MOSUL: Iraq’s prime minister declared victory over Daesh in Mosul on Monday, three years after the militants seized the city and made it the stronghold of a “caliphate” they said would take over the world.
“I announce from here the end and the failure and the collapse of the terrorist state of falsehood and terrorism which the terrorist Daesh announced from Mosul,” Haider Al-Abadi said in a speech shown on state television.
A 100,000-strong coalition of Iraqi government units, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militias launched the offensive to recapture the city from the militants in October, with key air and ground support from a US-led coalition.
Abadi, wearing a black military uniform and flanked by commanders from the security forces, thanked troops and the coalition. But he warned that more challenges lay ahead.
“We have another mission ahead of us, to create stability, to build and clear Daesh cells and that requires an intelligence and security effort, and the unity which enabled us to fight Daesh,” he said before raising an Iraqi flag.
Abadi arrived in Mosul on Sunday to congratulate military commanders who have waged a nearly nine-month battle to recapture the city, many parts of which were reduced to rubble.
Gunfire and explosions could be heard earlier in the day as the last few Daesh positions were pounded.
Abadi has been meeting military and political officials in Mosul in an atmosphere of celebration that contrasts with the fear that spread after a few hundred Daesh militants seized the city and the Iraqi army crumbled in July 2014.
Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi shocked the Middle East and Western powers shortly afterwards by appearing at the pulpit of Mosul’s Grand Al-Nuri Mosque to declare the caliphate and himself the leader of the world’s Muslims.
A reign of terror followed which eventually alienated even many of those Sunni Muslims who had supported the group as allies against Iraq’s Shiite majority.
Since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, the Shiites have been politically dominant in Iraq but the country has been racked by ethnic conflict.
In the aftermath of victory in Mosul, Abadi’s government faces the task of managing the sectarian tensions there and elsewhere that enabled Daesh to win support, and the threat of a wave of revenge violence in the city.
Baghdadi has fled the city and his whereabouts are unknown. Reports have circulated that he is dead but Iraqi and Western officials say they cannot corroborate this.
His death or capture would not be the end of Daesh, which still controls areas south and west of Mosul and which is now expected to take to the desert or mountains to wage an insurgency.
The militants are expected to keep trying to launch attacks on the West and inspiring violence by “lone wolves” or small groups of the kind mounted recently in Britain, France and elsewhere.
But the loss of Iraq’s second-largest city is a grave body blow to Daesh.
“The recovery of Mosul is a significant step in the fight against terrorism and violent extremism,” said the spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Jaafar Sadiq, a member of Iraq’s counter-terrorism force, said military operations had been completed in Mosul’s Old City, which saw heavy fighting in recent weeks as the Islamists made their last stand.
Daesh is also under heavy pressure in its operational headquarters in the Syrian city of Raqqa.
The stench of corpses along Mosul’s streets was a reminder of the gruelling urban warfare required to dislodge Daesh.
Much of the city of 1.5 million has been destroyed in the fighting, its centuries-old stone buildings flattened by air strikes and other explosions. One of Daesh’s last acts was to blow up the historic Al-Nuri mosque and its famous leaning minaret.
Thousands of people have been killed. The United Nations says 920,000 civilians have fled their homes since the military campaign began in October. Close to 700,000 people are still displaced.
“It’s a relief to know that the military campaign in Mosul is ending. The fighting may be over, but the humanitarian crisis is not,” said UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq Lise Grande.
“Many of the people who have fled have lost everything. They need shelter, food, health care, water, sanitation and emergency kits. The levels of trauma we are seeing are some of the highest anywhere. What people have experienced is nearly unimaginable.”
Iraqi soldiers relaxed. Some swam in the Tigris river which runs through the city. One wiped the sweat from his face with an Daesh flag.
Iraqi PM announces victory over Daesh in Mosul
Iraqi PM announces victory over Daesh in Mosul
Israeli court ordered prisons to give Palestinian detainees more food
- At least 101 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since the start of the Gaza war
NABLUS: Five months after Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that its prisons were failing to provide enough food for Palestinian detainees and ordered conditions be improved, emaciated prisoners are still emerging with tales of extreme hunger and abuse.
Samer Khawaireh, 45, told Reuters that all he was given to eat in Israel’s Megiddo and Nafha prisons was ten thin pieces of bread over the course of a day, with a bit of hummus and tahini. Twice a week some tuna.
Videos saved on Khawaireh’s phone show him at normal weight before he was detained in the West Bank city of Nablus last April, and clearly emaciated upon his release. He says he lost 22 kg (49 pounds) during nine months in captivity, emerging a month ago covered in scabies sores and so gaunt and dishevelled his 9-year-old son Azadeen didn’t recognize him.
Reuters could not independently determine the total number of prisons where the scarcity of food prevailed, or the total number of inmates who experienced its toll.
Reuters could not independently verify Khawaireh’s diet during his captivity, the reasons for his extreme weight loss, or exactly how widespread such experience is among the 9,000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
But it was consistent with descriptions in some reports compiled by lawyers after prison visits. Reuters reviewed 13 such reports from December and January, in which 27 prisoners complained of a lack of food, with most saying provisions had not changed since the court order.
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), which was involved in last year’s landmark court case that led to the order for better treatment for prisoners, has accused the government of harboring a “policy of starvation” in prisons.
The Israel Prisons Service declined to comment on Khawaireh’s individual case but said it “rejects allegations of ‘starvation’ or systematic neglect. Nutrition and medical care are provided based on professional standards and operational procedures.”
The service “operates in accordance with the law and court rulings” and all complaints are investigated through official channels, a spokesperson said.
“Basic rights, including access to food, medical care, and adequate living conditions, are provided in accordance with the law and applicable procedures, by professionally trained staff.”
Khawaireh, a journalist at a Nablus radio station who was held without charge, said he was never told why he was detained in a night raid on his house in April. Israel’s military declined to comment.
RIGHTS GROUP ASKS COURT TO HOLD PRISON SERVICE IN CONTEMPT
Independent verification of the treatment of detainees has become more difficult since the start of the Gaza War, when Israel barred prison visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross, a role the Geneva-based body has played in conflicts around the world for a century.
ACRI has petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to allow Red Cross access to Palestinian detainees. It has also applied to court to have the prison service held in contempt for failing to comply with last September’s order that it improve conditions.
“All the indications that we’re getting are that not much has changed” since the court ruling, the group’s executive director Noa Sattath told Reuters.
“The prisoners are not getting more food if they ask for it. There hasn’t been any medical examination of the situation of the prisoners, and the prisoners are still hungry.”
The Supreme Court did not respond to a request for comment on the case.
BENEFITS AND INDULGENCES
The number of detainees held by Israel swelled after the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, with thousands swept up during Israel’s assault on Gaza and a crackdown in the occupied West Bank, though hundreds were freed under a ceasefire last October.
Throughout the war in Gaza, Israel’s Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, in charge of the prisons service, has compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians with the abuse faced by Israeli hostages held in Gaza by Hamas, many of whom were released in a state of near starvation that shocked Israelis.
Hamas denies starving hostages, saying they ate as well as their captors under Israeli restrictions on supplies to Gaza.
Sattath, of ACRI, said the treatment of hostages held by militants provides no justification for mistreating Palestinian detainees.
After returning to office atop the most right-wing government in Israel’s history in late 2022, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put prisons in the hands of Ben-Gvir, a far-right settler activist known for keeping a portrait in his living room of a Jewish gunman who killed 29 Palestinian worshippers in a West Bank mosque.
Among Ben-Gvir’s first acts in office was to shut prison bakeries where Palestinian detainees had been allowed to make their own food, saying he aimed to cancel “benefits and indulgences.”
He has since publicly denounced courts for trying to force prisons to coddle Israel’s enemies. During last year’s court hearings, he called the case “crazy and delusional” in a post on X, mocked the judges for debating “whether the killers’ menu is balanced,” and said he was “here to make sure the terrorists get the bare minimum.”
Ben-Gvir did not respond to a request for comment, including on whether the prison service is now in compliance with the court’s ruling, or whether any policies have been changed in response to it.
ACRI says the far-right’s criticism of judges amounts to a smear campaign intended to intimidate the judiciary. In 2024 the Supreme Court took the unusual step of complaining publicly over posters put up by right-wing activists, denouncing judges.
Hunger, more widely, has been an issue in the war in Gaza, where the United Nations says Israeli supply restrictions caused malnutrition among the more than 2 million Palestinian residents, reaching famine scale in mid-2025. Israel says the extent of hunger was exaggerated and blames Hamas fighters for stealing aid. Hamas denies diverting food, and a US analysis found no evidence that the militants did so systematically.
LAWYERS SAY TEEN DIED IN CUSTODY OF MALNUTRITION
At least 101 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since the start of the Gaza war, according to the rights group Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI).
Among them was Walid Ahmed, 17, who died in March last year after collapsing and hitting his head in prison, which his lawyers say was a result of illness due to malnutrition.
“His autopsy showed massive weight loss — loss of muscle mass, fat, weakened immune system. When he got an infection, his body couldn’t fight it,” said Ahmed’s lawyer Nadia Daqqa.
Ahmed’s autopsy, reviewed by Reuters, said he suffered from “prolonged malnutrition” and listed starvation, infection and dehydration as potential causes of death.
The prison service declined to comment on Ahmed’s treatment in custody or the cause of his death.
Naji Abbas, PHRI’s director of the prisoners and detainees department, says chronic hunger has made the overall detainee population dangerously susceptible to other ailments.
“When people are being starved, their immune system is weak. So every medical problem, even the simplest one, can become serious,” he said.
Amani Sarahneh, the director of media and documentation for the Palestinian Prisoners Society, who has reviewed hundreds of cases and is in continuous contact with detainees, said the physical consequences are only part of the impact of hunger.
“When you hear detainees describe food, you see how huge a space it takes in their minds, because the human desire to feel full is so basic. Israel uses this heavily: not only physically but psychologically,” she said.
Khawaireh, who has returned to work since his release on January 7, has put weight back on, though he still looks thin.
While in prison, he said he and other detainees sometimes would save up half their allotment of bread for Saturday, so that once a week they can feel full.
“We want to feel, one day, that we are full — even once a week, we want to feel full, we are never full.”
