The group of residents of Idlib province was hit by a strike “while picking olives in the village of Qoqfin”, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday.
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Nine civilians who were harvesting olives in the province of Idleb (northwest Syria) were killed on Saturday, November 25, by an army bombardment in this region, the last major rebel stronghold in the country, announced the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH). “A ground bombardment of regime forces” touched the group “while he was picking olives in the village of Qoqfin”in the mountainous region of Jabal al-Zawiya, specifies the OSDH.
Nine civilians “including a wife and six children” were killed and others injured, some seriously, added the OSDH, based in the United Kingdom, but which has a vast network of sources in Syria. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (former local branch of Al-Qaeda) controls entire swaths of Idlib province and parts of the neighboring provinces of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is considered a terrorist group by Damascus, as well as the United States and the United Nations.
According to the OSDH, bombings and clashes were underway in the area before the group was hit on Saturday, while Hayat Tahrir al-Sham heavily bombarded neighboring territory controlled by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime after the deadly strike. Started in 2011 after the repression of anti-government protests, the war in Syria has left more than half a million dead and displaced millions. A ceasefire negotiated by Russia and Turkey was declared in Idlib after a regime offensive in March 2020, but it is regularly violated.
