Documentation of the killing of four Road Security personnel by unidentified gunmen on the Salamiyah–Athriyah road in the #Hama countryside on October 13, 2026. Details: news.snhr.org/?p=157405 #SNHR #Syria

.@FADELABDULGHANY , Executive Director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, wrote an opinion piece for the website @alaraby_ar , titled: Mezzeh Military Airport… Investigate Before You Build n September 23, the General Authority of Civil Aviation and Air Transport announced the start of preliminary rehabilitation works at the Mezzeh Military Airport in #Damascus, with the aim of reclassifying it as a civilian facility of limited use for private and executive aviation. However, the problem is that the airport also houses the Investigation Branch of the Air Force Intelligence Directorate. Some of the works planned for implementation, including demolition, rubble removal, excavation, and land leveling, may bring about changes that cannot be reversed or whose effects cannot be remedied. Therefore, the essential issue relates to the sequencing of steps, as the site may still contain information and evidence connected to detention, disappearance, and death, in addition to the unresolved rights of the owners of the lands on which the airport was built. The question, thus, is whether this information and evidence will be documented and verified before the features of the land and the buildings are altered, or whether they will only be searched for after such changes have taken place. The Syrian Network for Human Rights (#SNHR) has documented the use of the branch in operations of arrest, detention, interrogation, torture, and enforced disappearance from 2011 to 2024 under the Assad regime. This includes thousands of arrests that ended with the detainees being held in the branch or transferred to it. For varying periods, the detainees were denied access to a lawyer, contact with their relatives, and the possibility of appearing before a judicial authority. In documented cases, the authorities concealed the place of detention of the person, or denied that he or she had been detained at all. The deaths connected to the branch require two separate tracks of investigation. The first relates to deaths in custody which occurred in the context of torture, ill-treatment, and the conditions of detention. As for the second, it relates to executions. There is information and testimony confirming that death sentences issued by the military field courts were carried out secretly at specific locations inside the airport compound. These also indicate that the bodies were transferred without the families being informed of the fate of their loved ones or of the place of their burial. Read the full article at the following link: snhr.org/?p=78868

Daily Report on Civilian Casualties in Syria On October 14, 2026 Details: news.snhr.org/?p=157398 #SNHR #Syria

SNHR's report calls on: • The Syrian authorities in the transitional phase to adopt a national rubble removal policy and standard operating procedures, and to place mass graves and former detention facilities under forensic supervision • The judicial and prosecutorial authorities to coordinate with the IIIM • Civil society to refer sites of forensic significance to relevant authorities, not intervene independently • UN agencies to integrate explosive ordnance risk assessment and documentation into all rubble removal programs • Donor states to link funding to evidence-based safeguards, without delaying life-saving operations View the full report: snhr.org/?p=78857 #Syria

.@FADELABDULGHANY , the Executive Director of SNHR, said: “The manner in which the rubble is removed in Syria will affect what the investigators, the prosecutors, and the families of the missing will be able to prove regarding the violations committed since 2011. Over more than fourteen years of documentation, we have learned that removal carried out without proportionate documentation may lead, irreversibly, to the destruction or contamination of evidence, even though that evidence could have contributed to uncovering the truth, identification, and achieving accountability.” View the full report: snhr.org/?p=78857 #Syria

According to SNHR's report, the failure to adopt an evidence-based approach to rubble removal generates tangible risks: • The loss of evidence needed for accountability • Families permanently losing the opportunity to identify and bury their dead, and to know the fate of the disappeared • Weakened guarantees of non-recurrence • A direct danger to workers, residents, and returning displaced persons • The erosion of public trust in the transitional institutions View the full report: snhr.org/?p=78857 #Syria

SNHR's report calls for classifying the sites into five categories before any removal: emergency life-saving extraction; urgent removal for reasons of public safety; planned removal in the context of reconstruction; sites suspected of containing evidence of international crimes; and sites that contain, or are suspected of containing, human remains or explosive ordnance. Before any non-emergency mechanical removal, a minimum of documentation measures should apply: identifying the site, explosive ordnance risk assessment, visual recording, preserving evidentiary materials, identifying witnesses, and chain-of-custody records. View the full report: snhr.org/?p=78857 #Syria

The report proposes the principle of evidence-aware removal: the decisions on where, when, and how the rubble is removed should be evidence-based, grounded in risk assessment, and accompanied by adequate documentation. This is not a blanket prohibition; where delay poses a genuine danger to lives, the priority must be the protection of life and safety. It also proposes a balancing test built on five variables: the immediate danger to life, explosive ordnance contamination, the presence of human remains, the likelihood of evidence of serious international crimes, and the availability of trained personnel. View the full report: snhr.org/?p=78857 #Syria

SNHR's report finds that there is no single rule in international law that imposes a general and absolute duty to preserve rubble. The framework is a composite one, and it is built on: • International humanitarian law (Articles 48 and 57 of Additional Protocol I; Rules 112, 113, 115, 116, and 158 of customary IHL) • International human rights law (the Minnesota Protocol) • International criminal law (the ICC Elements of Crimes) • Mine action standards (UNMAS/GICHD TNMA 10.10/03; the UNDP 2026 guidance) View the full report: snhr.org/?p=78857 #Syria

The rubble is not merely debris bearing witness to the war. According to SNHR's report, it may conceal: • Human remains • Explosive remnants of war and improvised explosive devices • Munition fragments, points of impact, collapse patterns, and the direction of the blast As for the former detention facilities, security sites, and burial sites, the rubble there may retain evidence of enforced disappearance, torture, and extrajudicial execution. View the full report: snhr.org/?p=78857 #Syria

New report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR): “Removing the Rubble Without Erasing the Evidence: Human Rights and Legal Guidelines for the Management of Rubble Removal in the Transitional Phase in Syria.” Since 2011, enormous quantities of rubble have accumulated in the Syrian cities, towns, and villages, resulting mainly from the aerial and artillery bombardment, and the main perpetrator of the destruction is the Assad regime. The operational decisions taken in the first months of rubble removal will largely determine what remains available for the truth and accountability. View the full report: snhr.org/?p=78857 #Syria #SNHR

Removing the Rubble Without Erasing the Evidence Human Rights and Legal Guidelines for the Management of Rubble Removal in the Transitional Phase in #Syria The Syrian Network for Human Rights (#SNHR) released a report today, entitled “Removing the Rubble Without Erasing the Evidence: Human Rights and Legal Guidelines for the Management of Rubble Removal in the Transitional Phase in Syria.” The report concluded that the rubble which has accumulated in the Syrian cities, towns, and villages since 2011 resulted mainly from the aerial and artillery bombardment, and it identified the Assad regime as the main perpetrator of the destruction and demolition. The report considers that the operational decisions taken in the rubble removal operations will largely determine the nature of the information that will remain available to the investigators, the public prosecutions, the mechanisms for searching for the missing, the families of the victims, and the affected communities. The report indicates that the rubble may conceal human remains, explosive remnants of war, and improvised explosive devices; that the debris at the sites of attacks may retain munition fragments, points of impact, collapse patterns, and the direction of the blast; and that the rubble at the detention facilities, the former security sites, and the burial sites may contain evidence relating to enforced disappearance, torture, and extrajudicial execution. View the full report: snhr.org/?p=78857

#SNHR calls on the Israeli forces to: • Immediately stop the incursions and withdraw the newly established military posts and positions, including the presence inside the separation zone • Immediately release those arbitrarily detained and reveal the fate of those whose fate remains unknown • Open independent and effective investigations into the incidents that resulted in civilian casualties SNHR also calls on the States Parties to the Geneva Conventions to fulfill their obligation to ensure respect for the Conventions, and to support accountability for the gross violations. #Syria Full report: snhr.org/?p=78843

Fadel Abdulghany, #SNHR Director: "Israel may not invoke security concerns to justify imposing military facts inside the territory of another state or bypassing the rules of international law. Protecting security is not achieved by violating the sovereignty of states, nor by expanding occupation, nor by exposing civilians to danger." #Syria Full report: snhr.org/?p=78843

#SNHR: The incursions, the establishment of military posts, and the repeated attacks constitute a violation of the principle of respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic, while the Israeli presence inside the separation zone violates the 1974 Disengagement Agreement, as confirmed by the UN. Furthermore, the effective control over parts of southern Syria entails the applicability of the rules of the law of occupation, within the limits established by the facts on the ground. #Syria #InternationalLaw Full report: snhr.org/?p=78843

Daily Report on Civilian Casualties in Syria On October 10, 2026 Details: news.snhr.org/?p=157391 #SNHR #Syria

.@anadoluagency: The Syrian Network for Human Rights(#SNHR) documented at least 453 ground incursions by #Israeli forces into #Syria and the killing of at least 69 people between Dec. 8, 2024, and Oct. 6, 2026. The figures were included in a report by the group examining the practices and violations of Israeli forces on Syrian territory since the fall of the former regime. The incursions were concentrated in the southern provinces of Quneitra and Daraa, and to a lesser extent in the Damascus countryside, according to the report. The network recorded at least 162 cases of arbitrary Israeli detentions. Of those detained, 127 were released, while the fate of 35 others is unknown to the network and their families. aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/hum…

#SNHR: We documented at least 162 cases of arbitrary detention carried out by the Israeli forces during ground incursions, including 20 children and one media worker. 127 of them were later released, while the fate of 35 others remains unknown as of the date of the report. The detentions targeted civilians while herding sheep, farming, and collecting firewood, and many of them were transferred to Israeli military posts or to the occupied Syrian Golan. #Syria #Detainees Full report: snhr.org/?p=78843

#SNHR: The Israeli forces killed at least 69 individuals inside Syria between December 8, 2024, and October 6, 2026, including three children and three women: • 29 individuals in the context of ground incursions and the aerial and ground bombardment linked to them • 39 individuals in airstrikes • One individual by gunfire from an Israeli military post in Quneitra The toll includes civilians, individuals killed in the context of clashes, and members of the forces of the Syrian government's Ministries of Defense and Interior. #Syria Full report: snhr.org/?p=78843

#SNHR: We documented at least 453 ground incursions carried out by the Israeli forces inside Syrian territory since the fall of the Assad regime and until October 6, 2026, concentrated in Quneitra and Daraa governorates, and to a lesser extent in Damascus Suburbs. These incursions were accompanied by house raids, the setting up of temporary checkpoints, ID checks, the forcible collection of information, random gunfire, and attacks on media and humanitarian workers. #Syria #Quneitra #Daraa Full report: snhr.org/?p=78843