the syrian civil war what is fueling the violence essay

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Understanding the logic behind the Syrian regime’s violence

Fadi Adleh , Emma Beals , Tom Rollins , Nada Ismael

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The Syrian state’s persecution of the population has been well documented throughout the country's more than 11-year conflict through a voluminous stream of victims’ testimonies. Less well understood is the logic behind the violence — who the regime targets and why they inflict such harm. Why do violence and persecution continue against some groups, even after a reduction in immediate conflict hostilities or when they now live as refugees outside of the country?

While individual victims experience random and arbitrary violence (mass detention, shelling, siege, and displacement), the collective experience of the wider group (family, kinship group, neighborhood, town, civil or political organization, etc) speaks to targeted violence, perpetrated in multiple forms by the regime. The violence and persecution against these groups is consistent over time and continues to this day.

The most conflict-affected groups have significant correlations between multiple conflict harms. High numbers of detentions in a family correlate to high numbers of casualties, missing, wanted, and displaced. The targeting then ripples out to those around them. For many of the most affected, their collective experience stretches back over an extended period that predates 2011 — in many cases spanning generations — and has continued past the peak of the conflict violence until today, even when many of these families and communities were forced into exile. As a result, communities and families are now irreversibly splintered by loss, exile, and polarization.

Through detailed analysis of four communities in Syria — Zabadani, Douma, Mlieha, and Deir as-Afir — it has been possible to establish a nascent architecture for understanding the violence and lived experience of each studied area. These areas provide a snapshot that illuminates clear patterns that are likely repeated across the country. Drawing on over a dozen data sets comprising tens of thousands of datapoints, dozens of representative qualitative interviews with affected families as well as key informants, and experiences and data from community groups, civil society organizations (CSOs), documentation organizations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) relating to these four communities, it has been possible to understand how conflict and security state actions have impacted them, but also how the continuation of persecution into the post-hostility period has changed communities and individuals’ intentions to return in the future.

High correlation between conflict harms

The studied areas are representative of a category of highly affected communities, where a relatively large segment of the population joined the protest movement in 2011, they saw incidents of mass violence and were besieged during the conflict with varying degrees of intensity, until the point of so-called reconciliation (when those who stayed behind agreed to a rigid security screening, and those who disagreed were forcibly displaced).

In each of the studied geographical areas, the correlation of harms to the most affected families, and the variation in levels of harm between families, diverge from a model that would be expected in the case of indiscriminate, collateral damage to co-located groups. Instead, the data, both quantitative and qualitative, describes a pattern of targeting over a long period of time — in many cases decades — before the current conflict. This violence manifests in a multitude of ways: detentions, massacres, displacement, asset freezes, and housing, land, and property (HLP) grievances. Moreover, it shows a pattern of spreading from a core group to their first and second tier of social groups, on lines of kinship, township, and civil or political organization.

In Zabadani, the families with the highest levels of detention by 2015 were also the families with the largest numbers of displaced households in Lebanon and Idlib, according to a non-exhaustive dataset of displaced families in those areas (see table below). Conflict casualties, too, correlate strongly with these two outcomes.

Table 1 - Zabadani: Numbers detained, missing & displaced

In Douma, these patterns also held true — despite the available data sources differing from those in Zabadani — with detainees, conflict casualties, and names on leaked wanted lists all correlating heavily within the most affected families in the area (see table below). The patterns are the same in the datasets studied in the southern sectors of Eastern Ghouta as well.

Table 2 - Douma : Numbers detained, missing & displaced

In each case, the levels of conflict-affectedness vary significantly between families, but even at the 20, 30, or 50th most affected family level, multiple conflict harms have been wrought on these same groups.

In qualitative interviewing of a representative group of the most affected families in each area, the logic and impact of these experiences came to light. For most, their response to the conflict violence was displacement, often fleeing multiple times. This began with seeking temporary shelter in less conflict-affected areas of their wider neighborhood to avoid violent crackdowns on protests or indiscriminate shelling. A tipping point in the targeting came with mass atrocity violence, both at the local and national levels, and for many it was massacres, or arbitrary arrests of loved ones that became forced disappearances, that eventually drove them further and further from home until they reached the northwest, neighboring states, or Europe.

While the violence is highly targeted, the number of highly targeted families and communities is huge. In each studied area, tens of families, spanning many branches and generations, were highly affected. Together, they represent large percentages of the population. Within these most affected groups, the violence and persecution continued even after they fled. Indeed, the level of targeting suggests an attempt to annihilate certain families, if not through death, then through detention or permanent exile.

Characteristics of affected groups

In many of the most conflict-affected families, grievances with the regime predate the conflict, with families’ early peaceful opposition activities sometimes the result of decades of persecution. For others, who had no pre-war issues with the regime and did not immediately join the revolution, it was the regime's own mass-casualty violence that ensnared their families and communities in subsequent targeted violence and persecution. In all cases, violence adapted to the circumstances.

The pervasiveness of pre-war persecution of some of the most conflict-affected families came through strongly in qualitative interviews. Arrests and harassment of family members in the 1970s, 1980s, and 2000s was a common theme, for both well-known reasons, such as the regime's crackdowns on various political groups and human rights defenders, and lesser-known hyper-local reasons, such as participation in small protests against impunity and corruption among local security actors. These grievances naturally led to participation in the early protests, which in turn raised the security sector's ire and put these families in its crosshairs from the start of the uprising. Violence then spread to their direct community and civil and political networks, suggesting an extreme policy of collective punishment that is similar to disciplinary tactics used by other police states to subjugate their populations.

This broad-brush approach to groups and communities began to condemn more families as the conflict's violence became entrenched. In Zabadani, early detentions in 2011 were generally short but violent. After fighting broke out in the town, alongside the uprising's broader pivot to conflict, a 2013 ceasefire saw civilians attempting to return to their homes arrested en masse at checkpoints, at which time the detained were disappeared. In June 2012, one family in Douma that had not previously experienced arbitrary detentions and did not sense any targeting by the regime lost 21 members in a massacre carried out by regime forces and militias. From that night on, the family was unable to cross checkpoints and more than a dozen of its members were forcibly disappeared, with 15 appearing on leaked wanted lists in 2018. In other areas, such as the southern sector, the regime's pivot from targeting individuals and families with pre-war grievances to mass and indiscriminate violence and detention that then drew groups into the regime's vengeful persecution ultimately drove many who had previously laid low during the early uprising to protest, fight, or flee.

In all cases, the violence adapted to the circumstances. Massacres and detentions peaked before frontlines solidified, at which point siege and indiscriminate conflict violence became the primary modes of regime violence. Both phases caused displacement, often multiple displacements, until these highly conflict-affected communities were eventually displaced to the northwest or outside the country altogether. Where wanted list data is available, it suggests that further violence awaits those within, or associated with, these groups if they were to return to Syria.

Post-hostility violence and persecution

The most affected groups continued to be targeted during the so-called reconciliation process itself. This happened first through forced displacements, wherein tens of thousands of those described in this research boarded buses to the northwest. In Eastern Ghouta, many of those who remained were processed through shelters for internally displaced persons (IDPs), where as many as 1,500 people were arrested by security branches and 1,200 arbitrarily detained and transferred to Adra Central Prison between March 2018 and February 2019. Some 500 of these people were still unaccounted for months after their arrest. In one area of Eastern Ghouta's southern sector, from a group of 600 households that remained behind, 156 arrests were reported. The arrests began in the collective shelters, but have continued up until the present. Of those arrested, 45% remain missing, their fates unknown. In 2018, 278 arrests were recorded by the Syrian Network for Human Rights in Douma, and 189 arrests in the southern sector. Moreover, when the targeting had the effect of almost totally displacing the remaining family members during reconciliation processes, data on post-reconciliation detentions showed whole new groupings of families were targeted.

While the available information highlights a continuation of the violence, the limits of monitoring the security of targeted communities within regime-controlled areas mean that it likely significantly underestimates the ongoing concerns.

Post-hostility information suggests that the most conflict-affected families either never wished to return or have faced multiple additional harms while displaced or during early-return experiences, and in some cases these have changed their long-term intentions. In Ghouta, few expressed any intention to return to Syria and most did not have distant relatives returning at this time. In Zabadani, small numbers of early “organized” returns from Lebanon have highlighted the challenges the targeted groups face.

In addition to detention, conflict violence, and displacement, a range of bureaucratic and legal processes are used to continue the targeting of these affected groups. HLP issues, denial of aid and services, civil litigation, demolition of property, asset seizures, and laws and bureaucratic measures are among the range of tools deployed by the regime and its supporters to continue to persecute and disenfranchise the most conflict-affected. While some affected families that had seen early returns reported detentions, others said that they had been unable to maintain employment or switch electricity and internet on in their homes as the municipality or community sought to “punish” them for the perceived actions of their relatives. Others could not access humanitarian programming, subsidized goods, or other basic needs because of their legal status. The use of civil lawsuits was also reported, with malicious claims used to imprison and disenfranchise these same families and communities.

Across all areas, people reported that regime actors required individuals remaining in Syria to disown relatives in the northwest deemed to be “terrorists” to prove they should not be punished for their relatives’ perceived transgressions. Even these drastic actions did not result in property and assets seized or frozen by the regime being returned to the remaining family. Many of those affected reported that their property and assets were inaccessible to them both inside and outside the country, due to seizures or freezes. This leaves affected communities without their personal or family resources and vulnerable to exploitation. A broader range of HLP issues were reported by the affected communities, ranging from destruction to occupation and expropriation.

Lists of people wanted by the Syrian security services from some of the affected areas leaked online in 2018 and indicate a continuation of the same patterns of targeting. In addition, wanted lists highlighted new targets that had not appeared in detentions data earlier in the conflict, but had come into the regime's view during the besiegement period. Moreover, it was possible to discern which agencies had referred individuals to wanted lists; while the primary referring entities were security branches, in areas where agricultural and light industry sectors, and land use issues around these sectors, formed conflict drivers, line ministries such as the Ministry of Local Administration and the Environment and the Ministry of Industry referred the third-largest numbers of individuals onto wanted lists. This suggests that HLP and economic persecution and the authorities that carry it out are not simply a bureaucratic or conceptual extension of the security sector's framework for persecution of targeted groups, but instead active participants in the security apparatus.

In some cases, post-hostility targeting is altering intentions. In one example, a female-headed household in Lebanon that had lost the male head of household to detention in 2013 had also lost multiple brothers and brothers-in-law to detention and death by torture during the conflict. In 2021, her brother returned and was detained, at which time she chose to send her nearly-of-age son to Europe via Belarus to avoid losing another generation of men to the regime's violence in the event he was picked up and deported from Lebanon. Her son became trapped in Belarus, however, before being sent to a camp in Russia. For such families, decisions about returning to Syria are not about the parameters or veracity of a “reconciliation” agreement, but rather visceral fear born of decades of lived experience spanning generations and multiple family branches that have been harmed or killed by the regime.

Concerns for the future

The report findings provide significant reason to believe that for these highly conflict-affected families and communities, discussions around return to Syria, or eventual political transition or settlement, must take into account the likelihood of future mass atrocity violence against them.

While the research focused on four communities, similarities in the level of targeting and repeated patterns and reported base data on detentions, massacres, and displacement across all areas suggest that while further research is required, it is likely that this pattern would hold for villages, towns, cities, and neighborhoods with similar conflict experiences across Syria, including Homs, al-Tadamon, Qusayr, Darayya, Qaboun, Khan Sheikhoun, and so on. Moreover, communities of concern for the regime without a shared geographical footprint, such as those sharing political beliefs or professions deemed to be of threat, would likely see a similar pattern too. Extrapolated out, the targeted groups form tens of thousands of missing and disappeared and millions of displaced. Many find themselves in these circumstances because of collective punishment against communities, or even because of their proximity to the regime's own mass atrocity violence.

For many policymakers and diplomats, Syria’s now-frozen conflict — and the mass displacement crisis surrounding it — is seen as comparable to an environment like pre-2021 Afghanistan. Instead, this research suggests that the long-term picture for returns to Syria has more in common with Myanmar, where a premature return of Rohingya refugees and IDPs to Rahkine Province resulted in enduring rights abuses that gave way to further mass atrocity violence, genocide, and displacement.

This research does not just hold lessons for the refugee and IDP returns picture, but raises questions about the increasingly widely accepted framing of the violence as authoritarian over-reach combined with a now-reduced violent conflict. With many now accepting that Bashar al-Assad will remain in power, calculations are being made about the level and breadth of political and behavioral reforms that might be deemed acceptable or feasible. This research suggests that while any reforms would still be welcome, if achievable, at a small scale they will have little meaningful impact on the ability to reintegrate Syria's three territories into a single state, or to allow Syrians to safely return to their home country.

This article is drawn from detailed research originally produced as part of the European Institute of Peace's Syria policy program, with support from the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Original research authored by Fadi Adleh, Emma Beals, Tom Rollins, and Nada Ismael, with contributions from a wide range of civil society organizations, documentation organizations, researchers, NGOs, community networks, and individuals, whose safety is paramount, but whose involvement has been critical to these efforts.

Photo by LOUAI BESHARA/AFP via Getty Images

The Middle East Institute (MEI) is an independent, non-partisan, non-for-profit, educational organization. It does not engage in advocacy and its scholars’ opinions are their own. MEI welcomes financial donations, but retains sole editorial control over its work and its publications reflect only the authors’ views. For a listing of MEI donors, please click her e .

Explainer: the Syrian war in one short, easy read

Research Fellow in Conflict Transformation and Social Justice, Queen's University Belfast

Disclosure statement

Julie M Norman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Queen's University Belfast provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation UK.

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Often described as a “complex web ”, the Syrian war involves numerous actors, dozens of seemingly contradictory alliances and rapidly changing dynamics. But while the war is indeed complicated, making sense of it is crucial to understanding the recent Paris attacks, the refugee crisis in Europe, and the continuing turmoil in the region. Here are the basics – decoded.

How it started

The Syrian “war” began in March 2011, during the Arab Spring, when Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government forces launched a violent crackdown against protesters in the city of Daraa . Protests escalated and the regime responds with mass arrests, torture and killings.

In July 2011, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) emerged as the first major rebel group to battle the regime. Comprised largely of defectors from the Syrian armed forces, the FSA’s early successes in seizing military bases and equipment quickly escalated the conflict. By early 2012, it was a full-blown civil war.

How it escalated

Early 2012 also saw the formation of a very different rebel group, Jabhat al-Nusra (the Nusra Front), an off-shoot of the notoriously sectarian group al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Though not the only new group to emerge at this time (the US Defense Intelligence Agency estimates that more than 1,000 rebel groups were operating in Syria by 2013), the Sunni Jabhat al-Nusra quickly changed the dynamic, unleashing suicide bombings and turning the conflict increasingly sectarian.

The Syrian war did not begin as a sectarian conflict, but it quickly became one, especially with the encroachment of regional actors. By mid-2012, the weakening Assad regime was buoyed by direct assistance from long-time (Shia) ally, Iran , and then by fighters from Iran-backed Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.

Meanwhile, seeking the upper hand in their regional cold war with Iran, Sunni Gulf states, such as Qatar and later Saudi Arabia, began supporting Sunni Islamist rebel groups, including Jabhat al-Nusra, with a steady flow of arms and cash.

Meanwhile, the Kurdish minority in north-east Syria, which had so far avoided involvement, declared its own autonomous region in Rojava, in opposition to both Assad and the other rebel groups.

From bad to worse

Exploiting fractures and rivalries among rebel forces, Assad pummelled opposition, militants and civilians alike – and in August 2013 launched a sarin chemical weapons attack on the Ghouta agricultural belt around Damascus. Around 1,400 people were killed. The US president, Barack Obama, previously had identified chemical weapons as a “red line”, but potential air strikes were averted by a deal between the US and Russia in which the US agreed to back off if the Syrian regime, supported by Russia, destroyed its chemical weapons programme .

Indeed, when US airstrikes in Syria did begin the following year, they didn’t target the Syrian regime, but a newly emerged rebel group: the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Later referred to as Islamic State, and often described by its Arabic acronym, Daesh , it also emerged from AQI, but sought to be independent from al-Qaeda, aiming to establish a caliphate in Syria and Iraq.

Rebuffed by Jabhat al-Nusra leaders and exiled from al-Qaeda in February 2014, ISIS employed brutal tactics and ideologies to – in the apt words of Zach Beauchamp – “out-extremist al-Qaeda in competition for recruits and resources”.

ISIS is winning the extremist PR war and recruits both regionally and internationally, attracting an estimated 30,000 foreign fighters to its ranks by September 2015.

The US, which provides support for some anti-Assad rebels, began airstrikes against ISIS in September 2014. The following year, Russian airstrikes started in support of Assad and were criticised for targeting moderate rebel groups instead of ISIS (now Islamic State).

As Assad hung on, IS gained territory in both Syria and Iraq and grew in reach, in recent weeks claiming responsibility for international attacks against a Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, a twin suicide bomb attack in Beirut and the Paris attacks .

‘Running out of words’

The Syrian conflict has been described as a civil war, a proxy war and a sectarian war. On one level, the Syrian government, backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, is pitted against the “moderate” rebels, backed by the US-led coalition, Turkey and the Gulf States, with everyone scrambling to contain Islamic State (who also receive funding from the Gulf States). The Kurds are fighting IS and Assad, and are supported by the West, but are also being bombed by Turkey, which is trying to stem a Kurdish uprising within its own borders. Following the latest atrocities – and France’s growing engagement – things could get even more complex.

However you frame it, the war is a humanitarian crisis; more than 220,000 killed, 4.2m refugees , and millions more internally displaced. UN officials briefing the Security Council have said they are “ running out of words ” to describe the horror.

The US and more than a dozen other states, including Saudi Arabia and Iran, have reportedly agreed to a framework that will include a ceasefire and political transition. But steps towards implementation will be slow and difficult.

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Seven years of Syria’s civil war: What Brookings experts are saying

Paul gadalla pg paul gadalla web content associate - office of communications.

March 29, 2018

On Friday, March 23, a panel of Brookings experts discussed the ongoing conflict in Syria. Listen to the event here .

Seven years after the Syrian uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, the country remains mired in conflict. As Brookings experts have analyzed, the United States, Russia, Turkey, Iran, and other regional powers are entangled in the conflict in one way or another, with varying aims.

With the seventh anniversary of the Syrian conflict—March 15—come and gone, Brookings experts have offered their insights on the ongoing geopolitical quagmire in Syria.

In a new Unpacked video, Nonresident Senior Fellow Mara Karlin lays out the different actors engaged in the conflict, and offers thoughts on U.S. policy moving forward:

As David M. Rubenstein Fellow Alina Polyakova explains, Russia’s military intervention in Syria began in September 2015 under the guise of combating ISIS but in reality sought to keep the Assad regime afloat : “[F]rom the outset, the Russian air campaign primarily hit non-ISIS targets. It soon became clear that Putin’s chief goal was to ensure the future of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian dictator.”

Although Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared “ victory ” over ISIS in Syria, Nonresident Senior Fellow Pavel Baev points out that “Russian forces on the ground are still taking casualties, Russia’s alliances are in disarray, and its Syria policy has lost decisiveness and direction.”

As Polykova puts it: “Indeed, it is difficult to see a clean Russian exit from Syria that doesn’t leave Assad vulnerable.”

ISRAEL, IRAN, AND HEZBOLLAH

According to Nonresident Senior Fellow Mara Karlin , Syria has also become a battleground for regional powers in the Levant, chiefly Israel, Iran, and Iranian proxies like Hezbollah. For Hezbollah, she argues that supporting the Assad regime has been paramount: “Hezbollah has gained substantial operational experience in Syria, where it has effectively knit together a number of violent nonstate actors in support of its expeditionary mission to prop up President Bashar al-Assad.”

For Israel, Karlin contends, “Its border with Syria, historically its quietest, is now unhinged. The Israeli leadership has made no secret of its concern about Hezbollah’s military maturation in the Syria conflict.”

And now with ISIS driven out of Syria, Karlin fears that such regional arch-rivals (Iran and Israel) could clash in Syria: “The resulting tensions are likely to bring Israel to the brink of a regional war even bigger than the last one in 2006, when it invaded southern Lebanon.”

Visiting Fellow Dror Michman and Yael Mizrahi-Arnaud also see cause for concern over heightened tensions and escalation. In February, Israel shot down an Iranian drone in response to a Syrian attack on an Israeli plane. Michman and Mizrahi-Arnaud explain that Israel “has conveyed privately to European leaders—to relay to Tehran—that if a diplomatic solution could not be worked out, Israel would use military means.” Tehran is making its own calculations: “[it] is determined to not only preserve the Assad regime, but also to capitalize on its gains,” they write.

Michman and Mizrahi-Arnaud warn that Iran will continue to challenge Israel, and Israel will be forced to react, increasing the possibility of military conflict.

THE UNITED STATES

Distinguished Fellow Itamar Rabinovich argues that the United States, even under President Trump, still has no clear exit strategy from the Syrian quagmire:

The president’s tough anti-Iranian rhetoric has so far not translated into real anti-Iranian action in Syria. America’s limited military presence in northeastern Syria and its alliance with the Kurds gives it limited influence in the struggle over shaping Syria’s future. [Former] Secretary of State Tillerson, in a speech he delivered in mid-January, presented Washington’s strategy in Syria, but the goals he set for his country’s policies are not realistic.

The U.S., adds Karlin, is at a crossroads in Syria: “The fundamental debate for Washington going forward must focus on whether counter terrorism or broader geopolitical affairs should be the priority in Syria.”

Turkey entered the fray in Syria, according to TÜSİAD Senior Fellow Kemal Kirişci , once “Obama failed, in 2013, to stand by his ‘red line’ concerning the use of chemical weapons against civilians. Turkey, in a major departure from longstanding statecraft, then began to seek the violent overthrow of the regime of a neighboring country.”

And as Senior Fellow Daniel Byman points out: “Turkey’s willingness to keep its border open in the first years of the war as fighters crossed back and forth enabled the Islamic State and other groups to recruit tens of thousands of foreigners to their ranks.”

But now, as Visiting Fellow in the Brookings Doha Center Ranj Alaaldin explains, Turkey’s goals in Syria have changed as the regime sees the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish militias along its border as a threat:

Turkey fears that an emboldened Syrian Kurdistan and the predominance of the YPG—the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which has gone from strength to strength in recent years—would fuel its own restive Kurdish population and, therefore, strengthen the PKK’s insurgency.

This adds a new element of danger to the conflict, adds Kirişci: “This situation risks bringing Turkey and the United States into a military confrontation, unheard of in their 70-year long alliance.”

WHATS NEXT?

After seven long years of war, Post-Doctoral Fellow Katy Collin paints a grim picture :

At the moment, it seems that prospects for peace in Syria through a negotiated settlement are dim. It appears as if the Syrian regime intends to regain control of some or all of the rebel-held territory. That is quite a bit of land, and therefore this year might be characterized by more horrific violence targeting civilians.

Karlin also contends that the race to capture territory no longer under ISIS’s control could spark more geopolitical tensions . “A race to claim the last territory under ISIS control is now giving way to jostling for influence over a potential settlement in the broader war. And that’s very dangerous,” she says.

Senior Fellow Michael O’Hanlon , during the event What’s next for the war(s) in Syria? , argues that the Geneva process is counterproductive and a realistic transition plan is still absent:

I think the Geneva process is counterproductive, not just a long shot, but counterproductive because it deludes us into thinking we have a political strategy when we don’t. And I would rather see it simply terminated or fundamentally redefined along the following lines: let’s acknowledge there is not going to be a negotiated transition of power in Syria in the short-term, period.

Instead O’Hanlon contends a more realistic approach for a post-conflict political transition:

My bottom line is that the only thing we can hope for with Assad is that he allow autonomous governance in some of these more remote areas and we should work hard on a full-bore reconstruction effort there and even try to persuade the World Bank and other foreign donors to work with these subnational entities as they emerge.

Regardless, it is clear that a stabilization strategy is needed. O’Hanlon writes that the United States may not be willing to invest in such a strategy. Senior Fellow Tamara Cofman Wittes and Brian Reeves lay out an international framework for reconstruction for Syria and the region more broadly.

And ultimately the Syrian state will continue to be a battleground , notes Distinguished Fellow Itamar Rabinovich : “Now, the conflict focuses more and more on the country’s future as a pawn in the struggle between the principal regional and international actors.”

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Why Is There a Civil War in Syria?

By: Julie Marks

Updated: August 25, 2023 | Original: September 14, 2018

The Syrian civil war, which has devastated the entire country of Syria and its neighbors, is a complex conflict that involves several nations, rebel groups and terrorist organizations.

What started as a nonviolent protest in 2011 quickly escalated into full-blown warfare. Since the fighting began, more than 470,000 people have been killed, with over 1 million injured and millions more forced to flee their homes and live as refugees.

Was Arab Spring the spark that ignited the civil war?

Although many complicated motives led to the Syrian civil war, one event, known as the Arab Spring , stands out as perhaps the most significant trigger for the conflict.

In early 2011, a series of political and economic protests in Egypt and Tunisia broke out. These successful revolts, dubbed the Arab Spring, served as an inspiration for pro-democracy activists in Syria.

However, in March of that year, 15 Syrian schoolchildren were arrested and tortured for writing graffiti that was inspired by the Arab Spring. One of the boys was killed.

The arrests sparked outrage and demonstrations throughout Syria. Citizens demanded the release of the remaining children, along with greater freedoms for all people in the country.

But the government, headed by President Bashar al-Assad , responded by killing and arresting hundreds of protestors. Shock and anger began to spread throughout Syria, and many demanded that Assad resign. When he refused, war broke out between his supporters and his opponents.

“The Syrian government must stop shooting demonstrators and allow peaceful protests; release political prisoners and stop unjust arrests; allow human rights monitors to have access to cities like Dara’a; and start a serious dialogue to advance a democratic transition,” U.S. President Barack Obama stated in a 2011 speech.

“Otherwise, President Assad and his regime will continue to be challenged from within and isolated abroad,” Obama said. By July 2011, Syrian rebels formed the Free Syrian Army (FSA), and a civil war was imminent.

Assad’s crackdown is just one of several problems plaguing Syria.

Even before the Arab Spring-inspired incident, many Syrian citizens were dissatisfied over the government’s incompetency, the people’s lack of freedoms and the general living conditions in their country.

Assad became president in 2000 after the death of his father. Several human rights groups have accused the leader of habitually torturing and killing political opponents throughout his presidency.

A lagging economy, high unemployment, government corruption and a severe drought were other issues that generated frustration among people under Assad’s rule.

Another problem was a tense religious atmosphere in the country: Most Syrians are Sunni Muslims, yet Syria’s government is dominated by members of the Shia Alawite sect. Tensions between the two groups is an ongoing problem throughout Syria and other nations in the Middle East.

A diverse mix of characters complicates the situation.

Since the start of the war, the situation in Syria became much more complicated, as other countries and organized fighters have entered the picture.

Essentially, the Syrian government’s main backers are Russia, Iran and Hezbollah (a militia group based in Lebanon). The United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and other western countries are described as supporters of moderate rebel groups. Many newer rebel groups have emerged since the war began.

The ongoing conflict also encouraged terrorist organizations, such as ISIS and al-Qaeda, to join in on the chaos. These groups are primarily made up of Sunni militants.

The rebels and Assad’s forces have both fought separate battles against ISIS, while also waging war against each other. To further complicate the dynamics, the United States has also led an international bombing campaign against ISIS targets since 2014.

In April of 2017 and 2018, the United States launched military attacks against chemical weapons sites in Syria. Assad’s office spoke out against the 2017 attacks and said in a statement, “What America did is nothing but foolish and irresponsible behavior, which only reveals its short-sightedness and political and military blindness to reality.”

After the 2018 attack, U.S. President Donald Trump told the press: "The purpose of our actions tonight is to establish a strong deterrent against the production, spread and use of chemical weapons. Establishing this deterrent is a vital national security interest of the United States. The combined American, British and French response to these atrocities will integrate all instruments of our national power—military, economic, and diplomatic.”

The conflict has spawned a humanitarian and refugee crisis of massive proportions.

Experts estimate that 13.1 million Syrians need humanitarian assistance, such as medicine or food. Nearly 3 million of these people live in hard-to-reach areas.

More than 5.6 million refugees have fled the country, and another 6.1 million are displaced within Syria. Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan are credited with hosting the most Syrian refugees.

The outlook is grim, with violence continuing.

By September 2018, Assad's forces had reclaimed control of most of the country’s biggest cities, although parts of the country were still held by rebel and jihadist groups and the Kurdish-led SDF alliance. The last remaining rebel stronghold was the north-western province of Idlib. ISIS’s presence in Syria, meanwhile, has been greatly diminished.

Since 2014, the United Nations has hosted nine rounds of mediated peace talks, known as the Geneva II process. Despite this intervention, little progress has been made.

After negotiations failed in 2014, UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi apologized to the Syrian people in a statement, saying, "Unfortunately, the government has refused, which raises the suspicion of the opposition that, in fact, the government doesn't want to discuss the (transitional governing body) at all," he said.

Both the Syrian government and rebels appear unwilling to agree on terms of peace. If nothing changes, this war-torn area of the world is likely to be the site of more violence and instability.

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Fleeing violence in syria, escalating violence in northwest syria has left tens of thousands of children at imminent risk of injury, death and displacement..

AQRABAT and ATMEH, Syria – Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, is supposed to be a moment for celebration. But for children uprooted by escalating conflict, the usual festivities have been replaced by uncertainty and fear – and talk of ice cream and toys by stories of conflict and explosions.

In the villages of Aqrabat and Atmeh, near Syria’s border with Turkey, hundreds of children and their families spent Eid in makeshift camps. With little more than blankets and bed sheets hung from olive trees to protect them from the elements, the children shared their families’ stories.

“We can’t celebrate it [Eid] here,” says five-year old Siba. “We used to have nice food and I would get ice cream and a new doll on this day. I wish my parents and I could go to the amusement park like we usually do.”

Fidaa, 11, also wishes she was back home – and that things were back to normal. “I don’t have any clothes now,” she says. “Every year on Eid we’d buy new clothes and get a new toy. But we have to spend this Eid in a field. There’s nothing here that makes us feel like we’re celebrating.”

The latest escalation violence, especially in villages in northern Hama and southern Idlib in northwest Syria, follows months of rising violence in the area and has reportedly left at least 134 children dead and more than 125,000 displaced since the start of the year . Some 43,000 children are now out of school and final exams in parts of Idlib have been postponed, affecting the education of 400,000 students.

“My parents told me that we can’t go back home until the fighting stops,” says six-year-old Ghadeer, from northern Hama. “We left our house very quickly because there were so many loud explosions.” 

“I want to bring the toys I left back home,” says eight-year old Yamin. “I had a new bicycle as well. But we can’t go back because there was so much fighting. We left quickly. We didn’t take anything with us.”

UNICEF’s partners are on the ground in the northwest of Syria, working to reach children and families with mobile health clinics, immunization and nutrition services, water and sanitation supplies, as well as essential psychosocial support.

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Middle East Crisis Syria Blames Israel for Deadly Attack in Aleppo

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• A member of Jordan's Air Force inside a plane after its load of aid was dropped. Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
• Friday Prayer during Ramadan in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Haitham Imad/EPA, via Shutterstock
• Palestinians mourning relatives killed in airstrikes in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. Said Khatib/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
• Destroyed buildings in the Gaza Strip. Hussein Malla/Associated Press
• A Palestinian child after an airstrike in the Maghazi camp in central Gaza. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

An Israeli strike near Aleppo killed Syrian soldiers, the state media says.

Airstrikes near the northern Syrian city of Aleppo early Friday killed a number of soldiers, Syria’s state news media and an independent organization reported, in what appeared to be one of the biggest Israeli attacks in the country in years.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that tracks the war in Syria, said that the overnight strikes killed at least 44 people — at least 36 Syrian soldiers, seven members of the Lebanese group Hezbollah and one member of a pro-Iranian militia — and that the toll could rise. The group said the attack appeared to have hit multiple targets, including a weapons depot belonging to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militia that also has a presence in Syria.

Israel’s military did not immediately comment on the strikes, but it has previously acknowledged carrying out hundreds of assaults on Iran-linked targets in Syria. Iran supports and arms a network of proxy militia s that have been fighting with Israel, including Hamas — whose political leader was in Iran for high-level meetings this week — and other Palestinian groups.

Attacks across borders have escalated since Israel’s intense aerial bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, in a sign of the rising tensions in the region.

The Israeli military said this month that its forces had struck more than 4,500 Hezbollah targets in Syria and Lebanon since the war began, assaults that it said had killed over 300 Hezbollah members, though that could not be independently confirmed. Hezbollah’s official website and spokesman said that “more than 200” of its fighters had been killed to date.

On Friday, Syria’s state-run official news agency, SANA, did not specify a death toll in what it identified as an Israeli attack but said that several civilians and soldiers had been killed or wounded in strikes on multiple locations near Aleppo around 1:45 a.m.

Separately, the Lebanese state news media reported that an Israeli drone strike had targeted a car on a road in southern Lebanon, killing at least one person.

The Israeli military confirmed that it had carried out the strike in Lebanon, which it said had killed the deputy commander of Hezbollah’s rocket and missile unit. Hezbollah acknowledged the death of Ali Abdulhassan Naim, the man the Israeli military said it had killed, on its Telegram channel but did not elaborate on the circumstances of his killing.

Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, praised “another successful assassination of a Hezbollah commander” and appeared to hint at responsibility for the strike in Syria in a post on social media.

“We will pursue Hezbollah every place it operates and we will expand the pressure and the pace of the attacks,” he said, promising more operations in Lebanon, in Syria and “in other more distant locations.”

The Israeli military and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire across their border for months, displacing tens of thousands of Lebanese and Israelis from their homes.

On Thursday, the United Nations peacekeeping mission deployed along the Lebanese border with Israel said in a statement that it was very concerned about the surge in violence, which has killed many civilians and destroyed homes and livelihoods.

Israel has also targeted Hamas officials outside Gaza, most notably assassinating Saleh al-Arouri, a top Hamas leader , in early January in an explosion in a Beirut suburb, officials from Hamas, Lebanon and the United States said at the time. Israel did not take responsibility for his killing.

Since the outbreak of Syria’s civil war in 2011, Israel has conducted strikes and targeted killings in the country, which Israeli officials have said are aimed at crippling the military capabilities and supply lines for Iranian-backed proxy forces, including Hezbollah.

Throughout the Syrian conflict, Iran and Hezbollah backed the authoritarian president, Bashar al-Assad, with fighters and military support. Israel views the influence and military buildup of these forces as a threat to its northern border.

In a further complication for Israel, Russia also supports Mr. al-Assad. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel needs the good will of President Vladimir V. Putin to help constrain Iran and continue to strike targets in Syria, while trying to avoid harming the forces Russia maintains there.

Friday’s attack was at least the second deadly attack in Syria in less than a week. On Tuesday, airstrikes in eastern Syria killed several people. The Iranian state news media said that Israel was responsible, while the Syrian state news agency attributed it to American forces. A Pentagon spokeswoman denied that the United States had carried out those strikes.

The Tuesday strikes killed a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, according to Iranian state news media reports . An engineer with the World Health Organization was also killed in the strikes, the agency said in a statement .

Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.

— Raja Abdulrahim and Victoria Kim

Iran and its proxies are a common link in Mideast conflicts.

Israel and Gaza. Yemen and the Red Sea. Lebanon, Iraq, Pakistan and Syria.

At flashpoints in conflicts spanning 1,800 miles and involving a hodgepodge of unpredictable armed actors and interests, there has been a common thread: Iran. Tehran has left its imprint with its behind-the-scenes backing of combatants around the region.

On Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that tracks the war in Syria, said that an Israeli strike killed at least 36 soldiers and hit multiple targets , including a weapons depot belonging to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militia that also has a presence in Syria. Israel did not comment on the claim.

Here’s a look at Iran’s proxies.

What’s the back story?

Ever since the 1979 revolution that made Iran a Shiite Muslim theocracy, it has been isolated and has seen itself as besieged.

Iran considers the United States and Israel its biggest enemies — for more than four decades, its leaders have vowed to destroy Israel . It also wants to establish itself as the most powerful nation in the Persian Gulf region, where its chief rival is Saudi Arabia, an American ally.

With few allies of its own, Iran has long armed, trained, financed, advised and even directed several movements that share its enemies. Iran calls itself and these militias the “Axis of Resistance” to American and Israeli power.

Why does Iran outsource its conflicts?

Although Iranian forces have been involved directly in wars in Syria and Iraq, Tehran has mostly fought its enemies abroad by proxy .

Investing in proxy forces — fellow Shiites in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, and the Sunni Hamas in the Gaza Strip — allows Iran to cause trouble for its enemies, and to raise the prospect of causing more if attacked. This helps Iran project its power and influence without courting major retaliation or all-out war.

“If they are to avoid fighting the Americans and Israelis on Iran’s soil, they’ll have to do it elsewhere,” said Hasan Alhasan, a senior fellow for Middle East Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a policy analysis group. “And that’s in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Afghanistan.”

Yet how well the strategy works is open to question . Terrorist groups have attacked on Iranian soil, and for years Israel has carried out targeted attacks on Iran’s nuclear program .

Iranian officials have publicly denied being involved in or ordering Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people. But they also praised the assault as a momentous achievement , and warned that their regional network would open multiple fronts against Israel if the country kept up its retaliatory war against Hamas in Gaza.

Some of those proxies have stepped up attacks on Israel, but have avoided full-fledged warfare.

Who are these proxies for Iran?

Hezbollah in Lebanon, widely considered to be the most powerful and sophisticated of the Iran-allied forces, was founded in the 1980s with Iranian assistance, specifically to fight the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. The group, which is also a political party in Lebanon, has fought multiple wars and border skirmishes with Israel.

Hezbollah has been trading fire across the border with Israel’s military almost daily since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks, but it has refrained from fully joining the fight .

The Houthi movement in Yemen launched an insurgency against the government two decades ago. What was once a ragtag rebel force gained power thanks at least in part to covert military aid from Iran, according to American and Middle Eastern officials and analysts.

Since the war in Gaza began, the Houthis have waged what they call a campaign in solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli bombardment. They have launched missiles and drones at Israel, and have disrupted a significant part of the world’s shipping by attacking dozens of vessels heading to or from the Suez Canal.

Hamas, in the Palestinian territories, has also received weapons and training from Iran, and has fought repeated wars with Israel. This week, the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was in Tehran for meetings with top Iranian leaders, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iran’s chief of staff of the armed forces, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Baqeri.

— Cassandra Vinograd

Maps: Tracking the Attacks in Israel and Gaza

See where Israel has bulldozed vast areas of Gaza, as its invasion continues to advance south.

Israel cites its ‘new initiatives’ on getting aid into Gaza, but progress has been slow.

Israel said Friday that it was committed to its legal obligations to provide humanitarian aid to desperate civilians in Gaza, pointing to a series of measures to deliver aid by land, air and sea. But progress on the efforts has been slow, and aid groups say they are not nearly sufficient to meet the vast need in the enclave.

A day after the United Nations’ top court ruled, in its sharpest language yet, that Israel must ensure the “unhindered” delivery of assistance to Gaza, the Foreign Ministry said it would continue to promote “new initiatives” and expand efforts to facilitate the entry of aid into Gaza.

Humanitarian officials have been sounding the alarm over a looming famine , especially in the northern part of the territory, where desperation has prompted people to swarm trucks carrying assistance and where aid groups say they have struggled to deliver supplies because of Israeli restrictions and widespread lawlessness.

In its ruling, the U.N. court, the International Court of Justice, said Israel must take “all necessary and effective measures” to guarantee the delivery of aid, including food, water, and medicine. The court does not have any means of forcing Israel to comply with its orders, but it is the highest arbiter of international law, and its decisions carry symbolic weight.

Following urgent calls from the United States and other allies to do more, Israel has endorsed a handful of aid efforts in the last month, including a ship that carried food from a charity group to Gaza from Cyprus, airdrops by foreign countries and crossings directly from Israel into northern Gaza by a small number of aid trucks.

Relief groups have accused Israel, which insists on inspecting and approving every aid delivery, of restricting the flow. Israel has at times argued that there was plenty of aid reaching Gaza while insisting that disorganization by aid groups and diversions of shipments by Hamas were to blame for any bottlenecks.

World Central Kitchen, a disaster relief nonprofit, built a jetty in northern Gaza to receive maritime shipments, and the group has dispatched one ship to the enclave so far. The organization says it has prepared a second vessel, but it has not yet set sail from Cyprus. As part of an effort to increase maritime shipments, the United States military is building a temporary pier, but that will take weeks.

Many countries have conducted airdrops of aid in recent weeks, but humanitarian officials say they are inefficient and expensive, with each plane carrying only a relatively small amount of aid. They are also risky : This week, Gazan authorities said 12 people had drowned while trying to retrieve assistance that fell into the ocean. Previously, they reported that some people had been killed by falling packages .

The U.N. court also demanded that Israel increase the number of land crossings into Gaza and keep them open as long as necessary.

In addition to two crossings in the south, Israel recently opened a direct entry point in the north, but only a small number of trucks have been able to use the route. Jamie McGoldrick, a top United Nations humanitarian official in Jerusalem, said he was particularly concerned about hunger in northern Gaza, where, he said, it was exceedingly difficult to deliver supplies.

Many experts have said that a cease-fire is necessary to scale up the delivery of aid significantly, but talks aimed at achieving a stop in the fighting and a release of hostages held by militants in Gaza appeared to be stalling, with Hamas this week rejecting Israel’s most recent counterproposal.

In a small sign of hope for a deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel approved the departure of security delegations to Cairo and Doha to participate in negotiations on the issue, according to a statement from his office.

— Adam Rasgon Reporting from Jerusalem

Israel must work with the U.N. and open more border crossings to prevent famine, an aid official says.

A United Nations relief official called on Friday for increased global pressure on Israel to open more border crossings for aid to reach the Gaza Strip after an order by the top U.N. court that said famine was “setting in.”

The top court, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, ordered Israel on Thursday , using its strongest language yet, to ensure “in full cooperation with the United Nations, the unhindered provision” of aid into Gaza.

Philippe Lazzarini, the U.N. official who leads the organization’s agency that aids Palestinians, known as UNRWA, has said that Israel refuses to work with his agency to bring aid to northern Gaza, the part of the enclave hit hardest by shortages of food and other vital supplies.

Mr. Lazzarini urged the court’s member states on Friday to “exert more pressure” to carry out the court order, adding that countries who paused their funding to UNRWA should reconsider their decision and help the organization avert a famine in the enclave.

The U.N. court does not have any means of forcing Israel to comply with its orders, but it is the highest arbiter of international law, and its decisions carry symbolic weight.

While UNRWA has for decades provided food to Gaza’s more than two million residents and has organized schools, hospitals and other services, its deliveries of aid to northern Gaza have slowed to a trickle in recent months. The Israeli authorities have denied blocking UNRWA, but Israel and the aid agency have been locked in a dispute over not only responsibility for the crisis, but also the status of UNRWA itself.

In January, the Israeli government accused at least 12 of the agency’s employees of participating in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which killed about 1,200 people. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu then called for the agency to be closed. UNRWA suspended the staff members and opened an investigation, but some of its biggest donors have since suspended funding.

“Cooperation means that Israel must reverse its decision and allow @UNRWA to reach northern Gaza with food and nutrition convoys on a daily basis + to open additional land crossings,” Mr. Lazzarini said on social media .

The international court’s order, he said, was a “stark reminder that the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is man made,” adding that it can still be reversed.

In response to Thursday’s ruling, Israel’s government has said that it is committed to allowing adequate supplies into Gaza, and has noted that it has supported new shipment routes by land, air and sea, though deliveries through them have been very limited.

U.N. officials and international aid groups have reported severe and deadly malnutrition in Gaza and have blamed Israel, which inspects every truckload aid. Israeli officials say it is disorganization among the aid groups, not the inspections, that is slowing the delivery, and that much of the aid is diverted to Hamas or the black market.

“Hunger and malnutrition, driven wholly by man-made causes and by a lack of humanitarian access, have spread through Gaza at frightening speed, causing catastrophic rates of disease, death and despair,” the executive director of the U.N. agency for sexual reproductive health, Natalia Kanem, said in a statement this week. “For pregnant women and newborns, every day has become a fight for survival.”

Nearly all of aid that has reached Gaza has entered through two border crossings in the south, and conditions are especially bad in northern Gaza, where most of the population lived before being displaced by the Israeli invasion.

Getting truck convoys from the southern border crossings to the north is difficult and dangerous work, and the route is sometimes blocked by roads damaged by Israeli bombardment, Israeli checkpoints or battles between Hamas fighters and Israeli troops. In some cases, crowds of people have swarmed the trucks, stripping them of supplies.

The World Food Program said that only 11 of its convoys carrying food had reached the north since the start of the year.

— Gaya Gupta

Days after the U.N. cease-fire resolution, has anything changed in the war in Gaza?

Although the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution on Monday that demands an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, it remains to be seen whether ​i​t ​w​ill have a concrete effect on the war or prove merely to be a political statement.

The measure, Resolution 2728, followed three previous attempts that ​t​he United States ​had blocked. It passed by 14 votes, after the United States abstained from voting and did not employ its veto.

The resolution also calls for the unconditional release of all hostages and the end to barriers to humanitarian aid.

Israel’s government condemned the vote, and early indications are that the U.N.’s action has changed little on the ground or spurred diplomatic progress.

Days after the vote, here’s a look at what has changed and what might happen next:

Has the resolution affected fighting?

Senior Israeli officials said that they would ignore the call for a cease-fire, arguing that it was imperative to pursue the war until it has dismantled the military wing of Hamas, the militant group that led the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

Since Monday, there has been no apparent shift in the military campaign . Israel’s air force continues to pound Gaza with strikes, and Hamas is still launching attacks.

Israel’s military is pressing on with a raid at Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, the territory’s biggest medical facility, as well as its offensive in Khan Younis, the largest city in the south, where fighting has been fierce.

If Israel doesn’t heed the resolution, what can the U.N. do?

The Security Council has few means to enforce its resolutions. The Council can take punitive measures, imposing sanctions against violators. In the past, such measures have included travel bans, economic restrictions and arms embargoes.

In this case, however, legal experts said that any additional measure would require a new resolution and that passing it would require consent from the council’s five veto-holding members, including the United States, Israel’s staunchest ally.

There may be legal challenges as well. While the United Nations says that Security Council resolutions are considered to be international law, legal experts debate whether all resolutions are binding on member states, or only those adopted under chapter VII of the U.N. charter , which deals with threats to peace. The resolution passed on Monday did not explicitly mention Chapter VII.

U.N. officials said it was still binding on Israel, but some countries disagreed. South Korea said on Monday that the resolution was not “ explicitly coercive under Chapter VII,” but that it reflected a consensus of the international community.

Crucially, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, maintained that the resolution was nonbinding . The United States, which holds significant power on the Security Council because of its permanent seat, likely views the passage of the resolution as more a valuable political instrument than a binding order, experts said.

The U.S. abstention sends a powerful signal of its policy priorities even if, in the short term, the Security Council is unlikely to take further steps, according to Ivo H. Daalder, a former American ambassador to NATO.

“Neither Israel or Hamas is going to be swayed by a U.N. resolution,” Mr. Daalder said.

What about aid?

Israel controls the flow of aid into Gaza, and after five months of war, Gazans are facing a severe hunger crisis bordering on famine, especially in the north, according to the United Nations and residents of the territory.

Aid groups have blamed Israel, which announced a siege of the territory after Oct. 7. They say officials have impeded aid deliveries through inspections and tight restrictions.

Israel argues that it works to prevent aid reaching Hamas and says that its officials can process more aid than aid groups can distribute within the territory. Growing lawlessness in Gaza has also made the distribution of aid difficult, with some convoys ending in deadly violence.

Little has changed this week. The number of aid trucks entering Gaza on Tuesday from the two border crossings open for aid roughly matched the average daily number crossing this month, according to U.N. data. That figure, about 150 trucks per day, is nearly 70 percent less than the number before Oct. 7.

How has the resolution affected diplomacy?

Israel and Hamas appear to still be far apart on negotiations aimed at brokering a halt in fighting and an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

Mediators have been in Qatar to try to narrow the gaps. But late Monday, Hamas rejected Israel’s most recent counterproposal and its political leader, on a visit to Tehran this week, said the resolution showed that Israel was isolated diplomatically.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has argued that the resolution set back negotiations, emboldening Hamas to hold out for better terms.

The biggest sticking point in the cease-fire talks had recently been the number of Palestinian prisoners to be released, in particular those serving extended sentences for violence against Israelis, U.S. and Israeli officials have said.

— Matthew Mpoke Bigg

The U.N.’s top court orders Israel to allow ‘unhindered’ aid into Gaza.

In its strongest language yet, the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Thursday ordered Israel to stop obstructing humanitarian aid to Gaza as starvation there spreads, calling for Israel to increase the number of land crossings for supplies and provide its “full cooperation” with the United Nations.

The ruling is part of a case filed by South Africa at the I.C.J., the United Nations’ highest court, that accused Israel of committing genocide, an allegation that Israel has categorically denied. In an interim ruling on Jan. 26 , the court ordered Israel to ensure that more aid would be allowed into Gaza. Since then, the “catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated further,” necessitating further measures, the court said on Thursday.

Israel, the court ruled, must ensure that its military doesn’t violate Palestinians’ rights under the Genocide Convention, “including by preventing, through any action, the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance.”

South Africa requested this month that the court issue further emergency orders to lift Israeli restrictions on aid amid warnings from experts that Gazans have been facing a looming famine. The South African government welcomed the new orders on Thursday as a “significant” step by the I.C.J., saying the ruling indicated that the court agreed that Israel’s failure to comply with the previous order had worsened conditions in Gaza.

Israel’s foreign ministry said in a statement in response to the ruling that Israel had gone to great lengths to mitigate harm to civilians and to facilitate the flow of aid into Gaza, accusing South Africa of attempting to “exploit” the court to undermine Israel’s right to defend itself.

In its new ruling , the I.C.J. unanimously ordered Israel to “take all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay, in full cooperation with the United Nations, the unhindered provision at scale by all concerned of urgently needed basic services,” including food, water, fuel and shelter as well as medical and sanitation supplies. Israel must also increase the capacity and number of land crossing points and keep them “open for as long as necessary,” the court said.

The ruling touches on some issues that leading aid organizations have called Israeli impediments contributing to the risk of famine in Gaza. Those groups have cited inspection backlogs at the few open border crossings, problems in the Israeli military’s system for coordinating with aid workers, and outright denials of missions to bring in food, fuel and sanitation supplies. Palestinians, U.N. officials and aid workers have voiced concerns about diseases spreading , hospitals collapsing and children beginning to starve to death .

The court said on Thursday that Palestinians in Gaza were “no longer facing only a risk of famine,” as it noted in its interim ruling, “but that famine is setting in.” Among the evidence the court cited was a report from the global authority on food security that found a full-scale famine was imminent in northern Gaza, and a U.N. report that found acute malnutrition among children under 2 years old in that region had doubled over the course of the past month.

The court also noted that at least 31 people across the enclave, including 27 children, had already died from malnutrition and dehydration, according to reports from the U.N. and local health officials.

The judges have not yet taken up the core question of whether a genocide has been taking place in Gaza, a complex charge that would likely take months or years to decide.

Despite the court’s authority and the weight of the allegations before it, the court does not have any means of forcing Israel to comply with its orders. But it is the highest arbiter of international law, and its decisions carry moral and symbolic weight. “If there is noncompliance, the global community must ensure adherence when it comes to the sanctity of humanity,” the South African government said in its statement on Thursday.

Since finding the dangers of genocide “plausible” in January, the court has ordered a series of measures, which amount to temporary injunctions, aimed at protecting Palestinian civilians. Aharon Barak, the ad hoc judge Israel appointed to the court for the genocide case, argued in a separate opinion on Thursday that the court was, with some of the measures it ordered, “leaving the land of law and entering the land of politics.”

Several judges assessed the war in stark terms in separate opinions, including Judge Abdulqawi Yusuf from Somalia, one of the court’s more senior judges and a former president of the court.

“The alarm has now been sounded by the court,” he wrote in his opinion. “All the indicators of genocidal activities are flashing red in Gaza.”

The court’s current president, Nawaf Salam, strongly hinted at the risk of genocide in his opinion. The court, he said, was “faced with a situation in which the conditions of existence of the Palestinians in Gaza are such as to bring about the partial or total destruction of that group.”

But judges also wrestled with what influence they could exert in the conflict. “The court cannot order a cease-fire, as the conflicting parties are not all before it,” Hilary Charlesworth, an Australian judge, wrote, referring to Hamas and other armed groups.

But, she wrote, the court “can at least mitigate” the risk to Palestinians by directing the parties before it: South Africa and Israel.

Johnatan Reiss and Victoria Kim contributed reporting.

— Anushka Patil and Marlise Simons

The Palestinian Authority has formed a new cabinet, but doubts remain about its independence.

The Palestinian Authority’s new prime minister presented his cabinet on Thursday amid skepticism over its ability to meet international pressure for reform given the power wielded by the president of nearly two decades, Mahmoud Abbas.

Mr. Abbas, 88, is widely unpopular among Palestinians and has long ruled by decree. His appointment of Muhammad Mustafa as prime minister this month amounted to a rejection of international demands to make the authority more technocratic and less corrupt, in the hopes that it could help govern postwar Gaza. Mr. Mustafa is a longtime insider and has been a senior adviser to the president, posing little threat to his power.

On Thursday, Mr. Abbas approved the cabinet selections of Mr. Mustafa, according to Wafa , the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency.

Analysts have said that Mr. Mustafa’s choices for ministers of the interior, finance and foreign affairs — all of whom are close to the authority’s president — would be a good indicator of whether his government would signal at least a modicum of change.

The current interior minister will stay in place but the finance ministry will get new leadership, Wafa reported. Mr. Mustafa, an economist who has worked for the World Bank and the Palestine Investment Fund, will serve as foreign minister in addition to prime minister, the agency reported.

“All of the indications are that this government is completely under Abu Mazen’s thumb,” said Ghaith al-Omari, a former adviser to Mr. Abbas, using Mr. Abbas’s nickname. “There’s nothing to show that there will be a change of policy.”

Mr. Mustafa’s government will face significant challenges, not least because it is widely expected to operate in Mr. Abbas’s shadow.

As president, Mr. Abbas remains firmly in charge of the government. There is no functional Parliament, and Mr. Abbas exerts wide influence over the judiciary and prosecution system. There has been no presidential election in the Palestinian territories since 2005 and no legislative election since 2006.

The Palestinian Authority has limited governing powers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and is dominated by Mr. Abbas’s faction, Fatah. The group lost control of Gaza when Hamas routed its forces there in a brief civil war in 2007.

Analysts say that the Palestinian Authority’s ability to play an effective role in governing Gaza hinges, in part, on getting the backing of Hamas, whose popularity and influence in the West Bank have grown since the war began.

In a joint statement after Mr. Mustafa’s appointment this month, Hamas and three other Palestinian factions blasted the change, saying that it reflected the “gap” between the authority’s leadership and the Palestinian people. The factions contended that forming a new government without a national consensus would “deepen the division.”

The authority will also be in desperate need of cash to pay the salaries of public sector employees, and Israel could undermine its ability to operate in Gaza.

Sharhabeel al-Zaeem, who is slated to be justice minister, said in an interview on Thursday that he was aware of the “huge obstacles” before the incoming government and expressed dismay that it didn’t have the backing of Hamas. But he emphasized that it was “essential in order to start a process to help the people in Gaza.”

Mr. al-Zaeem, a prominent lawyer from Gaza City who fled the strip in late December after being displaced and moving to Khan Younis and Rafah, said the public should wait to examine the authority’s performance before judging it.

“I hope we will be able to serve our people,” he said.

— Cassandra Vinograd and Adam Rasgon

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An earthquake of magnitude 6 struck off the east coast of Honshu, Japan on Thursday, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre said.

Israel-Gaza latest: Aid charity told IDF of movements so deadly attack 'makes no sense'

Israel's military chief has said the bombing of a World Central Kitchen convoy, in which seven aid workers including three Britons were killed, was "a mistake that followed misidentification". Some of Israel's closest allies have condemned the strike.

Wednesday 3 April 2024 23:01, UK

• Israel-Hamas war

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• World Central Kitchen founder claims aid workers targeted 'systematically, car by car'
• Charity told Israeli military of movements so aid attack 'makes no sense', ex-boss says
• UN pauses night-time movements in Gaza after IDF strike kills aid staff
• Bodies of aid workers transported to Egypt
• 'Devastated' and 'heartbroken' families pay tribute to Britons killed
• 'Misidentification' led to deadly mistake, Israel says
• Israel's closest allies condemn killings
• Two charities pause aid to starving Gaza
• British voters support ban on arms sales to Israel, poll shows
• Podcast: Will volunteers leave Gaza after aid deaths?
• Watch: Evidence suggests three separate strikes

That's all for today, but we'll be back soon with regular updates and analysis.

Scroll down to read what happened during the day.

A close friend of Damien Sobol says he immediately picked up his phone to text him when he heard about the Israeli strike on an aid convoy on Monday.

Mr Sobol, a Polish citizen, was one of seven World Central Kitchen workers killed.

Mikolaj Rykowski told Sky News that when he first heard of the attack, he prayed that his friend was not involved.

"I take my phone and write to Damien 'how are you, bro? Where are you? Everything is okay?'... but of course he did not answer," he said.

Mr Rykowski said Mr Sobol was "the best of all of us" and was "forever smiling".

He said he was not angry at Israel, but angry for everyone caught up in war zones across the world.

Israel's economy minister says suggestions that Israel knew it was targeting aid workers in Monday's strike are "nonsense".

It comes after celebrity chef and World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres claimed the Israeli military targeted the workers "systematically, car by car" (see 19.10 post).

In response, Nir Barkat told the BBC there was "no way in the world" that Israel would target humanitarian workers.

"That's nonsense. I'm sorry, give us a bit of a respect that we care about those people," he said.

Mr Barkat insisted Israel would "interrogate" the incident and provide details to the aid workers' families.

Monday night's deadly strike reveals the "critical" need for a hostage deal in Gaza, the White House has said.

"If we get a hostage deal, it means that we can get more humanitarian aid... into Gaza," press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, adding: "That is what we're going to continue also to work on."

Ms Jean-Pierre said Joe Biden was "working 24/7" with his team to get a deal done.

She also reiterated that the president was "outraged and heartbroken" over the deaths of humanitarian workers.

James "Jim" Henderson was among the six foreign aid workers killed in Gaza earlier this week.

The 33-year-old former roofer from Cornwall served for six years in the Royal Marines. He was reportedly due to leave Gaza on the day of the attack.

He was remembered today in his home town of Falmouth:

Benjamin Netanyahu is almost at the point of no return amid a deepening rift in the Israeli government, a foreign policy expert has said.

There have been growing calls for Mr Netanyahu to be ousted, and war cabinet minister Benny Gantz earlier urged the Israeli prime minister to commit to new elections later this year (see 20.21 post).

Asked about the ramifications of instability in Israeli politics, Aliona Hlivco, managing director of the Henry Jackson Society, told Sky's The World programme that the country's political system "has been unstable for a couple of years now".

"That unfortunately is a given and perhaps has also driven the response to the Hamas attacks," she said.

"Netanyahu has almost no point of return," Ms Hlivco added, saying that it was "up to the people of Israel" to decide his future.

"One thing is certain - that Israelis do feel like this is an existential threat to them, that this is not just another flare up in the 100-year-old conflict."

The supreme leader of Iran says Israel will be "slapped" after a deadly air strike on its consulate in Syria, in which two of its senior military commanders were killed.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps blamed Israel for the strike on Monday, as did Iran's foreign ministry. Israel did not confirm the attack.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei branded it a "desperate attempt" by Israel, and said it won't stop Israel's "defeat" in Gaza.

"The defeat will continue. Their desperate attempts, like what they did in Syria... they will be slapped for that of course," he said.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has branded statements made by Benjamin Netanyahu after the airstrike that killed aid workers "unacceptable and insufficient".

Mr Sanchez said a "more determined and much more detailed clarification" of the incident was expected.

He told a news conference in Doha that the Israeli government "knew about the action and the itinerary of this NGO (non-governmental organisation) on the ground in Gaza".

Benjamin Netanyahu earlier said the seven aid workers were "unintentionally" killed in what he called a "tragic case".

It's "difficult to accept" Israel's assertion that the killing of aid workers in an airstrike was an unavoidable mistake, an Oxfam spokesperson has said.

A lot of coordination takes place between the Israeli authorities and humanitarian agencies in Gaza, Michelle Farrington told Sky's The UK Tonight programme.

But despite this, some 2,200 aid workers have been killed in the region during the conflict, she said.

"It's very difficult to kind of accept that this was just a mistake. 

"It makes the situation of being able provide additional assistance in Gaza extremely more complicated, extremely more difficult," she said.

On when humanitarian groups that have paused their work in the region would continue operations, Ms Farrington said there was hope aid delivery would resume soon.

But she added that an immediate ceasefire was needed in order to provide sufficient help to the people of Gaza.

Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz is urging Benjamin Netanyahu to commit to national elections this year.

"We must agree on a date for elections in September, towards a year to the war if you will," he said during a briefing.

Mr Gantz said setting a date would allow Israel to continue its military operation "while signalling to the citizens of Israel that we will soon renew their trust in us".

Yair Lapid, leader of the opposition in Israel, appeared to support Mr Gantz's call in a post to X, where he called the current Israeli leadership "the worst, most dangerous and failed government in the country's history".

However, in a statement, Mr Netanyahu's Likud party said Mr Gantz was engaging in "petty politics" and said elections now would lead to "paralysis", "division" and "damage".

Mr Netanyahu's term is set to go through 2026, but thousands have protested against him in recent weeks and demanded that early elections be held. 

Last night, a group of anti-government protesters attempted to break through barricades at the Israeli prime minister's home during the fourth night of demonstrations.

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