The horrific death toll in Syria

More than 4,360 people were killed in Syria’s war in 2023, a war monitor said on Tuesday.

The figure was an increase compared to 2022, when roughly 3,800 people were killed. That was the lowest annual death toll since the conflict began in 2011, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

This year’s count included 1,889 civilians, of whom 241 were women and 307 children.

The dead included 898 members of the regime forces and about 600 loyalist militants of various Syrian and non-Syrian nationalities. The remaining are from ISIS, the opposition, the Syrian Democratic Forces, and the Kurdish units.

The Observatory documented on Sunday the killing of three people, including a child, in an artillery attack by Syrian regime forces against a market in the center of Idlib city on Saturday evening. A total of 14 injuries, including children, were recorded.

The intensity of clashes decreased in several areas in the past three years, particularly in Idlib. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly known as Nusra Front) controls large parts of Idlib and neighboring provinces.

A ceasefire brokered by Russia and Türkiye was declared in Idlib in March 2020.

Also on Saturday, 25 pro-Iran fighters were killed in air strikes in eastern Syria likely carried out by Israel, the Observatory added.

Moreover, four pro-Iran militants were killed in an Israeli attack in the north of the country.

Last year, Israel launched dozens of air strikes in Syria against Iranian and Hezbollah targets, including warehouses and shipments of ammunition and weapons, as well as sites of the Syrian army.

Since declaring victory over ISIS in 2019, the group’s militants have been conducting operations against Kurdish fighters and regime forces from rural areas. The government has no control over large areas of agricultural land and oil and gas wells.

The conflict - which began in 2011 - caused the killing of over half a million people, and the vast destruction of infrastructure and economy, and displaced more than half the population - inside Syria or abroad.