Israel’s airstrikes on Aleppo’s international airport early on March 7th, disrupting aid deliveries for victims of last month’s earthquakes in Syria and Turkey, elicited rare criticism from the US and UN and no mention of sanctions on the perpetrator.  While declining to assume responsibility, Israel has accused Iran of transferring weapons to Syria and Lebanon’s Hizbollah via airports at Aleppo and Damascus and has repeatedly bombed both. US State Department Spokesman Ned Price refused to attribute blame but expressed the hope that the result would not produce a long halt to aid supplies.

While the airport reopened on Friday, UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq took a principled stand on such action by declaring that strikes could have “severe humanitarian implications for people in Aleppo — one of the worst earthquake-impacted governorates in the country — and could also affect the wider vulnerable population who need humanitarian assistance” as Aleppo is in dire straits due to the US-driven sanctions regime. Haq called on all sides to abide by international humanitarian law which prohibits targeting “civilian objects.”

On this issue, it must be pointed out that Syria, which has not made peace with Israel, does not carry out attacks on that country while Israel has mounted hundreds of strikes against Syrian targets, many of them “civilian objects.”  In late 2012 Israel began bombing facilities it claims are associated with the Iranian presence, Syria’s military, or scientific research.  I was in Damascus on Orthodox Easter on Sunday May 5th, 2013, when Israel bombed a scientific site on the edge of the capital.  The massive explosion rocked the city and shocked its residents.

Having frequently bombed Syria for 11 years without facing repercussions, Israel felt free to hit Aleppo airport again although most humanitarian aid for the northwest arrives there. The Aleppo attack was the second since the quakes.  

The first was on February 15th when Israel struck the largely residential Kafr Sousa district of Damascus hosting the compound housing the offices of the prime and foreign ministries, which are also “civilian objects.” They were operating under duress due to the need to address the devastation caused by the earthquakes.  Yesterday Israel bombed targets in Tartous and Hama provinces.

The Syrian government was castigated after it delayed for seven days the opening of two Turkish border crossings to boost the delivery of aid to the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib controlled by al-Qaeda off-shoot Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) which has been fighting the government for 11 years.  Damascus argues rightly that these crossing points violate Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity unless approval is given for them to operate for UN shipments. The Security Council routinely votes on cross-border operations of the main entry point at Bab al-Hawa.  While Western powers had pressed to add another two at Bab al-Salam and al-Ra’ee, Damascus’ ally, Russia has vetoed resolutions circulated to Council members.

Instead of opening two more crossings, the government agreed that the UN and International Red Cross and Red Crescent could deliver supplies by convoy to Idlib. However, this proved impossible because Tahrir al-Sham rejected this option.  It was not widely condemned by the UN, Western governments, and media and was scarcely mentioned in reports on what happened. Although branded by the UN and US as a “terrorist organisation,” Tahrir al-Sham is widely identified by the generic term “rebel” to cover its origin and mission.

While Damascus took several days to call for foreign assistance and, in particular, apply to the European Union’s aid mechanism, the Western response has been slow and niggardly by contrast with the near instant flow of search and rescue teams and aid into Turkey where at least 45,000 have been killed and 14 million affected.

Arab Gulf countries have been prompt and generous by offering material and financial aid to both Turkey and Syria.

The UN has reported the quakes killed 6,000 and affected 8.8 million people in northwest Syria at a time 90 per cent of Syrians live below the poverty line and 15.3 million Syrians need humanitarian assistance. Unfortunately, the Syria Earthquake Flash Appeal for $400 million has received pledges for $206 million (52 per cent) and only one-third of that sum has been received. To make matters worse, some of the relief agencies operating in Syria have had to raid pre-quake programmes for funds to provide emergency aid for tens of thousands of homeless earthquake victims. Many have been sheltering in unfinished buildings and schools which cannot hold classes depriving children of education.

Meanwhile, Aleppo province rather than Idlib has been assessed by the UN as the area most seriously impacted by the earthquakes. Residential and commercial buildings and infrastructure have been weakened during 12 years of civil and proxy warfare but Syria has been unable to repair and rebuild due to US and European sanctions. Electricity is provided for only a few hours daily and water pipes damaged by the quake threaten a fresh outbreak of cholera which has spread from the north to the rest of the country in the past year.

The 47 foreign humanitarian agencies (NGOs) operating in Syria have called for an end to ongoing politicisation of aid and urge increased international support “to prevent further deterioration of the situation in Syria.”  This disaster knows no borders or politics, and the support for the Syrian people should not either.”  This will not happen until sanctions on investment and reconstruction are halted, they said.

The US and Europe have for six months lifted sanctions that could impair the delivery of humanitarian aid.  However, sanctions on governments, firms and individuals seeking to rebuild homes, businesses, farms and lives remain. This means the US and Europe continue to isolate and punish the Syrian people while falsely claiming the target is the government.  This is a flagrant violation of international law which prohibits “collective punishment.”  For the US and Europe, the survival of the Syrian government under President Bashar al-Assad is justification for waging a ruinous economic war on that country.  

The sanction strategy has not brought down Western-targeted rulers in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Iraq, Iran, and Syria and has, instead, impoverished, sickened, and starved their citizens.  It must be remembered that swingeing sanctions were imposed on Iraq after its occupation of Kuwait in 1990 and were not partially eased until the oil-for-food programme was implemented in 1996.

In a 1996 interview with a US television channel, then US ambassador to the UN Madeline Albright was asked by presenter Lesley Stahl about the deadly affect of sanctions on Iraq. “We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died [due to sanctions]..that is more children that died in [the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima in World War II]...is the price worth it?”  Albright replied, “I think that is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it.”

After the US-led war to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, Security Council resolution 687 obliged Iraq to destroy its biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programmes and stated that once this was completed sanctions “shall have no further force or effect.”  The nuclear programme was dismantled during the summer of 1991 while chemical and biological weapons were unilaterally and secretly destroyed by that December. This should have meant that the terms of 687 were met but when UN inspectors were taken to the sites where the destruction was carried out, they were not satisfied that all had been eliminated as they did not have an inventory or complete records of the destruction process.

This allowed the US to falsely claim Iraq retained some banned weapons and gave the US a false pretext for its 2003 invasion of Iraq. Sanctions were largely lifted in May 2003 after the fall of President Saddam Hussein but the US occupation regime kept control over Iraq’s oil and finances. This was not ceded to Iraq until 2010. Remaining sanctions were not ended until Iraq paid reparations to Kuwait in 2021. Once imposed, sanctions are difficult to remove for powers imposing them.  This prolongs the victimisation of populations in target countries.