The only image etched in my memory happened the day Ahrar al-Sham entered our village is being beaten in front of my family, being insulted with foul language, and being labeled as a disbeliever. All this was done to seize my home in the village of Al-Yaqoubiya in western Idlib.

Elias recounts this while flipping through photos of his home, his eyes drifting into every detail and memory captured in those photos of his family’s large house in the village, which includes a towering church amid olive groves north of the city of Jisr al-Shughur. This area once witnessed the coexistence of Syrians until the entry of Islamic factions that expelled many Christians and replaced them with families of various nationalities.

Elias and over 650 Christian families left the villages of Al-Yaqoubiya and Al-Qunaya in western Idlib in 2013 after Ahrar al-Sham entered the village and imposed practices that restricted the residents’ religious and social freedoms. The faction’s members also occupied homes within the two villages, where Christians formed the majority of the population.

Disputes Over Seized Homes

Eleven years have passed since most Christian families were displaced from Al-Qunaya and Al-Yaqoubiya, and their lands were occupied by radical factions. On July 18, the Syrian Salvation Government, the administrative wing of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), announced the return of 30 Christian families to Idlib province from various Syrian areas. This announcement was made by the Directorate of Religious Affairs in the government, with no details on where the families returned to or from which areas they originated. The directorate claimed it constantly communicates with Christians in northwestern Syria, holding regular meetings to convey their suffering and problems to relevant authorities, and coordinates with Christian families living in regime-held areas to facilitate their return to their towns.

Elias, who preferred not to reveal his full identity due to concerns for his relative still in Al-Yaqoubiya, said: “I did not leave the village voluntarily or out of a desire to travel abroad. We owned more than 60 dunams of land planted with olive and peach trees, and our financial situation was stable. However, the harassment by Ahrar al-Sham members forced me to leave my land, which was initially seized by Ahrar al-Sham, then Ansar al-Tawhid, and is now controlled by the Turkistan Islamic Party. I only hear occasional news about it from my elderly relative who remained in the village.”

In his call with Daraj, Elias added: “In January 2013, 14 armed men stormed our house, forced my brother and me to crouch, and searched the rooms without regard for my mother and sisters’ presence. One of the men took down a cross from the wall and broke it, while another pocketed a small marble statue of the Virgin Mary, perhaps thinking it was gold and could be sold. This all happened before two men beat us, accused us of blasphemy, and then left, leaving my mother’s eyes filled with tears of anger.”

“We stayed in the house for six more months after that incident. The militants occupied a neighbor’s house, then the church, preventing us from praying or ringing the bells. Day by day, new families, related to the militants, moved into the village houses. Faced with this pressure, my family and I decided to leave for Aleppo and abandon our home. In 2016, I reached Sweden, and now I only have photos of my village sent by my relative. I don’t think I or any of my family will return unless the strangers leave our homes.”

“Almost every month for the past few years, disputes involving individual weapons have erupted over homes left by their owners in Al-Qunaya and Al-Yaqoubiya, between families associated with the Turkestan Party on one side and Syrian families on the other. According to human rights activist Amer Al-Jasri, dozens of families have settled in the two villages since 2014, some from villages in Jisr al-Shughur, others from the Turkestan faction (Uyghurs), and others from different provinces, militarily linked to HTS. However, these disputes have decreased over the past year after HTS took over the issue through its security apparatus, imposing monthly fees on the residents of the occupied homes, which go to HTS’s treasury.”

In the past 11 years, accompanied by the change in the population identity in Al-Qunaya and Al-Yaqoubiya, it can be said that the two villages underwent a demographic transformation, replacing Christian families with Muslim ones, erasing their religious identity and losing their distant historical heritage, as Amer mentioned.

Al-Yaqoubiya and Al-Qunaya were not the only Christian-identified villages in Idlib. About 26 km to the southwest lie the town of Al-Ghassaniyeh and the villages of Halouz and Al-Burj, which now host families of different nationalities after the original inhabitants were displaced. Since 2015, these areas have been subjected to Russian airstrikes, resulting in the destruction of residential houses and infrastructure.

Even the Olive Trees…

The armed factions controlling northwestern Syria, primarily “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham” (HTS) and the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), have not only seized homes belonging to Christians but have also taken control of agricultural lands in the Jisr al-Shughur countryside. According to agricultural engineer Mousa Al-Kahal, these lands cover more than 2055 hectares planted with olive and apricot trees, including unplanted lands stretching across the regions of Al-Quniya, Al-Yaqubiya, Al-Ghassaniyeh, and Halouz.

The lands of these villages extend towards the Latakia mountains, rich in rainfall and fertile soil, which previously provided a good income for their owners. Today, these lands are under the economic control of the TIP, which has monopolized the economic benefits from these lands, as reported by George Srour, a resident of Ghassaniyeh now living in Aleppo.

The TIP annually harvests the olive crop from Christian lands in the Jisr al-Shughur area, particularly in Al-Yaqubiya, Al-Ghassaniyeh, and Al-Quniya, using local laborers who are paid daily wages of no more than $2.5. Over the past years, the harvested olives were taken to local presses without the party paying the so-called “Zakat on crops” fees to HTS. In contrast, other local farmers must pay a Zakat fee of 5 percent of their olive yield to HTS’s General Zakat Authority after pressing their olives, while remaining Christian families are charged up to 35 percent on their crops.

Year after year, the condition of the olive trees under the control of the TIP deteriorates. These trees, originally owned by Christians, suffer from neglect, lack of pruning, and absence of fertilization and pesticide application, according to agricultural engineer Mousa Al-Kahal. This neglect threatens a bleak future for these trees if the current situation persists.

Image Polishing

The HTS imposes discriminatory restrictions on the remaining residents of Al-Yaqubiya and Al-Quniya, who number no more than 240 people, including clergy and church servants, according to George Srour. Most of these residents are elderly and are deprived of weekly prayers in the churches and the ringing of church bells. Crosses on church walls have been removed, women are forced to wear hijabs, and private parties are prohibited.

In 2021, activists circulated photos of Christmas celebrations in the Al-Yaqubiya church. HTS-affiliated accounts claimed these were Christian celebrations in the areas controlled by the Salvation Government. Observers interpreted this as an attempt by HTS to portray itself as preserving religious diversity in its areas, even while its foreign members occupy the homes of Christians and Druze and call themselves the “sole Sunni project,” ignoring Syria’s historical diversity.

In July 2022, HTS’s media section, Amjad Agency, released photos of Jolani with several figures, purportedly from his visit to the villages of Al-Yaqubiya, Al-Quniya, and Al-Jdeideh in the Jisr al-Shughur countryside, where he met with local dignitaries. No additional details about the meeting topics were provided.

Before Jolani’s meeting with Christians, he had a similar meeting with the elders of the Druze-majority villages of Jabal al-Summaq, following hundreds of recorded violations by HTS and similar factions against both Christians and Druze, including the 2015 Qalb Lawza massacre, in which 24 Druze were killed by Jabhat al-Nusra, led by the commander Safina al-Tunisi.