On Dec. 13, 2024, oppositional forces declared Syria free from the regime of Bashir al-Assad – ending more than 60 years of Ba’ath Party rule in Syria. The almost 53 years of Assad family rule was overthrown by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist militant group.
Currently, Assad and his family are seeking political asylum in Russia.
The Assad family gained control of Syria in 1971, after Hafez al-Assad became president. His son, Bashar al Assad, succeeded him following his death in 2000.
Many mark the conflict’s beginning during the 2011 Arab Spring, a series of anti-government protests and uprising across Arab countries. This was followed by the arrest of 15 teenage boys who spraypainted anti-government graffiti, in Daraa, Syria. Protests erupted and Assad governmental forces responded to these protests with extreme violence, killing and jailing demonstrators. These demonstrations spread nationwide, escalating into calls for Assad to resign, beginning the 13-year-long Syrian civil war.
Throughout his reign, Assad was responsible for the murder of over 600,000 Syrians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The civil war has caused Syrians to be the largest displaced group, with an estimated 14 million civilians expelled from their home, as well as Syrian infrastructure, hospitals, schools and private and public property have been substantially damaged or destroyed.
As Assad’s regime crumbled, Syrian rebels freed tens of thousands of their people from Sednaya prison. Built in 1987, on a hill north of Damascus, Sendnaya was a military prison housing political prisoners.
According to the New York Times, Sednaya was known for its widespread torture and abuse. During the Syrian civil war it “became a site of depravity and violence, used to commit some of the worst atrocities of Bashar al-Assad’s rule.”
During the civil war, as anti-governmental protests spread, the Assad regime “began imprisoning thousands of protesters, activists, journalists, doctors, aid workers, students and other Syrians. Many were sent to Sednaya.” Amnesty International reported that the prison was the final destination for “both peaceful opponents of the authorities as well as military personnel suspected of opposing the regime.”
Reports by Amnesty International revealed that “Syrian authorities had deliberately exterminated detainees at Sednaya after torturing and housing them in appalling conditions.” The United Nations (UN) found in their investigation of Sednaya that these acts conducted by the Assad regime “could amount to crimes against humanity.”
An investigation by the New York Times showed that detainees “were sexually assaulted, beaten on the genitals and forced to beat, rape or even kill one another.” Loved ones often did not know the fate of those housed in the prison. Released prisoners described “detainees left to die of untreated wounds and illnesses in filthy, overcrowded cells.
Prisoners were given just seconds to use [bathrooms], so were often forced to relieve themselves in the cells, which lacked toilets. Meals usually consisted of a few mouthfuls of spoiled food. Many people developed serious infections, diseases and mental illnesses.”
According to the Amnesty report, each morning guards would collect the bodies of those that died in the night and record their deaths as “cases of heart or respiratory failure” before throwing them into mass graves outside Damascus.
Following the fall of Assad, thousands of hopeful families gathered outside the detention center in desperate search of loved ones who were jailed or forcibly disappeared — many are still hopeful that their loved ones will be found alive.
According to The Guardian, one woman hoping for the release of her son who was seized in 2012 at the age of 18 shared, “All these families here have a lot of fear in their hearts that their sons are dead … some of them have a small hope, a window of hope, that their children will be alive.”
The fall of Assad’s regime presents an era of joy and new hope for millions who have longed for a dream of returning to Syria after years of refugeedom. As Syria looks to build its new government, Mohammed al-Bashir, head of the Syrian Salvation Government, with the support of the former rebels, was appointed as caretaker prime minister.
As Syria looks to rebuild, Israel has announced plans to double its population in the occupied Golan Heights. According to the UN, before the Israeli occupation of Golan in 1967, it was home to over 14,000 Syrians, most of whom were “driven out of their homeland” into Displaced Persons (IDPs) status.
Israel refuses to implement the 1967 UN Security Council Resolution 242, which calls for “the complete withdrawal from all Arab territories occupied in 1967, including the Occupied Syrian Golan,” as well as 1981 Security Council Resolution 479, confirming the illegality of Israel’s annexation of Golan.
Since the fall of Assad, Israel has begun a bombing campaign to destroy Syrian army infrastructure and research centers — targeting military sights such as Aleppo, causing massive fires and explosions in the area. Israeli troops advancing into Syria have seized the Al-Wahda Dam on the Yarmouk River Basin, resulting in Israeli control of 30% of Syria’s water supply.
Footage of Israeli blasts in Syria’s Tartus port area spread across social media where a massive explosion can be seen erupting across the Syrian skyline. London-based war monitoring group, The Syrian Observatory for Human rights, described the imagery emerging from Syria as “the most violent Israeli strikes on military sites in the eastern Tartus area.”
As Israel continues to intensively bomb Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a statement following Israel’s unanimous vote approving their expansion plan into the Golan Heights, explained, “Strengthening the Golan means strengthening the State of Israel, and this is especially important at this time.”
Israel’s actions in Syria have resulted in international backlash — Turkish Foreign Affairs Ministry condemned what they described as “a new stage in Israel’s goal of expanding its borders through occupation.”
The Turkish Foreign Affairs Ministry released a statement relaying their concerns, “We strongly condemn Israel’s decision to expand illegal settlements in the Golan Heights … Israel’s ongoing actions seriously undermine the efforts to bring peace and stability to Syria and further increase tensions in the region.”
This was following a move by UN chief António Guterres, who called on Israel to halt its attacks and advances on Syrian territory.
