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Ali Saeed Badwan
Ali Saeed Badwan (; 1959 – 1 June 2025) was a Palestinian writer and political analyst based in Syria, born in Yarmouk camp near Damascus in 1959. His family left Haifa to take refuge in Syria following the 1948 Palestine Nakba. Background Badwan attended UNRWA institutions in Yarmouk camp, including Sarfand School, Al-Malikya Primary School, and Yarmouk High School, where he acquired his early education. In 1982, he graduated from Damascus University's Faculty of Science with a bachelor's degree in basic sciences (physics and chemistry), a diploma in education from Damascus University's Faculty of Education in 1987, and a degree in military sciences from Damascus University's Faculty of Education in 1988. As well as a degree in military studies from the Syrian Army's Military Infantry College while serving in the Palestine Liberation Army. From 1983 onwards, he worked as a physics and chemistry teacher in Damascus high schools and at a Teacher Training Institute, and fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Damascus
Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Known colloquially in Syria as () and dubbed, poetically, the "City of Jasmine" ( ), Damascus is a major cultural center of the Levant and the Arab world. Situated in southwestern Syria, Damascus is the center of a large metropolitan area. Nestled among the eastern foothills of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range inland from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean on a plateau above sea level, Damascus experiences an arid climate because of the rain shadow effect. The Barada, Barada River flows through Damascus. Damascus is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. First settled in the 3rd millennium BC, it was chosen as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. Afte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palestine Liberation Army
The Palestine Liberation Army (PLA; ) is ostensibly the military wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), set up at the 1964 Arab League summit held in Alexandria, Egypt, with the mission of fighting Israel. However, it has never been under effective PLO control, but rather it has been controlled by its various host governments, usually Syria. Even though it initially operated in several countries, in 2015 the PLA was only active in Syria and recruited male Palestinian refugees. History Foundation and early operations Immediately after its creation at the 1964 Arab League summit in Alexandria, the PLO (then headed by Ahmad Shukeiri) was effectively under the control of the Arab states, especially Nasser's Egypt. The Palestinians would not gain independent control of the organization until Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction wrested it from Nasser-backed Palestinians in 1968–69. Accordingly, the PLA was officially set up in 1964 as the PLO's armed wing despite la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palestinian Non-fiction Writers
Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous population, descended from Jews, other Semitic groups, and non-Semitic groups such as the Philistines, had been mostly Christianized. Over succeeding centuries it was Islamicized, and Arabic replaced Aramaic (a Semitic tongue closely related to Hebrew) as the dominant language" * : "Palestinians are the descendants of all the indigenous peoples who lived in Palestine over the centuries; since the seventh century, they have been predominantly Muslim in religion and almost completely Arab in language and culture." * : "Furthermore, Zionism itself was also defined by its opposition to the indigenous Palestinian inhabitants of the region. Both the 'conquest of land' and the 'conquest of labor' slogans that became central to the dominant strain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2025 Deaths
The following notable deaths occurred in 2025. Names are reported under the date of death, in alphabetical order. A typical entry reports information in the following sequence: * Name, age, country of citizenship at birth, subsequent nationality (if applicable), what subject was noted for, cause of death (if known), and a reference. June 17 16 * Nikolay Krasnikov, 40, Russian ice speedway rider, traffic collision. *, 89, Chilean actress and actors' rights activist. * Nellai S. Muthu, 74, Indian novelist. * John Reid, 61, Scottish record producer, singer ( Nightcrawlers) and songwriter. (death announced on this date) * Julio Retamal Favereau, 91, Chilean historian, philosopher and academic, member of the Academia Chilena de la Historia. * Ron Taylor, 87, Canadian baseball player ( St. Louis Cardinals, New York Mets) and team physician (Toronto Blue Jays), four-time World Series champion. (death announced on this date) * Jan Tesař, 92, Czech historian, writer and dissident. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1959 Births
Events January * January 1 – Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 – Soviet lunar probe Luna 1 is the first human-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reaches the vicinity of Earth's Moon, where it was intended to crash-land, but instead becomes the first spacecraft to go into heliocentric orbit. * January 3 ** Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state. ** The southernmost island of the Maldives archipelago, Addu Atoll, declares its independence from the Kingdom of the Maldives, initiating the United Suvadive Republic. * January 4 ** In Cuba, rebel troops led by Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos enter the city of Havana. ** Léopoldville riots: At least 49 people are killed during clashes between the police and participants of a meeting of the ABAKO Party in Kinshasa, Léopoldville in the Belgian Congo. * January 6 – The International Maritime Organization is inaugurated. * January 7 – The United ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siege Of Beirut
During the 1982 Lebanon War, the city of Beirut was besieged by Israel following the breakdown of the ceasefire that had been imposed by the United Nations amidst the Lebanese Civil War. Beginning in mid-June, the two-month-long siege resulted in thousands of civilian deaths and the expulsion of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from Beirut and the rest of Lebanon. Background PLO's expulsion from Jordan and relocation to Lebanon The Palestine Liberation Organization, PLO moved its primary base of operations to Beirut in the early 1970s, after Black September in Jordan, Black September in Jordan. The presence of Palestinian forces was one of the main reasons that led to a conflict in Lebanon in 1975–1976 which ended with the occupation of Lebanon by peacekeeping forces (the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon). Over the next few years, the Syrians and the PLO gained power in Lebanon, surpassing the ability of the official Lebanese government to curtail or control ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1982 Lebanon War
The 1982 Lebanon War, also called the Second Israeli invasion of Lebanon, began on 6 June 1982, when Israel invaded southern Lebanon. The invasion followed a series of attacks and counter-attacks between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) operating in southern Lebanon and the Israel Defense Forces, Israeli military, which had caused civilian casualties on both sides of the border. The Israeli military operation, codenamed Operation Peace for Galilee, was launched after gunmen from the Abu Nidal Organization attempted to assassinate Shlomo Argov, Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin blamed the PLO, using the incident as a ''casus belli''. It was the second invasion of Lebanon by Israel, following the 1978 South Lebanon conflict. The Israelis sought to end Palestinian insurgency in South Lebanon, Palestinian attacks from Lebanon, destroy the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the country, and install a pro-Israel Leban ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palestine Liberation Organization
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ) is a Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian nationalist coalition that is internationally recognized as the official representative of the Palestinians, Palestinian people in both the occupied Palestinian territories and the Palestinian diaspora, diaspora. It is currently represented by the Palestinian Authority based in the West Bank city of Al-Bireh. Founded in 1964, it initially sought to establish an Arab world, Arab state over the entire territory of the former Mandatory Palestine, advocating the elimination of Israel. Mediated talks between the Israeli government and the PLO in 1993 (the Oslo I Accord) resulted in the PLO recognizing Legitimacy of the State of Israel, Israel's legitimacy and accepting United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which mandated Israel's withdrawal from occupied territories, while Israel recognized the PLO as a legitimate authority representing the Palestinian people. Despite the Israel–Pal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Democratic Front For The Liberation Of Palestine
The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP; ) is a secular Palestinian Marxist–Leninist and Maoist organization. It is also frequently referred to as the Democratic Front, or al-Jabha al-Dīmūqrāṭiyya (). It is a member organization of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Alliance of Palestinian Forces and the Democratic Alliance List. The group was founded in 1969 by Nayef Hawatmeh, splitting from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). It maintains a paramilitary wing, the National Resistance Brigades. The DFLP's declared goal is to "create a People's democracy (Marxism–Leninism), people's democratic Palestine, where Arabs and Jews would live without discrimination, a state Classless society, without classes and national oppression, a state which allows Arabs and Jews to develop their national culture." The DFLP is well-known for the 1974 Ma'alot massacre, in which 25 schoolchildren and teachers were killed. Although the Nati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syrian Army
The Syrian Army is the land force branch of the Syrian Armed Forces. Up until the fall of the Assad regime, the Syrian Arab Army existed as a land force branch of the Syrian Arab Armed Forces, which dominanted the military service of the four uniformed services, controlling the most senior posts in the armed forces, and had the greatest manpower, approximately 80 percent of the combined services.. The Syrian Army originated in local military forces formed by the French after World War I, after France obtained a mandate over the region. It officially came into being in 1945, before Syria obtained full independence the following year and 2 years after official independance. After 1946, it played a major role in Syria's governance, mounting six military coups: two in 1949, including the March 1949 Syrian coup d'état and the August 1949 coup by Colonel Sami al-Hinnawi, and one each in 1951, 1954, 1963, 1966, and 1970. It fought four wars with Israel (1948, the Six-Day War in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Syrian Republic
The Second Syrian Republic, officially the Syrian Republic from 1950 to 1958 and the Syrian Arab Republic from 1961 to 1963, succeeded the First Syrian Republic that had become ''de facto'' independent in April 1946 from the French Mandate. The Second Republic was founded on the Syrian Constitution of 1950, which was suspended from 1950 to 1954 under Adib Shishakli's strongmanship, and later when Syria joined with the Republic of Egypt in forming the United Arab Republic in 1958. The Second Republic resumed when Syria withdrew from the union in 1961. In 1963, the Syrian Ba'athist Party came to power in a bloodless military coup, which laid the foundations for the political structure in Ba'athist Syria. The green, white, black and red flag is the first flag of the Syrian Arab Republic and with the shortest usage, that being from 1961 to 1963. It was also the flag of the Syrian opposition during the Syrian civil war, and became the official flag of Syria anew in 2025. B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
