Congressman Keith Ellison, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, and Kristin Stoneking of peace group Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) are among a group of US leaders and activists who on Dec. 20 launched a "rolling hunger strike" in solidarity with Syrian civil resistance figure Qusai Zakarya. That day was the 25th in Zakarya's hunger strike to protest the siege of over 30 towns in Syria. From the besieged Damascus suburb of Moadamiya, Zakarya proclaimed, "I want to live free before I die," noting that Syrians are dying daily of malnutrition because military blockades have prevented food and medicine from coming into their areas—with approximately one million people now affected.

An Egyptian court on Dec. 22 sentenced three human rights activists to three years in prison and fined each of them $7,000 for violating the country's controversial new anti-protest law. Ahmed Maher, Ahmed Douma and Mohammed Adel were convicted of participating in an illegal protest and allegedly assaulting policemen during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. The three men were among a group that protested in late November against the new law that circumscribed citizens' right to protest in public. Douma was arrested earlier this month according to a posted tweet. The men also played a key role in the protests that forced the resignation of former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, but more recently they have joined other activists in protesting many of the actions of the country's current government. Proponents argue that this new law will maintain peace and order while opponents claim that the law is an attempt to reppress dissent.

The United Nations' Palestine refugee agency UNRWA warned Dec. 20 that the lives of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Yarmouk camp in Damascus are at risk due to the ongoing siege of the camp by Syrian regime forces. Commissioner general of UNRWA Filippo Grandi said that "humanitarian conditions in the besieged refugee camp of Yarmouk are worsening dramatically and that we are currently unable to help those trapped inside." He stressed that if the situation is not addressed soon, "it may be too late to save the lives of thousands of people including children."

Elements of the US national security establishment have clearly got their money on Bashar Assad. Ex-CIA director Michael Hayden on Dec. 12 outlined three options for Syria's future at the annual Jamestown Foundation counter-terrorism confab: "Option three is Assad wins. And I must tell you at the moment, as ugly as it sounds, I'm kind of trending toward option three as the best out of three very, very ugly possible outcomes." Option one was ongoing conflict between radicalized sectarian facitons. Option two, which Hayden considered the most likely, was the "dissolution of Syria." (It isn't explained why this option ranks two if it's the most likely.) This, in turn, "means the end of Sykes-Picot... it sets in motion the dissolution of all the artificial states created after World War I." (AFP via Maan News Agency, Dec. 13)

Now here's a counterintuitive juxtaposition of news stories. The UN mission investigating the use of chemical weapons in Syria stated that chemical agents may have been unleashed in five of seven cases investigated, occurring between March and August—not just the Aug. 21 attack at Ghouta. The other four cases that remain under investigation are named as Khan Assal, Jobar, Saraqeb and Ashrafiah Sahnaya. The mission unequivocally concluded that "chemical weapons have been used in the ongoing conflict between the parties in the Syrian Arab Republic." (NPR, LAT, Dec. 12) Simultaneously, the US and UK suspended all "non-lethal aid" to the Syrian rebels. The cut-off came days after a newly formed "Islamic Front" seized a base and arms cache from the Free Syrian Army at the Bab al-Hawa crossing on Syria's northwestern border with Turkey. The Islamic Front recently brought together six rebel factions, and seems loosely allied with ISIS, heretofore the major jihadist army.

Police in Egypt on Nov. 28 arrested prominent activist and blogger Alaa Abdul Fattah who had taken part in a rally outside the upper house of parliament two days earlier, where protesters were calling for repeal of a new law that bans unauthorized demonstrations. Abdel-Fattah was arrested at his home, according to a statement by supporters. "They [the police] had no search warrant and when his wife, Manal, demanded to see it they were both beaten," read the statement, adding that the couples' computers and phones were confiscated in the raid. "Their two-year-old son, Khaled, was asleep in the next room," the statement said.

The Israel Air Force was responsible for an Oct. 30 attack on a military base in the Syrian city of Latakia, according to a Reuters report that cited an opposition source. The target was named as a strategic missile battery near Ain Shikak village—and particularly a new shipment of Russian SA-8 surface-to-air missiles destined for Hezbollah. The Saudi news outlet Al-Arabiya said Israeli planes also struck an unnamed target in Damascus. Israel warplanes were also reported to have raided a missile warehouse near Latakia in July, and a military site near Damascus in May. Israel has not confirmed or denied any of the air-strikes. (Haaretz, Maan News Agency, Nov. 1)

About 30 aides to Moammar Qaddafi, including his son Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, were indicted Oct. 24 by a Libyan court for a list of offenses allegedly committed during the 2011 revolt in the country. The charges levied against them include murder, kidnapping, complicity in incitement to rape, plunder, sabotage, embezzlement of public funds and acts harmful to national unity. Although less than half of the defendants appeared in court for the indictment hearing on Thursday, all defendants must be present at the trial hearing, the date of which has not yet been set. The trial will be one of the most high-profile in the country's history, with defendants including senior officials such as former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi and Qaddafi's last prime minister Baghdadi al-Mahmudi.