by Linah Alsaafin & Zouhir Al Shimale, Al Jazeera

More than 400 people have been killed in Eastern Ghouta, a monitoring group said, as the Syrian government forces backed by Russian warplanes continued their aerial bombardment of the rebel-held area.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Thursday that at least 403 people were killed in the “hysterical attack” that began on Sunday, including 150 children. Almost 2,120 others were wounded.

UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, stressed the urgent need for a ceasefire in comments made ahead of Thursday’s UN Security Council meeting.

“The humanitarian situation in Eastern Ghouta is appalling and, therefore, we need a ceasefire that stops both the horrific heavy bombardment of Eastern Ghouta and the indiscriminate mortar shelling on Damascus,” he said.

He added the ceasefire needs to be followed by immediate unhindered humanitarian access and a facilitated evacuation of wounded people out of Eastern Ghouta, and warned against this being a repeat of Aleppo.

Living under bombardment
Residents of Eastern Ghouta, majority of whom are internally displaced, say there is nothing they can do and nowhere to hide.

Rafat al-Abram lives in Douma and is a car mechanic. The air attacks over the last few days have disrupted his job as the street he works on was destroyed by two raids.

“I managed to get some of my tools and equipment out, and fix cars whenever I can,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Sometimes I also fix the ambulances of the civil defence, which break down often because of their constant usage.”

His wife and two teenage daughters, Khadija, 17, and Ola, 15, remain at home. They start their day by sitting together before Abram visits his neighbours to get the latest grim news.

“Sometimes a bombing takes place near where I am working, which means I have to stop and hurry to help the civil defence pull victims from the rubble,” he said.

After Abram returns back home, he said he is haunted by the unbearable scenes he witnessed during the day.

“Seeing a father or mother wailing and crying over their dead children, or a father carrying his son who has one leg amputated, or another screaming at God and then at people to help save his family who are all lying under the rubble of a building … I try to comfort them even though I want to sit and cry with them from the horror of what is happening all around us,” he said.

‘Survive or die together’
The rebel-controlled Eastern Ghouta, a mostly rural area on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, has been under government siege since 2013. About 400,000 Syrians live there. The siege has resulted in a huge inflation of basic foodstuffs with a bag of bread costing the equivalent of $5.

Malnutrition rates have reached unprecedented levels, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, with 11.9 percent of children under the age of five acutely malnourished.

Only one aid convoy was permitted inside the area in February, to the town of Nashabieh, but none were allowed in January and December.

Nisma al-Hatri told Al Jazeera her husband and 10-year-old daughter Sara wake up to the sound of warplanes.

“Every day goes like this: bombings, then I clean the house from the effect of the nearby shelling, then we hide in one room, attempting to survive or die together,” Hatri said.

“My daughter Sara and I wake up with our arms around each other from the night before,” Hatmi continued. “We all sleep on one mattress. She hugs me and asks me why she can’t go out to play, or to school or to see her friends. I cannot answer her.”

The 32-year-old used to be a teacher but schools were shut down a month earlier because the situation grew too dangerous to go outside. Nevertheless, Hatmi still gives lessons to Sara and other neighbourhood children on an almost daily basis.

Her husband goes out every morning for several hours and returns with barley, which Hatmi cooks with rice for their breakfast and dinner. Some days her husband returns empty-handed.

‘War against civilians’
Mahmood Adam, a member of the Syrian Civil Defence, described to Al Jazeera the reality of Eastern Ghouta as “disastrous”.

“We are talking about a systematic targeting of civilians in their homes, schools, medical centres, marketplaces, and civil defence sites,” he said. “This is an extermination of the society in this area.”

“There are families who have been hiding in basements and underground shelters who haven’t seen the sun in days for fear of the brutality of the regime and the Russian warplanes,” he continued.

“We don’t know whether we will be alive to tell the world what is happening in the next hour or day. The rocket launchers are relentless, and the warplanes have not left the skies of Eastern Ghouta since Sunday.

“Everyone here knows this is a slaughter and a crime against humanity,” he added. “This is a war against civilians.”

Targeting medical centres
Speaking from the Turkish border city Gaziantep, Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid said doctors in Eastern Ghouta are saying the circumstances are “beyond words”.

“What they see is body after body arriving in makeshift clinics,” Bin Javaid said. “[They are] trying to give medical aid to the people who are in their hundreds being wounded in a relentless barrage of rockets, shells, and air strikes.

“They are running out of medical assistance and places to put these people because at least 22 facilities, according the Syrian American Medical Society, have been targeted since Sunday,” he said.

Ahmed al-Masri, spokesman for the Union of Free Syrian Doctors, told Al Jazeera government forces are targeting “every aspect of civilian life”.

“The regime’s forces are using the most ferocious means of bombardment,” he said. “As a result, many of the hospitals and medical facilities in Eastern Ghouta were directly targeted and destroyed.

“Three of our medical centres were shelled and destroyed and one of our crews was killed and three others wounded.”

No consensus on ceasefire
Meanwhile, the UN Security Council failed to reach an agreement on a resolution put forward by Sweden and Kuwait that called for a 30-day cessation of hostilities to allow the delivery of aid and evacuation of civilians from besieged Eastern Ghouta.

Russian UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said there was “no agreement” and presented amendments to the draft resolution “for it to be realistic”. He also accused the Syrian civil defence, also known as the White Helmets, of being “closely affiliated with terrorist groups”.

The Syrian UN Ambassador Basher al-Jaafari accused the United Nations and mainstream media of backing “terrorists recruited by the US from all over the world” to fight in Syria.

Al Jazeera’s diplomatic correspondent James Bays said Jaafari’s comments were typical of a man who has “stoutly defended his government and whatever it does”.

“He is representing a government that is breaching international law – effectively many would say carrying out war crimes,” Bays said, speaking from the UN headquarters in New York.

“He’s very much supported diplomatically by Russia. They helped the Syrian government turn the tide of the war in the last two years and they are now helping do whatever it takes to win the war.”

by TRT World

The bombardment of Syria’s opposition-held Eastern Ghouta area near Damascus by pro-regime forces has killed 250 people in the 48 hours since Sunday night, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday.

The Britain-based war monitor said this was the highest 48-hour death toll since a 2013 chemical attack on the besieged enclave, which killed hundreds.

The Observatory said 106 people had been killed by bombardment on Tuesday.

Strikes put a key hospital out of service on Tuesday, further limiting the little medical aid that besieged civilians could access.

“The Arbin hospital was hit twice today and is now out of service,” said Moussa Naffa, country director in Jordan for the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), which supported the clinic.

The Observatory blamed Russian warplanes, saying Moscow carried out its first strikes in three months on Eastern Ghouta.

The region is ostensibly included in a “de-escalation” deal meant to tamp down violence, but President Bashar al Assad is apparently preparing troops for an imminent ground assault to retake it.

Six hospitals hit

Eastern Ghouta is home to more than 400,000 people living under crippling regime siege, with little access to food or medical resources.

The United Nations said six hospitals had been hit in the region in the past 48 hours, in addition to the one in Arbin.

At least three were out of service and two were only partially functioning, said the UN’s regional humanitarian coordinator for Syria, Panos Moumtzis.

“It’s beyond imagination what is happening in East Ghouta today,” he said.

“The untold suffering is intolerable and residents have no idea whether they will live or die. This nightmare in East Ghouta must end and must end now.

by Al Jazeera

US President Donald Trump’s administration is seeking to decrease its financial contributions to the Middle East in 2019, most notably to UN missions in Lebanon, the occupied Golan Heights, and Western Sahara.

The plan, revealed on Monday, is unlikely to make it past sceptical politicians in Congress, however.

Douglas Pitkin, the director of the state department’s Bureau of Budget and Planning, told reporters on Monday that “because [the department is] looking for greater cost containment at the UN more generally, [it does] have a lower funding level than the full peacekeeping estimate”.

Pitkin added that these figures are subject to change.

Trump’s plan includes slashing US contributions to the United Nations mission in Lebanon, as well as international peacekeeping missions worldwide.

The Department of State said earlier this week that it seeks a 42 percent cut for the UN Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), leaving the mission with $84.2m. The UNIFIL was established in 1978, and has been supporting the Lebanese army in maintaining calm in Lebanon’s south, where the country shares a border with Israel.

Cuts made to the UNIFIL may hinder its ability to perform its mandate of maintaining “security and stability in the south along the border with Israel” due to the fighting in neighbouring Syria.

The administration also revealed proposed cuts to missions in at least 10 other countries and regions.

This includes a 55 percent cut to the UN Disengagement Observer Force in the Golan Heights. The administration proposes the force receive $11.1m as opposed to the $24.6m it received in 2017.

In Western Sahara, the Trump administration wants to cut Department of State budget for the UN mission from $18.4m to $8.4m.

Trump had previously called for cuts to UN peacekeeping, including in his budget proposal for last year.

Under pressure from the US, the UN General Assembly voted last year to cut $600m from the body’s $8bn peacekeeping budget.

At the time, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said, “We’re only getting started.”

According to the Better World Campaign, an organisation working to improve the US-UN partnership, the Trump administration “is proposing unwise and disproportionate cuts to US foreign affairs spending, which would undermine American leadership globally, including at the United Nations and its agencies”.

“The foreign affairs UN-related budget numbers are almost an exact replica of last year’s request, which was widely and wisely dismissed as harmful to US interests abroad,” the organisation said in a statement.

“In fact, over the past year, we have seen military voices, business leaders and leaders in Congress all stress the importance of robust foreign affairs funding and continued support for the UN.”

The suggested cuts are part of a wider proposal that would slash the state department and US Agency for International Development budget by about 25 percent.

The plan is unlikely to make it past Congress, where cuts to diplomatic efforts and other aid programmes face strong opposition.

Trump’s budget plan also increases military spending, while calling for cuts to domestic social programmes.

Prior to revealing his administration’s plan, Trump said he wanted to spend more money at home.

“This will be a big week for infrastructure,” Trump said in a Tweet. “After so stupidly spending $7 trillion in the Middle East, it is now time to start investing in OUR Country!” he added, using a figure on US war expenditure in the region that is often disputed.

But the administration is requesting Congress approve $686bn Pentagon budget, one of the largest in US history. This includes an $800bn increase in military spending.

According to the Pentagon, the increase is aimed at countering increasing threats from China and Russia.

by Al Jazeera

The US has dismissed reported discussions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Washington officials over plans to annex Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

“Reports that the United States discussed with Israel an annexation plan for the West Bank are false,” said White House spokesman Josh Raffel, late on Monday. “The United States and Israel have never discussed such a proposal.”

Raffel added the “focus remains squarely” on US President Donald Trump’s “Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative”.

The Israeli prime minister was quoted as telling a meeting of Likud legislators: “On the subject of applying sovereignty, I can say that I have been talking to the Americans about it for some time.”

Netanyahu was referring to applying Israeli law to the settlements, which are currently under the jurisdiction of Israel’s military.

Netanyahu’s office later sought to clarify what was discussed, saying in a statement the prime minister “updated the Americans on the initiatives being raised in the Knesset”.

On Sunday, Netanyahu blocked a bill to annex settlements that was proposed by right-wing Likud lawmakers.

“The Americans expressed their unequivocal position that they are committed to advancing President Trump’s peace plan,” Netanyahu’s office said.

Palestinian reaction
Responding to Netanyahu’s reported comments, a senior Palestinian official said the statements confirmed “Israel’s commitment to apartheid”.

Saeb Erekat of the Palestine Liberation Organisation said on Monday any unilateral moves to annex Palestinian land would violate their right to self-determination and independence, while confirming “US complicity with Israeli colonial plans”.

“This is a confirmation that final status issues are being unilaterally decided upon by Israel in coordination with the US administration,” Erekat said in a statement.

Israel occupied the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and East Jerusalem in 1967. Today, between 600,000 and 750,000 Israeli settlers live in more than 200 Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The settlements are illegal under international law and violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states an occupying power cannot transfer its population into the territory it occupies.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said any unilateral decision to annex the settlements “would only result in more tension and instability”, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Israeli legislation to annex the settlements “would destroy every international effort that aims to salvage the peace process”, Abu Rudeineh said.

by Al Jazeera

An opposition leader in the Maldives has called on India to intervene after President Abdulla Yameen declared a 15-day state of emergency amid a deepening political crisis in the island nation.

Mohamed Nasheed, the country’s exiled former president, urged neighbouring India on Tuesday to send “an envoy, backed by its military” to free two Supreme Court judges and a former president who were arrested in the capital Male after the emergency declaration.

He also urged the United States to impose targeted sanctions on Yameen and his associates.

The Maldives, an Indian Ocean archipelago, was plunged into turmoil on February 1 when its Supreme Court issued a shock ruling that overturned terrorism convictions against nine of Yameen’s opponents, including Nasheed, and ordered those in jail be freed.

Yameen defied the ruling and ignored calls from the United Nations, European Union, and foreign governments, including India and the US, to comply with it.

In a televised address on Tuesday, the president said he declared a state of emergency to investigate a “coup” against him.

‘Judicial overreach’
Accusing Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed and Judge Ali Hameed of corruption and judicial overreach, Yameen said the bench had deliberated on removing him and his attorney general, and discussed reinstating two police chiefs he had sacked over the weekend.

“I had to declare a state of emergency because I had no way to hold a judge of the Supreme Court accountable,” he said. “I had to suspend [their immunity] to find out how thick this plot, this coup was.”

The emergency decree gave security forces sweeping powers to make arrests and curtailed the authority of the judiciary.

Shortly after the emergency was announced on Monday, security forces stormed the Supreme Court building and arrested Saeed and Hameed. The remaining three judges on the top court bench were not detained.

Yameen’s estranged half-brother, former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who has sided with the opposition, was also detained in the early hours of Tuesday.

Police also took Mohamed Nazim, a former defence minister who was under house imprisonment, into custody on Tuesday. Nazim was sentenced to 11-years in jail on weapons smuggling charges in 2015, and was among the nine whose release the top court had ordered last week.

Meanwhile, the parliament, where the opposition have a majority, remained suspended.

‘Martial law’

WATCH: Maldives president declares emergency, arrests judges (2:20)
In his appeal on Tuesday, Nasheed, the former president, accused Yameen of declaring “martial law” in the Maldives.

“We must remove him from power,” he said.

“We would also like the US government to ensure that US financial institutions stop all US$ financial transactions of the regime leaders in the Maldives,” he added.

Responding to the state of emergency, the US urged restraint on Monday.

“The Maldivian government and military must respect the rule of law, freedom of expression, and democratic institutions. The world is watching,” the US National Security Council said in a Twitter post.

Boris Johnson, the UK foreign secretary, said he was gravely concerned and called on Yameen “to peacefully end the state of emergency”.

China, India, Australia and the US have issued travel advisories for the Maldives.

by Zena Tahhan, Al Jazeera

Images of death and destruction from the northern province of Idlib in Syria have flooded social media, with local activists and aid workers saying shelling by Russian and Syrian government warplanes in the area has intensified.

Rescue workers from the Syrian Civil Defence (SCD), a volunteer search and rescue team, say that at least 18 civilians have been killed and more than 45 wounded in the continuous bombardment and a gas attack on the rebel-held province since Sunday night.

“The Russians are in a frenzy. They’re going mad. The shelling is ongoing throughout the day and night. The warplanes are hitting residential areas,” Hadi Abdullah, a local journalist, told Al Jazeera by phone from the town of Kafr Nabl in the northwestern Syrian province bordering Turkey.

“The massacres started yesterday night. The whole area was vib

ating. About 12 homes came crumbling down,” continued Hadi, describing the attacks on the town on Sunday night.

The uptick in attacks comes after fighters from the Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham group shot down a Russian warplane and killed its pilot on Saturday.

While Russia – the Syrian government’s main ally – says it is targeting rebel fighters, locals say the majority of the attacks have been on residential neighbourhoods and hospitals.

The shelling spanned several areas, including Massaran, Khan al-Sabil, and Idlib city, where aid workers say many remain trapped under the rubble.

The main hospital in Maaret al-Numan, east of Kafr Nabl, has stopped working after it was hit by air raids, according to the SCD – also known as the White Helmets.

“About 10 air raids hit the hospital. It was a disaster,” said Hadi, who had rushed to the scene.

“The most difficult and heartbreaking scene was when the volunteers were quickly pulling the babies out of the hospital. I can’t get the image out of my head,” he recalled with a trembling voice.

At about 1am, Hadi headed to film events in Idlib city, where they had heard a Russian warplane targeted a residential building.

“A whole seven-story building came crashing down. The level of destruction is unreal,” said Hadi.

Chlorine gas attack
Volunteers with the SCD also reported a suspected chlorine gas attack on the town of Saraqeb on Sunday night, which wounded nine, including three aid workers. This is the second gas attack in two weeks.

“At about 9:20 pm local time (7PM GMT), two warplanes dropped two barrels containing chlorine on a heavily populated civilian area in Saraqeb,” Laith Abdullah, an aid worker, told Al Jazeera from Saraqeb.

“There was gas and smoke everywhere. Everyone was suffocating – people were screaming out ‘ambulance’,” Laith continued.

“It is difficult to describe; it is difficult to explain the amount of pain we were in and how much we were suffering.”

‘Doomsday’
Idlib province is one of the few remaining areas in Syria where fighters opposed to President Bashar al-Assad’s government are putting up a fight.

While Idlib city is dominated by Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – a former al-Qaeda affiliate – some 40 other armed groups loyal to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) also operate in other areas of the province.

The FSA is a loose conglomeration of armed brigades made up of Syrian army defectors and civilians, which receive financial and logistical support from the United States, Turkey, and several Gulf countries.

Idlib was included in a Russian-Iranian-Turkish deal for de-escalation zones aimed at halting fighting and offering safety to civilians, but it has continuously been targeted.

The province is strategically important for the Syrian government and Russia due to its proximity to the coastal region where the Russian-operated Syrian Khmeimim airbase sits.

Reporting from the Turkish-Syrian border, activist Ibrahim Ismail estimated there were “more than 150 raids in just half an hour” on Sunday night.

“Yesterday night was horrible. People are describing it as Doomsday and saying there were more than eight warplanes in the air. The shelling is heavy and arbitrary,” Ismail told Al Jazeera.

by Al Jazeera

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have called on Yemeni government fighters and southern secessionists to focus their efforts on fighting Houthi rebels, in an apparent attempt to end a standoff between the two sides in Aden.

Emirati-backed separatists took over large parts of the southern port city earlier this week, including military bases, but stopped short of advancing on the presidential palace after clashing with pro-government forces and briefly surrounding the building while Prime Minister Ahmed bin Daghr and his ministers were inside.

The move exposed potential divides between Saudi Arabia, which finances and arms the Yemeni government, and the UAE, which is providing direct financial and military aid to the separatist Southern Transitional Council and its armed militia.

Yemeni government officials accused the Emirati government of deploying fighter planes to help the separatist fighters.

In a statement published by the Saudi Press Agency on Thursday, the Saudi-led coalition said Riyadh and Abu Dhabi shared “one goal and a shared vision for Yemen”.

“Saudi Arabia and the UAE have no ambitions but for Yemen to be a safe, stable, and able, Arab nation,” the statement said.

While stopping short of expressing support for the Yemeni government, which is based in Aden because the capital is under Houthi rebel control, the coalition called on both sides to focus on the goal of “defeating the Houthi militias of Iran.”

The separatists want greater autonomy for South Yemen, which was an independent state until reunification with the north in 1990.

They complain that the government has presided over rampant corruption and neglected southern regions.

The fighting in Aden has left at least 36 people dead and wounded more than 185 people since Sunday, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Arab coalition intervention
The UAE and Saudi Arabia intervened militarily in Yemen in March 2015 after Houthi rebels swept across the country and threatened to conquer the last government stronghold of Aden.

While the coalition and government fighters successfully fended off the Houthi takeover of Aden, years of air attacks have failed to dislodge the Houthis from much of the rest of the country.

The coalition’s stated aim of restoring President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s rule still seems distant, as the capital Sanaa remains under Houthi control.

The Saudis have indicated they want out of the war and have largely limited their campaign to bombing raids, but the Emiratis have also committed troops to the effort to defeat the Houthis.

Separatists, government forces, and the Houthis, are competing for control over Yemeni territory alongside al-Qaeda and the local affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

The war has severely damaged the country’s infrastructure with the UN warning that up to 8 million people are at risk of starvation and more than a million have contracted cholera.

by Al Jazeera

A coalition of Egyptian opposition groups have called for an election boycott, calling the vote an “absurdity bordering on madness” after all serious candidates were either arrested or subjected to a campaign of intimidation.

In a joint statement, eight Egyptian opposition parties and 150 pro-democracy public figures urged Egyptians to stay away from the March polls in protest, accusing the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of preventing “any fair competition”.

“It is not right for us to surrender to what has become an absurdity bordering on madness,” said Abdel-Geleel Mustafa, a veteran opposition figure, at a news conference in Cairo.

Hamdeen Sabahi, Sisi’s only rival in the 2014 presidential elections, launched the campaign under the slogan, “Stay at home.”

He called on political parties to unite against what he called Sisi’s “brutal tyranny of power”.

Sisi, a former general who came to power in a 2013 coup against his democratically elected predecessor, Mohamed Morsi, is all but certain to win the March election in a landslide.

Several potential candidates have either been arrested or faced threats, intimidation and physical violence, forcing them to drop out.

Sami Anan, a former general, had planned to run against Sisi but was arrested at gunpoint on Tuesday by Egyptian security services.

His vice-presidential candidate, Hisham Genena, was attacked and seriously injured in a busy Cairo street on Saturday.

Earlier this month, Ahmed Shafik, former prime minister, backtracked on his intention to run, claiming he would “not be the ideal person to lead the state”.

The New York Times quoted one of Shafik’s lawyers as saying that the Egyptian government had forced him to withdraw by threatening to investigate previous charges of corruption against him.

In December 2017, Ahmed Konsowa, an army colonel, was sentenced to six years in prison after announcing his candidacy, while human rights lawyer Khaled Ali withdrew after receiving a three-month prison sentence.

Government apologist
Sisi’s only challenger is Mousa Mostafa Mousa, a government apologist who entered the race at the 11th hour, amid fears that a widespread boycott could lead to embarrassingly few votes being cast.

Mousa, who formally submitted his candidacy 15 minutes before the deadline despite not publicly declaring his intention to run until the day before, denied allegations he was cooperating with the government, saying, “We are not puppets in this race.”

However the 66-year-old has repeatedly endorsed Sisi, and last year formed a campaign called “Supporters of President el-Sisi’s nomination for a second term”.

Egyptians took to social media and used the hashtag Al-Kombares, which loosely translates to someone playing the role of an “extra”, to mock Mousa’s candidacy and the upcoming poll.

“An innocent question: How was the ‘extra’ Mousa Mostafa Mousa able to get more than 47,000 signatures in 10 days, as he said, without appearing on the candidates’ database?” asked journalist Hossam Elshorbagy.

To be eligible, a candidate must have collected 25,000 signatures from constituents across 15 governorates, or the signatures of 20 members of parliament.

Egypt has been beset with problems since the 2013 coup against Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected president.

While it has also received generous economic aid packages from several Gulf countries, economic and security conditions for most Egyptians have deteriorated.

Under Sisi, human rights in Egypt have worsened, with organisations reporting that at least 60,000 people have been imprisoned since the general came to power.

There have also been reports of forced disappearances and a clampdown on press freedom.