I was living and working in Israel when the newly appointed Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, said in his inauguration speech of November 2024, “The Kurdish people are a great nation” and “our natural allies,” due to shared enemies like Turkey and Iran. His words touched the hearts of millions of Kurds.
This morning, Sa’ar posted a message of support to the Kurds in Aleppo, warning that the attacks by Syrian regime forces are “grave and dangerous,” and calling on “the international community in general, and the West in particular” to help, because they owe “a debt of honor to the Kurds, who fought bravely and successfully against ISIS.”
At a time when the world remains silent on the systemic and brutal repression committed by Ahmed al-Sharaa’s regime against Syria’s ethnic and religious minorities – Druze, Alawites, and now the Kurds – Sa’ar’s message of solidarity is deeply moving and historic.
Many Kurds have taken to social media to express their highest respect for him and salute the Jewish nation for standing with their people. In contrast to most Arab and Western governments, including the Trump administration, Israel did not shy away from condemning the atrocities Sharaa’s government is committing against Alawites, Druze, and Kurds, nor did it fear rocking the boat with the ayatollah regime in Iran and Erdogan’s fascist Turkish government.
In the past few days, two densely populated Kurdish neighborhoods in Aleppo – Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh – have been hit by artillery, rockets, and tanks sent by the Syrian regime’s forces and affiliated jihadi militias. The two neighborhoods have endured weeks of a tightening siege, with power cuts and heavy restrictions on the entry of food and medical supplies.
Thousands of Kurds have fled Aleppo
Around 30,000 Kurds have fled parts of Aleppo after Sharaa’s forces, also known by his jihad name Abu Mohammed al-Julani, launched a fresh offensive against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The devastation in those two neighborhoods is enormous. Over 300 Kurdish houses were destroyed. Several deaths have been reported, and hundreds of people were injured.
On January 8, SDF Media Center spokesman Farhad Shami posted on X/Twitter, “What is taking place in the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighborhoods is an organized, bloody campaign carried out under the cover of official incitement, directly targeting civilians through the use of siege, indiscriminate shelling, and starvation as tools to subjugate the population and impose realities by force.”
Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Sharaa’s government has deployed a policy of heavy bombardment of ethnically inhabited communities to enforce its will on them. What we are seeing in Aleppo is a copy-paste of what happened to the Alawites and the Druze. Similar campaigns of incitement have been deployed by Julani’s people. Alawites are Assad loyalists, Druze are traitors and loyalists to Israel, and Kurds are SDF loyalists and “Zionist agents.”
Videos circulating on social media call the Kurds kuffar, Arabic for infidels. In one video, Sharaa’s forces, before launching their assaults on those two Kurdish neighborhoods, are seen praying and shouting, “Allah, help us against the kuffar,” adding, “Allah, pour terror in their hearts, O Lord of the Worlds, and make us steadfast in our footsteps and help us against the kuffar.”
Mainstream Islamic theology and law strictly prohibit the unjust killing of any human being. By contrast, in Islamist ideology, killing non-Muslims – kuffar – is seen as an honorable act and religious duty, the same ideology Sharaa followed when he was known as Abu Mohammed al-Julani.
Earlier today, the Turkish Defense Ministry announced that it would support Damascus if it officially requests its help. On the other hand, Prime Minister Masrour Barzani of the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq issued a statement condemning the attacks against the Kurds in Aleppo, rightly describing those attacks as a tool “of demographic change” and questioning “the authority in Damascus and the conscience of the international community.”
What is happening in Aleppo is a systemic, murderous military operation to ethnically cleanse any Kurdish presence in the province. Sharaa’s government is acting on behalf of Ankara, which is deeply hostile toward the SDF and toward Kurds having any meaningful political rights in Syria. Turkish and Syrian media are using the forces as a scapegoat to legitimize emptying Aleppo of its Kurdish inhabitants.
Sharaa’s accusations that the SDF has a military presence in Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh are groundless. What advantage would it be for the forces to have their own people murdered by Damascus? It is absurd.
Kurdish residents are encircled on all sides by Sharaa’s forces, affiliated jihadi foreign fighters, and soon the Turks, all armed to the teeth. With violence escalating and humanitarian fear deepening, what we see is a pathetic response from the European Union, expressing “great concern” and calling on all sides to protect civilians.
I suggest that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and UN chief Antonio Guterres take a leaf out of Gideon Sa’ar’s book of courage.
The author is a Kurdish-Swedish journalist and researcher on Middle Eastern affairs. She was an Israel-based journalist and podcast presenter for the Arabic- and English-language series Exposing the Lies – The Voice of Truth from the Middle East at The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. She previously worked as a field producer and journalist at a number of Qatari media outlets.