Column | Gaza is not the only war nightmare

The extreme outburst of violence by Hamas against Israel and the ongoing Israeli pulverization of the Gaza Strip obscure all other crises in the Middle East and beyond. But they still exist! Poor Ukraine still receives some attention, although Zelensky complains, after all, a European conflict, and so does Lebanon because the violence there is part of the Gaza crisis.

But that terrible war in Sudan between rival generals? All gone. Yet “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history,” according to the UN chief for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Response Martin Griffith mid-October – so when the nightmare in Gaza was already underway. Nine thousand dead since this war began in April, roughly on par with Gaza, and millions of people on the run: 4.5 million within Sudan and another 1.2 million to neighboring countries. “Terrible reports of rape and sexual violence continue to come in.”

Or the Turkish bombings in northeastern Syria in the years-long war against what President Erdogan calls Kurdish terrorists. It just flared up again last month. Another order of bloody, not thousands but dozens of dead civilians, but also significant damage to civilian infrastructure due to the Turkish bombings. Power plants and a hospital, those kinds of goals. Why do hospitals always have to be attacked?

In Syria today it seems like there is war everywhere again, afree-for-all space where different players can fight their conflicts with each other with impunity,” said the UN Special Envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen. Israel has been bombarding Iranian-backed fighting groups and arms transports for years, but now it is happening almost every day. Those pro-Iranian militias shoot at American troops and the Americans bomb back. President Assad and his Russian friends stepped up their attack last month in opposition areas in the northwest. As can be expected from them with the use of prohibited weapons, cluster munitions this time. According to the UN, seventy people have now died and more than 120,000 have been displaced. Among the millions already displaced.

The war in Yemen! Yes, it continues to struggle and there is far too little money to tackle the resulting humanitarian crisis. Misery is frozen, I read. There is not enough money anywhere for humanitarian aid – according to Griffith, only a third of the money needed for Sudan has been received. For Gaza and the West Bank alone $1.2 billion necessary, the UN estimated this week. Too much crisis.

Iran is also on my list of conflicts that have been pushed out of the news. There is less protest against the regime and this has to do with the new, extremely strict law on chastity and hijab (headscarf), which imposes ten years in prison and very heavy fines for “nudity”, i.e. a bare head. Moreover, after a cooling-off period, the vice police are back on the streets, arresting anyone seen as potential opposition.

The toughest guys within the regime clearly have the upper hand (even tougher than the similarly moderate rest). I think this is the reason why there was hardly any protest last week following the death of 16-year-old Armita Gerawand, who had been in a coma for a month after a confrontation with the vice police. The regime, of course, says it simply collapsed, as it claimed after the death of Mahsa Amini, which sparked last year’s major protests.

Europe is watching, I wanted to write, but even that doesn’t work. In any case, it is divided and powerless – see also its attitude towards the Israel-Gaza nightmare – and, worse, fundamentally disinterested.

As long as no refugees come from it.

Carolien Roelants is a Middle East expert. She writes a column every other week.

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