Detty December
‘I belong in my own country’: Syrians celebrate a year after al-Assad
Damascus, Syria – Syrians have marked the first anniversary of the fall of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad with fireworks and jubilant celebrations in major cities, amid renewed optimism for long-lasting freedom and safety after 14 years of war.
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa told large crowds in Damascus on Monday that the country had turned the page from a “dark chapter” in its history and now “looks towards a promising future”.
Recommended Stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
Over the past year, al-Sharaa’s government has taken steps to provide basic services to citizens, as millions of refugees weigh the decision to return home.
Al-Sharaa promised to bring justice to the families of the victims of the al-Assad regime and build an inclusive Syria, amid ongoing efforts to bring all armed forces under Damascus’s authority. His government also managed to reshape foreign ties and obtain the lifting of international sanctions.
Despite bouts of sectarian violence, recurring Israeli attacks and deep economic challenges, Syrians remain largely confident that the end of the al-Assad family’s decades-long tyrannical rule has ushered in a new era of stability.
Al Jazeera spoke to Syrians celebrating in public squares on Monday about what they expect from the new government and their hopes for the future.
Lina al-Masri
Today truly feels like a celebration. Syria is free. We are living in safety. This is a happiness we haven’t seen among Syrians in ages.
We fully support [al-Sharaa’s] administration, wholeheartedly and sincerely. For now, the state has done everything well. Most importantly, it has provided us with security. It has ensured that our youth can go out safely, and that’s the greatest achievement so far.
We were worried, sitting in fear for our young men and boys, anxious that they might be taken and not return, or die. But now, the streets are filled with our youth walking safely. Our men walk freely and safely without any fear.
Khaled Jaboush
Injustice and oppression have been lifted off the shoulders of Syrian citizens. Now they can express their feelings, their liberty, and their beliefs.
You see the crowds out here – they came out of their own free will. In the past, people used to march out of obligation. Today, the people came out willingly, joyful and happy with their [newfound] freedom.
We are delighted with the wise leadership we have. We are happy with the development and progress which, God willing, will prevail in our country. Today, God willing, the economy has begun to grow, and the wheel is starting to turn.
It’s an indescribable feeling. After decades of injustice and oppression, we got our freedom back. The freedom we were denied for 50 years.
Yehya and Hussein
Everyone is chanting, everyone is together, all in harmony. I feel the security forces and the army are now part of us. You pass by, and they greet you without hesitation. You don’t feel scared, like someone’s out to get you.
We used to dream of charging our phones. Now we have electricity, we have lights, we have comfort.
I’ve lived abroad my whole life because of al-Assad’s oppressive regime. When I came back here, I felt like I’m living in my country for the first time.
There were times when I visited Syria, but I felt like an outsider. Now, no – now I feel like I belong in my own country.
I hope today continues to be a lasting symbol of peace for us and for our entire country.
Rawan al-Omari
Everything is evolving. There are some nice initiatives and beautiful partnerships with other countries. So hopefully, our country will flourish.
Work opportunities in ministries have become easier; they care about the country and the people’s circumstances.
Services are improving step by step. Of course, everything starts small, but we’re lacking nothing. Everything is available, thank God.
ICC sentences Sudan militia-leading ‘axeman’ Rahman to 20 years
The International Criminal Court has sentenced a former leader of the Janjaweed militia to 20 years in prison for committing atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region.
Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, 76, also known as Ali Kushayb, was sentenced on Tuesday following his conviction in October for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 itemsend of list
This is the first time the ICC has convicted a suspect of crimes in Darfur, a region that is once again seeing mass atrocities amid a vicious civil war, between the government-linked Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which traces its origins back to the Janjaweed militia.
The court had unanimously convicted Kushayb on 31 counts, including attacks against civilians, murder, torture, rape, pillaging, destruction of property, persecution, and forcible transfer of population between 2003 and 2004.
‘Extermination, humiliation and displacement’
Abd-Al-Rahman was a leading member of Sudan’s infamous Janjaweed militia who participated “actively” in multiple war crimes during the civil war, the court found.
Judge Joanna Korner who passed the sentence said he had “personally perpetrated” beatings, including with an axe, and given orders for executions.
She cited victims who said he had carried out a “campaign of extermination, humiliation and displacement”.
Abd-Al-Rahman had consistently denied during his trial being a high-ranking official in the Janjaweed militia, a largely Arab paramilitary force armed by the Sudanese government to kill mainly Black African tribes in Darfur.
He insisted from the opening of his trial in April 2022 that he is “not Ali Kushayb” and that the court had the wrong man – an argument rejected by the judges.
Prosecutors had called for a life sentence, noting that among his crimes, Abd-Al-Rahman killed two people with an axe.
“You literally have an axe murderer before you. This is the stuff of nightmares,” prosecutor Julian Nicholls said at a pre-sentencing hearing.
Defence lawyers had asked for a seven-year jail term.
The court noted that the time Abd al-Rahman has spent in detention – from the date of his surrender on June 9, 2020, until the date of the judgment – will be deducted from his sentence.
‘Desperate’
Fighting broke out in the Darfur region in the 2000s, when non-Arab tribes, complaining of systematic discrimination, took up arms against the Arab-dominated government.
Khartoum responded by unleashing the Janjaweed, a force now known as the Popular Defence Forces and drawn from among the region’s nomadic tribes.
The United Nations says 300,000 people were killed and 2.5 million more were displaced in the conflict.
Abd-Al-Rahman had fled to the Central African Republic in February 2020, when a new Sudanese government announced its intention to cooperate with the ICC’s investigation.
He said he then handed himself in because he was “desperate” and feared authorities would kill him.
The Darfur region has suffered further since a civil war between the military-run government and RSF erupted in April 2023.
Both sides are accused of committing atrocities – although mainly the RSF – and millions have been displaced and are at risk of famine, creating an urgent humanitarian crisis.
Thai foreign minister says Cambodia not ready to negotiate peace
Thailand’s foreign minister has told Al Jazeera that Cambodia is “not ready” for peace negotiations and that the renewed border conflict between the two countries provides no space for a diplomatic solution.
Donald Trump “can have an enormous influence” on Warner Bros buyout
Subscribe to our channel: http://bit.ly/AJSubscribe
Follow us on X : https://twitter.com/AJEnglish
Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera
Check our website: http://www.aljazeera.com/
Check out our Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/aljazeeraenglish/
Download AJE Mobile App: https://aje.io/AJEMobile
Israel shot my little sister during the Gaza ceasefire
Gaza City – An Israeli sniper shot my six-year-old sister at a family friend’s wedding in northern Gaza during the ceasefire on November 3.
In the Daraj quarter, far from the Israel-controlled yellow area, Sundus was playing on the first floor of a wedding hall with other kids, happy with her new clothes, while the wedding itself was taking place upstairs.
Suddenly, she collapsed.
Shouts filled the hall on the second floor. Bullets whistled loudly among the guests. One bullet hit the bridesmaid in the jaw, and another hit the groom’s cousin in her shoulder. The bride’s white dress turned red — the wedding stopped before anyone danced.
Maria, my seven-year-old sister, came running. “Sundus is sleeping on the ground and won’t wake up.”
Mum ran to the first floor, searching everywhere for Sundus, but found only a pool of blood. Her phone rang, “We are in the Baptist Hospital [al-Ahli Arab Hospital]. Come quickly,” her brother Ali said.
“An Israeli sniper shot the child Sundus Hillis in the head,” the news circulated as we were on the way to the hospital. We knew nothing about our little one.
When we arrived, Sundus was lying in a hospital bed. Blood covered her beautiful face, staining the makeup and the colourful clothes she had been overjoyed to wear.
“Sundus, oh love. Wake up,” Mum begged her, but she only groaned weakly.
“Two bullets in her head,” a nurse inspecting Sundus’s injury told Mum.
Two holes, one bullet, and some parts of the brain lost, the medical report showed.
In the ICU
Sundus was moved to Al-Shifa Hospital.
Before she entered the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), the neurosurgeon tapped her right hand – she unconsciously moved it. But when he tapped her left hand and leg, nothing moved.
Sundus underwent a three-hour-long surgery and remained in the ICU. We were permitted to visit for only 15 minutes. When I first entered the room, the doctor guided me to a child with a swollen face and a bandaged head, tubes everywhere, who bore very little resemblance to my beautiful Sundus.
One day passed, and Sundus was still kept in the ICU until another patient in critical condition needed the bed, and she was moved to the inpatient ward.
She finally woke up after two days, unable to see or move the left side of her body. No matter how much I talked to her, the only response I got was loud cries.
She was rubbing her face, trying to look at anything but failing. “My eyes are crossed … I can’t see anything. Why have you made me like this?” she would shout.
The wedding she had been looking forward to for days had disappeared from her memory. In her mind, she is still sleeping in our cousins’ shelter, where she was before the wedding hall.
Sundus, who used to chatter all the time, could now only groan weakly. I used to make her draw just for a moment of quiet, but now I try to get her to speak, and she cries.
Dad, too, who used to complain, begs her to make noise, but we get nothing except: “Stop talking. My head hurts.”
“Why have you buried me alive?” she once shouted at Mum, after agonising, futile attempts to roll over in the hospital bed.
Hung by blockade
A few days after the surgery, Sundus was able to feel the brightness of light. She was able to see apparitions sometimes; at other times, she was unable to see at all.
When she sensed the disappointment in our voices, she started guessing. That the red butterfly was blue or that the pink doll was a pink rose.
I saw Sundus get angry at herself because she couldn’t move, then burst into tears – it’s a loop she suffers daily.
The neurosurgeon had no clear answers for us when we asked whether she would return to her normal self. A simple “inshallah” was his answer for all questions.
We had to face him several times with specific questions to get a clear answer.
“She needs physical therapy, and it’s up to God whether she will regain her mobility or not … her vision will improve to a certain extent, but it won’t go back to how it was,” he said.
Sundus didn’t stop moaning in pain, and the hospital did not have proper resources. We had to scour the streets for painkillers and other things for her.
One day, I needed to find a medical cap to cover her wound – but found nothing in four pharmacies, walking through destroyed streets. Another time, I needed surgical gauze and could only find another kind, but she needed anything, urgently, so I had to buy what I found.
I tried every international organisation to help get her out of Gaza. I sent her medical reports to anyone who might be able to help – all to no avail.
Sundus heard talk of evacuation and started to dream of being able to move and see again.
“The damage is done. Whatever the bullet damaged cannot be repaired by a surgeon,” a foreign doctor told us via messaging after he looked at Sundus’s records remotely, and our last bit of hope was shattered.
Her condition deteriorated as the medical care was limited in the destroyed hospital. Her injury became infected and needed another surgery, in which she lost a significant amount of blood.
It felt like Israel shot Sundus, then used the blockade to tighten a rope around her neck.
![Sundus in the wheelchair at Al-Shifa Hospital [Courtesy of Eman Hillis]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Sundus-in-the-wheelchair-at-Al-Shifa-Hospital-1765272805.jpg?w=696&ssl=1)
Evading death
For two years, we’ve been making impossible decisions to avoid injury to anyone in the family.
When Israel issued warnings to the north of Gaza, we evacuated to the south. When Israel warned of a ground operation in Khan Younis, we evacuated to Rafah.
When the ground operation in Rafah was announced, we rushed to Deir el-Balah. We only returned to northern Gaza as the truce took effect in January 2025.
We slept in the streets, sheltered from bombs under the thin fabric of tents. For months, we endured starvation, not approaching aid drops or the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
Besieged Palestinians in Gaza know what harsh fate awaits them when injured.
We felt like we owned the land when the ceasefire took effect, feeling lucky to have lost only our home and suffered from malnutrition. Then an Israeli sniper took that relief from us.
What did little Sundus do for the Israeli soldier to shoot her in the head? We are supposedly in a ceasefire.
Ironically, my friends everywhere, instead of condemning the shooting, first asked me if Sundus had been in the “yellow area” that is held by Israel.
All the times we nearly died while trying to stay in the “safe zone” crossed my mind as I repeated that she was not, sharing the location of the wedding hall with tens of people.
Shooting a six-year-old child is a war crime.
However, it didn’t even make the headlines.
It was nothing out of the ordinary in Gaza.