The scale and ferocity of the conflict in Gaza and the unspeakable suffering of its civilians have rightly provoked the world’s outrage. But in Syria, a steep escalation of violence that has forced the flight of tens of thousands more people in what remains the world’s largest displacement crisis is taking place largely unnoticed outside the region.
Syria, too, desperately needs a halt to the violence. But instead, the more than 12-year-long war there grows more intense, now along five fronts in a kaleidoscope of conflict.
Syrian government and Russian forces are fighting armed opposition groups in the northwest; ISIS is stepping up its attacks across the country; Turkey is attacking Kurdish-led forces in the northeast; the Kurdish-led forces are fighting local tribes; and the United States and Israel are hitting back against forces linked to Iran.
With the region in turmoil, a dedicated international effort to contain the fighting on Syrian soil is imperative. Over a decade of bloodshed needs a diplomatic end. A lasting truce in Gaza would also considerably calm the situation in Syria, decreasing tensions between the foreign powers — including the United States, Israel and Iran through its proxies — that are active militarily inside the country.
In Homs, in western Syria, a drone attack by unknown assailants killed and injured scores of cadets, family members and others at a military academy graduation ceremony on Oct. 5. The Syrian military and Russian forces, which have been backing President Bashar al-Assad, retaliated by attacking at least 2,300 locations in the opposition-controlled northwest, with schools, hospitals, markets and camps for Syrians forced from their homes among them. Some 120,000 people — many of whom had already been displaced several times, including by the huge earthquake last February — were sent fleeing, and at least 500 civilians were injured or killed just in the incidents that our commission has tracked since October.
The weapons have included internationally prohibited cluster munitions — continuing devastating patterns that our commission has documented since Syria’s civil war began in 2011. In the past, these revelations produced widespread outrage. The difference now? The world’s attention is elsewhere.
ISIS is also stepping up its deadly activity inside Syria, attacking both civilian and military targets, continuing to demonstrate its operational capacity and extremist ideology.
Meanwhile in the northeast, Turkish forces have accelerated their operations against Syrian Democratic Forces, an opposition group it alleges has ties to terrorist activity on Turkish soil. That same opposition group has also been fighting local tribes in Deir al Zour, eastern Syria’s largest city, in a conflict fueled by longstanding grievances that the Kurdish-led local administration is failing to provide essential services or to secure basic rights. The civilian deaths that have ensued remain uncounted.
And most alarmingly, the heightened regional tensions arising from the Gaza onslaught has led to increased attacks on Syrian soil by Israel and by Iranian militias. U.S. bases in Syria have been attacked over 50 times by the militias since October. Well before the Jan. 28 attack in Jordan that killed three American service members, the United States has conducted retaliatory strikes on facilities reportedly used by Iran-linked groups, and the killings in Jordan have led to a new spate of American retaliatory attacks in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, creating fears of a wider conflict. Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes, ostensibly aimed at Iranian-linked assets, have repeatedly put Syria’s civilian airports, urgently needed for deliveries of humanitarian aid, out of commission.
Amid all this, Syrians face increasing and intolerable hardship. Nearly 17 million of them need humanitarian aid such as food, water and medical care. Yet aid deliveries are hanging by a thread, dependent on the arbitrariness of the Syrian government and hampered by sanctions. Meanwhile, a severe shortfall in donor funds forced the U.N. World Food Program to suspend regular food aid in Syria, placing millions in the grip of hunger.
One of the most brutal civil wars of this century has claimed more than 300,000 civilian lives in Syria in the past dozen years. It should be no surprise that the number of Syrians seeking asylum in Europe in October reached the highest level in seven years.
By now almost every war crime and crime against humanity covered by the International Criminal Court has been committed in Syria: deliberate targeting of hospitals and health workers, direct and indiscriminate attacks on civilians (some involving chemical weapons) under the guise of fighting “terrorists,” summary executions, torture and forcible disappearance of tens of thousands of people. Add to this the largely unaddressed genocide of Yazidis during the period of ISIS rule in parts of Syria.
The longstanding lack of respect for fundamental international human rights and humanitarian law in Syria not only enables the killing and maiming of victims on all sides of the conflict but also erodes the very essence of the international protection system. We are witnessing such disregard for international law in a growing list of conflicts — including in Ukraine, Sudan and now Gaza.
Member states must act urgently to bring this alarming trend to a halt. In November, the International Court of Justice ordered Syria to cease torture. In recent years, diligent prosecutors in Europe have convicted more than 50 perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Syria. Such efforts must be continued, supported and expanded for atrocities committed not only in Syria, but everywhere.
In the meantime, the most egregious violations could end if the fighting stops. We implore the international community to not lose sight of the Syrian crisis. Syria needs courageous diplomats, daring donors and determined prosecutors more than ever. And more than anything else, after nearly 13 years of conflict, it needs a nationwide cease-fire now.
Paulo Pinheiro is the chair of the U.N. Syria Commission of Inquiry. Hanny Megally and Lynn Welchman are members of the commission.
Photo: Site of housing collapse from last year’s earthquakes. Source: Louai Beshara/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
