Syrians descend on Damascus hospital in search for country’s missing
A forensics doctor described seeing expressions of fear on the faces of many of the recovered political prisoners, but most of the bodies are decomposed; ABC News
(DAMASCUS, Syria) — Family members and friends of thousands of missing Syrians are continuing their search for those disappeared by former President Bashar Assad’s regime across 14 years of civil war, as victorious rebel forces begin building a transitional government.
Crowds gathered outside a hospital in the capital of Damascus to pore over images of mutilated bodies recovered from the infamous Saydnaya prison — once described by Amnesty International as a “human slaughterhouse.”
Among them was Abdullah, who was told that his brother was arrested in 2013 and died in 2016. Abdullah told ABC News he had been given no other information then or since and that he came to the hospital in the hope of identifying his brother among the dead.
Abdullah did not find his brother’s body. He told ABC News he would continue his search at another hospital where released prisoners were being treated.
In a morgue inside the hospital, one man found his son among the bodies. Mohammad, 20, was a political prisoner taken into custody in October, his father said. Security Forces also took the father into custody and held him for 60 days, before releasing him.
Mohammad was killed just two months before the spectacular collapse of Assad’s regime, the man said. Holding his 15-year-old younger son close, the bereaved father told ABC News he feels there are brighter days ahead despite his loss.
Some 157,000 people disappeared into regime prisons and other facilities between 2011 and 2024, per an estimate by the Syrian Network for Human Rights.
A forensics doctor in the hospital morgue told ABC News he identified the bodies of about 37 people, most of whom were being held in the Saydnaya prison.
Many of the bodies had signs of torture and many of them suffered malnutrition; some of the bodies have almost no muscle tissue between the ribs due to extreme malnutrition, Dr. Sarah Melhem, a forensics doctor at the hospital, told ABC News. Many have signs of being shot, including entry and exit wounds, while others have signs of torture, including bruises, wounds and scars.
Some of the recovered bodies have expressions of fear on the faces while others are decomposed, Melhem said.
“These are political prisoners, so these prisoners have maybe spent a long time in the prisons so the torture signs [have] dissolved,” Melhem said.
Many of the bodies showed signs of being shot, bearing entry and exit wounds. Others had signs of torture including bruises, wounds and scars. Some of the recovered bodies have expressions of fear frozen on their faces, while others are decomposed, Melhem said.
“I have a cousin who was a political prisoner, but we don’t know anything about him,” Melhem said. “We don’t see him. He was arrested from about 2013 and we don’t know anything about him,” Melhem said.
Under Assad, people were taken into custody for things as simple as a Facebook post, Melhem said.
“I believe that this is a criminal system and all of the Syrian people refuse the system but nobody [could] talk. We [didn’t] have the right to speak,” Melhem said.
“After this system fell down, all of the Syrian people are speaking a lot about their experience. All of them have an experience of somebody who died, somebody who have a criminal action on them,” Melhem said.
The collapse of Assad’s government last weekend ended 14 years of conflict between Damascus — backed by Russia and Iran — and a patchwork of anti-government forces, some supported by foreign nations including Turkey and the Gulf states.
Who will lead the next government remains unclear. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — an Islamist group which has its roots in al-Qaeda — led the surprise offensive that eventually toppled Assad.
HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, whose real name is Ahmed al-Sharaa, has vowed to punish those accused of involvement in the torture, killings and disappearances that long characterized Assad family rule in Syria.
“We will not hesitate to hold accountable the criminals, murderers, security and army officers involved in torturing the Syrian people,” Jolani said in a statement posted to the rebels’ Military Operations Command Telegram channel.
“We will pursue war criminals and demand them from the countries to which they fled so that they may receive their just punishment,” he added.
(TEL AVIV, Israel and GAZA STRIP) — Patients are “trapped” inside the last three operational hospitals in northern Gaza as Israeli forces continue to besiege the area, medical staff and international aid organizations warn.
As of Saturday, more than 350 patients are reported to be “trapped” inside Al-Awda Hospital, Indonesian Hospital and Kamal Adwan Hospital, including pregnant women and people who have just undergone surgical operations, according to Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
The Israel Defense Forces issued evacuation orders for northern Gaza on Oct. 6, its spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X, writing at the time: “I remind you that the northern Gaza Strip area is still considered a dangerous combat zone.”
The IDF again ordered evacuations last week of several neighborhoods in the northern Gaza Strip, including Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahia, as it tracks down Hamas fighters it believes to be in the area.
It’s estimated there are between 200,000 and 400,000 people who live in the north in an area that’s now a military zone.
The hospitals are within areas that have been ordered to evacuate, although the IDF will not confirm if the hospitals were ordered to evacuate. Israel has said Hamas terrorists are using civilians as shields and hospitals as cover-ups for their operations.
“While the northern part of the Strip has been under siege for over two weeks, it is absolutely crucial to ensure the protection of the few remaining functional health care facilities,” Anna Halford, emergency coordinator in Gaza for MSF, said Sunday in a statement. “People must be able to continue to access medical care and lifesaving treatments. We call on the Israeli forces to immediately stop their attacks on hospitals in north Gaza.”
In a statement posted Monday morning on X, the IDF spokesperson for the Arab media said Israeli officials continue “to communicate with the international community and the health establishment to maintain the operation of emergency systems in hospitals by transferring medical equipment and a fuel stockpile based on the operational situation.”
The spokesperson also said officials are working to evacuate patients and their companions, as well as medical staff, from hospitals. The IDF did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment about patients being trapped.
Staff members at Indonesian Hospital say they’re without power and have been unable to properly care for patients.
“The water supply has been cut off for patients and staff at the Indonesian Hospital,” Hadeel Obeid, chief nurse at the hospital, said in a message to ABC News on Monday. “They need permission from the [IDF] to operate the electric generator, and there is no food due to the ongoing siege for the fourth consecutive day.”
“We urge all international organizations to take the necessary action to save these wounded individuals and the staff working inside the hospital to support their resilience and steadfastness,” Obeid added.
Medical staff at Kamal Adwan Hospital similarly said there is no food to properly feed families, nor are there safe places to stay.
“There is no milk for children, and mothers [instead] have to mix starch and flour with water and sugar,” Dr. Eid Al Sabah, director of nursing at the hospital, said in a message to ABC News on Monday. “We stay in houses that have previously been bombed. We use tent cloth and wood from furniture [for fires] due to wood and fuel cuts.”
The IDF said Monday in a post on X that it has allowed hundreds of people to safely evacuate the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip via an organized route while arresting dozens of suspects in the area.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) also issued a dire warning about attacks on hospitals and overcrowded conditions in northern Gaza.
In a post Monday on X, the organization said patients in ICUs have died after electricity cuts, and that Kamal Adwan and Al-Awda hospitals are operating at minimum capacity due to a shortage of medical supplies and staff.
“The Israeli authorities continue to deny humanitarian missions to reach the north with critical supplies, including medicine and food for people under siege,” Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA commissioner-general, said Monday in a post on X. “Hospitals have been hit and are left without power while injured people are left without care.”
“Denying & weaponizing humanitarian assistance to achieve military purposes is a sign of how low the moral compass is,” he continued. “Assistance must reach everyone in need in Gaza: civilians, including children and the hostages. No one should beg to assist or to be assisted. A cease-fire is the beginning to putting an end to this endless nightmare.”
Additionally, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued a report over the weekend that no aid was allowed into northern Gaza between Oct. 1 and Oct. 14. Since then, only a “token amount” of aid has been allowed in, the group said.
In its report, OHCHR also expressed concern over dwindling amounts of food supplies. Israeli officials have denied that aid is struggling to enter Gaza and have posted photos and videos on social media of trucks with aid waiting to be picked up and distributed at border crossings by nongovernmental and aid organizations.
ABC News’ Guy Davies and Jordana Miller contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — Turkey‘s interior minister reported deaths and injuries after a “terrorist attack” at Turkish Aerospace Industries facilities near the capital Ankara on Wednesday.
Three people were killed and 14 injured in the attack, Ali Yerlikaya wrote on X. Two attackers were “neutralized,” he added.
“I condemn this heinous attack,” Yerlikaya wrote. “Our struggle will continue with determination and resolve until the last terrorist is neutralized.”
The Turkish Aerospace Industries site is some 25 miles outside Ankara.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
ABC News’ Somayeh Malekian contributed to this report.
(LONDON) — President Joe Biden will see out his term knowing that President-elect Donald Trump — a man he fought desperately hard to unseat in 2020 and called a “genuine danger to American security” — will succeed him.
Foreign policy has been central in Biden’s long political career. It will likewise form a major chunk of his legacy, as will the two wars — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Middle East conflagration sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack — that erupted during his term.
Now less encumbered by political calculations — for himself or for Vice President Kamala Harris — and with only two months until Trump’s second inauguration, the outgoing president may have one last window to wield the power of the Oval Office in both theaters.
But with Trump looming above the outgoing Biden-Harris administration, American allies and enemies may be hesitant to engage with the outgoing administration.
European nations, for example, are already shifting focus to how best to court Trump, Leslie Vinjamuri of the British Chatham House think tank told ABC News.
“All these European leaders are very quickly reaching out,” she added. “They’re congratulating him. They want to talk with him. They want to work with him, because they understand that the stakes are extremely high and they clearly feel that by talking with him, they have an ability to influence policy and the outcome.”
“What they don’t want to do is to be seen to be making a deal with Joe Biden that undercuts whatever it is that Trump is going to do,” Vinjamuri added.
“It’s a very tricky position to be in, because if anything’s visible that cuts across what he wants to do, you as a leader risk being punished.”
Those at the top of American politics know that foreign policy success can accelerate careers and define legacies. Former President Richard Nixon infamously undermined President Lyndon B. Johnson’s efforts to negotiate an end to the Vietnam War during the 1968 election campaign for fear it would reduce his chances of victory.
Though he has already secured his second term, Trump appears unlikely to help the Biden administration with any foreign policy “wins” in its closing days.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty and room for maneuver — it’s highly unpredictable,” Vinjamuri said.
Russia and Ukraine
Russia’s war on Ukraine has dominated much of Biden’s presidency. He will leave office with Moscow’s forces holding large parts of Ukraine and still advancing, even if slowly and at huge cost.
“I think that now Biden can be much more decisive in support of Ukraine, especially when he sees that Trump will be the next president,” Oleksandr Merezhko — a member of Ukraine’s parliament and the chair of the body’s foreign affairs committee — told ABC News.
“Biden has his hands completely untied,” Merezhko added. “Now Biden is thinking about his legacy.”
“He might even try to take some decisions which will make irreversible changes in support of Ukraine — for example, he might lift all the restrictions on the use of the Western weapons on the territory of Russia,” Merezhko said. “And he might start the process of inviting Ukraine to join NATO.”
Merezkho acknowledged that progress on the NATO front might be ambitious. “Yes, he doesn’t have much time,” he said. “But he — with [National Security Adviser] Jake Sullivan and [Secretary of State] Antony Blinken — might do something creative to help Ukraine.”
It appears unlikely that Biden’s final months will bring Kyiv any closer to NATO membership. Ukrainian leaders are still pushing for an invitation to join the alliance despite fierce opposition from Russia — and hesitance among key alliance members. Allies have repeatedly said that “Ukraine’s future is in NATO,” but even top officials in Kyiv acknowledge this cannot happen amid war with Moscow.
The outgoing president may at least be able to ring fence much-needed funding for Kyiv.
Matthew Savill of the Royal United Services Institute think tank in the U.K., said Biden “might choose in his last months in office to use the remainder of the funding available for support to Ukraine under Presidential Drawdown Authority, amounting to over $5 billion.”
The Pentagon has already committed to rolling out new funding packages between now and January totaling some $9 billion. “That is consistent with how we’ve been doing this in the past,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told journalists last week. “It’s something that we’ve done on a pretty regular, almost weekly, basis.”
Biden has also reportedly already decided to allow non-combat American defense contractors to work in Ukraine to maintain and repair U.S.-provided weaponry.
Yehor Cherniev — a member of the Ukrainian parliament and the chairman of his country’s delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly — told ABC News that deeper sanctions on “Putin’s inner circle” are on Kyiv’s wish list, along with the delivery of all previously allocated aid, commitments for more, plus the end to restrictions on Western weapon use inside Russia.
Trump has suggested he would quickly end Russia’s invasion by threatening to cut off military aid to Kyiv unless it agrees to hand Moscow direct or indirect control of swaths of occupied territory in the south and east of the country.
As such, his election has raised concerns in Ukraine of an imminent sellout.
Merezhko, though, stressed the unpredictability of the president-elect. “Trump might become even more critical of Russia to show that all suspicions about him are groundless,” he said.
“We know that Trump loves his country and seeks to protect its interests in accordance with his vision,” Cherniev said. “Therefore, we are confident that the U.S. will not leave us alone with Russia, since this is not in the interests of the U.S. and the free world.”
“However, much will depend on Putin’s willingness to make concessions and compromises,” he added. “If the Russian dictator does not show due flexibility, I think Trump will increase his support for Ukraine.”
As to potential tensions between Trump and Biden in the coming months, Merezhko said, “Competition between them will continue.”
“For us, it would be better if they compete amongst themselves on who will do more for Ukraine.”
European nations, meanwhile, will be bracing for Trump while hoping to influence the president-elect’s take on the war.
Vinjamuri, of the Chatham House think tank, said Europeans will also be working closely with the Biden administration “to put in place everything that they can to keep Europe and Ukraine in as good a place as possible before Jan. 20, when Trump comes in and tries to negotiate a peace deal.”
“That means that getting Ukraine in the best position on the ground, because when you start negotiating a peace, a lot of what gets locked in is based on what land people hold,” she said.
The Middle East
The Biden administration’s pre-election Middle East diplomatic push does not appear to have made significant breakthroughs in either Gaza or Lebanon. Fierce ground fighting and devastating Israeli airstrikes continue on both fronts, with the toll of civilian dead and displaced growing ever larger.
The regional war began with Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, which killed around 1,200 people in southern Israel and saw around 250 taken back to Gaza as hostages. Israel’s military response in the strip has killed some 43,600 people and injured more than 102,000, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. Israel’s airstrike and ground campaign in Lebanon has killed more than 3,000 since Oct. 8, 2023, Lebanese health officials say.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu replaced Defense Minister Yoav Gallant — one of his prime political rivals and an advocate for a cease-fire deal — on the eve of the U.S. election, reinforcing his position and entrenching his government’s commitment to what he has called “total victory.”
Hafed Al-Ghwell, senior fellow and executive director of the North Africa Initiative at the SAIS Foreign Policy Institute, Johns Hopkins University, told ABC News he has little expectation of peace during Biden’s final months. “I don’t think he has any incentive to do anything,” Hafed said.
“In the case of Israel and Palestine, Biden has taken not just a political stand but an ideological one, and there is no sign that he is going to change that,” Hafed added. “He has called himself a Zionist, and he had ample opportunity to stop this war. Even when the United Nations proposed a resolution to end the occupation, he didn’t support it.”
“It would be really controversial for an outgoing president to make any major decisions,” he continued.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu will be confident in the new White House’s backing in his suppression of Palestinian and Lebanese groups, as well as in his wider showdown with Iran.
Netanyahu “probably feels like he has a free run,” Vinjamuri said. “Even if Biden tried to push him, I’m not so sure he would be responsive, because he knows that Trump is now coming into office.”
Hafed suggested Netanyahu’s domestic concerns, too, will be driving his policy in the coming months. “He knows that the minute this war stops, the Israeli public won’t want him around,” he said. “So, he will continue the war in Lebanon and probably threaten Iran, knowing he will have the full support of Trump.”
Burcu Ozcelik at RUSI said the extent of Trump’s influence over Netanyahu tops “a complex list of unknowns.”
“Trump in recent weeks indicated that he was prepared to give Israel freer rein, provided that the war ended by the time he entered office,” he added.
Those living in the region will be left grappling with the fallout, Hafed continued. “For the people of the Middle East, Biden’s legacy is one of a bloodbath,” he said. “The region is bitter and battered.”
ABC News’ Luis Martinez contributed to this article.
