JINDERIS: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that 35,418 people have died as a result of last week’s quakes, making the deadliest such disaster since the country’s founding 100 years ago.
The massive Erzincan earthquake in 1939 resulted in the deaths of around 33,000 people.
Erdogan said there had been 105,505 people injured as a result of the Feb. 6 quakes centered around Kahramanmaras.
Erdogan was speaking in Ankara following a five-hour Cabinet meeting held at the headquarters of disaster agency AFAD.
Aid agencies and governments stepped up efforts Tuesday to get help to earthquake-devastated parts of Turkiye and Syria, but a week after the disaster many of those left homeless were still struggling to meet basic needs, like finding shelter from the bitter cold.
The situation was particularly desperate in Syria, where a 12-year civil war has complicated relief efforts and meant days of wrangling over how to even move aid into the country, let alone distribute it. Some people there said they have received nothing. In Turkiye, meanwhile, families huddled in train cars.
On Tuesday, the United Nations launched a $397 million appeal to provide “desperately needed, life-saving relief for nearly 5 million Syrians” for three months. It came a day after the global body announced a deal with Damascus to deliver UN aid through two more border crossings from Turkiye to rebel-held areas of northwest Syria — but the needs remained enormous.
Ahmed Ismail Suleiman set up a shelter of blankets outside his damaged house in the town of Jinderis, one of the worst-hit communities in northwest Syria. He was afraid to move his family back into a house that might not be structurally sound, so 18 people slept outside under the makeshift tent.
“We sit but can’t sleep lying down here,” he said. “We are waiting for a proper tent.”
Mahmoud Haffar, head of the town council, said residents have been able to scrounge up about 2,500 tents so far, but some 1,500 families still remain without shelter — as nighttime temperatures fall to around minus 4 degrees Celsius (26 degrees Fahrenheit).
“We are on day nine and we are still hearing the question of when will aid get in,” said Haffar.
While tents have been in short supply, one women said the town had a surplus of donated bread and water.
To the southwest, in government-held Latakia, Raeefa Breemo said only those packing into shelters seemed to be getting aid.
“We need to eat, we need to drink, we need to survive. Our jobs, our lives, everything have stopped,” Breemo said.
Offers of help — from rescue crews and doctors to generators and food — have come from around the world, but the needs remain immense after the magnitude 7.8 quake and powerful aftershocks toppled or damaged tens of thousands of buildings, destroyed roads and closed airports for a time. The quake affected 10 provinces in Turkiye that are home to some 13.5 million people, as well as a large area in northwest Syria that is home to millions.
Much of the water system in the quake-hit region was not working, and Turkiye’s health minister said samples from dozens of points of the system showed the water was unsuitable to drink.
In the Turkish port city of Iskenderun, displaced families have sheltered in train carriages since last week.
While many have left in recent days for nearby camps or other parts of Turkiye, dozens of people were still living in the trains on Tuesday.
“The wagons have become our home,” 50-year-old Nida Karahan told Anadolu Agency.
While a first Saudi aid plane, carrying 35 tons of food, landed in Syrian government-held Aleppo on Tuesday, getting aid to the country’s rebel-held Idlib has been especially complicated.
Until Monday’s deal between the UN and the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad, the global body had only been allowed to deliver aid to the area through a single border crossing with Turkiye, or via government territory.
The newly opened crossings at Bab Al-Salameh and Al Raée are to function for an initial period of three months. Russia bristled at suggestions that the opening of the crossings might be made permanent, and its Foreign Ministry accused the West of trying to get aid “exclusively” to areas not controlled by the Syrian government.
Major humanitarian organizations welcomed the development but cautioned that logistical problems remain, even as the first UN aid convoy with 11 trucks entered northwestern Syria through Bab Al-Salameh Tuesday.
“This is a constant back and forth in negotiations,” said World Health Organization spokesman Christian Lindmeier. “Every party has to agree to receive convoys.”
Meanwhile, the death toll surpassed 35,500 — nearly 32,000 of those in Turkiye. In Syria, the toll in the northwestern rebel-held region has passed 2,200, according to the rescue group known as the White Helmets. Over 1,400 people have died in government-held areas, according to the Syrian Health Ministry.
The toll is nearly certain to rise as search teams turn up more bodies — and the window for finding survivors was closing.
Nevertheless, more than 200 hours after the quake struck, teacher Emine Akgul was pulled from an apartment building in Antakya by a mining search and rescue team, Turkiye’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
In Adiyaman province, rescuers reached 18-year-old Muhammed Cafer Cetin, and medics gave him an IV with fluids before attempting a dangerous extraction from a building that crumbled further as rescuers were working. Medics fitted him with a neck brace and he was carted away on a stretcher with an oxygen mask, Turkish TV showed.
Many in Turkiye have blamed faulty construction for the vast devastation, and authorities continued targeting contractors allegedly linked with buildings that collapsed. Turkiye has introduced construction codes that meet earthquake-engineering standards, but experts say the codes are rarely enforced.
At a temporary shelter in a sports center in Afrin in northwest Syria, 190 families were sleeping on the floor of a basketball court, lying on mats typically used for training. The families attempted to create a semblance of privacy by hanging blankets on columns or sports bars.
Sabah el Khodr said she and her two toddlers have been sick for the last nine days. The children were wrapped in blankets and sleeping on the floor of the court.
Local officials said the shelter is temporary, until new tents are secured.
Erdogan: Earthquake deaths worst in Turkiye’s modern history
https://arab.news/n9r68
Erdogan: Earthquake deaths worst in Turkiye’s modern history
- The massive Erzincan earthquake in 1939 resulted in the deaths of around 33,000 people
- Erdogan said there had been 105,505 people injured as a result of the Feb. 6 quakes centered around Kahramanmaras
Turkiye says to apply to intervene in ICJ genocide case against Israel
- Ankara steps up measures against Israel over its assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 35,000 people
Earlier this month Fidan announced the decision to join the case launched by South Africa as Ankara steps up measures against Israel over its assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 35,000 people and launched after militant group Hamas’ Oct. 7 rampage.
“We condemned civilians being killed on October 7,” he told a press conference with his Austrian counterpart.
“But Israel systematically killing thousands of innocent Palestinians and rendering a whole residential area uninhabitable is a crime against humanity, attempted genocide, and the manifestation of genocide,” he added.
A foreign ministry official said Turkiye had not yet submitted the formal application to the ICJ.
The World Court will hold hearings on Thursday and Friday to discuss new emergency measures sought by South Africa over Israel’s attacks on Rafah during the war in Gaza, the tribunal said Monday.
The hearings on May 16 and 17 will deal with South Africa’s request to the court to order more emergency measures against Israel over its attacks on Rafah, the tribunal added, part of an ongoing case which accuses Israel of acts of genocide against Palestinians.
Israel has previously said it is acting in accordance with international law in Gaza, and has called South Africa’s genocide case baseless and accused Pretoria of acting as “the legal arm of Hamas.”
Lebanon resumes ‘voluntary’ repatriations of Syrians
- Vans and small trucks gathered in the Arsal area near the border early in the morning to ferry home the returnee
- Human rights group Amnesty International said at the time that Lebanese authorities were putting Syrians at risk of “heinous abuse and persecution upon their return,”
Beirut: Beirut repatriated several hundred Syrians on Tuesday in coordination with Damascus, an AFP photographer reported, as pressure mounts in cash-strapped Lebanon for the hundreds of thousands refugees to go home.
Vans and small trucks gathered in the Arsal area near the border early in the morning to ferry home the returnees, the photographer said.
The vehicles were piled high with mattresses and other belongings and some were even accompanied by livestock.
“I’m going back alone for the moment, in order to prepare for my family’s return,” said a 57-year-old man originally from Syria’s Qalamun area, declining to be identified by name.
“I am happy to go back to my country after 10 years” as a refugee, he told AFP.
Around 330 people had registered to be part of the “voluntary return,” Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said.
Syrian state news agency SANA reported an unspecified number of people arrived from Lebanon as part of the initiative.
Lebanon, which has been mired in a crushing economic crisis since late 2019, says it hosts around two million Syrians, the world’s highest number of refugees per capita, with almost 785,000 registered with the United Nations.
Earlier this month, the European Union announced $1 billion in aid to Beirut to help stem irregular migration to the bloc, but in Lebanon the package has been criticized for failing to meet growing public demands for Syrians to leave.
Parliament is set to hold a session on Wednesday to discuss the EU assistance.
Lebanon began the “voluntary” return of small numbers of Syrians in 2017 based on lists sent to the government in Damascus, with the last such group crossing the border in 2022.
Human rights group Amnesty International said at the time that Lebanese authorities were putting Syrians at risk of “heinous abuse and persecution upon their return,” adding that the refugees were “not in a position to take a free and informed decision about their return.”
On Monday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah urged Lebanese authorities to open the seas for migrant boats to put pressure on the European Union, whose easternmost member, Cyprus, is less than 200 kilometers away.
Red Cross sets up Rafah emergency field hospital
- Staff at the new facility will be able to treat around 200 people a day and can provide emergency surgical care
GENEVA: The International Red Cross and partners are opening a field hospital in southern Gaza on Tuesday to try to meet what it described as “overwhelming” demand for health services since Israel’s military operation on Rafah began last week.
Some health clinics have suspended activities while patients and medics have fled from a major hospital as Israel has stepped up bombardments in the southern sliver of Gaza where hundreds of thousands of uprooted people are crowded together.
“People in Gaza are struggling to access the medical care they urgently need due, in part, to the overwhelming demands for health services and the reduced number of functioning health facilities,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said. “Doctors and nurses have been working around the clock, but their capacity has been stretched beyond its limit.”
Staff at the new facility will be able to treat around 200 people a day and can provide emergency surgical care and manage mass casualties as well as provide pediatric and other services, the ICRC said.
“Medical staff are faced with people arriving with severe injuries, increasing communicable diseases which could lead to potential outbreaks, and complication related to chronic diseases untreated that should have been treated days earlier.”
The ICRC will maintain medical supplies to the facility while the Red Cross societies from 11 countries including Canada, Germany, Norway and Japan are providing staff and equipment.
Israel’s Rafah attack set Hamas talks ‘backward’: Qatar PM tells forum
- Emir says Israel looks set to stay in Gaza waging war
DOHA, QATAR: Israel’s military operation in Rafah has set truce negotiations with Hamas “backward,” mediator Qatar said on Tuesday, adding that talks have reached “almost a stalemate.”
“Especially in the past few weeks, we have seen some momentum building but unfortunately things didn’t move in the right direction and right now we are on a status of almost a stalemate,” Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani told the Qatar Economic Forum.
“Of course, what happened with Rafah has set us backward.”
Qatar, which has hosted Hamas’s political office in Doha since 2012, has been engaged — along with Egypt and the United States — in months of behind-the-scenes mediation between Israel and the Palestinian militant group.
Israel continued to fight Hamas in Rafah on Monday, despite US warnings against a full-scale assault on the south Gaza city that is crowded with displaced Palestinians.
“There is no clarity how to stop the war from the Israeli side. I don’t think that they are considering this as an option... even when we are talking about the deal and leading to a potential ceasefire,” Sheikh Mohammed said.
Israeli politicians were indicating “by their statements that they will remain there, they will continue the war. And there is no clarity on what Gaza will look like after this,” he added.
Nakba: Palestinians mark 76 years of dispossession as a potentially even larger catastrophe unfolds in Gaza
- In Gaza, the refugees and their descendants make up around three-quarters of the population
- Now, many Palestinians fear a repeat of their painful history on an even more cataclysmic scale
JERUSALEM: Palestinians on Wednesday will mark the 76th year of their mass expulsion from what is now Israel, an event that is at the core of their national struggle. But in many ways, that experience pales in comparison to the calamity now unfolding in Gaza.
Palestinians refer to it as the “Nakba,” Arabic for “catastrophe.” Some 700,000 Palestinians — a majority of the prewar population — fled or were driven from their homes before and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that followed Israel’s establishment.
After the war, Israel refused to allow them to return because it would have resulted in a Palestinian majority within its borders. Instead, they became a seemingly permanent refugee community that now numbers some 6 million, with most living in slum-like urban refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
In Gaza, the refugees and their descendants make up around three-quarters of the population.
Israel’s rejection of what Palestinians say is their right of return has been a core grievance in the conflict and was one of the thorniest issues in peace talks that last collapsed 15 years ago. The refugee camps have always been the main bastions of Palestinian militancy.
Now, many Palestinians fear a repeat of their painful history on an even more cataclysmic scale.
All across Gaza, Palestinians in recent days have been loading up cars and donkey carts or setting out on foot to already overcrowded tent camps as Israel expands its offensive. The images from several rounds of mass evacuations throughout the seven-month war are strikingly similar to black-and-white photographs from 1948.
Mustafa Al-Gazzar, now 81, still recalls his family’s monthslong flight from their village in what is now central Israel to the southern city of Rafah, when he was 5. At one point they were bombed from the air, at another, they dug holes under a tree to sleep in for warmth.
Al-Gazzar, now a great-grandfather, was forced to flee again over the weekend, this time to a tent in Muwasi, a barren coastal area where some 450,000 Palestinians live in a squalid camp. He says the conditions are worse than in 1948, when the UN agency for Palestinian refugees was able to regularly provide food and other essentials.
“My hope in 1948 was to return, but my hope today is to survive,” he said. “I live in such fear,” he added, breaking into tears. “I cannot provide for my children and grandchildren.”
The war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack into Israel, has killed over 35,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, making it by far the deadliest round of fighting in the history of the conflict. The initial Hamas attack killed some 1,200 Israelis.
The war has forced some 1.7 million Palestinians — around three quarters of the territory’s population — to flee their homes, often multiple times. That is well over twice the number that fled before and during the 1948 war.
Israel has sealed its border. Egypt has only allowed a small number of Palestinians to leave, in part because it fears a mass influx of Palestinians could generate another long-term refugee crisis.
The international community is strongly opposed to any mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza — an idea embraced by far-right members of the Israeli government, who refer to it as “voluntary emigration.”
Israel has long called for the refugees of 1948 to be absorbed into host countries, saying that calls for their return are unrealistic and would endanger its existence as a Jewish-majority state. It points to the hundreds of thousands of Jews who came to Israel from Arab countries during the turmoil following its establishment, though few of them want to return.
Even if Palestinians are not expelled from Gaza en masse, many fear that they will never be able to return to their homes or that the destruction wreaked on the territory will make it impossible to live there. A recent UN estimate said it would take until 2040 to rebuild destroyed homes.
The Jewish militias in the 1948 war with the armies of neighboring Arab nations were mainly armed with lighter weapons like rifles, machine guns and mortars. Hundreds of depopulated Palestinian villages were demolished after the war, while Israelis moved into Palestinian homes in Jerusalem, Jaffa and other cities.
In Gaza, Israel has unleashed one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history, at times dropping 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs on dense, residential areas. Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to wastelands of rubble and plowed-up roads, many littered with unexploded bombs.
The World Bank estimates that $18.5 billion in damage has been inflicted on Gaza, roughly equivalent to the gross domestic product of the entire Palestinian territories in 2022. And that was in January, in the early days of Israel’s devastating ground operations in Khan Younis and before it went into Rafah.
Even before the war, many Palestinians spoke of an ongoing Nakba, in which Israel gradually forces them out of Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories it captured during the 1967 war that the Palestinians want for a future state. They point to home demolitions, settlement construction and other discriminatory policies that long predate the war, and which major rights groups say amount to apartheid, allegations Israel denies.
