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BEIRUT – Syrian rebels said on Tuesday that they were participating in a new round of talks on surrender in the south-west of the country after a military campaign in the midst of escalating moved more from a quarter of a million people in just two weeks. Backed by Russia and Iran, this long-overdue offensive has forced terrified families to trap them in border towns as violence gets closer and the borders with Israel and Jordan remain closed.
[Thousands of Syrians are fleeing toward Israel’s border, posing a new challenge]
Syria, the last territory controlled by the opposition without a major foreign sponsor, has evolved in recent years to become a geopolitical powder keg. The two neighbors are anxiously watching the displaced people reach their borders and Iran is deploying militias alongside the regular forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. On Tuesday, Ibrahim al-Jabawi, a spokesman for the rebel negotiating delegation, said the group has returned to talks with Russia, a major donor of the Assad government, with the aim of reaching an agreement. . "The talks are continuing now," he said by phone. "It may take a day, it may take a week, but it is clear that a solution must be found."
Soldiers from a military base in the Syrian Golan Heights control a displaced Syrian camp near 2 July 2018, the village of Al-Rafeed in southern Syria (Jalaa Marey / AFP / Getty Images)
A fragile peace had frozen fighting in the region for nearly a year under a ceasefire agreement a test of whether the United States and Russia could work together in a conflict that has pitted them against each other. This calm was broken by the Syrian offensive of June 22, whose speed surprised the observers and exceeded the intervention plans of the humanitarian organizations
even though the opposition negotiators had insisted Tuesday on the support of all the armed opposition. that a number of groups would continue to fight even if an agreement was reached.
"There is a risk that you have hundreds, if not two hundred thousand people pinned near the Israeli border, with nowhere to go, without a safe haven in Israel, and [without] the UN capable of 39 access it, "said a Western diplomat, expressing himself under the guise of anonymity because the person was not allowed to talk to reporters." This scenario might seem quite disastrous. "
An additional 60,000 people moved to the Jordanian border, where a combination of meager resources and harsh weather conditions resulted in deaths, with at least 12 children, two women and one elderly man dead from scorpion stings, Dehydration or diseases transmitted by contaminated water, said the United Nations.
[In one Lebanese town, a dilemma divides refugees: To stay or return to Syria]
The Syrian Army's steady march into the south – famous as the cradle of the country's uprising in 2011 – was hastened published a series of rebel surrenders, the militants having often concluded agreements with their conquerors at the last minute. Russian demands, presented at a meeting Saturday in a southern Syrian city, provoked a rebel rebellion, which said the conditions amounted to humiliating surrender. But as civilian displacement continued and hospitals filled with wounded, to be destroyed by Syrian or Russian fighter jets, diplomats and aid officials said Jordan had persuaded the team to return home. opposition to return to the negotiating table.
Civilians reached by telephone along the Israeli and Jordanian borders on Tuesday shared photos of a sea of makeshift tents. The children with dirty faces were looking in the shade under the shrubs.
"People sleep everywhere they can, they can not hear the war planes here, and they are just relieved to be safe," said Mohamed Al-Hourany, an activist in the city of Musayfrah who fled twice in advance of the government with his family. "We'll see if that holds."
Zakaria Zakaria in Istanbul and Suzan Haidamous in Beirut contributed to this report.
Read more:
The ceasefire in south-west Syria collapses as the United States and Russia reject responsibility
Netanyahu vows that # 39: Israel never abandons Golan Heights
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