04/04/2025

FRIDAY | APR 4, 2025 9 Probe massacres, Damascus told BEIRUT: Amnesty International called on the Syrian government to ensure accountability for sectarian massacres targeting the Alawite minority last month, saying they may constitute war crimes. Several days of violence starting on March 6 saw the worst sectarian bloodshed since rebels overthrew president Bashar al Assad, with massacres largely in the Alawite coastal heartland. Amnesty said that “the Syrian government must ensure that the perpetrators of a wave of mass killings targeting Alawite civilians in coastal areas are held accountable”. The massacres “must be investigated as war crimes”, it said in a statement. Truth, justice and reparation are “crucial to ending cycles of atrocities”, it said. The UN human rights office has said that “perpetrators raided houses, asking residents whether they were Alawite or Sunni before proceeding to either kill or spare them accordingly”, with men shot dead in front of their families. Online footage, which AFP was unable to independently verify, showed men in military garb shooting people at close range. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor has said security forces and allied groups killed more than 1,700 civilians, mostly Alawites, during the violence. Amnesty secretary-general Agnes Callamard said: “Once again, Syrian civilians have found themselves bearing the heaviest cost as parties to the conflict seek to settle scores.” Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham led the offensive that toppled Assad in December, has vowed to prosecute those behind the “bloodshed of civilians” and has set up a fact-finding committee, which has yet to announce its results. Amnesty said authorities must “ensure independent, effective investigations of these unlawful killings”. – AFP DAMASCUS: Israel stepped up airstrikes on Syria, declaring the attacks a warning to the new rulers in Damascus as it accused their Turkish allies yesterday of trying to turn the country into a Turkish protectorate. The strikes, targeting air bases, a site near Damascus and the southwest, put renewed focus on Israeli concerns about the rebels who deposed Bashar al-Assad in December, with Israeli officials viewing them as a rising threat. The Israeli army, which seized ground in the southwest after Assad was toppled, said its forces killed several gunmen who opened fire on Israeli troops. Syria’s state news agency SANA said that Israeli shelling had killed nine people in the area. – Reuters RUSSIA BANS ELTON JOHN AIDS FOUNDATION MOSCOW: Russia’s general prosecutor yesterday banned the activities of the Elton John AIDS Foundation, accusing it of taking a negative stance towards countries that protect “traditional spiritual and moral values”. The prosecutor’s office said its ban applied to two organisations, one registered in the United States and the other in Britain, both of them called the “Elton John AIDS Foundation”. Both are officially designated as “undesirable organisations”, it said. The foundation was set up by the gay British singer and songwriter who has spoken out against what he has said is unacceptable discrimination against gay people by the Russian authorities. – Reuters ISRAEL STEPS UP SYRIA AIRSTRIKES

‘All lines crossed in Gaza’ GAZA: Israeli airstrikes hit a UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) building in Jabalia, northern Gaza, yesterday, said Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s commissioner-general. o UN building hit in Jabalia investigations to find out the circumstances of each of these attacks and the serious violations. “In Gaza, all lines have been crossed over and over again,” he said. In Tel Aviv, the Israeli military said yesterday it was investigating an incident in which its troops opened fire on ambulances, claiming to have targeted “terrorists”, while the UN reported that 15 medics and humanitarian workers were killed.

after another over several hours while searching for their missing colleagues. “The (Israeli military) places utmost importance on maintaining communication with international organisations operating in Gaza and engages with them regularly,” Shoshani said yesterday. UN aid official Jonathan Whittall said on Wednesday that a mass grave in Rafah where the bodies of the 15 medics were found illustrated the “war without limits” that Israel is leading in Gaza. An Israeli military official said the army “contacted the organisations multiple times to coordinate the evacuation of the bodies, in accordance with the operational constraints”. “Understanding that the process might take time, the bodies were covered with sand and cloth sheets so that they wouldn’t get damaged,” the official said. The military has not formally responded to claims that the bodies were dumped in a mass grave. Speaking after a mission to Gaza uncovered the mass grave, Whittall, the head of OCHA in the Palestinian territories, said “it was shocking” to see medical workers “still in their uniforms, still wearing gloves, killed while trying to save lives”. UN chief Antonio Guterres too expressed shock at the killings. – Bernama/AFP

“The building was previously a health centre, heavily damaged earlier in the war. Initial reports indicate the facility was sheltering over 700 people when it was hit. Among those killed are reportedly nine children, including a two-week-old baby,” he posted on his official X account. “Displaced families stayed at the shelter after it was hit because they have nowhere else to go. Since the war began, more than 300 UN buildings have been damaged or destroyed even though all their coordinates are regularly shared with the warring parties. More than 700 people have been killed while seeking UN protection,” he said. “Too many UNRWA premises have also reportedly been used for military and fighting purposes by Palestinian groups or the Israeli forces. The total disregard of UN staff, premises or operations is a profound defiance of international law.” He called once again for independent

“The incident on March 23 in which IDF (military) forces opened fire targeting terrorists advancing in ambulances, has been transferred to the General Staff’s fact-finding and assessment mechanism for investigation,” military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said in a statement. The Palestinian Red Crescent said on Sunday it had recovered the bodies of 15 rescuers after Israeli forces targeted the ambulances in the southern Gaza Strip last month. Bodies of eight medics from the Red Crescent, six members of Gaza’s civil defence agency and one employee of a UN agency were retrieved, the Red Crescent said. The UN humanitarian office (OCHA) said on Tuesday that a team of first responders was killed by Israeli forces on March 23, and that other emergency and aid teams were hit one

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A Palestinian sits at the site of an Israeli strike on an encampment housing displaced people in Khan Younis yesterday. – REUTERSPIC

Hungary withdraws from ICC as Netanyahu visits BUDAPEST: Hungary has decided to withdraw from the International Criminal Court, it said yesterday, shortly after Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, sought under an ICC arrest warrant, arrived in the country for a state visit. Orban made clear that Hungary would not respect the ruling which he called “brazen, cynical and completely unacceptable”. Hungary signed the ICC’s founding document in 1999 and ratified it in 2001, but the law has not been promulgated. under US sanctions,”Orban said on X in February. The Bill on starting the year-long process of withdrawing from the ICC is likely to be approved by Hungary’s parliament that is dominated by Orban’s Fidesz party.

ICC judges said when they issued the warrant that there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and his former defence chief were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution and starvation as a weapon of war as part of a “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza”. The Israeli campaign has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health authorities, and devastated the Gaza Strip. The ICC also issued an arrest warrant against a Hamas leader in November. His death was confirmed after the warrant was issued. – Reuters

Prime Minister Viktor Orban invited his Israeli counterpart to Budapest in November, a day after the ICC issued its arrest warrant over allegations of war crimes in Gaza, where Israel launched its offensive. Israel has rejected the accusations, which it says are politically motivated and fuelled by antisemitism. It says the International Criminal Court has lost all legitimacy by issuing the warrants against a democratically elected leader of a country exercising the right of self defence. As a founding member of the ICC, Hungary is theoretically obliged to arrest and hand over anyone subject to a warrant from the court but

Gergely Gulyas, Orban’s chief of staff, said in November that although Hungary ratified the Rome Statute of the ICC, it “was never made part of Hungarian law”, meaning that no measure of the court can be carried out within Hungary. Gulyas told state news agency MTI yesterday that the government would launch the withdrawal process later in the day. Orban had raised the prospect of Hungary’s exit from the ICC after US President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on the court’s prosecutor Karim Khan in February. “It’s time for Hungary to review what we’re doing in an international organisation that is