{"id":25756,"date":"2018-12-16T11:23:02","date_gmt":"2018-12-16T11:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=25756"},"modified":"2018-12-16T11:23:02","modified_gmt":"2018-12-16T11:23:02","slug":"damascus-prepares-for-christmas-without-mortar-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=25756","title":{"rendered":"Damascus prepares for Christmas without mortar fire"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\" data-io-article-url=\"http:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/1421586\/middle-east\" readability=\"54\">\n<p>\nDAMASCUS: Christmas decorations are going up for the first time in years in a Damascus neighbourhood that was a frontline in Syria&#8217;s war until government forces wiped out the last rebel enclaves in the capital earlier this year.<br \/>&#8220;Christmas preparations this year are more than excellent. There are no mortars anymore,&#8221; said Hanna al-Saad, a shop owner in the Qasaa district that was often shelled from the adjacent area of Jobar.<br \/>Abbasiyeen Square, where mortars regularly fell, and nearby parts of the city are being decked out with lighting and Christmas trees, while musicians with a local scout troop are preparing for a Christmas march not seen for years.<br \/>&#8220;We are so happy. The children can now come again to the church without worrying for their safety, and their parents feel more reassured,&#8221; said Aline Droubi, a musician with the scout troop that practices at a church in Abbasiyeen.<br \/>The eastern edge of Damascus bore the brunt of insurgent shelling until government forces recovered control of the Ghouta region in a Russian-backed offensive that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says killed 1,600 civilians.<br \/>Over the course of the Syrian war, insurgent shelling killed some 2,000 people in Damascus, according to a Facebook group that recorded the attacks.<br \/>Following the recovery of eastern Ghouta in April, government forces moved on to take back the Yarmouk area south of the capital, bringing all Damascus back under state control.<br \/>&#8220;Last year we didn&#8217;t dare to walk in the streets a lot,&#8221; said Abir Ismail, a resident of al-Qasaa neighborhood, adjacent to Jobar town that was controlled by an armed faction.<br \/>&#8220;We had no electricity and there were no lights or decorations,&#8221; she added, expressing excitement at the sight of the decorated streets and houses this year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DAMASCUS: Christmas decorations are going up for the first time in years in a Damascus neighbourhood that was a frontline in Syria&#8217;s war until government forces wiped out the last rebel enclaves in the capital earlier this year.&#8221;Christmas preparations this year are more than excellent. There are no mortars anymore,&#8221; said Hanna al-Saad, a shop&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":25757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}