Stopping the Bashar Assad regime’s attacks on Syria's southern province of Daraa is a humanitarian and legal duty, after the regime's deadliest flareup in three years killed 28 people including 11 civilians, the Syrian opposition stated late Monday.
“Daraa or any part of Syria cannot enjoy stability and security in light of the violations and crimes that occur against innocents, and the lack of commitment to the agreements that have been signed and the international decisions taken,” Syrian Constitutional Committee co-chair Hadi al-Bahra wrote on Twitter.
He warned that any hostile military action, regardless of its results, “will not achieve sustainable peace, security and stability, and will undermine any confidence or hope for a political solution to implement Security Council resolution 2254 (2015).”
“Imposing and consolidating a comprehensive cease-fire is the first step that proves the desire of all parties to achieve peace.”
Similarly, the White Helmets Syrian civil defense group called on the United Nations Security Council and the international community “to take urgent action to stop the Assad regime, Russia, and their militias from carrying out further attacks.”
Syrian regime forces renewed their attacks on the Daraa al-Balad neighborhood following the failure of Russian-led mediation talks between the regime and opposition forces, a local group said Tuesday.
According to Horan Freedoms Community, a group founded by activists and journalists from Daraa, the Assad regime demanded that both residents and armed opposition groups surrender all their light weapons and submit to searches of their homes.
The demands, however, were rejected by the Daraa-based Reconciliation Center, which was negotiating on behalf of the residents.
Following the inconclusive talks, regime forces shelled the besieged neighborhood last night, forcing many civilians to move to other relatively safer neighborhoods.
Lying in the Daraa province, which is known as the birthplace of the Syrian revolution, Daraa al-Balad was blockaded by the regime forces on June 25 after residents, including former members of the Syrian opposition, resisted an order to surrender their light weapons and allow regime forces to search houses in the area.
According to the Daraa-based Reconciliation Center and local figures, the order was opposed because it violated the terms of a 2018 deal, under which the area residents and ex-opposition members only had to surrender all heavy weapons.
The deal allowed thousands of opposition and civilians safe passage to other opposition-held regions, while Russia-backed regime forces launched an attack to reclaim Daraa.
The regime began its military action despite agreeing earlier this week to lift the blockade.
The Russian-backed regime army and allied forces recaptured Daraa from the opposition in 2018, a symbolic blow to the anti-regime uprising born there in 2011.
State institutions have returned, but the army still has not been deployed across the whole province, and tit-for-tat bombings and assassinations between former opposition figures and regime forces have since become routine.
