BEIRUT: A Syrian mother and her three children died in their sleep after inhaling toxic fumes from burning coal to heat their room in a village in southern Lebanon, a rescue group said Sunday.
Youssef Al-Dor, an official with Resala Health Ambulance Association, said he transported the bodies to be buried from a hospital where the four were pronounced dead.
Al-Dor said the family used coal to warm their room on a cold night in a house in Kharayab, a southern village overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
An official from Fakih Hospital said the mother, 31, and her kids ages 8, 7 and 4 were already dead on arrival. They were declared dead of asphyxiation. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
Lebanon’s state National News Agency said the four died in their home.
Lebanon, a country of 6 million people, is home to 1.5 million Syrians who fled the now decade-old civil war in their country. They often live in squalid camps and shoddy homes.
As Lebanon grapples with an unprecedented economic crisis, poverty has deepened for both Lebanese and Syrians. The United Nations estimates that 90 percent of Syrian refugee households live in extreme poverty.

JERUSALEM: Egyptian officials Sunday pushed for Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip to rein in hostilities and adhere to a cease-fire in place since the war in May.
The Egyptian efforts came a day after Hamas militants launched rockets into the Mediterranean Sea off central Israel, prompting Israel to carry out airstrikes on militant positions in Gaza early Sunday. No casualties were reported.
The Israeli military said it struck “a rocket manufacturing site and military posts” belonging to Hamas in the Gaza Strip overnight in response to Saturday’s rocket fire.
“Whoever points missiles at Israel bears responsibility,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said at the start of the government’s weekly Cabinet meeting.
On Wednesday, Palestinian militants shot an Israeli contractor working along the border fence and Israel responded with tank fire at militant positions in what was the first exchange of fire in months.
Egyptian officials called on Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in Gaza to stop their actions seen by Israel as “provocative,” and for Israel to accelerate arrangements agreed upon as part of the cease-fire, an Egyptian diplomat with knowledge of the ongoing efforts said. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.
“Neither side wants a full-blown war,” the diplomat said. “They just want guarantees and steps on the ground.”
The cease-fire, brokered by Egypt and other mediators, has been fragile but largely held since the 11-day war between Hamas and Israel in May. But the militant group says Israel has not taken serious steps to ease the blockade it imposed on Gaza with Egypt after the Islamic movement seized control of the coastal enclave in 2007.
At the same time, the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group has threatened military action against Israel if a hunger-striking Palestinian prisoner dies. Hisham Abu Hawash, an Islamic Jihad member held by Israel under administrative detention, has staged a hunger strike for over 130 days.
Israel’s controversial policy of administrative detention allows suspects to be held without charge indefinitely. Israel says the practice is necessary to keep dangerous suspects in custody without disclosing critical intelligence that could expose sources. Palestinians and rights groups decry the policy as a violation of due process.

TEHRAN: Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and an armed criminal gang clashed on Saturday in a restive southeastern province, leaving three Guard members and “at least five bandits” dead, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.
The report said the fighting took place late Saturday evening in the district of Kourin, about 1,120 kilometers (700miles) southeast of the capital, Tehran, and near the Pakistani border. It also said that at least five other bandits were wounded. There were no further details.
The area is in Sistan and Baluchistan province, has been the scene of occasional clashes between Iranian government forces and various militant groups. The province, bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan, is also where a Sunni separatist group affiliated with Al-Qaeda and known as Jeish Al-Adl, or Army of Justice, operates.
Security forces have also clashed with drug traffickers in the province, located along a major smuggling route for Afghan opium and heroin.
Last July, armed bandits shot and killed four Guard members in the province.

MISSOURI / WASHINGTON: If 2020 was the year when fissures began to appear within the ranks of Syria’s ruling Assad clan, then 2021 was the year of determined attempts by the leadership to tighten its grip and reclaim its legitimacy.

Although several states lately have tried to bring the regime back into the Arab fold, even opting to reopen their embassies in Damascus, Syrian President Bashar Assad’s dependence on his Russian and Iranian benefactors has only continued to grow.

Indeed, Russian President Vladimir Putin received Assad in Moscow in September for the first time since 2018, no doubt to assist his Syrian counterpart’s rehabilitation but also to rebuke Turkey and the US for their ongoing involvement in Syria.

Assad’s reliance on Russia and Iran is owed in large part to the parlous state of Syria’s economy, the crippling effects of Western sanctions, the country’s diplomatic isolation, its military vulnerabilities, de facto partition, and the lack of popular support.

Syria is geographically fractured between regime-held areas, rebel holdouts in the northwest, and Kurdish self-administration in the northeast, making the distribution of aid — particularly COVID-19 vaccines — all the more difficult.

Russian, Turkish and American forces stationed in Syria have maintained an uneasy standoff, with the cracks between their respective spheres of influence filled by mercenaries, traffickers and the increasingly emboldened remnants of Daesh.

Many Syrian cities still lie in ruins and millions of citizens remain displaced, internally and externally, often in precarious circumstances, too terrified to return home and face the regime’s retribution.

A report published in September by Amnesty International, titled “You’re Going to your Death,” documented a catalog of horrific violations committed by the regime against Syrians who were forced to return after seeking refuge in Europe.

The scale of the regime’s crimes was hammered home in November when Omar Alshogre, a 25-year-old former regime detainee and torture survivor, addressed a UN Security Council meeting on the prevailing impunity in Syria and the need to ensure accountability.

“We have stronger evidence today than what we had against the Nazis at Nuremberg,” said Alshogre. “(We) even know where the mass graves are located. But still no international court and no end to the ongoing slaughter for the civilians in Syria.”

A report in September by the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic concluded that thousands of detainees have been subjected to “unimaginable suffering” during the war, including torture, death and sexual violence against women, girls and boys.

The sentencing by a German court in Koblenz in February of former Syrian intelligence agent Eyad Al-Gharib to four and a half years in prison on charges of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity has been hailed as historic.

Nevertheless, few Syrians believe they will ever obtain justice for the abuses of the past decade, nor do they hold out much hope of an improvement in the humanitarian situation.

Indeed, during the closing months of 2021 thousands of Syrians lined up at Damascus airport having paid thousands of dollars to a Belorussian travel agency to fly them to a remote wilderness on the border with the EU in the desperate hope of starting a new life.

“The situation in Syria is quieter now but that doesn’t mean it is better,” Asaad Hanna, a Syrian activist and refugee, told Arab News. “In the regime-held areas, people are living from one day to the next. They can’t meet their basic needs. The economy is collapsing and the currency is losing its value

“The Assad regime is still arresting anyone who complains, so people who are suffering are leaving the country. Imagine: since 2011, those finishing their studies have either been drafted into the army or have left the country.”

In Hanna’s view, the country is going the way of other international pariahs.

“With the increase in poverty, 10 years of destruction, Syria is getting the kind of stability of North Korea,” he added.

In northwest Syria, on the other side of the dividing line between the Assad regime and the last remaining rebel holdouts, 2021 was yet another year filled with tragedy, as schools, hospitals and even displacement camps were targeted in air and artillery attacks.

Mousa Zidane, who works for the rebel-affiliated Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, said 2021 was a difficult year for first responders.

“The bombing and deaths continued despite the ceasefire decision,” he told Arab News. “The coronavirus invaded the IDP (internally displaced persons) camps and cities of Syria. The burden on us was great.

“In addition to all of that, the regime and Russia’s attacks on us continued. Three of my colleagues in the White Helmets died as a result of direct attacks targeting our teams while performing their humanitarian missions, and more than 14 other volunteers were injured.”

The near-daily bombardment of rebel-held areas has drained the public’s morale, Zidane said, leaving people with little hope of change this year.

“Although we have always searched for hope, we doubt the coming year will be better for the Syrians,” he said. “But we do not lose hope in ourselves and we do not lose hope in the true friends of Syria and the Syrians. We will continue our work and our rightful demands.”

Like many Syrians, Hanna believes the Assad regime is unlikely to ever face justice for the killing of protesters, the bombardment of civilian areas, the torture and killing of opponents, or the alleged use of chemical weapons.

“Obviously, the international community is not interested in starting an accountability track right now but that doesn’t mean we should stop. It gives us more responsibility to keep pushing for justice and accountability for the Syrian people.”

Hanna fears the Biden administration’s openness to easing sanctions against the regime, and the recent diplomatic overtures by Arab countries, mean international pressure for regime change in Syria is all but finished. Indeed, Damascus might very well regain its seat in the Arab League.

“I only see that as a result of the new Democratic administration in the US,” Hanna said. “The previous one was clear about no relations with the Assad regime. But now we see Biden’s administration softening their position on everything Iran-related.”

Of course, almost everything in Syria remains Iran-related. Militias armed and funded by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps continue to solidify their hold over wide swaths of the country.

A long-standing alliance between Tehran and Damascus has allowed Iran to use Syria to expand its regional influence and smuggle advanced munitions. Lebanese Hezbollah, another Iranian proxy, has likewise played a decisive role in staving off a rebel victory over the embattled Assad regime.

Iran’s exploitation of Syria has drawn the attention of Israel, which is increasingly at odds with Washington’s more conciliatory approach to Tehran.

In December, Israel twice attacked suspected Iranian weapons shipments at the Syrian regime’s Latakia port. The coming months could see many more unilateral Israeli strikes targeting Iran’s regional interests.

Despite the suffering, setbacks and grim expectations for 2022, activists such as Hanna remain defiant.

“For me, personally, I don’t consider this a job; it has become a way of life,” he said. “As long as it goes on, we will keep supporting what we went into the streets for in 2011.”

———

* David Romano is the Thomas G. Strong professor of Middle East politics at Missouri State University

* Oubai Shahbandar is a former defense intelligence officer and Middle East analyst with the Pentagon

GAZA CITY: Two rockets fired from Gaza early Saturday fell into the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Tel Aviv, the Israeli army said, with no injuries reported.

Hamas and Israel exchanged indirect messages through Egypt to prevent the situation from deteriorating.

Hamas military sources said the launch was not deliberate and was caused by a malfunction due to bad weather.

The Israeli army said that two rockets were launched from Gaza toward the sea off Tel Aviv, but the sirens did not go off, nor did the Iron Dome system launch missiles to intercept the rockets.

Israeli police received reports from citizens about hearing an explosion but no damage or injuries were reported, according to the Israeli army statement.

Palestinian and Israeli media said that Egypt immediately rushed to mediate between the two parties in order to prevent an escalation in Gaza.

A website close to the Ezz El Din Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, quoted an unnamed source as saying that the two missiles were fired due to weather conditions, and that there were no missile tests.

The past few days have witnessed an intensification of Hamas firing experimental rockets toward the sea.

The Egyptian mediator conveyed to Hamas that “Israel is not convinced by these old arguments. They provided evidence that the rockets came out due to the weather,” Israel’s Channel 13 reported.

It was the first time that Israel announced the detection of rockets from Gaza off the coast of Tel Aviv since the last war in May 2021.

In the winter of last year, a similar incident occurred when rockets were launched from Gaza, which Hamas also explained as being the result of bad weather.

The security situation became tense last Wednesday after Israeli tanks bombed Hamas posts in northern Gaza, against the backdrop of Israel’s announcement that an Israeli had been wounded by gunfire from Gaza.

Following the fall of the two missiles, Israel’s security and military level sectors held a “security assessment session” and, according to the military correspondent for Israel’s Walla website Amir Bukhbut, “some Israeli security authorities believe Hamas’s narrative, but the weak response from Israel will show its weakness, and a strong response may lead to another response.”

No Palestinian faction has claimed responsibility for firing the two rockets.

Israel’s Channel 14 said: “This is a test for the (Israeli Prime Minister Naftali) Bennett government. Either it responds, or it continues to ignore, as was the case in the sniper incident last week.”

Palestinian observers said that if Israel decided to respond, its response would be limited.

Ibrahim Abrash, a professor of political science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, said it would be difficult for the Israeli government to give a “big response” in light of the continuation of talks to reach a truce and in light of no approval from Washington for any escalation in Gaza.

He said Israel would find in the failure of any Palestinian faction to take responsibility for the rockets a convincing justification before its people for not responding strongly. On the other hand, the factions in Gaza realized that “the cost of a new war will be very high.”

This incident coincides with the anger of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad over issues related to the siege and the reconstruction process, and the prisoners in Israeli prisons.

Since the end of the last war, the process of rebuilding the Gaza Strip has been faltering, which has increased the frequency of threats by Hamas and Islamic Jihad in an attempt to pressure Israel and donor countries to speed up the reconstruction process.