ANKARA: Turkish attitudes toward the growing number of Syrian refugees living in the country have hardened, with many blaming the newcomers for job losses and a rise in terror incidents, a survey has shown.
The survey by Istanbul Bilgi University, released in Ankara on Monday, showed 71 percent of respondents blame Syrians for taking their jobs, while 58 percent believe the number of terrorist incidents in Turkey has increased because of the growing presence of Syrians.
Titled “Turkish attitudes toward Syrians in Turkey,” the study was conducted in November and December last year through face-to-face interviews with 2,004 people in four focus groups. Those surveyed were mostly supporters of the main political parties.
“In our own country now, we are second-class citizens,” a pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party supporter said during the survey. “They all came and settled here, they benefit from all (our) services.”
Turkey is home to 3.7 million registered refugees, most of them from Syria. Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Turkey has spent more than $30 billion on the welfare of Syrian refugees, including health, education and infrastructure. The Turkish Health Ministry also conducts vaccination campaigns and free medical checkups for those living outside the camps.
Some of these benefits given to Syrians have fueled animosity among Turkish people, with about 51 percent of those surveyed opposed to giving free medical treatment to refugees at hospitals funded by Turkish taxpayers.
The study, conducted with the support of the German Marshall Fund of the US, a think tank and grant provider, also found that 55.5 percent believe Syrians pose a health risk.
“After the Syrians arrived, the number of divorces increased,” said another respondent supporting the ruling Justice and Development Party.
However, experts say tensions will ease if more is done to integrate Syrians into Turkish society.
“We observe some increasing concerns, and distortion and displeasure among Turkish society due to the prolonged uncertainty about the stay of Syrians,” Ayselin Yildiz, UNESCO’s chair on international migration at Yasar University, told Arab News.
“But we should avoid interpreting it as rising xenophobia, which is not the case,” she said.
“I believe if the Syrians are properly integrated into the economy through a development approach, this will ease the possible tensions. Accordingly, we need a regional approach and we need local actors to be able to more actively engaged in employment strategies.”
Since 2015, the Turkish government has been working to make it easier for Syrians to obtain Turkish citizenship — a move that has sparked controversy among the Turkish public. Early last year, Syrians who were skilled white-collar professionals with a university education were given citizenship.
About 80 percent of those surveyed by the university said Syrians should not be allowed to obtain Turkish citizenship, while 86 percent said all Syrians should be sent back to their country when the war is over.
In contrast, a different survey released in November revealed that nearly 75 percent of Syrian refugees in Turkey hope to obtain citizenship, while 52 percent of Syrians want to continue living in the country.
However, according to the Bilgi University study, interactions between Turkish people and Syrian refugees have been limited. Although 69 percent meet Syrians in their neighborhoods, only 12 percent have a Syrian friend, and 5 percent visit their Syrian neighbors’ homes.
Of those surveyed, 87 percent were opposed to their daughters marrying a Syrian, while 80 percent say they cannot do business with a Syrian. Nearly three quarters, or 74 percent, refused to let their children make friends with their Syrian peers.
While some of the survey figures are worryingly high — such as negative attitudes toward giving rights to Syrians — intercommunal contact and empathy among the Turkish public are likely to overcome the apparent xenophobia, experts say.
“Living in the same neighborhood isn’t sufficient. Turks and Syrians should increase social interaction at the grassroots levels by shopping and visiting each other’s houses,” Dr. Emre Erdogan, founder and director of the Infakto Research Workshop in Istanbul, said.
For this to happen, Syrians need to obtain sufficient language skills in order to establish a dialogue with their Turkish peers, while social projects should focus on encouraging interaction, he said.
Turkish animosity toward Syrian refugees on the rise, survey warns
Turkish animosity toward Syrian refugees on the rise, survey warns
For the children of Gaza, war means no school
DEIR AL-BALAH: Atef Al-Buhaisi, 6, once dreamed of a career building houses. Now, all he craves is to return to school.
In Israel’s war with Hamas, Atef’s home has been bombed, his teacher killed, and his school in Nuseirat turned into a refuge for displaced people.
He lives in a cramped tent with his family in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza. He sleeps clinging to his grandmother and fears walking alone, even during the day.
Since the war erupted on Oct. 7, all Gaza’s schools have closed — leaving hundreds of thousands of students like Atef without formal schooling or a safe place to spend their days. Aid groups are scrambling to keep children off the streets, and their minds are focused on something other than the war as heavy fighting continues across the enclave and has expanded into the southern city of Rafah and intensified in the north.
“What we’ve lost most is our children’s future and their education,” said Irada Ismael, Atef’s grandmother.
“Houses and walls are rebuilt, money can be earned again ... but how do I compensate for (his) education?”
Gaza faces a humanitarian crisis, with the head of the UN’s World Food Programme determining a “full-blown famine” is already underway in the north.
More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
About 80 percent of Gaza’s population has been driven from homes.
Much of Gaza is damaged or destroyed, including nearly 90 percent of school buildings, according to aid group estimates.
Children are among the most severely affected, with the UN estimating some 19,000 children have been orphaned and nearly a third under the age of 2 face acute malnutrition.
Education experts say that in emergencies, education takes a back seat to safety, health, and sanitation, but the consequences are lasting.
“The immediate focus during conflict isn’t on education, but the disruption has an incredibly long-term effect,” said Sonia Ben Jaafar of the Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation, a philanthropic organization focused on education in the Arab world.
“The cost at this point is immeasurable.”
According to the UN, Gaza had a highly literate population that included more than 625,000 students and some 20,000 teachers before the war.
In other conflicts, aid groups can create safe spaces for children in neighboring countries — for example, Poland for shelter and schooling during the war in Ukraine.
That’s impossible in Gaza, a densely populated enclave between the sea, Israel, and Egypt. Since Oct 7, Palestinians from Gaza haven’t been allowed to cross into Israel. Egypt has let a small number of Palestinians leave.
“They’re unable to flee, and they remain in an area that continues to be battered,” said Tess Ingram of UNICEF.
“It’s very hard to provide them with certain services, such as mental health and psychosocial support or consistent education and learning.”
Aid groups hope classes will resume by September. But even if a ceasefire is brokered, much of Gaza must be cleared of mines, and rebuilding schools could take years.
In the interim, aid groups are providing recreational activities — games, drawing, drama, art — not for a curriculum-based education but to keep children engaged and in a routine in an effort for normalcy. Even then, advocates say, attention often turns to the war — Atef’s grandmother sees him draw pictures only of tents, planes, and missiles.
Finding free space is among the biggest challenges.
Some volunteers use the outdoors, make do inside tents where people live, or find a room in still-standing homes.
It took volunteer teachers over two months to clear one room in a school in Deir Al-Balah to give ad hoc classes to children. Getting simple supplies such as soccer balls and stationery into Gaza can also take months, groups report.
“Having safe spaces for children to gather to play and learn is an important step,” Ingram said, but “ultimately, the children of Gaza must be able to return to learning curriculum from teachers in classrooms, with education materials and all the other support schooling provides.”
This month, UNICEF had planned to erect at least 50 tents in Rafah for play-based numbers and literacy learning for some 6,000 children from preschool to grade 12. But UNICEF says Israel’s operation there could disrupt those plans.
Lack of schooling can take a psychological toll — it disrupts daily life and, compounded with conflict, makes children more prone to anxiety and nervousness, said Jesus Miguel Perez Cazorla, a mental health expert with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Children in conflicts are also at increased risk of forced labor, sexual violence, trafficking, and recruitment by gangs and armed groups, experts warn.
“Not only are children vulnerable to recruitment by Hamas and other militant groups, but living amid ongoing violence and constantly losing family members makes children psychologically primed to want to take action against the groups they consider responsible,” said Samantha Nutt of War Child USA, which supports children and families in war zones.
Palestinians say they have seen more children take to Gaza’s streets since the war, trying to earn money for their families.
“The streets are full of children selling very simple things, such as chocolate and canned goods,” said Lama Nidal Alzaanin, 18, who was in her last year of high school and looking forward to university when the war broke out. There is nothing for them to do.”
Some parents try to find small ways to teach their children, scrounging for notebooks and pens and insisting they learn something as small as a new word each day. But many find the kids are too distracted with the world at war.
Sabreen Al-Khatib, a mother whose family was displaced to Deir Al-Balah from Gaza City, said it’s particularly hard for the many who’ve seen relatives die.
“When you speak in front of children,” Al-Khatib said, “what do you think he is thinking? Will he think about education? Or about himself, how will he die?”
On Oct. 7, 14-year-old Layan Nidal Alzaanin — Lama’s younger sister — was on her way to her middle school in Beit Hanoun when missiles flew overhead, she said. She fled with her family to Rafah, where they lived crowded in a tent.
Since Israel ordered evacuations there, she fled to Deir Al-Balah.
“It is a disaster,” she said.
“My dreams have been shattered. There is no future for me without school.”
Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Security Council announces arrest of top aide of former Daesh leader
- Khalil made bombs for the Daesh and was entrusted by Al-Baghdadi with various major operations
BAGHDAD: The Kurdish Regional Security Council announced in a statement on Friday that it captured a senior Daesh figure, Socrates Khalil.
Khalil was known to be a confidant of the late Daesh leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.
“After spending five years in Turkiye, Khalil returned to Kurdistan with a forged passport and was swiftly apprehended,” the statement said.
Khalil made bombs for the Daesh and was entrusted by Al-Baghdadi with various major operations, the statement added, saying that he was instrumental in the 2014 Daesh takeover of Mosul, and participated in many battles against Iraqi forces and the Peshmerga forces.
UN has got only 12 percent of funds sought for war-wracked Sudan
- “It is a catastrophically underfunded appeal,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told reporters
- “In Sudan, half of the population, 25 million people, need humanitarian aid. Famine is closing in. Diseases are closing in“
GENEVA: The United Nations warned on Friday that it had only received 12 percent of the $2.7 billion being sought for war-wracked Sudan, adding that “famine is closing in.”
Tens of thousands of people have died and millions have been displaced in Sudan since war broke out in April 2023 between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The United Nations says more than 1.4 million people have fled the country.
“It is a catastrophically underfunded appeal,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told reporters.
“Without more resources coming in fast, humanitarian organizations won’t be able to scale up in time to stave off famine and prevent further deprivation,” he said.
“In Sudan, half of the population, 25 million people, need humanitarian aid. Famine is closing in. Diseases are closing in. The fighting is closing in on civilians, especially in Darfur.”
The United Nations has expressed growing concern in recent days over reports of heavy fighting in densely populated areas as the RSF seeks control of El-Fasher, the last major city in the western Darfur region not under its control.
“Now is the time for donors to make good on pledges made, step up and help us help Sudan and be part of changing the current trajectory that’s leading toward the cliff’s edge. Don’t be missing in action,” he said.
Shible Sahbani, the UN’s World Health Organization representative in Sudan, said: “Thirteen months of war in Sudan, nine million people displaced which represent around 17 percent of the population and the largest internal displacement crisis in the world today.
“This conflict has... nearly destroyed the health system which is almost collapsed now. Close to 16,000 people have died due to this war, 33,000 have been injured,” she said, speaking from Port Sudan.
Sahbani said the real toll was “probably much higher.”
The RSF and Sudan’s armed forces are seen as both wanting to secure a battleground victory and each side has received support from outside players.
The UN human rights chief Volker Turk this week separately spoke to Lt. General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, president of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, Commander of the Rapid Support Forces.
“He urged them both to act immediately — and publicly — to de-escalate the situation,” UN human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said.
Children among dead as Israeli forces widen attacks on Hezbollah
- Southern Lebanon faces ‘escalating violence,’ army veteran tells Arab News
- US Embassy joins calls for a new Lebanese president to ‘unite the nation’
BEIRUT: Two children from a Syrian refugee family and a Hezbollah fighter were killed when Israeli airstrikes on Friday hit an area of southern Lebanon more than 30 km inside the border.
Israeli strikes targeted Najjariyeh and Addousiyeh, adjacent villages south of the coastal city of Sidon, killing the children and a Hezbollah fighter driving a pickup truck.
Hezbollah responded to the raids by firing dozens of rockets toward the upper Galilee, western Galilee, the Galilee panhandle, and the Golan.
Israeli media claimed that 140 rockets were fired toward the north of the country.
BACKGROUND
Hezbollah has traded cross-border fire with Israeli forces almost daily since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, now in its eighth month.
Israeli forces and Hezbollah have expanded their hostilities, with both launching drone attacks deep into Lebanese territory and northern Israel.
Retired Brig. Gen. Khaled Hamadeh of the Lebanese Army said that the situation in southern Lebanon is “escalating toward more violent attacks.”
Hezbollah insists on linking a ceasefire in southern Lebanon to an end to hostilities in Gaza.
Hamadeh said that no efforts were being made to stop the clashes between Israel and Hezbollah, unlike the situation in Gaza.
In a statement, Hezbollah said it targeted Israel’s Tsnobar logistics base in the Golan with 50 Katyusha rockets in response to the strike on Najjarieh.
According to Israeli media, rocket salvos were aimed at military bases in Katzrin and areas north of Lake Tiberias.
Two people were injured in rocket blasts in Karam bin Zamra in the upper Galilee, media added.
CCTV cameras installed outside homes in Najjarieh showed an Israeli drone following the pickup truck as the driver, named as Hussein Khodor Mehdi, attempted to flee.
The first missile launched by the drone missed its target, but a second that struck the truck, setting it on fire and killing the driver. Three onlookers were also injured.
Hezbollah said that Mehdi, 62, was “martyred on the road to Jerusalem.”
Israeli Army Radio said the victim was a senior commander in the Hezbollah air force.
It claimed that the army planes shelled Hezbollah’s infrastructure in Najjarieh.
The second airstrike targeted a congregation hall and a cement factory, wounding several members of a Syrian refugee family. Two children, Osama and Hani Al-Khaled, later died from their injuries.
Hezbollah said it targeted the Al-Raheb military site with artillery and Israeli positions in Al-Zaoura with a salvo of Katyusha rockets.
According to a security source, Hezbollah’s latest targets included surveillance balloons near Tiberias and Adamit in the Galilee.
Early on Friday, Hezbollah attacked the newly established headquarters of the 411th Artillery Battalion in Kibbutz Jaatoun, east of Nahariyya, with drones in response to the Israeli killing of two Hezbollah fighters, Ali Fawzi Ayoub, 26, and Mohammed Hassan Ali Fares, 34, the previous day.
In his Friday sermon, Sheikh Mohammed Yazbek, head of Hezbollah’s Shariah Council, said the group was “waging its fierce war on the north of Palestine, pursuing the enemy, blinding its espionage, and breaking what were once red lines, as well pursuing its soldiers in their hideouts until the war on Gaza stops.”
The US Embassy in Lebanon issued a warning over the conflict on the southern border and the presidential vacuum in the country.
Electing a president was crucial to ensuring Lebanon’s participation in regional discussions and future diplomatic agreements concerning its southern border, the embassy said.
Lebanon “needs and deserves a president who unites the nation, prioritizes the well-being of its citizens, and forms a broad and inclusive coalition to restore political stability and implement necessary economic reforms,” the statement added.
The ambassadors of Egypt, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the US to Lebanon issued a statement this week warning of “the critical situation facing the Lebanese people and the difficult-to-manage repercussions on Lebanon’s economy and social stability due to the delay of necessary reforms.”
Israeli military finds bodies of 3 hostages in Gaza, including Shani Louk, killed at music festival
- A photo of the 22-year-old Shani’s twisted body in the back of a pickup truck ricocheted around the world
- The military identified the other two bodies found as those of a 28-year-old woman, Amit Buskila, and a56-year-old man, Itzhak Gelerenter
JERUSALEM: Israeli military says its troops in Gaza found the bodies of three Israeli hostages taken by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attack, including German-Israeli Shani Louk.
A photo of the 22-year-old Shani’s twisted body in the back of a pickup truck ricocheted around the world and brought to light the scale of the militants’ attack on communities in southern Israel.
The military identified the other two bodies found as those of a 28-year-old woman, Amit Buskila, and a56-year-old man, Itzhak Gelerenter. Military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said all three were killed by Hamas at the Nova music festival, an outdoor dance party near the Gaza border, and their bodies taken into the Palestinian territory.
The military did not give immediate details on where their bodies were found.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and abducted around 250 others in the Oct. 7 attack. Around half of those have since been freed, most in swaps for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a weeklong ceasefire in November.
Israel says around 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 more. Israel’s campaign in Gaza since the attack has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
