Middle East splinters


April 7, 2015
Sarah Benton


Demonstrators outside the Red Cross building in Jerusalem show support for the Palestinians living in Syria’s Yarmouk refugee camp on Monday. Photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images

Official: Hamas forces join fight against IS in Damascus refugee camp

By Ma’an news
April 05 / 07, 2015

BETHLEHEM — An official in the support network for the Palestinian refugee camps in Syria said Sunday that a Hamas-affiliated group is fighting the Islamic State in Damascus’ Yarmouk refugee camp.

Ayman Abu Hashem told Ma’an that the Aknaf Bayt al-Maqdes group was fighting IS despite a decision by PLO factions to remain neutral in the Syrian civil war.

Abu Hashem said that the group was once among the biggest armed groups in the camp, before becoming weakened in recent weeks. Only a few dozen remain fighting, he said.

But Farouk al-Rifai, a spokesman for the Palestinian civil society network in Syria, told Ma’an that Aknaf Bayt al-Maqdes fighters were joining some civilians in defending the camp.

He explained that there were 1,500 IS fighters stationed near Yarmouk who were surrounded by the Syrian army before they received reinforcements and 700 IS fighters managed to enter the camp.

Both Abu Hashem and al-Rifai said they had documented three beheadings in the camp, while three others were executed by shooting and 70 Palestinian refugees were apprehended for opposing IS.

The camp has also been targeted by Syrian regime airstrikes, as over 16 barrel bombs were dropped on it on Saturday alone, the officials reported.

Evacuation

Earlier Sunday, a Palestinian official said that around 2,000 people had been evacuated from Yarmouk after IS seized large parts of it.

“Around 400 families, approximately 2,000 people, were able to leave the camp on Friday and Saturday via two secure roads to the Zahira district, which is under army control,” said Anwar Abdul Hadi, a Palestine Liberation Organization official.

Abdul Hadi said Syrian troops had helped in the evacuation, which came as Palestinian forces battled to hold back IS fighters who have captured large swathes of the camp since Wednesday.

He said most of those evacuated from the camp were being hosted in government shelters, with at least 25 wounded taken to two hospitals in Damascus.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, confirmed that “hundreds” of people had been evacuated from the camp.

The group said at least 26 people, including civilians as well as fighters from IS and Palestinian factions, had been killed in the camp since Wednesday.

Yarmouk, in south Damascus, was once home to 160,000 people, Syrians as well as Palestinians.

But its population has dwindled to just 18,000 since the uprising erupted in March 2011.

The camp is encircled by government forces and was under a tight siege for more than a year.

An agreement last year between rebels and the government, backed by Palestinian factions, led to an easing of the siege, but humanitarian access has remained limited.

IS fighters attacked the camp on Wednesday, and were initially largely repelled, but were subsequently able to capture large parts of it.

Palestinian officials have accused Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front of helping IS to enter the camp.



 Members of Jabhat al Nusra, 2012. Photo by Reuters.

ISIL’s Yarmouk offensive has profound implications

By Hassan Hassan, The National
April 06, 2015

The Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, which is only a 10-minute bus ride from central Damascus, has become the battle ground for a number of forces fighting to seize this strategic and symbolic area. The battle began in the early hours of April 1, when ISIL stormed the camp, for the second time in a year.

Clashes erupted between ISIL and a local fighting force, Aknaf Bait Al Maqdis, and tensions ensued among rebel forces nearby as they took sides in the clashes. Also, the Al Assad regime reportedly dropped barrel bombs inside the camp during the rebel clashes.

People in the camp have endured a humanitarian catastrophe for months because of a blockade imposed by the government. Scenes of malnourished and freezing children have become part of the reality, and they will probably get worse if the clashes continue.

But apart from the appalling humanitarian situation of the 18,000 Palestinians and Syrians in the camp, the outcome in Yarmouk threatens to be a turning point for the areas around Damascus. For two years, ISIL has sought to establish strongholds for itself with little success. Other than in Hajar Al Aswad, rebel forces, primarily Jaish Al Islam, tried relentlessly to prevent ISIL from establishing a foothold. Most of the camp is now under the control of ISIL.

Jaish Al Islam issued a statement accusing Al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat Al Nusra, which has checkpoints near the regime front lines, of being in cahoots with ISIL. Similar accusations were issued by Palestinian fighters from within the camp. Tensions between Jaish Al Islam and Jabhat Al Nusra almost led to clashes.


Palestinians queue for whatever aid the UN can get into Yarmouk refugee camp on April 5th. ISIL has repeatedly invaded the camp, which is close to Damascus and provides a base for a few of the many armed factions of Syria’s civil war. Photo by Reuters.

Jabhat Al Nusra blocked Jaish Al Islam from crossing its checkpoints to fight ISIL in the Yarmouk camp. The Al Qaeda affiliate justified the move by saying that Jaish Al Islam’s convoy include another group, Sham Al Rasoul, which had previously killed some of its members and is supportive of reconciliation with the Al Assad regime. It also said that it is avoiding involvement in the current clashes to prevent the regime from seizing the opportunity and entering the area.

The outskirts of Damascus have symbolic and strategic importance for ISIL. The Yarmouk camp is a gateway into both central Damascus and the area mentioned in Islamic apocalyptic traditions (“Muslims’ stronghold will be in Ghouta, near a city called Damascus.”) Also, ISIL’s growing presence in the mountainous Qalamoun area near Lebanon will potentially help it attack the rebels in between as the group becomes stronger – a familiar tactic for ISIL. Jaish Al Islam is one of the few rebel forces that was not weakened through the infighting that began in late 2013. But that can still happen, especially as tensions grow with Jabhat Al Nusra and provincial factions that lean towards local ceasefires.

If ISIL’s presence near Damascus persists, that will likely help it attract more recruits, especially among those who do not fit with the current dominant forces in the area. The area is beset by local rivalries and tensions related to each group’s tactics and attitudes towards the Al Assad regime. And ISIL can appeal to many of those alienated by those forces. Because ISIL failed to establish itself in the countryside around Damascus, sympathisers and members have mostly served as sleeper cells – another pattern that is all too familiar in the way ISIL operates and expands.

ISIL has been quietly growing in southern Syria. It is following policies similar to how it gradually expanded in the early months of 2013 throughout other parts of Syria. It relies on buying loyalties, creating sleeper cells, exploiting local rivalries and setting up courts when its presence is secured. Also reminiscent of its early tactics, ISIL has proven to be more co-operative with other groups in southern Syria, particularly Jabhat Al Nusra, which may be one of the reasons why it avoided clashes with ISIL in Yarmouk.

The ISIL offensive in Yarmouk is the second attempt in a year. It should not be taken lightly. It is a well-calculated move and a product of a wider strategy to expand in southern Syria. If ISIL controls more territory in that region, it might benefit immensely from the urban, mountainous and border region to establish a long-term presence in the south.

Hassan Hassan is a Middle East analyst and co-author of ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror
On Twitter: hxhassan


The Palestinians of Yarmouk to Ynet: We need international intervention, Islamic State is beheading people

The inhabitants of the refugee camp on the outskirts of Syria say they are not sure which is worse, the arrival of Islamic State, or the starvation and war that preceded it.

By Roi Kais, Ynet news
April 06, 2015

M, a resident of the Palestinian refugee camp Yarmouk, sounds despondent. He was born in the camp, on the outskirts of Damascus, and has lived there for more than 30 years. He, his wife and two children, along with thousands of others, are now at the mercy of Islamic State.

“Today I walked through the bombs and sniper fire to feed my children,” he tells Ynet. “You have to understand, my neighbour went to get food for his children, was shot by a sniper and died. Today we buried him. That’s how it is here: If you want to feed your children, you need to take your funeral shroud with you. There are snipers on every street, you are not safe anywhere.

Thousands of Palestinians live in Yarmouk, the descendants of Palestinians who fled Israel upon the establishment of the state in 1948.

They are now caught between a rock and a hard place: on the one hand Bashar Assad’s air force is launching barrel bombs in the area in an attempt to eliminate his opponents, and on the other side is fierce fighting between rebel groups – the brutal Islamic State and the Al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s arm in the country. The PLO reported Sunday that 2,000 people have been evacuated from Yarmouk – but thousands of others refuse to leave.

Al Jazeera reported Sunday afternoon that the Islamic State had begun to withdraw from the camp. This has not yet been verified, but it’s hard to believe the brutal Jihadists, who last week captured more than 90% of Yarmouk, would give up so easily on the camp that is the gateway to the Syrian capital. On Sunday, Islamic State members posted videos online of themselves touring the refugee camp.

“What am I at the end of the day? I am a citizen who wants to remain in his home and live with dignity, is that forbidden? My kids want to have the basic things that you have in every home – bread, pita. Imagine what it is to live for three years on only parsley, radish, rice and lentils from boxes.”

“There is no choice but to call on Israel for help; the Israelis are more compassionate than the Arabs,” M says, quoting a joke that had circulated in the desperate refugee camp for years, and recently found new life.

“This afternoon there was a massive lull in the fighting, but the fire continues. We get it from all sides: Islamic State has captured the camp, other militias open fire in the streets, the Assad regime is bombing their positions. And us, we have no connection to any party. Everyone here is afraid, waiting for redemption. Islamic State is already taking heads off and throwing them in the streets. Allah would not want to see that.”

M believes Islamic State wants to annex the camp to the neighbourhood of Hajar al-Aswad on the outskirts of Damascus, which it has already seized, and declare the area as part of an Islamic emirate. But with the terrible reality to which camp residents have become accustomed in the four years of civil war in Syria, they are no longer sure Islamic State is the worst thing they could wish for.

“Even if they throw out Islamic State – we go back to the same situation we were in before: Back to accepting the humiliating UN aid packages, packages which barely last a week and which we get only with the help of a broker.”


Cartoon based on the controversial image of Mohammed al-Dura, a Palestinian boy killed in the second intifada, but facing Assad’s barrel bombs not IDF bullets.

He wants to leave, but does not dare. “How can I leave? Where would I go? I should sleep on the street? I’d rather stay at home. Until now we managed to survive despite the hunger and bombings, so there is still hope that our lives can improve.

“If I escaped from here – out there I would have to fight or be arrested, one or the other. The only solution is for the world for to provide us with a safe corridor so they can get us out of here without Syrian opposition snipers shooting at us, without Assad’s security forces arresting us. At the moment? It’s better for us to be thrown into the sea than to live as we live now.”

A, another Yarmouk resident, also cannot understand why we think the easiest solution is to get up and go.

“Go where, exactly?” he asks. “All those who left are forced to live in mosques or schools. In the end I’m equally afraid of Islamic State and the Assad regime. I cannot leave the house, armed Islamic State and Al-Nusra Front are deployed in the streets and barrels of explosive fall from Assad’s helicopters. Meanwhile we are alive, but the world needs to get us out of here under international protection.”

In recent days, senior Palestinian Authority and PLO officials fiercely condemned Islamic State and other belligerents in the camp, and have urged the world to intervene to save the thousands of Palestinians still in the camp. To M and A, and possibly thousands of others left in Yarmouk, that’s not convincing. They do not have high hopes of the leaders of the Palestinian people.

“Even before this they did nothing but talk,” says A. “We have no one to rely on except on Allah.”

Aftermath of barrel bomb dropped on residential area in Aleppo, Syria, February 6th, 2014. Photo from Syria Freedom.

© Copyright JFJFP 2024