Clashes across Syria ahead of Annan’s UN briefing

April 2, 2012

sirya


Beirut, April 2: Syrian government troops clashed with rebel forces across the country Monday as international envoy Kofi Annan prepared to brief the U.N. Security Council on the progress of his mission to ease the nation’s crisis.

A new flurry of high-level diplomacy has failed to stop the violence in a year-old conflict that the U.N. says has killed more than 9,000 people.

On Monday, more than 70 countries, including the United States, pledged to send millions of dollars and communications equipment to opposition groups inside Syria, signaling a growing belief that diplomacy and sanctions alone will not end the repression and push Syrian President Bashar Assad from power.

Participants at an international diplomatic conference in Istanbul on Sunday said Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries are creating a fund to pay Syrian rebels fighters known as the Free Syrian Army and soldiers who defect from the regime. One delegate described the fund as a “pot of gold” to undermine Assad’s army.

Participants confirmed the Gulf plan on condition of anonymity because details were still being worked out. One said the fund would involve several million dollars a month. It is said to be earmarked for salaries, but it was not clear whether there would be any effort to prevent the money from being used to buy arms, an issue that could prompt stronger accusations of military meddling.

Anti-regime activists inside Syria welcomed the news, while worrying that the aid would be too little, too late.

“This is what we have been asking for, but if they had decided to do this months ago, we could have avoided a large number of martyrs,” said Fadi al-Yassin from the northern province of Idlib. “We know that there is no way to topple the regime without force.”

As the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy, Annan has been pushing a six-point plan to end the country’s crisis that includes an immediate daily two-hour halt to fighting so aid can reach suffering civilians. It also calls for an overall cease-fire so all parties can discuss a political solution.

Annan is scheduled to brief the U.N. Security Council in New York on his progress Monday.

The Syrian government has said it accepts his plan while rejecting some of the steps it requires, like withdrawing its troops from towns and cities. Its attacks on opposition areas have continued unabated.

The opposition has also rejected dialogue with the regime, saying it has killed too many people to be part of a solution to the crisis.

While international condemnation of Assad’s crackdown has grown, Russia and China have stood by Assad, twice protecting his regime from censure by the U.N. Security Council. Neither country accepted invitations to Sunday’s conference, dubbed “Friends of the Syrian People.”

On Monday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova criticized the meeting for not including the Syrian government and “many influential groups of Syrian opposition.”

In a statement, she said Annan’s plan — which does not call specifically for Assad to leave office — is the best way to settle the conflict and criticized the moves to help rebel forces.

“The statements and assurances about direct military and logistical support of the military opposition that have been made in Istanbul undoubtedly contradict the task of peaceful settlement of the Syrian conflict,” she said.

Syria also blasted the conference, saying in an editorial in the state-run al-Baath newspaper that the conference sought to “blow up and derail” Annan’s mission.

Violence continued in Syria Monday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three civilians, five rebels and one government soldier were killed in clashes in the northern Idlib province.

In the northern city of Aleppo, explosives stashed in a kiosk blew up, killing one person, the group said, while rebels in the south killed two soldiers at a checkpoint.

Government forces stormed the southern town of Dael, raiding activist homes and setting some on fire, the Observatory said. Another group, the Local Coordination Committees, said more than 20 homes had been damaged.

Residents could not be reached for comment and activists’ claims could not be independently verified. The Syrian government rarely comments on specific incidents and bars most media from working inside the country.

Syria’s uprising began in March 2011 as part of the Arab Spring with peaceful protests calling for political reforms. Assad’s regime sent tanks, snipers and thugs to try to quash the revolt, and many in the opposition have taken up arms to defend themselves and attack government troops.


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News Network
March 28,2025

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Millions of people across Iran and the world took to the streets on International Quds Day, expressing solidarity with Palestinians and condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif, spokesperson for Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and head of the Intifada Committee in Tehran, stated that rallies began at 10:00 a.m. local time (0630 GMT) in over 900 cities across Iran.

Demonstrators from various walks of life carried Iranian and Palestinian flags, as well as banners reading “Free Palestine” and “Al-Quds Must Be Liberated.” Flags of regional resistance groups, including Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (Hashd al-Sha'abi), Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and Yemen’s Ansarullah, were also displayed.

Mass rallies were held across West Asia, including in Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon, as well as in other parts of the world.

Iranian Leaders Condemn Western Stance

Senior Iranian officials participated in the rally in Tehran, where Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf addressed the gathering.

“Iranians have taken to the streets in a massive show of support for Palestine and the Islamic Ummah,” Qalibaf said. “The Palestinian struggle is not just an issue for the Islamic world but a lesson for all of humanity.”

He criticized the West’s response to Israeli actions in Gaza, calling it a stain on Western civilization. “These crimes will be remembered as a lasting ignominy, exposing the West’s duplicity in human rights advocacy,” he added.

Qalibaf also defended the October 7, 2023, Palestinian attack on Israeli-occupied territories, describing Operation al-Aqsa Flood as a “rightful and legitimate response to 77 years of oppression by Israel, the U.S., and Britain.” He further described Israel as a “spare regime” dependent on U.S. support.

Quds Day: A Global Symbol of Resistance

Al-Quds Day, observed annually on the last Friday of Ramadan, was established in 1979 by the late Imam Khomeini to demonstrate solidarity with Palestinians and oppose Israeli occupation. The event has since become a symbol of resistance, with large rallies held worldwide, particularly amid Israel’s ongoing military operations in Gaza and the West Bank.

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News Network
March 20,2025

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Gaza’s health ministry says Israel’s renewed savagery has led to the massacre of at least 970 people in 48 hours.

The wave of deadly airstrikes that shattered a fragile ceasefire in Gaza on Tuesday has so far claimed the lives of at least 970 people across the besieged territory, the health ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

Before the resumption of the offensive, the death toll from the regime’s 15 months of genocidal war recorded by the ministry at midday on March 17 stood at 48,577.

By midday on Wednesday, the figure had risen to 49,547, the ministry said.

The health ministry also registered "one death and five severe injuries among foreign staff working for UN institutions.”

It said Israel attacked a UN headquarters in Deir el-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on Wednesday.

The victims had been taken to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, the health ministry said.

Israel's military denied attacking a UN building in Gaza.

The UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) confirmed the death of one of its staff by an explosive that was "dropped or fired" on its building in Deir el-Balah.

"An explosive ordnance was dropped or fired at the infrastructure and detonated inside the building,” it said, adding that five others were injured.

UNOPS Executive Director Jorge Moreira da Silva said he was "shocked and devastated" by the death of a staff member.

“This was not an accident.”  he said, adding that "attacks against humanitarian premises are a breach of international law."

Bulgaria's foreign ministry said later in the day that one of its citizens working for the United Nations was killed in Gaza, without specifying where in the territory.

Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel threatened on Tuesday that the massacre of women and children in Gaza was “only the beginning.” He stands accused of committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

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Agencies
March 24,2025

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The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned that the tight Israeli blockade on the entry of humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip is pushing the coastal territory closer to an acute hunger crisis.

Philippe Lazzarini made the remarks in a social media post, in which he noted that the siege, which is preventing food, medicines, water and fuel from entering the region, has lasted longer than what was in place in the first phase of the war.

Israel has banned the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza since March 4, following the expiry of the first phase of a ceasefire and an agreement with Hamas resistance movement on the exchange of Israeli captives for Palestinian prisoners.

Lazzarini warned that Gaza’s population depends on imports via Israeli-occupied territories for their survival.

“Every day that passes without the entry of aid means more children go to bed hungry, diseases spread & deprivation deepens,” he said.

“Every day without food inches Gaza closer to an acute hunger crisis,” the UNRWA chief noted.

Lazzarini described the banning of aid as a collective punishment on Gaza’s population – the vast majority of which are children, women and ordinary men.

He called for the siege to be lifted and for humanitarian aid and commercial supplies to be brought into Gaza “uninterrupted and at scale.”

Backed by the United States and its Western allies, Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against the Israeli regime in response to its decades-long campaign of oppression against Palestinians.

The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed at least 50,021 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 113,274 others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under the rubble.

On November 21 last year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its deadly war on the blockaded coastal sliver.

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