Israel has vowed to work with the United States to block a bid by the Palestinians for full membership in the United Nations, a move that would confer international recognition of Palestinian statehood.

Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki said Wednesday that he will submit a request next month to the Security Council for full UN membership, according to the official Wafa Palestinian news agency.

“We are preparing to stop the initiative,” said Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon in a statement. “The Palestinians pay terrorists and encourage violence yet seek to become a member state of the United Nations.”

Danon accused Palestinian leaders of engaging in “destructive policies that have encouraged recent terror attacks” and said he was gearing up to block the initiative “in cooperation with the United States delegation.”

Any move by the Palestinians to seek full UN membership will face a veto from the United States at the Security Council, diplomats said.

Under UN rules the General Assembly must approve any request to become a UN member-state, but it must first be submitted to the Security Council.

To win the council’s approval, the Palestinians would have to secure nine votes from the 15 members and no veto from any of the five permanent members: Britain, France, China, Russia and the United States.

The Palestinian foreign minister said he plans to travel to New York next month to personally submit the request. It remains unclear whether the application would quickly be put to a vote at the Security Council.

New council members back Palestine

UN diplomats said the Palestinian move to seek full UN membership comes as South Africa and Indonesia, two strong supporters of the Palestinians, are set to take their seats as non-permanent Security Council members.

The council is tentatively scheduled to hold its monthly meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on January 22.

The Palestinians were granted the status of UN non-member observer state in 2012, a decision taken by the General Assembly where no member-state holds veto power.

The United States voted against that resolution, in line with its long-standing view that there should be no international recognition for the Palestinians until progress is made in peace efforts with Israel.

That view has hardened under President Donald Trump’s administration, which has cut off aid to the Palestinians and recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, overriding Palestinian claims to East Jerusalem.

Asked for a comment, the US mission to the United Nations said it was unable to respond due to the US government shutdown.

The Trump administration is preparing to roll out, possibly in early 2019, its much-awaited peace proposals for the Middle East — although Israeli elections scheduled for April could once again delay that plan.

About 137 countries out the UN’s 193 member-states recognize some form of Palestinian statehood.
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Alarmed by a U.S. decision to leave Syria, Kurdish leaders who run much of the north are urging Russia and its ally Damascus to send forces to shield the border from the threat of a Turkish offensive.

Their call for a return of Syrian government forces to the border, which Kurdish fighters have held for years, points to the depth of their crisis in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw forces.

While little has changed on the ground yet – U.S. forces are still deployed and Trump says the pullout will be slow – Kurdish officials are scrambling for a strategy to protect their region from Turkey before the United States leaves.

Talks with Damascus and Moscow appear to be the focus for the Kurdish leadership. Their worst fear is a repeat of a Turkish attack that drove Kurdish residents and the YPG militia out of Afrin city in the northwest earlier this year.

They are also trying to convince other Western countries to fill the vacuum when Washington withdraws some 2,000 troops whose presence in northern and eastern Syria has deterred Turkey so far.

The territory at stake spans about a quarter of Syria, most of it east of the Euphrates River, controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an umbrella group dominated by the Kurdish YPG. The area borders Iraq to the east and includes three major cities – Qamishli, Hasaka and Raqqa.

The SDF has been Washington’s main Syrian partner in the fight with Islamic State, but Turkey views the YPG fighters that form its backbone as a threat and has vowed to crush them.

Officials from northern Syria, who went to Moscow last week, will soon make another trip, hoping Russia will push Damascus to “fulfil its sovereign duty”, top Kurdish politician Aldar Xelil told Reuters.

“Our contacts with Russia, and the regime, are to look for clear mechanisms to protect the northern border,” said Xelil, an architect of autonomy plans in northern Syria. “We want Russia to play an important role to achieve stability.”

Islamic State threat

President Bashar al-Assad, already in command of most of Syria with help from Iranian and Russian allies, has vowed to recover the SDF territory. The region, rich in oil, water and farmland, is seen as important to Syria’s reconstruction.

Although the autonomy they seek is at odds with Damascus, Kurdish forces have largely avoided direct conflict with the government during the war, at times even fighting common foes.

They held political talks this summer that went nowhere. But with their negotiating position severely weakened by Trump’s move, Kurdish authorities may be in a race against time to cut a deal as Turkey threatens to launch its offensive east of the Euphrates River.

Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the outlawed Kurdish PKK movement which has been waging a 34-year-long insurgency in southeastern Turkey. Ankara has drawn on Syrian rebel proxies to help fight the YPG in the north.

Fearing the U.S. announcement could open the way to the Turkish attack, the SDF has been warning of the threat Islamic State still poses. It has cautioned European states that foreign Islamic State jihadists in its prisons could escape and return to mount attacks at home.

“To repel a Turkish attack, we are discussing various options … We have made contact with Russia, France and European Union countries to help,” said Badran Jia Kurd, a senior Kurdish official who went to Moscow last week for talks with Russian foreign ministry officials.

“It is the responsibility of the Syrian government to protect the borders of this region and this is under discussion,” he told Reuters.

Political settlement

In Turkey’s last assault in Afrin earlier this year, the SDF felt let down by Russia, believing it had given assurances that Turkey would not attack the region.

Turkey-backed Syrian rebels say they have been mobilizing to launch the next offensive, with their first target the town of Manbij that borders the territory under their control.

U.S. forces are still patrolling near Manbij and nothing has changed so far, said Sharfan Darwish, spokesman for the SDF-allied Manbij Military Council that holds the town. But in coordination with the council, the government and Russia sent forces near the town on Tuesday, he said.

Top Syrian Kurdish politician Ilham Ahmed, who held talks with Damascus earlier this year, said contacts with the state had never stopped.

“We are now in the phase of launching a new initiative,” she told a tribal meeting in Raqqa on Wednesday. “We will try by all means to put pressure on this regime to carry out a political settlement so that we preserve the dignity of Syrian citizens.”
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Sukaina Mohammed Ali put her own life at risk during the military campaign to liberate Mosul, Iraq, in 2017, rescuing children left wandering the streets after they were separated from their families by the fierce fighting between U.S.-backed Iraqi forces and Islamic State (IS) militants.  

  

Since then, Ali has made it her mission to save these abandoned children to help them overcome the trauma and horror of war.

Thousands of children have been traumatized by war, but Ali believes she is making a difference by providing some of these children with the opportunity to rebuild their lives. 

 

Some of the children she rescues, however, have IS parents, she said.  

  

“I have a message to deliver to IS and to their supporters: You took our children to use them as soldiers, as slaves; you turned them into extremists, slaughtered our sons and daughters. Today, I take your children to care for them, to teach them how to be children again, because Islam is not what extremist groups like IS and AQ [al-Qaida] represent,” Ali told VOA. 

 

Through her work, she has risked her life and reputation, Ali said. She said she also had faced backlash by helping IS children. But she said she was passionate about wanting to erase the traces of hatred and despair that IS has left behind in her country.  

  

“People ask me: ‘Why are you doing this? Let their children suffer as they made our children suffer.’ But these children didn’t choose to be born to an IS parent, and we should not do what IS did to us. Otherwise, how we will be different?” Ali said. 

 

Ali, who also is the director of the Department of Women and Children in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province, fled Mosul in 2014, when IS took over the city and announced the establishment of its so-called caliphate.  

  

IS militants took over Ali’s house and turned it into one of its headquarters.  

In November 2016, U.S.-backed Iraqi forces began the operation to liberate Mosul from IS militants, and the ensuing military campaign was fierce and deadly, as IS fortified its positions. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were caught in the crossfire, and IS used civilians as human shields. 

 

“This is the most significant urban combat to take place since World War II,” Stephen Townsend, the top coalition commander, said in March 2017 during the Mosul operation.   

How it began 

 

When she returned in 2017, Ali initially used her own house and nearby houses, whose owners believed in Ali’s cause, to accommodate the abandoned children.  

  

Later, with the help of private donations, she opened an orphanage, which continues to operate on private donations. 

 

She currently cares for about 55 children, but the number varies. 

 

Ali’s orphanage has welcomed many children, including Yazidi children who were held captive by IS; abandoned children in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in Iraq; and infants abandoned by their parents.  

  

“We care for children whose parents are unknown. We found newborns on the streets, at a mosque’s door, in a building’s entrance and in a dumpster,” Ali said. 

 

Social media 

 

Ali has used social media to try to find family members of the abandoned children, but some have criticized her for helping the children of suspected IS militants. She said she was advised to leave the children on the street. 

 

“The children of Mosul, whether from IS parents or not, are innocent. Some of these orphans have disabilities,” Ali replied. 

Watch: Children of Terror Left Behind in Iraq

 

There is widespread hatred for IS and those associated with the terror group because of the atrocities the group has committed against people in both Iraq and Syria.   

  

Since the terror group’s defeat in Mosul in 2017, hundreds of families who have connections to IS have returned to the city in hopes of rebuilding their lives. But the stigma of being related to IS fighters continues to haunt them, and society has rejected them.  

  

Backlash 

 

One widow of a former IS fighter in Mosul, who requested anonymity, told VOA she and her two children had struggled because they were linked to IS.  

  

“My husband was an IS member, but what does this have to do with me? If my husband joined the al-Qaida group, what does this have to do with my children? The family and parents have nothing to do with someone’s affiliation with a terror group,” she said.  

  

She said her entire family was being punished, and that her father had been in prison for two years after being accused of having relations with IS. 

WATCH: Families of Local IS Members Face Rejection by Iraqi Society

But some, like Ali, believe Iraqis should treat people better than IS did. She said she believed that if Iraqis did not help children who had IS parents, the children could grow up ostracized and the vicious cycle of hatred would never end. 

 

“These children do not go to school; they will end up wandering in the streets, begging for money, and they will be subjected to child exploitation and labor,” Ali said. “If we do not integrate them back into society and design special programs for them, then we will risk the rise of another extremist group.”

Ali has been trying to persuade locals to adopt some of these children. She sets conditions, though: The parents must be from Mosul and show evidence they can provide decent living conditions for the adopted children. About 150 families have applied for adoptions, and more than 50 children have already been adopted.

According to Human Rights Watch, about 100,000 families have some kind of connection to IS and are living in Iraq.  Most of these families live in IDP camps in the country. 
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Standing on what’s left of the the roof of his crumbled home, Ahmed, an aging Mosul resident, trembles as he describes the deaths of his three sons. 

 

A Russian Islamic State militant occupied Ahmed’s house last year and a U.S.-led coalition airstrike targeted it.  The strike killed the militant, and Ahmed’s boys.  Now, Ahmed says he cannot afford to rebuild his home for his two surviving children.  

“No one gave us a penny or a single dinar,” he says. “They gave us nothing.  Not an aid organization or the government or anyone.  I lost three children here.” 

 

Many parts of the region IS once controlled have been rebuilt, often by home and business owners who survived the war.  International organizations, the government and local aid groups are also present, but frustration is growing at the slow pace.    

It has been a full year since Iraq declared victory over IS, but as attacks continue, residents say until the city is rebuilt, stability remains a distant dream. 

 

Entire neighborhoods in Mosul, one of Iraq’s largest cities, remain flattened, and bodies still rot in the rubble of the Old City. 

People who lived in the now-destroyed homes are on their own to rebuild, if they can. And it was exactly this kind of neglect and isolation, according to locals, that allowed IS to thrive in this region in the first place.  

Aid organizations blame the government for the slow pace of reconstruction. Government offices blame each other and say more outside help is needed. 

 

“Why is no one helping us?” Ahmed asks later in one of the few rooms that still has walls.  He points to the remnants of electricity fixtures and water pipes stolen after the airstrikes, and then to a severed leg of the militant who once occupied his house, now mostly just a bone with torn strips of cloth. 

 

“Why?” he asks again.  “Do they want us to join terrorist groups?”  

How it happened before 

 

Extremist insurgents took root in this part of Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion ousted then-dictator Saddam Hussein.   

 

In response, roads were choked off by a tangle of Iraqi military checkpoints, isolating communities and damaging local economies.  In some places, militants bombed government targets weekly.  Extremists used the general atmosphere of despair to recruit followers and drive out resistance. 

 

In 2014, Islamic State militants captured cities, towns and villages across northern and western Iraq in less than a week. 

WATCH: Iraq: A Year After Victory, Stability Still a Dream

At a small brick garage on a desert road outside Mosul, local car mechanics describe the brief battles as IS entered the city.   

 

“We didn’t know what was happening,” says Youseff Toufik, a 34-year-old father of four.  

“The militants came in from the desert and fired at the federal police over there,” he adds, pointing to Scorpion Junction, the main western checkpoint before entering Mosul city.  “The federal police fired back. We were in the middle.” 

 

The early days of IS rule were “very, very good,” adds Shalan, 25.  They opened the roads, promised strict but benevolent Islamic rule and to end the corruption draining Iraq’s resources.   

 

“But then they changed 180 degrees and started torturing and beheading people,” Shalan adds. 

 

More than two years later in October 2016, Iraq, backed by an international coalition, began a massive offensive against the group. 

 

IS no longer holds any significant territories, but deadly attacks continue throughout the country. Last month, a school bus rolled over an explosive on a road south of Mosul, killing four children and wounding seven.  A car bomb killed three people at a restaurant in the city, and security forces say they still conduct near-daily operations seeking militants in hiding. 

 

The men say IS may be defeated, but they are far from gone. 

 

“Five months ago I got a call on my cellphone,” Shalan explains.  “They said, ‘We are coming for you.’ ”  

​How it could happen again 

 

Aid workers estimate a year and a half after the IS defeat in Mosul, roughly 1,500 bodies of militants and civilians are still buried under the crushed buildings. Two million people remain displaced, many unable to return to these destroyed homes. 

 

Like some other business people, Sarmad Mahfodh, a real estate agent in the Old City, has reopened his shop even as the building appears to be crumbling.  The remnants of an old IS hideout — blankets, cassette tape covers and tin dishes — still litter the bombed-out second floor.  

People are trying to sell properties here, he says, but no one is buying. People mostly feel safe now, he adds, with Mosul squarely under control of Iraqi forces.  He fears if more is not done to rebuild, safety will be fleeting. 

 

“If the government doesn’t provide people with the support they need,” he explains, “some people will devise ways to hurt themselves and their country.” 

What is being done 

 

When the rebuilding process began in many former IS areas, the destruction was so complete it would have been easier to build neighborhoods from scratch. 

 

Homes, hospitals, roads, schools and every other kind of infrastructure were destroyed.  What remained was often laden with bombs.  Millions of people fled their homes and thousands of civilians were killed in the war. 

 

Damaged homes are eligible for rebuilding assistance through local aid groups and the United Nations, which has nine agencies working on the rebuilding and recovery.  Electricity, roads and water pipes are being repaired or installed by government and nongovernmental organizations.  

 

Local authorities are responsible for much of the infrastructure, according to Mosul Mayor Zuhair Mohsen Al Araji.  But funding, he says, comes from the central government in Baghdad, which as of late November had not released any 2018 funds. 

 

“We submitted all the financial requirements for the province,” he explains, “such as electricity, water, sewage and other services, but we never received the required funding.” 

 

Contractors hired by the city this year are all expecting back pay, he says, and there will be nothing left unless Baghdad allocates more funds for reconstruction. 

 

Small aid groups, private donors and residents are also trying to rebuild, as men with carts of supplies trudge up and down broken roads and lay pipes to connect to new government water supplies.  

But as he tours some of the homes in the Old City his organization helped repair, Mohammed Dylan of the local aid group Wasal Tasal for Relief and Development says these combined efforts are not nearly enough to end the suffering in the hardest-hit areas. 

 

“People are coming back, but this area is still mostly destroyed,” he says. “It’s not just Mosul, but all the areas IS once held.  They are all neglected.”
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