounds to the head, chest, and knees, according to the WHO.

Referring to medical staff at the Nasser Hospital, Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the West Bank and Gaza, told reporters in Geneva: “They’ve seen already for weeks, daily injuries ... (the) majority coming from the so-called safe non-UN food distribution sites. The hospital is now operating as one massive trauma ward.”
Israel lifted an 11-week aid blockade on Gaza on May 19.
The UN human rights office said on Friday that it had recorded at least 613 killings, both at aid points run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and near humanitarian convoys.
“We have recorded 613 killings, both at GHF points and near humanitarian convoys — this is a figure as of June 27. Since then ... there have been further incidents,” Ravina Shamdasani, the spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in Geneva.
The OHCHR said 509 of the 613 were killed near GHF distribution points. The GHF dismissed these numbers as coming “directly from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry” and were being used to “falsely smear” its effort.
The GHF has previously said it has delivered more than 60 million meals to hungry Palestinians in five weeks “safely and without interference,” while other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted.”
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that there have been some instances of violent looting and attacks on aid truck drivers, which it described as unacceptable.
Hundreds of patients, mainly young boys, were being treated for traumatic injuries, including bullet wounds to the head, chest, and knees, according to the WHO.
Peeperkorn said health workers at Nasser Hospital and testimonies from family members and friends of those wounded confirmed that the victims had been trying to access aid at sites run by the GHF.
Peeperkorn recounted the cases of a 13-year-old boy shot in the head, as well as a 21-year-old with a bullet lodged in his neck, which rendered him paraplegic.
“There is no chance for any reversal or any proper treatment. Young lives are being destroyed forever,” Peeperkorn said, urging for the fighting to stop and for more food aid to be allowed into Gaza.

 


French President Macron and Malaysian PM reaffirm calls for Gaza ceasefire

Updated 04 July 2025
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French President Macron and Malaysian PM reaffirm calls for Gaza ceasefire

  • “Our two countries are urging, more than ever, for a ceasefire,” said Macron

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim reaffirmed on Friday their calls for a ceasefire in the fighting in Gaza, as Macron hosted Ibrahim in Paris.

“Our two countries are urging, more than ever, for a ceasefire, the release of the hostages, and for aid to get through,” said Macron, referring to Israeli hostages held by Hamas.