Kurdish community in Lebanon holds sit-in against 'blockade' on SDF in Aleppo

Dozens of members of Lebanon's Kurdish community staged a midday sit-in Tuesday in downtown Beirut, outside the United Nations (ESCWA) headquarters, to protest the fighting that broke out in early January in Aleppo, Syria, targeting majority-Kurdish neighborhoods, notably Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh, as well as the subsequent "blockade."

Demonstrators waved Lebanese and Kurdish flags, along with banners paying tribute to the community’s "historic resistance."

Heavy fighting broke out in these areas of Aleppo between Syrian forces loyal to President Ahmad al-Sharaa and Kurdish fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the armed wing of the Kurdish Autonomous Administration. Thousands of residents fled these neighborhoods.

During Tuesday's sit-in, protesters sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, according to a statement on the Kurdish Democratic Union Party’s website.

In the letter, the community "strongly condemns the ongoing attacks against the two neighborhoods since Jan. 6."

The letter notes, "a blockade has been imposed on these neighborhoods for over three months by Syrian forces," which has contributed to worsening living conditions.

"During the attack on the two regions, all kinds of weapons were used, regularly targeting civilians as well as medical infrastructure, and the random shelling caused dozens of innocent civilian casualties, not to mention the summary executions of medical personnel," the letter read aloud at the sit-in continued.

It went on, "the targeting of civilians and medical infrastructure proves premeditated criminal intent, and constitutes war crimes and clear violations of the Geneva Conventions."

Protesters also accuse "the Syrian government, at the urging of its Turkish ally, of engaging in a policy of demographic change in Syria’s Kurdish neighborhoods."

Lebanon’s Kurdish community "rejects this policy of forced deportation practiced against Kurdish civilians" in Aleppo, calling for "an immediate cessation of hostilities, a lifting of the blockade against these neighborhoods, and the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the outskirts of Aleppo."

They also demand "the dispatch of an independent international commission of inquiry to hold those responsible for these crimes to account."

Driven from Aleppo earlier in January after deadly clashes, and then from the provinces of Raqqa and Deir al-Zor on Monday, the SDF has now fallen back to its core area in Hassakeh.

On Tuesday night, the Syrian government announced a new cease-fire with the Kurdish forces, who had been forced to retreat militarily to their northern Syrian stronghold and abandoned by their American ally.

The U.S. envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, said the Kurdish fighters' "initial mission" — the fight against jihadists — was over and that the new Syrian regime is now capable of controlling Islamic State (IS) detention centers set up by the Kurds.