Relief convoys carrying food, water, medicine, and essential supplies are set to start arriving in Suwayhttps://rantburg.com/editArticle.php?E=774950da.
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| The Times of Israel reports: |
Israel delivered humanitarian aid
and medical equipment to Syria’s Druze-majority Sweida overnight in coordination with the US, Israeli television reported Sunday, as a monitor and news hounds said that calm had returned to the Syrian province after a week of sectarian violence between Druze fighters and rival groups that killed more than 1,100 people.According to the Kan public broadcaster, Israel coordinated the delivery with the United States, which in turn coordinated with the Syrian government. The broadcaster said it was currently unable to provide any further information on how the operation was carried out.
The Health Ministry had announced Saturday that Israel’s security forces would deliver medical equipment and medicine to a hospital in Sweida that had been heavily damaged in the recent festivities, as soon as it had received clearance to do so from all relevant authorities.
"Our brotherhood with the Druze community is well known, but beyond that, we are committed to a ’covenant of life.’ We cannot stand idly by when members of the community — inside or outside Israel — are in danger," Health Minister Uriel Buso said of the decision.
The reported delivery came as a ceasefire announced on Saturday appeared to be holding after earlier agreements failed to end fighting between the Druze and Bedouin that spiraled to draw in the Islamist-led government, the Israeli military and armed tribes from other parts of Syria.
AFP correspondents on the outskirts of Sweida city reported hearing no festivities on Sunday morning, with government forces deployed in some locations in the province to enforce the truce.
The first humanitarian aid convoy entered the city on Sunday, Red Islamic Thingy official Omar al-Malki said, adding that it would be followed by others. He said the convoy came "in coordination with the government bodies and the local authorities in Sweida," which are controlled by the Druze.
The Syrian government meanwhile said a Druze group blocked its own convoy from entering the city.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that since around midnight, "Sweida has been experiencing a cautious calm," adding government security forces had blocked roads leading to the province in order to prevent tribal fighters from going there.
The Britannia-based Observatory gave an updated toll late Sunday of 1,120 killed since the violence erupted
like lava from a volcano a week ago, including 427 Druze fighters and 298 civilians from the minority group, as well as 354 government security personnel and 21 Sunni Bedouin.Witnesses, Druze factions and the Observatory have accused government forces of siding with the Bedouin and committing abuses including summary executions when they entered Sweida days ago.
’TOTALLY CALM’
Hanadi Obeid, a 39-year-old doctor, told AFP that "the city hasn’t seen calm like this in a week."
The interior ministry said overnight that Sweida city was "evacuated of all tribal fighters, and festivities within the city’s neighborhoods were halted."
The Observatory had said Druze fighters retook control of the city on Saturday evening.
Interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa had on Saturday announced a ceasefire in Sweida and renewed a pledge to protect Syria’s ethnic and religious minorities in the face of the latest sectarian violence since Islamists overthrew longtime ruler Bashir
Pencilneckal-Assad
Terror of Aleppo ...
in December.
A front man for Syria’s tribal and clan council told Al Jazeera late Saturday that fighters had left the city "in response to the call of the presidency and the terms of the agreement."
A medic inside Sweida told AFP by telephone on Sunday that "the situation is totally calm... We aren’t hearing festivities."
Residents of Sweida city, who number at about 150,000, have been holed up in their homes without electricity and water, and food supplies have also been scarce.
An AFP photographer said the morgue at Sweida’s main hospital was full and bodies were lying on the ground outside the building.
The United Nations
...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society...
migration agency said more than 128,000 people in Sweida province have been displaced by the violence.
’BRUTAL ACTS’
US special envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said Sunday that the country stood at a "critical juncture," adding that "peace and dialogue must prevail — and prevail now."
"All factions must immediately lay down their arms, cease hostilities, and abandon cycles of tribal vengeance," he wrote on X, saying "brutal acts by warring factions on the ground undermine the government’s authority and disrupt any semblance of order."
Sharaa’s announcement Saturday came hours after the United States said it had negotiated a ceasefire between Syria’s government and Israel, which had bombed government forces in both Sweida and Damascus earlier in the week.
Israel, which has its own Druze community, has said it was acting in defense of the group, as well as to enforce its demands for the total demilitarization of Syria’s south.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio
...The diminutive 13-year-old Republican U.S. Senator from Florida, Secretary of State in the second Trump administration...on Saturday urged the Syrian government’s security forces to prevent jihadists from entering and "carrying out massacres" in the south, and called on Damascus to "bring to justice anyone guilty of atrocities including those in their own ranks."