Israel sent hundreds more troops to the occupied West Bank on Monday, a day after a Palestinian gunman killed two Israelis and settlers rampaged through a Palestinian town, torching homes and vehicles in the worst such violence in decades. The responses to the rampage laid bare some rifts in Israel's new right-wing government, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealing for calm while a member of his ruling coalition praised the rampage as deterrence against Palestinian attacks.The events also underscored the limitations of the traditional U.S. approach to the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Washington has been trying to prevent escalation while staying away from the politically costly task of pushing for a resolution of the core disputes.As the violence raged in the West Bank, such an attempt at conflict management was taking place Sunday in Jordan, with the U.S. bringing together Israeli and Palestinian officials to work out a plan for de-escalation.Sunday's events kicked off when a Palestinian gunman shot and killed brothers Hillel and Yagel Yaniv, ages 21 and 19, from the Jewish settlement of Har Bracha, in a shooting ambush in the Palestinian town of Hawara in the northern West Bank. The gunman fled.Following the shooting, groups of settlers rampaged along the main thoroughfare in Hawara, which is used by both Palestinians and Israeli settlers. In one video, a crowd of settlers stood in prayer as they stared at a building in flames.Late Sunday, a 37-year-old Palestinian was shot and killed by Israeli fire, two Palestinians were shot and wounded and another was beaten with an iron bar, Palestinian health officials said. Some 95 Palestinians were being treated for tear gas inhalation, according to medics.On Monday morning, the Hawara thoroughfare was lined with rows of burned-out cars and smoke-blackened buildings. Normally bustling shops remained shuttered. Palestinian media said some 30 homes and cars were torched.At the scene of the shooting, Defense Minister Yoav Galant told reporters that Israel “cannot allow a situation in which citizens take the law into their hands,” but stopped short of outright condemning the violence.Labor Party leader Merav Michaeli called the rampage “a pogrom by armed militias” of West Bank settlers.“I ask everyone to heed the law and especially to trust in the army and security forces,” he said.The Yaniv brothers were to be laid to rest in Jerusalem on Monday.Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, described the situation as “a tense quiet.” He said the army deployed hundreds of additional troops to the area with the aim of de-escalation. Two battalions were sent late Sunday and a third on Monday, with several hundred soldiers each.The army has not caught the Palestinian gunman. Israeli police spokesman Dean Elsdunne said eight Israelis were detained in connection with Sunday’s rioting, and that six had already been released.Israeli troops also began removing settlers from a previously evacuated settlement outpost near the West Bank city of Nablus. Several settlers had camped there following Sunday's deadly shooting, Israel's public broadcaster Kan reported.While Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog urged settlers not to engage in vigilante actions, other members of the ruling coalition fanned the flames.Tzvika Foghel, a lawmaker from the ultra-nationalist Jewish Power party, said the rampage would help deter Palestinian attacks. “I see the result in a very good light,” he told Army Radio when asked about what the interviewer referred to as a pogrom.Public Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of the Jewish Power party, has yet to make any official statementSunday’s violence has drawn condemnation from the international community. U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said the shooting attack and the rampage “underscore the imperative to immediately de-escalate tensions in words and deeds.”Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he held the Israeli government responsible for what he called “the terrorist acts carried out by settlers under the protection of the occupation forces tonight.”The violence erupted shortly after the Jordanian government hosted talks at the Red Sea resort of Aqaba aimed at de-escalating tensions ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.The Palestinians claim the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip — areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — for a future state. Some 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The international community overwhelmingly considers Israel's settlements as illegal and obstacles to peace.So far this year, 62 Palestinians, about half of them affiliated with armed groups, have been killed by Israeli troops and civilians. In the same period, 14 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks.Last year was the deadliest for the Palestinians in the West Bank and east Jerusalem since 2004, according to figures by the Israeli rights group B’Tselem. Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in those areas, Some 30 people on the Israeli side were killed in Palestinian attacks.The West Bank is home to a number of hard-line settlements — several of them in the immediate vicinity of Hawara — whose residents frequently vandalize Palestinians land and property.

The events also underscored the limitations of the traditional U.S. approach to the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Palestinians clash with Israeli forces following an army raid in the West Bank city of Jenin

Israel beefs up troops after unprecedented settler rampage

Nearly all flights at Germany's Cologne-Bonn airport and the majority at nearby Duesseldorf were canceled or diverted on Monday as a result of strikes that also affected local transportation, day-care facilities and local administration in Germany's most populous region. Cologne-Bonn airport said that all but two of the day's 136 planned flights wouldn't depart from or arrive there, German news agency dpa reported. In Dusseldorf, only 89 of the planned 330 flights were expected to take place as scheduled, with most of the rest being canceled.The one-day “warning strike" by airport security staff comes amid difficult pay talks for employees of Germany's federal and municipal governments and for airport security staff.Walkouts planned Monday also were set to affect buses and trams in parts of the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, as well as day-care centers for children and other services.Unions are seeking a 10.5% pay raise, while employers so far have offered an increase totaling 5% in two stages and one-time payments of 2,500 euros ($2,630) per employee — which unions have rejected as insufficient.

Nearly all flights at Germany's Cologne-Bonn airport and the majority at nearby Duesseldorf were canceled

trikers in warning clothing hold a banner of the trade union Verdi with the inscription

Strikes hit 2 German airports in public workers pay dispute

President Joe Biden paid an unannounced visit to Ukraine on Monday to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a defiant display of Western solidarity with a country still fighting what he called “a brutal and unjust war” days before the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion. “One year later, Kyiv stands,” Biden declared after meeting Zelenskyy at Mariinsky Palace. Jamming his finger for emphasis on his podium, against a backdrop of three flags from each country, he continued: “And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands. The Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you.”Biden spent more than five hours in the Ukrainian capital, consulting with Zelenskyy on next steps, honoring the country’s fallen soldiers and seeing U.S. embassy staff in the besieged country.The visit comes at a crucial moment: Biden is trying to keep allies unified in their support for Ukraine as the war is expected to intensify with spring offensives. Zelenskyy is pressing allies to speed up delivery of promised weapon systems and calling on the West to provide fighter jets — something that Biden has declined to do.The U.S. president got a taste of the terror that Ukrainians have lived with for close to a year when air raids sirens howled just as he and Zelenskyy wrapped up a visit to the gold-domed St. Michael’s Cathedral.Looking solemn, they continued unperturbed as they laid two wreaths and held a moment of silence at the Wall of Remembrance honoring Ukrainian soldiers killed since 2014, the year Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and Russian-backed fighting erupted in eastern Ukraine.The White House would not go into specifics, but national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that it notified Moscow of Biden’s visit to Kyiv shortly before his departure from Washington “for deconfliction purposes” in an effort to avoid any miscalculation that could bring the two nuclear-armed nations into direct conflict.In Kyiv, Biden announced an additional half-billion dollars in U.S. assistance — on top of the more than $50 billion already provided — for shells for howitzers, anti-tank missiles, air surveillance radars and other aid but no new advanced weaponry.Ukraine has also been pushing for battlefield systems that would allow its forces to strike Russian targets that have been moved back from frontline areas, out of the range of HIMARS missiles that have already been delivered. Zelenskyy said he and Biden spoke about “long-range weapons and the weapons that may still be supplied to Ukraine even though it wasn’t supplied before.” But he did not detail any new commitments.“Our negotiations were very fruitful,” Zelenskyy added. Sullivan would not detail any potential new capabilities for Ukraine, but said there was a ”good discussion” of the subject.Biden’s mission with his visit to Kyiv, which comes before a scheduled trip to Warsaw, Poland, is to underscore that the United States is prepared to stick with Ukraine “as long as it takes” to repel Russian forces even as public opinion polling suggests that U.S. and allied support for providing weaponry and direct economic assistance has started to soften. For Zelenskyy, the symbolism of having the U.S. president stand side by side with him on Ukrainian land as the anniversary nears is no small thing as he prods allies to provide more advanced weaponry and step up delivery.“I thought it was critical that there not be any doubt, none whatsoever, about U.S. support for Ukraine in the war,” Biden said.Biden’s visit was a brazen rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had hoped his military would swiftly overrun Kyiv within days. Biden, a Democrat, recalled speaking with Zelenskyy on the night of the invasion, saying, “That dark night one year ago, the world was literally at the time bracing for the fall of Kyiv. Perhaps even the end of Ukraine.”A year later, the Ukrainian capital remains firmly in Ukrainian control. Although a semblance of normalcy has returned to the city, regular air raid sirens and frequent missile and killer-drone attacks against military and civilian infrastructure across the country are a near-constant reminder that the war is still raging. The bloodiest fighting is, for the moment, concentrated in the country’s east, particularly around the city of Bakhmut, where Russian offensives are underway.At least six civilians have been killed and 17 more have been wounded in Ukraine over the past 24 hours, Ukraine’s presidential office reported. In the eastern Donetsk region, the Russian army was using aviation to strike cities on the front line. A total of 15 cities and villages have been shelled over the past 24 hours, according to the region’s Ukrainian Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko. In the northeastern Kharkiv region, cities near the border with Russia came under fire. A missile strike hit Kupiansk, damaging a hospital, a plant and residential buildings.“The cost that Ukraine has had to bear has been extraordinarily high,” Biden said. “And the sacrifices have been far too great.” But “Putin’s war of conquest is failing.”“He’s counting on us not sticking together,” Biden said. “He thought he could outlast us. I don’t think he’s thinking that right now. God knows what he’s thinking, but I don’t think he’s thinking that. But he’s just been plain wrong. Plain wrong.”The trip gave Biden an opportunity to get a firsthand look at the devastation the Russian invasion has caused on Ukraine. Thousands of Ukrainian troops and civilians have been killed, millions of refugees have fled the war, and Ukraine has suffered tens of billions of dollars of infrastructure damage.Biden, wearing a blue suit and at times his signature aviator sunglasses, told Zelenskyy the U.S. will stand with him “for as long as it takes.” Zelenskyy responded in English: “We’ll do it.”The Ukrainian leader, wearing a black sweatshirt, as has become his wartime habit, said through an interpreter that Biden’s visit “brings us closer to the victory,” this year, he hoped. He expressed gratitude to Americans and “all those who cherish freedom.”It was rare for a U.S. president to travel to a conflict zone where the U.S. or its allies did not have control over the airspace.The U.S. military does not have a presence in Ukraine other than a small detachment of Marines guarding the embassy in Kyiv, making Biden’s visit more complicated than other recent visits by prior U.S. leaders to war zones.While Biden was in Ukraine, U.S. surveillance planes, including E-3 Sentry airborne radar and an electronic RC-135W Rivet Joint aircraft, were keeping watch over Kyiv from Polish airspace.Speculation has been building for weeks that Biden would visit Ukraine around the Feb. 24 anniversary of the Russian invasion. But the White House repeatedly had said that no presidential trip to Ukraine was planned, even after the Poland visit was announced.Since early morning on Monday many main streets and central blocks in Kyiv were cordoned off without any official explanation. Later people started sharing videos of long motorcades of cars driving along the streets where the access was restricted.At the White House, planning for Biden’s visit to Kyiv was tightly held — with a relatively small group of aides briefed on the plans — because of security concerns. Sullivan said Biden gave final approval for the trip, which had been in the works for months, on Friday during an Oval Office meeting at which he was briefed on security plans for the visit.The president traveled with an usually small entourage, with just a few senior aides and two journalists, to maintain secrecy.Asked by a reporter on Friday if Biden might include stops beyond Poland, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby replied, “Right now, the trip is going to be in Warsaw.” Moments later — and without prompting — Kirby added, “I said ‘right now.’Biden quietly departed from Joint Base Andrews near Washington at 4:15 a.m. on Sunday, making a stop at Ramstein Air Base in Germany before making his way into Ukraine. He arrived in Kyiv at 8 a.m. on Monday. He departed after 1 p.m.Until Monday, Biden’s failure to visit was making him something of a standout among Ukraine’s partners in the West, some of whom have made frequent visits to the Ukrainian capital. White House officials had previously cited security concerns with keeping Biden from making the trip, and Sullivan said Monday that the visit was only undertaken once officials believed they had managed the risk to acceptable levels.In June, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and then Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi traveled together by night train to Kyiv to meet with Zelenskyy. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak visited Kyiv in November shortly after taking office.This is Biden’s first visit to a war zone as president. His recent predecessors, Donald Trump, Barack Obama and George W. Bush, made surprise visits to Afghanistan and Iraq during their presidencies to meet U.S. troops and those countries’ leaders.

“One year later, Kyiv stands,” Biden declared after meeting Zelenskyy at Mariinsky Palace

President Joe Biden walks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral on a surprise visit

Biden declares 'Kyiv stands' in surprise visit to Ukraine

A lone gunman killed six people including his ex-wife and stepfather Friday at multiple locations in a tiny rural community in northern Mississippi, the sheriff said, leaving investigators searching for clues to what motivated the rampage. Armed with a shotgun and two handguns, 52-year-old Richard Dale Crum opened fire at about 11 a.m. and killed a man in the driver's seat of a pickup truck parked outside a convenience store in Arkabutla, near the Tennessee state line, Tate County Sheriff Brad Lance said.Deputies were working the crime scene when a second 911 call alerted authorities to another shooting a few miles away. After arriving at a home, they found a woman, whom the sheriff identified as Crum's ex-wife, shot dead and her current husband wounded.Lance said deputies caught up with Crum outside his own home and arrested him. Behind the residence they found two handymen slain by gunfire — one in the road, another in an SUV. Inside a neighboring home, they discovered the bodies of Crum's stepfather and his stepfather's sister.“Everybody has crime, and from time to time we have violent crime, but certainly nothing of this magnitude,” Lance said in an interview. He added: “Without being able to say what triggered this, that’s the scary part.”Crum, 52, was jailed without bond on a single charge of capital murder, and Lance said investigators were working to bring additional charges. It was not immediately known if Crum had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.That initial murder charge was for the killing of Chris Eugene Boyce, 59, the man who was shot outside the store. Boyce's brother was in the truck with him at the time and fled, according to the sheriff. Lance added that Crum chased the brother through a wooded area before he escaped unharmed.Deputy Tate County Coroner Ernie Lentz identified the others killed as Debra Crum, 60; Charles Manuel, 76; John Rorie, 59; George McCain, 73; and Lynda McCain, 78. Lentz also said Boyce was from Lakeland, Florida.Ethan Cash, who lives near the store, told WREG-TV he heard a gunshot from inside his house.“I had just woken up and I look back here, and I see dude walking back here with a shotgun,” he said.Cash added that he went to the scene and found one person who had been shot. He checked for a pulse, but found none.In the lobby of the Sheriff’s Office, Norma Washington told The Associated Press that Boyce was her nephew. She said he and the brother, Doug, who lives in Alaska, had been in town cleaning up a property they inherited from their deceased uncle.“I lost my brother, and now this one,” Washington said. “This has been something else.”It was unclear whether Crum knew either of the brothers.The killings stunned residents of Arkabutla, home to 285 people and located about 30 miles (50 kilometers) south of Memphis, Tennessee. It's the hometown of famed actor James Earl Jones, and nearby Arkabutla Lake is a popular fishing and recreational destination.An elementary school and a high school in nearby Coldwater both went on lockdown while the suspect was being sought, according to the Coldwater Elementary School Facebook page. A short time later, a second post on the page said the lockdown had been lifted and “all students and staff are safe.”April Wade, who lives in Arkabutla and grew up in Coldwater, said both are small communities where most people know each other, “but if you don’t, you know somebody who knows somebody.”Speaking from a local tire store in the afternoon, Wade said she and her husband were aware of the shootings but had not yet heard the names of the suspect or victims.“I think it’s crazy,” Wade said. “You do not expect something like that to happen so close to home.”The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said its agents were providing assistance to the sheriff’s department and state investigators. Lance said one of their top priorities was to determine a motive.The sheriff, who has lived in the area his entire life and served in law enforcement for 25 years, said he could recall no prior problems with Crum.The U.S. has seen a deadly start to 2023, including six mass killings in a three-week period in January, according to an Associated Press/USA Today database. It defines a mass killing as four or more people dead, not including the perpetrator.There have also been a number of mass shootings in which fewer people were slain, such as Monday’s shooting at Michigan State University in which three people were killed and five were wounded.In a statement, President Joe Biden said he and first lady Jill Biden were mourning the six victims and praying for the survivors. He urged Congress to act now on gun law reforms to address what he called “an epidemic” of gun violence.

Deputies were working the crime scene when a second 911 call alerted authorities to another shooting a few miles away

Law enforcement personnel investigate the scene of multiple shootings on Arkabutla Dam Road in Arkabutla, Miss on Friday

Sheriff: Gunman kills 6, including ex-wife, in Mississippi

Nearly a year after Russia invaded Ukraine, the battlefield has narrowed and stiff resistance has forced Moscow to scale back its military goals. But the diplomatic consequences of the war still reverberate worldwide. The fighting has reshaped global alliances, renewed old anxieties and breathed new life into NATO and the bond between Europe and the United States.The invasion drew Moscow closer to Beijing and the pariah states of Iran and North Korea. It also raised broad questions about sovereignty, security and the use of military power, while intensifying fears about China’s designs on Taiwan.“The war underscores the interrelationship between diplomacy and the use of force in a way that has not been thought about in quite the same fashion for many, many years,” said Ian Lesser, vice president of the German Marshall Fund think tank.When Russian forces invaded on Feb. 24, it “marked the complete end of the post-Cold War world,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said last month in a speech at Johns Hopkins University. “It has come to light that globalization and interdependence alone cannot serve as a guarantor for peace and development across the globe.”Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that Ukraine is an “integral part” of Russian history that never achieved “real statehood” — a stance that echoes Chinese President Xi Jinping’s position on Taiwan, a self-governed island that Beijing claims as its own.Some six months after the invasion of Ukraine, China issued a white paper on Taiwan, saying the island “has been an integral part of China’s territory since ancient times.” The paper said Beijing seeks “peaceful reunification” but “will not renounce the use of force.”China’s designs on Taiwan date to well before the war in Ukraine, but China stepped up its pressure over the past year or more, including firing ballistic missiles over the island and into Japanese waters in August in response to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei.If Russia is allowed to succeed in Ukraine, it could further embolden countries like China, with its visions of an international order “that diverge from ours and that we can never accept,” Kishida said.He pledged to use Japan’s presidency of the G7 this year to strengthen “the unity of like-minded countries” against Russian aggression.“If we let this unilateral change of the status quo by force go unchallenged, it will happen elsewhere in the world, including Asia,” he said.A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be far more complicated than Russia’s attack on Ukraine, said Euan Graham, a Singapore-based expert with the International Institute for Strategic Studies.“Russia's incompetent performance on the battlefield in Ukraine has to give pause to any military or senior political leader in China about an adventure on a much more ambitious scale with Taiwan,” Graham said.But the fear is real. Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen extended the nation’s compulsory military service in a December announcement that referenced the war in Ukraine.“They’ve drawn the lesson from Ukraine that you need to have a larger military reserve if there is a conflict,” Graham said.North Korea, which has threatened to preemptively use nuclear weapons in a broad range of scenarios, was already a regional concern. But Russia’s suggestion that it could use nuclear weapons in Ukraine fueled new worries.South Korea, which is under the protection of the American “nuclear umbrella,” last year expanded exercises with the U.S. military that had been downsized under the Trump administration. South Korea is also seeking stronger assurances that Washington will swiftly use its nuclear capabilities in the face of a North Korean nuclear attack.North Korea has been strongly supportive of neighboring Russia. Late last year, the U.S. accused Pyongyang of supplying Russia with artillery shells.Iran has also been helping Russia militarily, providing the bomb-carrying drones Moscow uses to strike power plants and civilian sites throughout Ukraine.While Western allies have cooperated closely in their responses to the war, a major diplomatic challenge has been to convince much of the rest of the world of the invasion’s significance.Only a handful of countries in Asia have taken tough action against Moscow, and many abstained from the United Nations resolution condemning the attack.Just weeks before the invasion, China declared a “no limits” friendship with Russia. It has refused to criticize the war and has drawn closer to Russia, buying more of its oil and gas and helping Moscow to offset Western sanctions.But there are signs of “complicated fault lines” in the China-Russia relationship, Jude Blanchette, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a call with reporters.During September talks in Uzbekistan, the Chinese president raised unspecified “concerns” with Putin over the invasion, though at the same time promised “strong support” to Russia’s “core interests.”“I think if Xi Jinping could snap his fingers, he would like to see the war end but in a way that Russia comes out of this with Putin in power and Russia continuing to be a strong strategic partner,” Blanchette said.India, which is heavily reliant on Russia for military equipment, also abstained from the U.N. resolution and has continued to purchase Russian oil.But as regional rival China moves closer to Russia, India has quietly drifted toward the U.S., especially within the four Quad nations that also include Japan and Australia, said Viraj Solanki, a London-based expert with the IISS think tank.In Europe, the invasion has reinvigorated NATO after a barrage of criticism from Donald Trump during his presidency that led French President Emmanuel Macron to declare the alliance had experienced “brain death.”NATO member countries and allies have rallied to support Ukraine, with several changing policies that prohibited the export of weapons to countries in conflict. Perhaps most remarkably, Germany shed post-World War II taboos and provided Leopard battle tanks.The war also prompted Finland and Sweden to seek NATO membership, which most experts think will be approved this year.NATO last year singled out China for the first time as a strategic challenge, although not a direct adversary. The alliance warned about China’s growing military ambitions, its confrontational rhetoric and its increasingly close ties to Russia.Beyond NATO, the war has also underscored the importance of the relationship between the U.S. and European Union, which Lesser said has been “absolutely critical” to sanctions and export controls.China insists that it is the U.S. that started the Ukraine crisis, partially through NATO’s expansion into more Eastern European countries. Beijing has also criticized the alliance for suggesting the war could influence China’s actions in Asia.“NATO claims to be a regional defense organization, but it keeps breaking through the territory and field, stirring up conflicts, creating tension, exaggerating threats and encouraging confrontation,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Wang Wenbin said Thursday.The war’s long-term effects on global diplomacy are difficult to predict. But Lesser said one thing is certain: It will be “very hard for Russia to recover from the damage to its reputation on many levels.”A core group of countries such as Syria, North Korea, Iran and Venezuela “may be inclined to stick with Russia,” he said. But in terms of broader diplomacy, Russia’s reputation ”has experienced an enormous blow.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that Ukraine is an “integral part” of Russian history

President Joe Biden speaks during a news conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the East Room of the White House in Washington

Ukraine invasion reshaped global alliances, renewed fears

A 17-year-old high school student has captured Turkish hearts after he filmed a farewell message to his loved ones as he was trapped under the rubble of his home during last week’s earthquake. Taha Erdem and his family were fast asleep when a 7.8 magnitude quake hit their hometown of Adiyaman in the early hours of Feb. 6.Taha was abruptly woken by violent tremors shaking the four-story apartment building in a blue-collar neighborhood of the central Anatolian city.Within 10 seconds, Taha, his mother, father and younger brother and sister were plunging downward with the building.He found himself alone and trapped under tons of rubble, with waves of powerful aftershocks shifting the debris, squeezing his space amid the mangled mess of concrete and twisted steel. Taha took out his cellphone and began recording a final goodbye, hoping it would be discovered after his death.“I think this is the last video I will ever shoot for you,” he said from the tight space, his phone shaking in his hand as tremors rocked the collapsed building.Showing remarkable resilience and bravery for a teenager believing he was speaking his last words, he lists his injuries and speaks of his regrets and the things he hopes to do if he emerges alive. During the video, the screams of other trapped people can be heard.“We are still shaking. Death, my friends, comes at a time when one is least expecting it.” says Taha, before reciting a Muslim prayer in Arabic.“There are many things that I regret. May God forgive me of all my sins. If I get out of here alive today there are many things that I want to do. We are still shaking, yes. My hand isn’t shaking, it’s just the earthquake.”The teen goes on to recount that he believes his family are dead, along with many others in the city, and that he willsoon join them.But Taha was destined to be among some of the first saved from the destroyed building. He was pulled from the rubble two hours later by neighbors and taken to an aunt’s home.Ten hours after the quake, his parents and siblings were also saved by local residents who dug at the wreck of the building with their bare hands and whatever tools they could find.When The Associated Press spoke to the family on Thursday they were living in a government-provided tent, along with hundreds of thousands of others who survived the disaster that hit southern Turkey and north Syria, killing more than 43,000.“This is my home,” said Taha’s mother Zeliha, 37, as she watched excavators digging up their old life and dumping it into heavy trucks.“Boom-boom-boom, the building went down floor by floor on top of us,” she recalled, describing how she had kept yelling her son’s name while trapped under the debris in the hope that all five of them could die together as a family.The Erdems’ younger children — daughter Semanur, 13, and 9-year-old son Yigit Cinar — were sleeping in their parents’ room when the quake hit.But Taha could not hear his mother’s calls through the mass of concrete. Nor could she hear her son’s cries in the dark, and both believed the other was lying dead in the destroyed building.It was only when Zeliha, her husband Ali, 47, a hospital cleaner, and the other children were taken to her sister’s home that they realized Taha had survived.“The world was mine at that moment,” Zeliha said. “I have nothing, but I have my kids.”The story of the Erdem family is one of many emotional tales of human fortitude to emerge from the widespread disaster area. Many vividly recount the horrors of being trapped beneath their homes.Ibrahim Zakaria, a 23-year-old Syrian who was rescued in the coastal Syrian town of Jableh on Feb. 10, told the AP that he survived by licking water dripping down the wall next to him, slipping in and out of consciousness and losing hope of survival in his waking moments.“I almost surrendered because I thought I will die,” he said from his hospital bed. “I thought: ‘There is no escape.’”In the Turkish city of Gaziantep, 17-year-old Adnan Muhammed Korkut, was trapped for four days before he was rescued. He told the private IHA news agency that he grew so thirsty that he drank his own urine.Muhammet Enes Yeninar, 17, and his 21-year-old brother were saved after 198 hours in nearby Kahramanmaras.He said they cried for the first two days, mostly wondering about their mother and whether she had survived, IHA reported. They later began to comfort each other — “talking about brotherhood” and eating powdered protein.Also in Kahramanmaras, Aleyna Olmez, 17, was pulled free after 248 hours under the rubble. “I tried to pass the time on my own,” she said.Stories of remarkable survival often emerge during disaster, especially following earthquakes, when the world’s media records the fading hope of recovering survivors as each hour ticks by.Following the 2010 Haiti earthquake, a 16-year-old girl was rescued in Port-Au-Prince 15 days after an earthquake devastated the city. Three years later, a woman trapped under a collapsed building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, was saved after 17 days.

Within 10 seconds, Taha, his mother, father and younger brother and sister were plunging downward with the building

Taha Erdem, 17, right, his mother Zeliha Erdem, left, and father Ali Erdem stand next to the debris from a building where Tahan was trapped after the earthquake

Turkish teen filmed 'last moments' from quake-hit apartment

In an industrial corridor of Peru's capital, a dingy stairwell leads to a second-floor safehouse. Dozens of Quechua and Aymara activists lie on mattresses strewn on the floor, resting up for more anti-government demonstrations as volunteers cook a breakfast of donated rice, pasta and vegetables. Among the makeshift refuge's occupants is Marcelo Fonseca. The 46-year-old watched as a a friend was shot and killed in December as they battled security forces in the southern city of Juliaca. Within hours, Fonseca joined a caravan of demonstrators that descended on the capital, Lima, to demand the resignation of interim President Dina Boluarte.“Our Andean blood burns when we become furious,” Fonseca, whose native language is Quechua, said in a halting Spanish. ”It runs faster. That’s what brings us here.”Two months into Peru’s angry insurrection, emotions have hardened. While the unrest has barely disturbed the late-night revelry in Lima's beachside enclaves, roadblocks still rage across the countryside, scaring away foreign tourists and leading to shortages of gas and other staples.The tumult, which has left at least 60 dead, was triggered by the impeachment in December of President Pedro Castillo. To Peruvians like Fonseca, the leftist rural teacher was a symbol of their own exclusion, while Boluarte's ascension to power from the vice presidency in cahoots with Castillo's conservative enemies in Congress is seen as an unforgivable class betrayal.The impasse has given a jolt of self-confidence to Peru's Indigenous movement. Unlike neighboring Bolivia, where Indigenous groups were emboldened by Aymara coca-grower Evo Morales' election as president in 2006, or Ecuador, where ethnic groups have a long tradition of toppling unpopular governments, Peru's Indigenous groups had long struggled to gain political influence.Although Peruvians of all backgrounds take pride in the history of the Inca Empire, the country's Indigenous population is often treated with neglect and even hostility. Little is done to promote Quechua, despite its being spoken by millions and being an official language since 1975. Not until the 2017 census were Peruvians even asked whether they identify with any one of 50-plus Indigenous groups.Tarcila Rivera, a prominent Quechua activist and former adviser to the United Nations on Indigenous issues, attributes the disdain to systemic racism stretching back to the Spanish conquest.“Despite the two hundred years since the founding of our republic, the reality is that those of us who come from pre-Hispanic civilizations haven't obtained our rights, nor are those rights taken into account,” said Rivera.The current turmoil has also unleashed a torrent of racism. One lawmaker from the floor of Congress disparaged the rainbow-colored Wiphala flag, which represents the native people of the Andes, as little more than a “chifa tablecloth,” using the word for a cheap Chinese restaurant. Another urged security forces to send protesters to Bolivia with a big “kick.”Rivera says the crackdown has radicalized younger protesters. Meanwhile, the spread of smartphones and the Internet during the past few decades of economic stability has made Indigenous Peruvians more aware of their rights, the country's gaping inequalities and the sacrifices of previously unheralded Indigenous heroes, whose achievements contrast with narratives of perennial victimhood.“All our kids are ever been taught is that we're losers, miserable souls who were conquered without a fight," Rivera said.The current protest movement is centered in the southern Andes, where Indigenous identity is strongest. The area is the source of much of Peru's mineral wealth and is home to archeological jewels that attracted more than 4 million tourists a year before COVID.Its peasants are also among Peru's most neglected.Those inequalities were on vivid display this month at a roadblock near Cusco, where a group of campesinos sat vigil for hours over a roadblock of tires, tree trunks and boulders. As the line of stranded vehicles grew, tensions flared as motorists complaining that they had family emergencies.“Don't yell at me when I'm speaking to you with manners!” barked one motorist who faulted the protestors for voting for Castillo, who lived in an adobe home in one of Peru's poorest districts before winning the presidency. “Don't let shameless politicians, who are often from the same community, trick you," he said repeating a false narrative held by elites that Castillo's victory was the result of bribes, fraud and chicanery.Eventually, the demonstrators yielded to the pressure and briefly opened the road, after a harangue against the “millionaires" and powerful interests blamed for driving their community to desperate actions.Back in Lima, the safehouse is a hive of activity as another day of demonstrating awaits. Hand-written signs list daily chores to keep the cramped quarters safe and clean. Dozens more activists from Cusco are expected soon and need to be lodged in one of the few dozen homes, apartments and businesses across the capital that have opened their doors, like clandestine rebel bases.Discretion is a must. Like Fonseca, many of the demonstrators were already detained when security forces firing tear gas last month stormed a university campus at breakfast and arrested hundreds for trespassing. As a result, occupants are encouraged to leave the safehouse one or two at a time, turn off lights early and immediately report any police intrusion to two human-rights attorneys on permanent standby. The windows are covered with newspapers and dog-food bags to block out would-be snoops.But more than fear, the mood is one of hope.“No matter what happens, I dare say we've already won,” said Victor Quinones as he stuffs a wad of coca leaves into his cheek.At 60, Quinones is one of the group's veterans. He says the past few weeks in the capital have strengthened his resolve to push forward and no longer accept the status quo — or futile standoffs with police back home as the best way to change it.“We broke the barrier. We've started our long march — and look at all this support we've garnered along the way," he reflects. "We've won because, now, the world knows.”

Among the makeshift refuge's occupants is Marcelo Fonseca

An Aymara woman, holding a Peruvian national, stands on a pile of dirt serving as a roadblock set up by anti-government protesters

From a secret safehouse, Peru's Indigenous revolt advances

The internet sites of several German airports were disrupted on Thursday after what may have been a hacker attack, German news agency dpa reported. The disruptions did not appear to have an immediate impact on the country's air traffic, the agency said.Nuremberg Airport in southern Germany reported that its online site was receiving so many requests that it collapsed. The homepages of Duesseldorf and Dortmund airports in the west of the country were also unreachable, dpa reported.In eastern Germany, the website of Erfurt-Weimar airport was shut down. The airport's internet provider was checking whether it was a hacker attack, dpa reported.On Wednesday, Frankfurt airport had to temporarily divert all flights away from the country's busiest airport after a problem with airline Lufthansa’s computer systems that was caused by construction works.

The disruptions did not appear to have an immediate impact on the country's air traffic, the agency said

An aircraft lands at the international airport in Frankfurt, Germany

Websites of several German airports not reachable

A boat carrying 71 weak and hungry Rohingya Muslims fleeing from refugee camps in Bangladesh landed Thursday in Indonesia’s northernmost province of Aceh, local officials said. Fifteen-year-old Shorif Uddin, who was on the boat with his parents, said two or three people died while they were at sea because of a lack of food.“We have been traveling so long and did not have any food to eat. We are really hungry,” he said.He said the Rohingya had been unable to find work or achieve higher education in the refugee camps and decided to leave Bangladesh for Indonesia.His parents paid money to board the boat along with other refugees, but the captain fled the vessel as it was passing India, Uddin said.Miftach Cut Adek, the leader of the tribal fishing community in Lampanah Leungah village in Aceh Besar district, where the boat landed, said it was in good condition and the engine was working.The 71 Rohingya on board included 21 women and 20 children.More than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled from Buddhist-majority Myanmar to refugee camps in Bangladesh after an army-led crackdown in August 2017. Myanmar security forces have been accused of mass rapes, killings and the burning of thousands of Rohingya homes.Most of the refugees who have left the camps by sea have attempted to reach Muslim-majority Malaysia, but many have ended up in Indonesia along the way.More than 500 Rohingya landed in Aceh last year. The most recent group was in early January, when 184 people landed on Kuala Gigieng beach, also in Aceh Besar district.

We have been traveling so long and did not have any food to eat. We are really hungry

Ethic Rohingya people rest on Lampanah Leungah beach after landing in Aceh Besar, Aceh province, Indonesia, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023

Boat carrying 71 Rohingya refugees lands in Indonesia

The United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Syria said Thursday that the country's death toll from last week's deadly earthquake is likely to rise further as teams scramble to remove rubble in hard-hit areas. In an interview with The Associated Press, Muhannad Hadi defended the U.N.'s response to the disaster, which many in Syria have criticized as slow and inadequate.The U.N. has reported a death toll of about 6,000 for all of Syria, including 4,400 in the rebel-held northwest. That figure is higher than those reported by government authorities in Damascus and civil defense officials in the northwest, who have reported 1,414 and 2,274 deaths respectively.“We’re hoping that this number will not increase by much,” Hadi said. “But from what we are seeing … the devastation of this earthquake is really not giving us a lot of hope that this will be the end of it.”Hadi noted that even before the earthquake, there were some 4.1 million people in need of aid in northwest Syria, many of whom were already displaced and have now become homeless or displaced again.Locals struggling with the aftermath of the earthquake have criticized delays in getting U.N. aid to the area. Roads leading to the one border crossing from Turkey to Syria that the U.N. is authorized to use were damaged by the earthquake. The first convoy of aid to enter northwest Syria came three days after the quake.The U.N. and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reached a deal Monday to open two additional crossings, but critics say the U.N. should have used additional crossings without waiting for approval or found another way to get aid in, in light of the dire situation on the ground.Syrian rescue workers and those who lost homes and family members in the quake have criticized the slow arrival of aid, saying they felt abandoned by the international community.“I can assure you that we have done everything we can from the very beginning,” Hadi said. “We asked everybody to put the interests of the people first. We asked everybody to de-politicize the humanitarian situation and focus on supporting us to reach the people.”Hadi said 120 aid trucks had crossed into northwestern Syria from Turkey as of Thursday.So far, no aid convoys have crossed from Damascus-controlled territory into the rebel-held areas. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the al-Qaida-linked rebel group that controls much of the northwest has so far refused to allow aid to cross from government areas.Hadi said the U.N. is “working with all parties” to open the route to aid, but acknowledged that “so far, we haven’t been successful.”The U.N. has appealed for $397 million to provide “desperately needed, life-saving relief,” including shelter, food and health care for the next three months.More complications will almost certainly arise once the earthquake response moved from immediate emergency aid to rebuilding, but Hadi said it is too early to think about that.“What we need to focus on right now is the humanitarian work,” he said.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Muhannad Hadi defended the U.N.'s response to the disaster, which many in Syria have criticized as slow

A man walks past collapsed buildings following a devastating earthquake in the town of Jinderis, Aleppo province

UN official warns of rising earthquake death toll in Syria

Syria could face dangerous outbreaks of disease in the wake of last week's devastating earthquake if hundreds of thousands of displaced people do not get permanent housing soon, the Red Cross' global chief said Thursday, as Syrians struggle to receive humanitarian aid amid the mounting crisis. Jagan Chapagain, who is Secretary-General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said families staying in makeshift shelters without adequate heating urgently need permanent housing.“They are still living in very basic conditions in very, very cold school rooms,” he told The Associated Press in an interview. “If this continues for a long period of time, then there will be health consequences.”He spoke after returning from Aleppo, Syria’s largest city that for years witnessed some of the worst fighting of the country’s ongoing civil war.Aleppo was hit with a cholera outbreak in late 2022. The earthquake’s impact on access to housing, water, fuel, and other infrastructure could make another outbreak “possible,” he said, adding that the disaster also has been ruinous for Syrians' mental health.“If the conflict had broken their backs, I think this earthquake is breaking their spirit now,” Chapagain said.The deadly 7.8 magnitude earthquake that rocked Turkey and Syria over a week ago shattered parts of the war-torn country, both in the northwestern rebel-held enclave and nearby government-held areas. An estimated 3,688 people died on both sides of the frontline in Syria, about 1,400 of them in government-held cities and towns.Entire neighborhoods of Aleppo have been abandoned, Chapagain added, with some residents opting to move to rural areas after the quake. Many Syrians were displaced for a second time following the natural disaster, already leaving their homes to escape the airstrikes and shelling.The UNHCR estimated that 5.3 million Syrians across the earthquake-hit country could be homeless if viable shelter and aid is not secured.In the long term, Chapagain said rebuilding Syria’s infrastructure, already crippled by the war, ought to be a priority. However, the civil war and economic crisis in Syria makes a swift post-earthquake recovery more complicated.The IFRC has raised 200 million Swiss francs ($216.8 million) and hopes to support 2.4 million people across the country over the next two years. Dozens of planes and trucks loaded with humanitarian aid have reached government-held Syria. The U.N. appealed for $397 million to support almost 5 million people in rebel-held northwestern Syria, almost all living in poverty.During his tour of Aleppo, Chapagain said that aid, which has decreased over the years, was now arriving in larger quantities.One woman told him that she had suffered from the dwindling assistance in recent years but “in some way this earthquake brought back humanitarian assistance so (she) could eat food again,” he recalled.Still, he said, major gaps in essential goods remain.“Even some of the ambulances are struggling to get fuel, and even some of our own cars are struggling to get fuel,” said Chapagain.

They are still living in very basic conditions in very, very cold school rooms

Jagan Chapagain, Secretary-General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Beirut

Red Cross chief warns of health crisis in quake-hit Syria

The number of people killed in the Feb. 6 earthquakes that devastated parts of southern Turkey and northern Syria continues to rise. As chances of finding more survivors dwindled, some foreign search teams that rushed in to help have started leaving. Here’s a look at key developments Thursday from the aftermath of the earthquakes:<h2>Death toll rises in Turkey</h2>Turkey's disaster management agency, AFAD, revised the country's death toll to 36,187. That pushed the combined reported death toll for Turkey and Syria to 39,875.More than 108,000 people were injured in Turkey in the 7.8 magnitude quake that struck at 4:17 a.m. local time and a magnitude 7.5 quake the first temblor likely triggered nine hours hours later.A 17-year-old girl was rescued Thursday morning, 248 hours after the original quake, from the debris of a collapsed building in Kahramanmaras, a city located near the epicenter, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported.The girl, Aleyna Olmez, told reporters from her hospital bed that she was well and tried to pass the time by distracting herself. “I had nothing with me,” she said.Hacer Atlas, a rescuer who was involved in reaching Olmez, told Anadolu: “First we held her hand, then we took her out. She is in a very good condition,. She can communicate. I hope we will continue to receive good news about her.”<h2>Incomplete picture in Syria</h2>The United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Syria said the country’s death toll is likely to rise further as teams scramble to remove rubble in hard-hit areas.In an interview with The Associated Press, Muhannad Hadi defended the U.N.’s response to the disaster, which many in Syria have criticized as slow and inadequate. Hadi said the UN urged “everybody to depoliticize the humanitarian situation and focus on supporting us to reach the people.”The U.N. has reported a death toll of about 6,000 for all of Syria, including 4,400 in the country's rebel-held northwest. That figure is higher than those reported by government authorities in Damascus and civil defense officials in the northwest, who have reported 1,414 and 2,274 deaths respectively.If accurate, it would push the combined deaths in Syria and Turkey to well above 42,000.“We’re hoping that this number will not increase by much,” Hadi said. “But from what we are seeing … the devastation of this earthquake is really not giving us a lot of hope that this will be the end of it.”The global chief of the Red Cross said after a visit to Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, that the impact on access to housing, water, fuel, and other basic necessities could make another cholera outbreak there “possible.”Aleppo witnessed some of the worst fighting of the country’s ongoing civil war and experienced a cholera outbreak in late 2022. Jagan Chapagain, who is secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said families staying in makeshift shelters without adequate heating urgently need permanent housing.“They are still living in very basic conditions in very, very cold school rooms,” he told The Associated Press in an interview. “If this continues for a long period of time, then there will be health consequences.”Chapagain said the disaster also has been ruinous for Syrians’ mental health.“If the conflict had broken their backs, I think this earthquake is breaking their spirit now,” he said.<h2>Some search teams depart</h2>Onlookers at Istanbul Airport clapped to display gratitude to a 27-member team of Greek rescuers who were heading back home after ending their mission to search for survivors in southern Turkey's hard-hit city of Adiyaman.Team leader Ioannis Papastathis told the Anadolu Agency late Wednesday that he was leaving Turkey with “unforgettable memories.”“On the one hand, there was love and the warm welcome of the people, on the other hand, suffering. The destruction was huge. The weather was cold. These affected me a lot,” the agency quoted him as saying.Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said close to 8,000 rescue and aid workers from 74 countries were still assisting Turkish teams in their efforts. Around 4,200 personnel from 15 countries have left, he said.“I would like to thank each and every one of them,” Cavusoglu said during a joint news conference with his visiting counterpart from Costa Rica.<h2>Worst disaster on NATO teritory</h2>NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has described the earthquakes in Turkey as the military alliance's worst natural disaster.“This is the deadliest natural disaster on alliance territory since the foundation of NATO,” Stoltenberg told reporters during a joint news conference with Cavusoglu in Ankara on Thursday. “We salute the courage of the Turkish first responders and we mourn with you.”Stoltenberg, who is scheduled to visit the disaster area later, said the alliance had deployed thousands of emergency response personnel to support relief efforts.“The focus going forward will be on reconstruction and supporting the displaced,” Stoltenberg said. He added that the alliance will be setting up temporary housing for thousands of people displaced by the quake while also using its airlifting capabilities to transport tens of thousands of tents.Meanwhile, Stoltenberg, who is pressing Turkey to ratify Sweden and Finland’s memberships in the alliance, stressed that the two Nordic countries were among countries showing solidarity with Turkey. Sweden, Stoltenberg added, would hold an international donor conference in March.Turkey has held up the two countries’ applications to join in NATO, arguing Finland and Swden need to crack down on groups Ankara considers to be national security threats.

Turkey's disaster management agency, AFAD, revised the country's death toll to 36,187

A family mourns next to bodies of relatives that were pulled from the rubble of a destroyed building in Antakya

Key developments in the aftermath of Turkey, Syria quakes

Actor Idris Elba says he's going to stick with being the tormented detective John Luther — not James Bond. Speaking Tuesday to the World Government Summit in Dubai, Elba brought up the persistent discussions about him taking over as Ian Fleming's famed British spy. Those had grown louder after Daniel Craig's demise as Bond in the 25th film in the franchise called “No Time to Die.”Asked about his upcoming film based on the British series “Luther,” Elba clearly took himself out of playing 007.“It's very dark," Elba said of the series. “We've been working on the television show for about 10 years and so the natural ambition is to take it to the big screen, and so we're here with the first movie.”He added: “You know, a lot of people talk about another character that begins with ‘J’ and ends with ‘B,' but I'm not going to be that guy. I'm going to be John Luther. That's who I am.”“Luther: The Fallen Sun” is due to come out in American theaters on Feb. 24, then stream on Netflix beginning March 10. It also co-stars Andy Serkis and other actors from the television series.Elba, 50, is known for a variety of television and film roles, ranging from Stringer Bell on the American television series “The Wire" and the recent movie “Beast.”While on stage, Elba discussed an upcoming film he's working on with the American actor and wrestler John Cena called “The Heads of State.”“He plays the American president. I play the British prime minister,” Elba said. “We get into a caper. I'm very excited about doing that because leadership comes in many different forms.”In recent weeks, Elba has appeared at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he and his wife Sabrina Dhowre Elba received an award for their work on food security in Africa. Elba also has worked as an anti-crime ambassador with his “Don’t Stab Your Future” initiative in the United Kingdom, where he grew up in east London.During his talk, Elba urged nations to invest more in creative industries, saying it can provide an economic engine that provides jobs to their youth. In particular, he said creative jobs could greatly help countries in Africa.“I believe that Africa, especially as a continent, needs to hold a narrative, change a narrative” he said.Discussing storytelling, Elba also praised Dubai for its “incredible tourism story” that it has developed over the last decades. The city-state is seeing a new real estate boom, fueled in part by Russian cash amid Moscow's war on Ukraine.“I think Dubai should win an Oscar because the (place) is incredible,” Elba said to applause. “It's a very, very good job and other countries should take note.”

Asked about his upcoming film based on the British series “Luther,” Elba clearly took himself out of playing 007

British actor Idris Elba speaks during the World Government Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Idris Elba on James Bond: 'I'm not going to be that guy'

Draped in a heavy wool shawl against the cold, Ayesha dragged her feet, her toddler granddaughter trailing behind her, as they made the 15-minute walk from her tent to the nearest bathroom in a nearby building, the only place they have to wash. Seven days after the earthquake leveled their home in the northwest Syrian town of Atareb, the 43-year-old still has no access to water, electricity or heat for her and 12 family members, all crammed into a single tent.“When I look at our house, I wonder how did anyone come out alive?” Ayesha said. “Maybe it would have been better if I died," she added. "I came from under that rubble carrying the rubble of the whole world on my shoulders.”She doesn’t know how much more she and other Syrians can take. Women in particular have shouldered the responsibility of keeping shattered families together during the past 12 years of civil war. The conflict and economic collapse left millions of people dependent on international aid. Now added to the litany of hardships is destruction from the earthquake, which killed tens of thousands and left millions homeless in southern Turkey and northern Syria.With hospitals swamped by quake victims, Ayesha can’t get medical services to treat and monitor her liver disease. She and her husband both lost their sources of income in the quake. His taxi was crushed, and her stock of clothes that she once sold to neighbors was destroyed.They have nothing to provide for their six children and their five grandchildren, including two she took in after one of her sons was killed in the war. They have to share mattresses to sleep in their tent.“If hardships are a sign of the love of God, it means God really loves the Syrian people,” Ayesha said, breaking out in tears. Like most women in this conservative community, she spoke on condition her last name be withheld.Their tent is in a camp for quake victims in Atareb, part of the last opposition-held territory in northwest Syria, which has seen bombardment and fighting for years. Walking between rows of destroyed homes in the town, it is hard to distinguish which collapsed from the quake and which from intense military operations at the height of fighting.Syria’s war has loaded a particular burden and isolation on women, with so many men who were killed, detained, maimed or forced out of the country. The number of female-headed households across Syria increased by around 80% to comprise more than a fifth of households in 2020, according to the U.N.Even before the quake, over 7 million women and girls across Syria needed critical health services and support against physical and sexual violence. Child marriage was on the rise, and hundreds of thousands of girls were out of school.The immediate impact of the earthquake put at least 350,000 pregnancies in Syria and Turkey at risk, according to U.N. figures.Women in the opposition-held northwest are especially vulnerable. Most of the territory’s population of 4 million fled there after being displaced from other parts of Syria. Health care was already stretched thin and dependent on foreign aid. Now non-emergency medical services have been suspended to deal with the earthquake.“We can treat the women after trauma or after delivery, but they need to go back to a safe environment with minimum housing, nutrition and clean water. Unfortunately, this is in general lacking in northwest,” said Basel Termanini, chairman of the Syrian American Medical Society which has dozens of facilities in the northwest.Throughout the war, Ayesha and her family repeatedly fled from their home in Atareb during times of bombardment to safer areas, where they would stay for months until they could return. One of her sons was killed in 2019, and she’s been taking care of his two young children since.But, she said, “in 12 years of war, we never tasted terror and pain like that night” of the earthquake.When the quake hit before dawn on Feb. 6, Ayesha and her family managed to get out of her building as part of it collapsed. They stood in the cold, pouring rain, looking at the destruction in disbelief.The building next door was completely flattened, killing many of those inside -- including a woman who had just given birth, the baby, her seven other kids and her mother, who had arrived just hours earlier to help with the newborn.The building’s dead now lie in a mass grave on the far end of a neighboring piece of farmland. The owner of the plot donated the land because cemeteries have filled up with quake victims.Things were already hard before the earthquake. In the opposition-held territory, 90% of the population is dependent on humanitarian assistance.There has been no work for the men, and many of the men were handicapped in the war, she said. Some women find jobs in community service and with aid groups. Others do household crafts like making soap or sewing clothes. There are hundreds of female civil defense volunteers, many of whom participated for the first time in the rescue and search missions.But in the largely conservative community, dominated by a group once affiliated with al-Qaida, jobs for women are not easy to come by.Halima, a 30-year-old mother of two children, lost her husband in the early days of the war. For years, she has moved between shelters for the displaced in the northwest in search of more generous donated food baskets. The quake caused cracks in the place where she’s currently staying and she’s afraid to stay there but has nowhere else to go.“I pray for God’s grace. Maybe someone can take care of my children,” she said Sunday as she picked donated clothes at a Turkish Red Crescent warehouse.International aid has only trickled in for quake victims in the northwest, increasing anger at the United Nations.The sentiment has been building for some time. Humanitarian aid to Syria, locked in one of the world’s most complex crises for years, has been among the best funded by donors. But the gap between funding and need has grown, and U.N. appeals for emergency responses have gone more than 50% unanswered. In 2021, the health sector in northwest Syria was 60% underfunded, with only $6.4 million of $23.3 million covered.When the earthquake hit, hospitals were not only damaged by the tremors but also overwhelmed by the injured and casualties, with supplies of essential emergency kits running out. Maternity hospitals were flooded with early deliveries and complications in pregnancies.“Mothers are still living in the streets,” said Ikram Haboush, director of the maternity hospital in Atareb. “We don’t have enough incubators for early deliveries. The situation is far from stable.”Over the years of conflict, Syrian women have exhausted their coping strategies. A natural disaster is the last thing they were prepared for.“We are tired,” said Ayesha.“For 12 years, we didn’t sleep a night from fear of bombings, from air strikes, or from displacement. Now we have eternal displacement,” she said. “We are living the tragedy of all tragedies.”

Seven days after the earthquake leveled their home in the northwest Syrian town of Atareb

A girl whose family lost their home in the devastating earthquake stands outside a tent at a shelter camp in Killi

For Syrian women, quake adds disaster on top of war's pain

Six days after the earthquake that flattened parts of Turkey and Syria, two survivors emerged from the rubble. They were dogs, the focus of a parallel rescue effort underway. “One of the dogs clung to its owner’s corpse, and it was absolutely a miracle that it was rescued six days later,” said Csenay Tekinbas, a representative of the local HAYTAP animal welfare group.“I hope it holds on to life,” Tekinbas said of the dog that finally left its dead owner. “I hope we can give it a new life.”Already, field hospitals have been set up in four cities to care for rescued pets.Survival is just the first step. Those hurrying to find and care for pets also struggle to give them proper care. “There is no food, bird food, chicken feed or anything in any pet shop at the moment. Because everywhere is either closed or collapsed,” Tekinbas said.Large bags of pet food are stacked at a relief station in one Antakya square, their crisp images of green lawns and happily panting pets contrasting with the grim surroundings. Nearby, a burly dog nibbles at a bowl.The outreach to save pets goes as far as pounding down doors. After being alerted to a dog apparently left alone on the fourth floor of a building, HAYTAP workers put on hard hats and broke into the apartment to rescue a large, fluffy German shepherd.As the dog slurped noisily at a metal bowl of water downstairs in a crumbling alley, the workers lavished affection on it. ___

Already, field hospitals have been set up in four cities to care for rescued pets

Mehmet Gurkan, a member of the Turkish animal rights group HAYTAP, rescues a dog that was trapped for seven days inside a house affected by the earthquake in Antakya, southeastern Turkey

Amid quake's devastation, parallel rescue bid targets pets

Living for years in a tent camp for displaced people in Syria’s rebel-held northwest, Ali Abu Yassin used to envy friends and relatives who had brick walls around them and solid ceilings over their heads. The situation was turned on its head after Monday’s devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Turkey and Syria, killing more than 23,000 people, collapsing and damaging tens of thousands of buildings and potentially leaving millions displaced.More than 20 of Abu Yassin’s relatives were killed when their apartment buildings collapsed from the quake in the nearby village of Bisnya, he said, including one cousin’s entire family of 14.Abu Yassin made it to the village to help with rescue efforts.“It took us two days to pull out their bodies and bury them in a mass grave,” Abu Yassin said by telephone from the rebel-held province of Idlib. From the tent he had once wished to leave, the father of three said, “I am so lucky. It’s God’s will.”Before the earthquake, Syria's 12-year-old uprising-turned-civil war had already displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million. Abu Yassin was among them, fleeing from his home in another part of Idlib years ago.Now the earthquake has caused a new wave of displacement.The swath of destruction included the rebel-held enclave, centered on Idlib province, as well as heavily populated government-held cities like Aleppo, Hama and Latakia. The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, said Friday that as many as 5.3 million people in Syria may have been left homeless.For many, this is their second displacement.Wassim Jaadan left his house in the rebel-held village of Zardana in Idlib, then under bombing by government forces, and fled to Lebanon with his family in 2013. Nine years later, after Lebanon collapsed into a protracted economic crisis and they could no longer afford rent, Jaadan brought his wife and four children home to Zardana.“The economic situation was better than Lebanon, and we had our family, our parents here,” he said.When the earthquake struck on Monday, the family was awoken by a light shaking that quickly became more violent. They escaped before the building fell and crumbled to rubble.The family now lives in a tent, which is nearly empty since all their possessions were destroyed. “We are about to die from the cold,” Jaadan said. “I am unable to think because of the shock.”UNHCR said in a statement that it is trying to ensure that shelters housing displaced people have adequate facilities, as well as tents, plastic sheeting, thermal blankets, sleeping mats and winter clothing.However, aid has been slow to reach many areas. The first earthquake-related aid convoy of 14 trucks crossed through Turkey into northwestern Syria on Friday, a U.N. spokesperson told The Associated Press. The road to the Bab al-Hawa border crossing was obstructed for days following the earthquake due to road damage and debris from collapsed buildings.In the rural areas of northwest Syria, there are “tens of thousands of displaced people staying under olive trees in freezing temperatures,” Raed Saleh, head of the opposition’s Syrian Civil Defense, also known as White Helmets, said during a news conference Friday. Saleh said 500 buildings in northwest Syria have been completely destroyed, 1,400 partially crumbled and tens of thousands of homes were damaged.In other earthquake-damaged areas, displaced people crowded into temporary shelters in churches and mosques, schools, hotels and gyms.On Friday, in his first visit to areas hit by the earthquake, President Bashar Assad and his wife Asma visited two shelters in the northern city of Aleppo and a kitchen preparing 3,000 meals a day for displaced people.In the coastal city of Latakia, a base of support for Assad, some 2,000 people on Friday evening crammed into the city's sports center.Under a banner with Assad’s face and a Syrian flag, the floor of the center’s basketball court was crowded with mattresses and sleeping bags. Families huddled in winter jackets to stay warm and ate hot meals provided by a local aid organization.Wardah al-Hussein, a 67-year-old mother of nine, said she has been sleeping in the stadium since the earthquake. Originally from Aleppo, she was now starting her second displacement.“We fled from our city and our house was destroyed, and we came here,” she said. “Now because of the earthquake we went through it all again.”Those whose homes were spared have opened them to relatives and neighbors.A resident of the rebel-held northwestern town of Atmeh, Mustafa Ali, said that already two families of relatives moved in with his family in his three-room apartment while they wait to see if experts will make sure their own homes are suitable for living.“What people urgently need now is tents” as well as warm clothes and baby formula, Ali said.An aid worker based in northern Syria, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said eight sprawling facilities, including a center where coronavirus patients were once kept, have been opened to host the displaced in the region.Adding to the troubles of the displaced, he said, food prices are going up in the wake of the earthquake due to limited supplies.“Our conditions are miserable,” he said. “I need aid now.”

The situation was turned on its head after Monday’s devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Turkey and Syria, killing more than 23,000 people

Displaced people sit inside a sports stadium following a devastating earthquake, in the coastal city of Latakia, Syria, Friday, Feb. 10, 2023. The 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria, killing more than 23,000

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