Lhe war crimes and even the crimes against humanity perpetrated by Russia during its invasion of Ukraine have revived the investigations into the systematic violations of human rights by the Assad regime. The central question of the impunity of the executioners is again posed, with the priority issue of documenting such crimes, in the perspective of legal proceedings against the executors as well as the principals. The parallel is obvious, from Syria to Ukraine, between the techniques used by Moscow and its allies to terrorize the populations left to their will. It is in this context that two researchers from the University of Amsterdam have just revealed the scale and method of the abuses perpetrated by the Assad regime in a suburb of Damascus.

Read also Syria: UN denounces war crimes and possible crimes against humanity in Idlib

Two years of investigation

Dutch professor Ugur Ümit Üngör and Syrian researcher Annsar Shahoud, both attached to the Center for Genocide and Holocaust Studies at the University of Amsterdam, recovered a video of unbearable violence in June 2019. Delivered by a Syrian dissident to an opposition refugee in Europe, it shows the execution of forty-one people, shot dead one after the other, blindfolded, by a Syrian officer in uniform, then thrown into a mass grave to then be burned there. It is for the two researchers the beginning of a very long investigation, because only the date of April 2013 is indisputable. A patient work of reconstitution of the data and comparative geolocation makes it possible to finally locate the massacre in the district of Tadamone (“solidarity”), in the south of Damascus. This suburb, where peaceful protests had been repressed since 2011, was then in the hands of Assad’s soldiers and their auxiliaries from the National Defense Forces (FDN).

Annsar Shahoud makes hundreds of contacts, managing to identify the main killer of the 2013 video, then gain his trust

Annsar Shahoud invents a fake identity on social networks, where she presents herself as a pro-Assad Syrian exile, eager to encourage supporters and fighters of the regime. She thus makes hundreds of contacts, managing to identify the main assassin of the 2013 video, then to gain his trust. Amjad Youssef is a military intelligence officer, whose father had already followed the same career, in an unconditional family allegiance to the Assad clan. From the popular uprising of 2011, he assumed command for the “ security in the Tadamone area, in fact sowing insecurity within a population considered collectively suspicious. He is in fact the all-powerful local leader of the “227 branch” of military intelligence, in charge of the capital and its suburbs, a “branch” renowned for the sadism of its violence. Youssef boasts of being the executioner of the video, shot ” in tribute “ to his brother, who died in Assad’s uniform, and to have himself murdered these dozens of civilians in retaliation.

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Bordering Syria and surrounded by agricultural land, the village of Al-Qaa is about to come alive on the occasion of the legislative elections, Sunday, May 15. The approximately 5,000 residents will be joined by families who have gone to live in Beirut, which this town in the Bekaa usually sees again in the summer or during the holidays. Located in the constituency of Baalbek-Hermel, with a Shiite majority, the locality is Christian. The battle is being played out there between the two main parties of the community: the Lebanese Forces and the Free Patriotic Movement.

Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers In Lebanon, legislative elections raise tenuous hope for change

The local leaders of these rival groups are not worried about the presence of protest candidates in the region. Everyone has been doing their accounts for several months, provided with the lists of voters drawn up by the Ministry of the Interior. In the village, political opinions are no secret. “The party affixes color codes next to the names: supporters, entourage, neutral people. Everyone does that! smiles Bachir Matar, president of the municipality of Al-Qaa, affiliated with the Lebanese Forces (FL), a formation hostile to Hezbollah. He had obtained the parliamentary majority with his allies during the legislative elections of 2018.

Families known to be linked to the rival camp are not approached by a party – a wasted effort. But to mobilize those deemed likely to be conquered, techniques are sharpened, more effective than the electoral meetings that have been held. Thus, the presence of activists is more marked during important social occasions in the village, such as funerals. The parties do not forget those who reside in Beirut: they meet or call nearly 2,000 registered in the Al-Qaa register. Their mission: to ensure voter loyalty.

Strong personal interactions

Behind the scenes of meetings, slogans or television appearances of candidates in the campaign, the traditional parties in the running have activated their electoral machine for several months, with their vote beaters. These are often members or supporters. Varied tasks are entrusted to them: to make family visits, to collect a commitment to vote, to check that the sympathizers have an up-to-date voter card. Or offer to pay transportation costs for the ballot. “It’s legal!” », exclaims Mr. Matar. This long-existing “service” is supposed to reduce abstention this year, while the price of gasoline has exploded.

The network is made possible by the way we vote in Lebanon: a voter is registered in the locality of the paternal line, and not where he lives

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THE WHOLE STORY – SATURDAY, MAY 14 AT 10:30 P.M. – DOCUMENTARY

After the dark introductory monologue of the director, the blue and penetrating gaze of a sexagenarian captures the attention. Alone in front of the camera, Michaël Bar-Zvi presents himself as “philosopher and writer”modestly, like a Mensch – in Yiddish, someone attentive and honest. We are then in the middle of filming The wealth (broadcast in 2019), documentary by Elisabeth Lenchener devoted to the delicate relationship between man and money.

Read also: “Wealth” or the money in question around the world

The death of Michaël Bar-Zvi on May 29, 2018, at the age of 68, will convince the director to tackle a more divisive subject than money – Zionism –, by devoting a portrait to his friend from thirty years. It is broadcast on the anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel, May 14, 1948, in order to “to make Zionism more accessible, to break down prejudices and to elevate the debate”confided Elisabeth Lenchener to the WorldMonday, May 9.

The ambitious goal requires intellectual effort, including on the part of the viewer. This one should lend itself to it willingly, worn by Michaël Bar-Zvi, “a complex, interesting, fascinating character and a great intellectual”according to Daniel Shek, Israel’s ambassador to France from 2006 to 2010.

fighting spirit

The refusal of simplification and combativeness appear in each of his interventions. Since the evocation of his aliyah (return to Israel for a Jew), at age 25, “in a completely different spirit than what we hear today [mais] to bring my love of France to Israel”until its development, in front of the journalist Michael Grynszpan in 2016, on his double intellectual filiation: with Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) and the “more sulphurous” Pierre Boutang (1916-1998). The professor thus recalls that the latter was his philosophy teacher at Lycée Turgot in 1967 and that the teacher was no longer then. “anti-Semitic but philo-Semitic, Zionist and very committed to Israel”.

Later, he defends his In praise of war after the Holocaust ( Hermann, 2010) with the same pedagogy against Jean-Pierre Elkabbach, March 26, 2010. On the set of i24 again, he mastered his criticisms after the broadcast on M6 of an issue of “Exclusive investigation” on Jerusalem , December 18, 2016.

The confrontation of ideas is a driving force. “Michael [Michaël Bar-Zvi] had something eminently chivalrous, crossing words and concepts as one crosses swords”recalls Arthur Cohen, Hermann editions.

Another engine, the family. His father, a musician, who believed that the Holocaust did not belong to “memory” but to Evil. Anat Bar-Zvi, his widow and mother of his three children, delivers a sweet testimony of their life together. “I think this marriage will bring peace”he says on an amateur video on their wedding day.

Since the 2000s, Michaël Bar-Zvi had been pointing out new dangers, such as anti-Zionism, “permission to be democratically anti-Semitic”said Vladimir Jankélévitch, and “the Islamo-leftist Palestinian discourse”an ideology “dominant in universities and in intellectual circles in France”.

“Yes, I will defend the sand of Israel, / The land of Israel, the children of Israel; / Even if it means dying for the sand of Israel, / The land of Israel, the children of Israel”sings Serge Gainsbourg, in The Sand and the Soldier, written in 1967, which opens this portrait. And little broadcast since.

Michaël Bar-Zvi, the friend, the Mensch, documentary by Elisabeth Lenchener (Fr., 2022, 52 min). Available in replay on All the story.

Catherine Pacary

The violence of the images shocked the international community. Several international officials denounced the intervention of the Israeli police Friday, May 13 at the funeral, in Jerusalem, of Shireen Abu Akleh, the coffin of the Palestinian journalist having almost fallen to the ground after the truncheons against the carriers.

Israeli police announced on Saturday that they would open an investigation. “The Israel Police Commissioner, in coordination with the Minister of Public Security, has ordered an investigation into the incident. The findings of the investigation will be presented to the commissioner in the coming days.”police said in a statement.

Thousands of Palestinians attended the funeral of the American-Palestinian Al-Jazeera journalist on Friday, convinced that she was killed by Israeli army fire during a raid in Jenin (northern West Bank) on 11 may. While she was wearing a bulletproof vest with the logo ” hurry “ and a helmet to cover an Israeli military raid in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, she was killed by a bullet in the head.

“Disproportionate behavior”

At the exit of the coffin from Saint Joseph’s Hospital in East Jerusalem, a Palestinian sector of the city also occupied by Israel, the Israeli police burst into the grounds of the establishment and charged the crowd waving Palestinian flags. The police charged those who had gathered in the courtyard of the hospital, pushed against a wall the men who had seized the coffin and who were advancing towards the gates, towards the street. The police then attacked two of the porters. One of them received at least ten truncheon blows in the ribs and on the shoulder, a kick in the buttocks, and ended up collapsing. The coffin tipped over, live in front of the cameras, but without falling.

Fourteen people were injured, three of whom were hit in the head by rubber-rimmed metal bullets. They all returned home at the end of the day.

Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers The time of the funeral of Shireen Abu Akleh, the city of Jerusalem asserts itself Palestinian

“We were deeply disturbed by the images of the Israeli police intrusion into the funeral procession”said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The European Union has condemned “the disproportionate use of force and the disrespectful behavior of the Israeli police against the participants in the funeral procession”according to its head of diplomacy, Josep Borrell.

“Appalled by the violence within the grounds of St. Joseph’s Hospital and by the unnecessary level of force exerted by Israeli police throughout the funeral procession”had tweeted, a little earlier, the EU delegation to the Palestinians, according to which this “Such disproportionate behavior only fuels tensions”.

Dismay at police brutality at Shireen Abu Akleh’s funeral at St Joseph’s Hospital, established… https://t.co/6u8pNEj2D2

— FranceJerusalem (@France in Jerusalem )

The French representation in Jerusalem judged “deeply shocking” the “police brutality” at Saint Joseph’s Hospital, as UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said “deeply troubled”. In a statement, the Qatari foreign ministry said that “The occupying forces did not just kill Shireen (…)but they terrorized those who accompanied her to her final resting place..

The Israeli police charge is a painful reminder of the dark hours of apartheid in South Africa, the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Legacy Foundation also denounced in a statement on Saturday. These scenes, where we see the Israeli security forces clubbing the coffin bearers, “send chills, reminiscent of the brutality inflicted on mourners at funerals of anti-apartheid activists”said Mamphela Ramphele, president of the foundation, regretting “violence, feelings of hatred and contempt for human dignity” displayed.

“As Archbishop Tutu taught us”Nobel Peace Prize, died in December 2021 at the age of 90 after a life devoted to the fight against the racist regime and then to the necessary reconciliation of South Africans, “perpetrators of violence and human rights abuses may think they are advancing their goals, but in fact they are undermining their own humanity and integrity”. “Violence begets violence and hate, which beget more violence and hate”Tutu pleaded with the Israelis in a column published by the newspaper Ha’aretz in 2014, recalls the text.

Condemnation of the murder at the UN

“If you don’t stop these nationalist chants, we will have to disperse you using force and we will prevent the funeral from taking place”said in a megaphone an Israeli policeman in the direction of the crowd in the compound of the Saint-Joseph hospital, according to a video released by the police.

According to a police statement, “rioters prevented family members from loading the coffin into a hearse to proceed to the cemetery, as agreed with the family (…). The crowd refused to put the casket back in the hearse and the police intervened to prevent them from taking it. During the riot triggered by the crowd, glass bottles and other objects were thrown”. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported thirty-three injuries, and the Israeli police six arrests.

After the intervention of the police, the crowd accompanied the coffin to a church in the Old City where a mass was pronounced, before going to the cemetery.

The journalist’s death prompted a unanimous statement from the UN Security Council, which “strongly condemned”. Encouraged by the United States, this very rare unanimous position of the Security Council on a subject concerning Israel also demands “an immediate, thorough, transparent and impartial investigation”.

Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers The death of Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh brings Israel face to face with its responsibilities as an occupier

Origin of the shot

The Palestinian Authority, Al-Jazeera and the government of Qatar accused the Israeli army of killing the 51-year-old journalist. Israel, after claiming that she had ” most likely “ succumbed to Palestinian fire, then said he did not rule out that the bullet was fired by his soldiers.

According to a statement from the Palestinian prosecutor’s office in Ramallah, West Bank, on Friday, “the first results of the investigation showed that the only origin of the shooting against Shireen was the occupying forces” Israelis. Before him, the Israeli army had let it be known that it was not possible to immediately determine the origin of the shooting, which could as well have been Palestinian or Israeli.

The Israeli authorities demand that the bullet be handed over to them in order to carry out a ballistic examination. They proposed that Palestinian and American experts be present during the review, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas refused a joint investigation with Israel: “The Israeli authorities committed this crime and we do not trust them”did he declare.

The funeral took place amid further clashes in and around Jenin during army operations. An Israeli policeman was killed by Palestinian fighters and thirteen Palestinians were injured. The Israeli army has launched several operations to apprehend, according to it, Palestinians wanted in the Jenin refugee camp, a stronghold of the Palestinian armed factions from which the perpetrators of deadly attacks in recent months in Israel originated.

The World with AFP

At only 23 years old, Verena Al-Amil was one of the figures of the “thaoura”, the October 2019 uprising in Lebanon. From the Faculty of Law at Saint-Joseph University in Beirut, where she founded the student movement Taleb (“claims”) and chaired the Secular Club, she took her fight to the streets against the denominational system and political leaders. accused of having precipitated the country into bankruptcy. “The ‘thaura’ represented a real possibility for change. She broke taboos, the divine figures of zaïms [chefs communautaires] : they now know that they are accountable”she believes.

At 26, now a lawyer, she has decided to continue the battle at the polls, becoming one of the youngest candidates in the legislative elections on May 15. “After the ‘thaoura’, the economic crisis, the explosion at the port of Beirut, I was not going to give up and tell this political class that they won”explains Verena Al-Amil. “If we don’t go now, then when?” If not us, then who? »she continues, claiming to lead the fight for those of her generation who were disappointed that the “thaoura” did not bring a radical change and those whom the crisis pushed into exile.

Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers The agreement between the IMF and Lebanon, “a first step” towards the release of aid

It front of zaïms rooted in their strongholds, with a well-rehearsed electoral machine, the battle promises to be difficult for the 284 candidates from the opposition camp and the independents. Revolutionary fervor has been swept away by crises. The electoral law does not work in their favor, any more than the dispersion of candidates on competing lists. However, they hope to do better than in the 2018 election, where only one opposition candidate won one of the 128 seats in the Assembly. Voting trends for expatriates, particularly in the United Arab Emirates and France, have given them some hope.

Verena Al-Amil hesitated for a while before throwing herself into battle. Having been unable to find a place on a list in Beirut, it is in the region of Metn, a stronghold of the traditional Christian parties, that she is running for a Maronite seat. “Without entries into the social fabric and without a budget”the candidate knows that she has almost no chance, even less than her running mates from Nahwa Al-Daoula, the journalist Jad Ghosn and the director Lucien Bourjeily, who are better known. “People in Metn prefer to vote for people they know, big familiesshe laments. In their minds, a politician is a man over 50 who has a lot of money and offers services. »

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This day of the Palestinian national funeral begins under baton blows. Shortly before 2 p.m. on Friday, May 13, Israeli police burst into the courtyard of St. Joseph’s Hospital in East Jerusalem, from where the body of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was to reach the Old City. Thousands of Palestinians wait to pay their last respects to this woman, convinced that she was killed by army fire during a raid in Jenin (northern West Bank) on May 11.

The police charge those who have gathered in the courtyard of the hospital. They push against a wall the men who had seized the coffin and who were advancing towards the gates, towards the street. They go after two of the carriers. One of them received at least ten baton blows in the ribs and on the shoulder, a kick in the buttocks, and ended up collapsing. The coffin tilts 45 degrees, live in front of the cameras, but does not fall.

Read also: The death of a journalist and the demand for truth

“The police wanted to prevent them from taking him on a procession through the district of Cheikh Jarrah. They struck men, elderly women and children indiscriminately. They fired stun grenades at the entrance to the building, entered it and terrified patients,” says the director of the establishment, Jamil Koussa. Fourteen people were injured, three of whom were hit in the head by rubber-rimmed metal bullets. They all returned home at the end of the day.

An Israeli officer had previously warned Mr. Koussa, the representative of the European Union and the French consul – a legacy of the Ottoman era, Paris remains the symbolic protector of the Saint-Joseph hospital. He didn’t want to see Palestinian flags or hear nationalist chants. “But no one can control that!” It’s not in our hands or in those of the family,” sighs the director. The day before, the police had made the same request to relatives of Shirin Abu Akleh, according to Israeli Arab MP Ahmad Tibi. The very afternoon of his death, already, the police had tried to remove a flag from their house in Jerusalem, where they were receiving condolences.

“Nationalist provocations”

Police say they reacted Friday to chants they call “nationalist provocations”. She says she received stones. She broadcasts videos, where we see men throwing objects that look like water bottles, shortly before her attack, as well as other images of stones lying on the ground, without context. In Washington, the White House said to itself “deeply disturbed (…). We deplore the intrusion into what should have been a peaceful procession”.

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Shireen Abu Akleh’s coffin nearly fell to the ground when the men carrying it were beaten by Israeli security forces on Friday (May 13th). St. Joseph’s Hospital in Jerusalem was the scene of intense violence as the body of the Palestinian journalist, killed two days earlier in Jenin during an Israeli raid, left the establishment.

Police baton beatings were numerous, as well as the use of smoke bombs and stun grenades. The helmeted police charged into the crowd to try to disperse it. They have, for some, seized Palestinian flags to throw them on the ground.

A few minutes later, the coffin of Shireen Abu Akleh was finally able to be transported to a church in the Old City for a religious ceremony.

Read also: Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh killed in West Bank clashes

World Video Service (with Reuters)

Violence broke out on Friday, May 13, inside a hospital in Jerusalem after the coffin of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was released.

Footage broadcast by local television shows the coffin of the star reporter for the pan-Arab channel Al-Jazeera, killed on Wednesday in an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank, nearly falling to the ground as Israeli police disperse the crowd brandishing Palestinian flags.

Israeli forces broke into the grounds of St. Joseph’s Hospital in East Jerusalem, a Palestinian sector of the city occupied and annexed by the Jewish state.

Israeli police chasing Palestinian flags at #ShireenAbuAkleh’s funeral procession https://t.co/Dgi3BdV40c

— noa_landau (@Noa Landau נעה לנדאו)

Wave of emotion in the world

“If you don’t stop these nationalist songs, we will have to disperse you using force and we will prevent the funeral from taking place”, called an Israeli policeman through a megaphone in the direction of the crowd, according to a video released by the police. According to her, ” hundreds of people “ gathered at the hospital and stones were thrown at the police who were “forced to use riot dispersal means”.

‘Brutal Israeli special forces attack Shireen Abu Akleh’s funeral procession leaving St. Joseph’s Hospital’notably denounced on Twitter Hanane Achraoui, a historical figure of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). “Israel’s inhumanity is on full display”she also claimed.

Shireen Abu Akleh’s coffin was eventually transported to the Old City, where a mass was celebrated in a church, before burial in a nearby cemetery.

Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers The death of Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh brings Israel face to face with its responsibilities as an occupier

The death of this reporter, icon of Palestinian journalism, has aroused a wave of emotion in the Palestinian territories, in the Arab world where her reports have been followed for more than two decades, in Europe and in the United States.

Shireen Abu Akleh, a 51-year-old Christian Palestinian who also has American nationality, was shot in the head while covering an Israeli operation in the Jenin Palestinian refugee camp in the northern West Bank.

Israel, after saying that she had ” most likely “ succumbed to Palestinian fire, said he did not rule out that the bullet was fired by his soldiers. The Palestinian Authority, Al-Jazeera and the Qatari government accused the Israeli army of killing her.

Read also: The death of a journalist and the demand for truth

The World with AFP

A new case of “prisoners-hostages” will poison relations between Paris and Tehran, already at their lowest. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced, Thursday, May 12, the “unfounded” arrest of two French people in Iran, demanding their “immediate release” and promising to “remain fully mobilized for this purpose”.

The French ambassador in Tehran was trying to obtain consular access to these two people and the charge d’affaires of the Iranian embassy in Paris was summoned to the Quai d’Orsay, the ministry said in a statement.

On Wednesday, the Iranian intelligence ministry announced the arrest of two “European teachers”without specifying their nationality, implicated for having sought to “causing chaos and social disorder with the aim of destabilizing” the country. They are notably accused of having met with members of the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Associations, a trade union network that fights against the deterioration of living standards and repression.

Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Detained for six years in Iran, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe paid a debt that was not hers

The two French nationals, a couple of teachers who are members of the Force Ouvrière (FO) trade union confederation, were arrested at Tehran airport on May 8 as they were preparing to return to France, according to the media. Iran International, published in the UK. Within the National Federation of Education, Culture and Vocational Training-FO (Fnec FP-FO), it is ensured that they were visiting the country on a private basis for the holidays.

But their profile, one of them being a member of the federation’s management in charge of the union’s international relations, must have aroused the interest of the Iranian security services. The two French would have entered the country on April 29, two days before a national mobilization, the 1^er May, workers in the education sector; it gave rise to rallies and demonstrations in nearly sixty cities across the twenty-one provinces of the country in a tense climate.

social awakening

Since the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the agreement on the Iranian nuclear file, in 2018, at the initiative of the administration of former President Donald Trump, American sanctions have been reimposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran , dragging the country into an inflationary spiral. The local currency has lost 80% of its value against the dollar and the inflation rate is close to 40% on an annual basis.

The social front has woken up. Civil servants, petrochemical workers and even retirees are multiplying the demonstrations against the deterioration of their standard of living and the corruption – which they attribute to the elites of the regime – experienced as ever more unbearable. At the forefront of the challenge: the education sector.

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These images are grainy, of poor quality, but devastating for the Israeli army. The body of Shireen Abu Akleh lies lifeless at the foot of a tree, Wednesday, May 11, at the entrance to an alley in the Jenin refugee camp. His colleague, the journalist Shaza Hanaysheh, then a young man from the camp, tried to help this figure of the profession in the West Bank, star of the pan-Arab channel Al-Jazeera. Both change their minds several times, fearing shots that snap, punctual, regular, without gusts.

According to M^me Hanaysheh, their group was targeted by Israeli soldiers, while they were carrying out a raid in the Jenin refugee camp (north). “There were no fighters where we were, no (…). They shot at us directly and deliberately”affirms an Al-Jazeera producer, Ali Al-Samodi, who was hit by a bullet without gravity.

The Israeli army then succumbs to its usual failings: it explicitly envisages only one scenario, “the possibility that the journalists were hit by Palestinian gunmen”. On military radio, a spokesman goes so far as to assimilate M^me Abu Akleh to an enemy fighter, who “was filming and working for a media outlet among armed Palestinians. They are armed with cameras, if I may say so. »

Converging charges

The Israeli army, which has been trying since March 22 to stem a wave of attacks that have killed 18 people in Israel, is broadcasting a video shot by Palestinians. A fighter fires into an alley, in hazardous bursts. A man shouts that an Israeli soldier is lying on the ground. This is enough for Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office to estimate ” possible ” that this victim is the journalist, the army having regretted that morning no loss. Israeli diplomacy disseminates this reasoning. The government should have known that the GPS coordinates of the images do not match: these shots were filmed some 300 meters away from the place where Shireen Abu Akleh was killed, says the human rights organization B’Tselem.

But at this hour, Mr. Bennett’s office is not concerned with expressing assured truth, which would have required time and humility. What matters is that these images instill doubt. They maintain another version of the facts, which opposes the convergent accusations of the colleagues of Shireen Abu Akleh. It’s a poor lie by omission, with a short fuse, valid for only a few hours.

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