In Gaza, a war with no endgame leads to a humanitarian collapse
On Saturday, Israeli soldiers fired at a crush of Palestinians seeking food from Israeli-supported contractors, killing an estimated 32 people. On Sunday, 93 Palestinians were reported killed when Israeli soldiers opened fire on a melee of civilians desperate for supplies from a U.N. food convoy.
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Washington Post
23 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Syrian-American executed during violence in Sweida, relatives say
BEIRUT — A 35-year old Syrian-American man was among hundreds of people killed during sectarian violence in southern Syria last week — executed by gunmen after being seized, along with other relatives, from his family home in the city of Sweida, relatives and U.S. lawmakers said. The slain man, Hosam Saraya, a member of the Druze religious minority, had been living in Oklahoma but returned to Syria last year, relatives said. Hala Saraya, a cousin, identified Hosam as one of several men seen in videos that circulated on the internet, showing gunmen, some wearing fatigues, spraying gunfire at Hosam and his relatives as they were forced to kneel in a square in the city on July 16. Eight members of the family were killed, the relatives said. State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce confirmed Saraya's death during a briefing Tuesday and identified him as a U.S. citizen. In a post on X on Monday, Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma), said Saraya was 'tragically executed alongside other members of his family in Syria.' The violence in Sweida, a Druze-majority city, was some of the most brutal in Syria since December, when rebel forces toppled Bashar al-Assad, the country's longtime dictator. It began on July 12, with fighting between local Druze and Sunni Muslim Bedouin factions, and drew in government fighters, Sunni tribesmen and Israel, which carried out airstrikes against Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa's government, targeting both state buildings and military units. Human rights groups said hundreds of people were killed during days of fighting, during clashes and at the hands of fighters who carried out summary killings. Government forces were seen in cellphone videos of the chaos, abusing or humiliating Druze men, in scenes that underscored fears among Syria's minority communities about the rule of the country's new Islamist government, and the fighters who served under it, including hard-line Islamist militants. In Sweida, the nature of the Syrian government's intervention, as well as the Israeli airstrikes, 'exacerbated,' the fighting, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing released Tuesday. The group warned of the risk of sectarian retaliation and the catastrophic humanitarian conditions that persist in the city, despite a ceasefire. The clashes 'caused widespread disruptions to electricity, water, and health care, and ignited sectarian hate speech and the risk of reprisals against Druze communities across the country,' the group said. Saraya's relatives said the men who seized Hosam and seven of his family members identified themselves as government forces. The Washington Post could not immediately identify the gunmen seen in videos of the events that day, including one in which Hosam and his relatives are marched down a street with their arms raised, and another in which they are killed. In response to questions about the killings, Noureddine Baba, a spokesman for Syria's interior ministry, did not speak specifically about Saraya's murder but said 'we reject any violation or any killing that is committed against any innocent civilian.' Any 'unit of the Syrian government involved in this must be held legally accountable,' he added. In a statement later Tuesday, the ministry said it 'condemns in the strongest terms the circulating videos showing field executions carried out by unidentified individuals in the city of Sweida.' An 'urgent investigation' had been launched to identify and arrest the perpetrators, it added. Saraya, who studied finance and accounting at Damascus University, moved to the United States about a decade ago to pursue graduate studies, earning an MBA at Oklahoma Christian University, said a relative who spoke on the condition of anonymity for safety reasons. Saraya, who worked as an operations manager at a senior home care company for a few years, lived alone, liked to make tabbouleh and spent a lot of time in the gym. 'He was very funny, he was very outgoing. He was a positive, positive person,' the relative said, adding that Saraya returned to Syria about a year and a half ago, to care for his father, who was ill, and to start an online school in Sweida. The relative, relaying a chronology passed along from other family members in Sweida, said the gunmen showed up to the Saraya family house around 6 a.m., taking the men away, including Hosam, his younger brother Kareem, their father and other relatives. The gunmen returned sometime later, threatening the women in the house, who pleaded for the lives of Hosam and the other men. It was not clear whether they had already been killed. The gunmen threatened violence, and stole jewelry, the relative said. Later, another group of gunmen menaced the house, also identifying themselves as state security forces. What 'barbarians or monsters can do that,' the relative said. 'We do not trust the government at all to protect us.' As Sweida counted its dead this week, Syria was still reckoning with the legacy of a previous massacre, in March, of hundreds of people in the country's coastal region, a heartland of Syria's Alawite minority. A committee named to investigate the killings presented its highly anticipated findings Tuesday at a news conference in Damascus, saying the massacre began after Assad loyalists ambushed and killed 238 government forces, triggering a massive government response, of some 200,000 forces loyal to Sharaa, some of whom carried out killings and other crimes. The report found that 1,426 people were killed, mostly civilians. While the committee found that violations by pro-government forces were not the result of orders given by the country's leadership, it also found that 'the state's actual control during the period covered by the report was partial and sometimes nonexistent,' said Yasser al-Farhan, a spokesman for the committee, adding that the government was still rebuilding security and military installations after Assad's fall. The committee identified 298 people linked to pro-government factions it said perpetrated the violations. They were not named Tuesday but Jumaa al-Anzi, the committee chair, said the perpetrators would be referred to the public prosecutor. The report was given to Sharaa, but not released publicly. John Hudson in Washington contributed to this report.
Fox News
23 minutes ago
- Fox News
Huckabee hits back at Western countries that 'side' with terror group Hamas
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee lashed out at almost 30 Western countries who on Monday called for Israel to end the war in Gaza, saying in a post on X that "when Hamas thinks you do good work, you are doing evil." "How embarrassing for a nation to side w/ a terror group like Hamas & blame a nation whose civilians were massacred for fighting to get hostages released," wrote Huckabee after Hamas – whose Oct. 7, 2023, mass terror attack on Israel sparked the ongoing war in Gaza – said it welcomed "the contents of the joint statement issued by the United Kingdom Government along with 25 other countries, calling for an immediate end to the war on the Gaza Strip." The U.S. and EU-designated terror group also reiterated its claims that Israel was carrying out a "policy of starvation" on the coastal enclave amid unverified reports that people have died due to hunger-related reasons. Fox News Digital has not been able to independently verify such reports. "The statement's condemnation of the killing of over 800 Palestinian civilians at the gates of U.S.-Israeli-controlled aid checkpoints underscores the brutality of this mechanism," Hamas wrote following a statement issued by the U.K. Foreign Office and U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy. "The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths," read Lammy's statement, which was also signed by the foreign ministers of 28 countries. "If Hamas embraces you – you are in the wrong place," Israel's Foreign Minister Gidon Saar responded on X. "Hamas's praise for the statement by the group of countries is the best proof of the mistake they made – part of them out of good intentions and part of them out of an obsession against Israel." Since launching a new model for food aid distribution in the war-torn strip in early May, Israel and the U.S. have come under fire from the international community over near-daily reports of people dying while attempting to receive aid or not receiving any aid at all. Israel has refuted claims that there is hunger in Gaza or that it is using starvation as a tactic of the now 22-month-old war. Rather, officials have said they are working to prevent Hamas from stealing aid being distributed by veteran, mostly U.N.-run, humanitarian agencies and sold for exorbitant prices in a bid to continue funding terror operations. Israel, which is tasked with securing routes to four aid centers run by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund, has also denied that its soldiers intentionally kill Palestinian civilians but is rather issuing warning shots as a measure of crowd control. The GHF has so far delivered some 85 million meals since it started its aid operation in May. U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said on Monday that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres "deplored the growing reports of both children and adults suffering from malnutrition and strongly condemned the ongoing violence, including the shooting, killing and injuring of people attempting to get food." "As someone who has spent over 40 years in Israel's Security Establishment – both as IDF Chief of Staff & Minister of Defense, I can say this unequivocally: Not only has Israel never starved or targeted civilians, but it goes above and beyond to protect civilians in the most complex of war zones like Gaza," Israeli opposition leader Benny Gantz wrote on X. "We must be clear – culpability for harm inflicted to civilians rests on terrorist Hamas and Hamas only," he added. On Tuesday, Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza, said in a statement that "twenty-one children have died due to malnutrition and starvation in various areas across the Gaza Strip." "Every moment, new cases of malnutrition and starvation are arriving at Gaza's hospitals," he said. Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv who has been monitoring the situation in Gaza closely, told Fox News Digital that he was "not aware of a single official report that people died because of starvation or hunger." "I'm not familiar with any such report, but I am familiar with many warnings that were published by international organizations about the catastrophe that exists in Gaza and how in two months or so, 40 or 50,000 people will die because of hunger, but nobody has died because of hunger, because there is no hunger," he said, adding, "if there are some local problems of supply, it is because of Hamas – not because of the IDF." Michael, who is also a fellow at the Misgav Institute in Jerusalem, pointed out that Hamas "loots, robs and steals the humanitarian aid, partially for themselves, to feed themselves and the rest is sold in very high prices to the local population in order to make money." Israel's goal of weakening Hamas's grip on the Strip – and on aid agencies – appeared to be working on Monday, with The Washington Post reporting that the terror group "is facing its worst financial and administrative crisis in its four-decade history" and is struggling to find the resource it needs to continue fighting Israel or rule Gaza. Quoting a former high-level Israeli intelligence officer, and current Israel Defense Forces officers, the report said that Hamas could no longer pay its fighters or rebuild its underground terror tunnels, where it is believed to be holding some 50 hostages, both alive and dead, who kidnapped during its Oct. 7 attack.
Fox News
23 minutes ago
- Fox News
Huckabee hits back at Western countries for ‘siding' with terror group Hamas
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee lashed out at almost 30 Western countries who on Monday called for Israel to end the war in Gaza, saying in a post on X that "when Hamas thinks you do good work, you are doing evil." "How embarrassing for a nation to side w/ a terror group like Hamas & blame a nation whose civilians were massacred for fighting to get hostages released," wrote Huckabee after Hamas – whose Oct. 7, 2023, mass terror attack on Israel sparked the ongoing war in Gaza – said it welcomed "the contents of the joint statement issued by the United Kingdom Government along with 25 other countries, calling for an immediate end to the war on the Gaza Strip." The U.S. and EU-designated terror group also reiterated its claims that Israel was carrying out a "policy of starvation" on the coastal enclave amid unverified reports that people have died due to hunger-related reasons. Fox News Digital has not been able to independently verify such reports. STUDY CLAIMS US NEWS OUTLETS SERVED AS 'MEGAPHONES' FOR HAMAS IN GAZA WAR "The statement's condemnation of the killing of over 800 Palestinian civilians at the gates of U.S.-Israeli-controlled aid checkpoints underscores the brutality of this mechanism," Hamas wrote following a statement issued by the U.K. Foreign Office and U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy. "The suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths," read Lammy's statement, which was also signed by the foreign ministers of 28 countries. "If Hamas embraces you – you are in the wrong place," Israel's Foreign Minister Gidon Saar responded on X. "Hamas's praise for the statement by the group of countries is the best proof of the mistake they made – part of them out of good intentions and part of them out of an obsession against Israel." Since launching a new model for food aid distribution in the war-torn strip in early May, Israel and the U.S. have come under fire from the international community over near-daily reports of people dying while attempting to receive aid or not receiving any aid at all. Israel has refuted claims that there is hunger in Gaza or that it is using starvation as a tactic of the now 22-month-old war. Rather, officials have said they are working to prevent Hamas from stealing aid being distributed by veteran, mostly U.N.-run, humanitarian agencies and sold for exorbitant prices in a bid to continue funding terror operations. US-BACKED GAZA AID GROUP LAUNCHES BOLD NEW SYSTEM TO DELIVER FOOD DIRECTLY TO FAMILIES Israel, which is tasked with securing routes to four aid centers run by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Fund, has also denied that its soldiers intentionally kill Palestinian civilians but is rather issuing warning shots as a measure of crowd control. The GHF has so far delivered some 85 million meals since it started its aid operation in May. U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said on Monday that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres "deplored the growing reports of both children and adults suffering from malnutrition and strongly condemned the ongoing violence, including the shooting, killing and injuring of people attempting to get food." "As someone who has spent over 40 years in Israel's Security Establishment – both as IDF Chief of Staff & Minister of Defense, I can say this unequivocally: Not only has Israel never starved or targeted civilians, but it goes above and beyond to protect civilians in the most complex of war zones like Gaza," Israeli opposition leader Benny Gantz wrote on X. "We must be clear – culpability for harm inflicted to civilians rests on terrorist Hamas and Hamas only," he added. HAMAS LOSING IRON GRIP ON GAZA AS US-BACKED GROUP GETS AID TO PALESTINIANS IN NEED On Tuesday, Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza, said in a statement that "twenty-one children have died due to malnutrition and starvation in various areas across the Gaza Strip." "Every moment, new cases of malnutrition and starvation are arriving at Gaza's hospitals," he said. Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv who has been monitoring the situation in Gaza closely, told Fox News Digital that he was "not aware of a single official report that people died because of starvation or hunger." "I'm not familiar with any such report, but I am familiar with many warnings that were published by international organizations about the catastrophe that exists in Gaza and how in two months or so, 40 or 50,000 people will die because of hunger, but nobody has died because of hunger, because there is no hunger," he said, adding, "if there are some local problems of supply, it is because of Hamas – not because of the IDF." Michael, who is also a fellow at the Misgav Institute in Jerusalem, pointed out that Hamas "loots, robs and steals the humanitarian aid, partially for themselves, to feed themselves and the rest is sold in very high prices to the local population in order to make money." CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Israel's goal of weakening Hamas's grip on the Strip – and on aid agencies – appeared to be working on Monday, with The Washington Post reporting that the terror group "is facing its worst financial and administrative crisis in its four-decade history" and is struggling to find the resource it needs to continue fighting Israel or rule Gaza. Quoting a former high-level Israeli intelligence officer, and current Israel Defense Forces officers, the report said that Hamas could no longer pay its fighters or rebuild its underground terror tunnels, where it is believed to be holding some 50 hostages, both alive and dead, who kidnapped during its Oct. 7 attack.
