On Tuesday, the Daraa Governorate in southern Syria held a funeral for the victims of the Jordanian military operation inside Syrian territory, amid a state of popular anger following the killing of seven civilians, including children and the elderly.
The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs considered “this behavior on the ground completely unacceptable,” accusing what it described as “suspicious parties” of seeking to “disrupt the distinguished fraternal relations between the two countries.” The Foreign Ministry announced, in a statement issued on Tuesday, that it would work in direct coordination with Jordan to form an urgent joint field and security committee, with the aim of putting an end to field violations and transgressions and preventing their recurrence.
The people of Daraa Governorate, for their part, demanded during the funeral that an investigation be opened into the Jordanian raids that targeted a number of sites in the governorate. The official “Syrian News” channel quoted the funeral participants as demanding that the Jordanian side clarify the information they had received about the targets that were bombed, while confirming that they were civilian sites, and that their governorate was free of any terrorist organizations.
Military expert Imad Shahoud considered the work to form a joint committee “a late measure that should have taken place before the operation was carried out,” and he said in statements to Asharq Al-Awsat that “a mistake caused civilian casualties that would result in compensation to their families.”
He believed that the responsibility for this mistake lies primarily with Jordanian intelligence, in terms of the need to verify information and coordinates through coordination with the Syrian side. He pointed out that there was another professional mistake related to the necessity of reconnaissance of targets for at least a full day. He was surprised by the use of F-16 aircraft to strike a “terrorist cell.” He said: “In such operations, work is done to capture members alive as much as possible.”
Raids carried out by the Jordanian Air Force targeted a number of sites in Daraa Governorate, on Monday/Tuesday night. The Health Directorate in Daraa reported that the number of victims had risen to 10 people, “they are 7 martyrs, including an elderly man, a woman, and three children, in addition to four wounded with varying injuries as a result of 4 raids launched by Jordanian aircraft, targeting sites in southern Syria.”
The Syrian People's Assembly called on the Syrian and Jordanian governments to open a joint investigation, stressing "the depth of the relationship between the two brotherly Syrian and Jordanian peoples," after condemning in a statement "the crime that claimed the lives of civilians, including children and women, in the countryside of Daraa Governorate."
It is noted from the official Jordanian and Syrian statements that they showed concern for bilateral relations, and considered them “bigger than mistakes,” according to the expression of the Syrian politician and member of the People’s Assembly, Muayad Ghazlan, indicating in his statement to Asharq Al-Awsat that it is not possible to accuse any “current third party” that caused what happened.
He said: “We count on the fact that bilateral relations are greater than mistakes, but we cannot accept not investigating what happened and not taking responsibility for the grave event and compensating the families for the great damage caused to the lives of our martyrs.”
Ghazlan believed that “security coordination between the two countries is improving, as are bilateral relations, and the role of Jordan and Syria in the alliance against terrorism and the common solid position against Israeli violations has aroused the jealousy of some parties that want to attack the foundations of this positive relationship.”
Regarding the possible repercussions of the Jordanian operation on the relations between the two countries, Ghazlan said: “There is no harm to our relationship with Jordan. Because it is solid and rooted, and this in itself requires absolute mutual respect for sovereignty, and that full coordination be carried out with the Syrian government within the protocols of the agreement in combating terrorism.”
Analyzes in Syrian circles agree that there is a “defect” that caused civilian casualties. Political and media analyst Ali Eid spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat about the existence of a security gap in southern Syria, due to Israeli practices that prevent the presence of a sufficient Syrian security force and the conduct of sufficient surveys to control the southern region. According to Eid, who is from Daraa Governorate, Israel is a major reason - which may not appear directly in the picture - in the occurrence of chaos that leads to a security defect that requires this type of intervention.
According to him, the absence of coordination in this process shows that the Jordanian and Syrian sides are not on the same page regarding security issues, and that there is a gap that has clearly emerged in civilian casualties, stressing that there are still questions that need to be answered and addressed. He said that the Syrian Foreign Ministry's statement attempted to create a state of balance while emphasizing Syrian sovereignty, and the necessity of these operations not being carried out except with prior coordination. Because “Syrian land is the responsibility of the Syrian state, not the responsibility of the Jordanian side.”
Eid was not surprised that the strike aroused great dissatisfaction in the Syrian street, especially with the absence of concrete evidence of the presence of dead terrorists among those targeted. This puts pressure on the government and the Syrian president, and thus will prompt a different kind of coordination that will most likely “collide with Israeli obstacles.”
This afternoon (Tuesday), Israeli forces carried out two bombing operations in the town of Hula in southern Lebanon, and burned a number of homes in the town. It also carried out an explosion west of the town of Mays al-Jabal in southern Lebanon. Israeli artillery bombed Wadi Shebaa in southern Lebanon, according to the official Lebanese National News Agency.
She added that Israeli forces also carried out a bombing in the Al-Mafilha area, west of the town of Mays Al-Jabal in southern Lebanon. Wadi Shebaa in southern Lebanon was hit by 4 Israeli artillery shells.
Before noon today, the Israeli army carried out a bombing operation near the cemetery of the town of Khiam in southern Lebanon, accompanied by an intense sweeping operation with machine guns. He also carried out a bombing operation last midnight in the town of Khiam.
This morning, Israeli artillery bombed the towns of Mansouri and Majdal Zoun in southern Lebanon. It also bombed the towns of Baraashit, Kunine Al-Mansouri, and Wadi Zabqin in southern Lebanon at night.
It is noteworthy that Israel launched a war on Lebanon on March 2, after Hezbollah launched missiles at northern Israel. Israeli forces occupied a number of towns in southern Lebanon.
Israeli raids continued to target large areas in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa in eastern Lebanon, after the first announcement of the ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel on April 16, then extending it on the 23 of the same month for 3 weeks, and extending it again on May 15 for 45 days.
On June 20, a ceasefire was announced, after which the pace of Israeli targeting of southern Lebanon decreased.
It was reported in Baghdad, on Tuesday, that Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi dismissed dozens of officials working as an advisor in his office, at a time when political sources believed that the move aimed to “streamline government work and sever ties with political networks.”
The mass dismissal of 69 advisors came a day after Al-Zaidi dismissed the director of his private office, Ihsan Al-Awadi, and the head of the intelligence service, Hamid Al-Shatari.
Al-Zaidi said last week that the appointment of 3 of his deputies would be matched by the elimination of 72 advisors, according to what was reported by the official agency.
"INA" agency said that it received a scanned copy of a document issued by Al-Zaidi's office, which included orders to dismiss 69 advisors in the Prime Minister's Office and terminate their contracts, as some of them served in the position for about two decades.
The document stated that the decision came “based on the directives of the Prime Minister for the requirements of the public interest, with a deadline for settling their financial liability.”
Previous governments had contracted with hundreds of advisors to work in the Prime Minister’s Office, although Law No. 3 of 2022 regulating the work of advisors stipulates that their number should not exceed only 6.
Documents attached to the exemption decision attributed to Al-Zaidi’s office showed statistics indicating that the advisors cost the Maronite public about 98 million dinars (about 65 thousand dollars) per month.
Sources close to the government told Asharq Al-Awsat that the layoff decision is related to an attempt to reduce the financial burden on the state budget, by reducing current expenses represented by salaries, security protection allocations, transportation, and accommodation.
The creation of new ministerial positions and the appointment of 3 deputy prime ministers sparked a wave of popular criticism against Al-Zaidi during the past two weeks, which sources link to Al-Zaidi’s efforts, through the dismissal of advisors, to address those objections.
Al-Zaidi had stated that his deputies would work without salaries or financial allocations, as part of austerity measures and a reduction in government spending, according to state television.
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A source from the ruling coalition, the Coordination Framework, told Asharq Al-Awsat that Al-Zaidi is trying to liquidate the legacy of previous governments that appointed advisors according to partisan and personal interests, noting that some of them were political and financial networks who represented the eyes of the parties within the government and its backstage.
For his part, journalist Falah Al-Mishaal believes that the presence of a group of advisors who possess actual experts and qualifications in vital fields is important for the prime minister to be able to handle many files, but what happened in Iraq is that “the position of the prime minister’s advisor is an alien function of no importance and no value.”
Al-Mishaal said, in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, that the accumulated appointments of advisors “burdened the budget after creating waste and exacerbating inflation and flabbiness in the presidential staff. What applies to the Prime Minister also applies to the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic, even though the latter’s job does not go beyond protocol contexts.”
