ISTANBUL: Turkey returned fire after mortar bombs shot from Syria landed in a field in southern Turkey yesterday, the day after Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan warned Damascus Turkey would not shy away from war if provoked.
It was the fourth day of Turkish strikes in retaliation for mortar bombs and shelling by Syrian forces that killed five Turkish civilians further east on Wednesday.
The strikes and counterstrikes are the most serious cross-border violence in Syria’s conflict, which began as a democracy uprising but has evolved into a civil war with sectarian overtones. They highlight how the crisis could destabilize the region.
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu struck a defensive tone yesterday, saying Parliament’s authorization of possible cross-border military action was designed as a deterrent.
“With the mandate we did not take a step toward war, we showed the Syrian administration our deterrence, making the necessary warning to prevent a war,” he said.
“From now on, if there is an attack on Turkey it will be silenced,” he said in an interview with state broadcaster TRT.
Davutoglu said international mediator on Syria Lakhdar Brahimi would come to Turkey before Russian President Vladimir Putin visits Ankara within the next 10 days.
Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby described Brahimi’s Syria mission as “virtually impossible,” in an interview with Egyptian paper Al-Ahram.
Asked about the efforts of the Egypt-Saudi-Turkey-Iran quartet to solve the Syrian crisis, Elaraby said: “The solution must comprise Iran. The important thing is that matters get moving.”
Two rounds fired from Syria struck near Guvecci village in Yayladagi yesterday, the Hatay governor’s office said. It said the fire appeared to have been aimed by Syrian government forces at rebels along the border. There were no casualties.
The first round landed 50 meters inside Turkey at 7 a.m. (0400 GMT) and the Guvecci border post retaliated with four rounds from 81 mm mortars. It fired two further rounds after the second mortar struck around 11:30 a.m. (0830 GMT).
The governor’s office warned people in the area not to go out on balconies or spend time in open places, Dogan news agency said. It said the Red Crescent was offering psychological support to people in the area.
The Turkish General Staff yesterday sought to quell concerns about scenes of people apparently crossing freely back and forth across the frontier in the Akcakale area.
“There are no uncontrolled or illegal transits along the border. The region which we are responsible for is completely under control,” the General Staff said in a statement to state-run Anatolian news agency.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Ministry yesterday appealed for the release of 48 of its citizens held hostage by rebels in Syria and threatened with execution one by one unless Syria’s Army withdraws from an area in Damascus province.
The statement, relayed by the official news agency IRNA, described the captives as “pilgrims.”
The Syrian rebels, in an August 5 video, showed the Iranians and said they were members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards conducting a military mission in support of Syria’s regime.
On Friday, a rebel commander told AFP via Internet that the regime had until late Saturday to withdraw its forces from the embattled Eastern Ghuta area of Damascus province.
“We also have other secret, military demands. If the regime does not fulfill them we will start finishing off the hostages,” warned the commander, Abul Wafa, of the rebels’ Revolutionary Military Council in Damascus province.
The Iranian statement, by Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast, said: “The hostage takers of the Iranian pilgrims in Syria as well as those supporting them are responsible for their lives.”
The statement called on “international organizations to prevent such acts and to do everything to obtain the immediate liberation of all the pilgrims and Iranian nationals.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, on Aug. 8 said “retired” Revolutionary Guards members were among the hostages, but he denied they were on active service in Syria.
Turkey strikes back after fresh shelling from Syria
Turkey strikes back after fresh shelling from Syria
Fledgling radio station aims to be ‘voice of the people’ in Gaza
- The electricity crisis is one of the most serious and difficult problems in the Gaza Strip, says Shereen Khalifa Broadcaster
DEIR EL-BALAH: From a small studio in the central city of Deir El-Balah, Sylvia Hassan’s voice echoes across the Gaza Strip, broadcast on one of the Palestinian territory’s first radio stations to hit the airwaves after two years of war.
Hassan, a radio host on fledgling station “Here Gaza,” delivers her broadcast from a well-lit room, as members of the technical team check levels and mix backing tracks on a sound deck. “This radio station was a dream we worked to achieve for many long months and sometimes without sleep,” Hassan said.
“It was a challenge for us, and a story of resilience.”
Hassan said the station would focus on social issues and the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which remains grave in the territory despite a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas since October.
“The radio station’s goal is to be the voice of the people in the Gaza Strip and to express their problems and suffering, especially after the war,” said Shereen Khalifa, part of the broadcasting team.
“There are many issues that people need to voice.” Most of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people were displaced at least once during the gruelling war.
Many still live in tents with little or no sanitation.
The war also decimated Gaza’s telecommunications and electricity infrastructure, compounding the challenges in reviving the territory’s local media landscape. “The electricity problem is one of the most serious and difficult problems in the Gaza Strip,” said Khalifa.
“We have solar power, but sometimes it doesn’t work well, so we have to rely on an external generator,” she added.
The station’s launch is funded by the EU and overseen by Filastiniyat, an organization that supports Palestinian women journalists, and the media center at the An-Najah National University in Nablus, in the occupied West Bank.
The station plans to broadcast for two hours per day from Gaza and for longer from Nablus. It is available on FM and online.
Khalifa said that stable internet access had been one of the biggest obstacles in setting up the station, but that it was now broadcasting uninterrupted audio.
The Gaza Strip, a tiny territory surrounded by Israel, Egypt, and the Mediterranean Sea, has been under Israeli blockade even before the attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which sparked the war. Despite the ceasefire, Israel continues to strictly control the entry of all goods and people to the territory.
“Under the siege, it is natural that modern equipment necessary for radio broadcasting cannot enter, so we have made the most of what is available,” she said.
