Syria’s Hama full of ‘hope, joy’ one year after al-Assad forces’ exit 

Thousands of people have poured into the streets of Syria’s central city of Hama to mark one year since forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad were expelled days before the longtime ruler’s ouster.

The atmosphere in the city – long a stronghold of opposition to al-Assad – is one of “hope and belief” in Syria’s future, reported Al Jazeera’s Assed Baig from Hama’s al-Assi Square.

“As far as I can see on balconies on roofs, people are out celebrating this day,” said Baig. “They’re waving flags, they’re chanting slogans, they’re singing, and there’s hope for the future.”

On December 5, 2024, rebels led by Syria’s now-President Ahmed al-Sharaa took control of Hama, marking their second breakthrough in a lightning offensive towards the capital. Days later, they captured Damascus, ending al-Assad’s 24-year reign and his family’s dynasty, as he fled to Russia.

Al-Assad’s fall carries particular weight in Hama, which in 1982 suffered a brutal crackdown under his father, former President Hafez al-Assad.

In quelling an uprising there, government forces besieged and bombed the city, while rounding up and shooting young men and boys. The Syrian Network for Human Rights estimates that between 30,000 and 40,000 people, including entire families, were killed.

‘People are joyous’

Baig said today’s atmosphere in Hama is markedly different from when he last visited two decades ago.

“Back then, people would whisper, there was a sense of fear that the wrong word, the wrong sentence, could cause you to end up in trouble, disappeared to the regime forces’ prison or maybe even worse,” he said. “Now people are happy, celebrating, joyous.”

Syria’s new leader, al-Sharaa, who once led al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria and then the splinter group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, has made a stunning turnaround since taking the reins of the country, largely restoring Syria’s international standing and securing critical sanctions relief.

Serving as president for a five-year transitional period, al-Sharaa has toured capitals from the Gulf to Europe to Washington, and this week hosted a delegation from the United Nations Security Council in Syria.

In September, he was the first Syrian leader to address the United Nations General Assembly in six decades.

‘New chapter’

But there are concerns about continuing sectarian bloodshed in Syria’s Alawite and Druze minority heartland, which some government forces and their allies have been implicated in and faced trial for.

Clashes and reprisals targeting the Alawite community, from which al-Assad hails, killed more than 1,700 people in March, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.

Then, further clashes in south Syria’s Druze-majority Suwayda province left hundreds more dead in July, including many Druze civilians, according to the monitor.

Israel intervened, under the pretext of protecting the Druze, and bombed the south and Damascus. It continues to carry out deadly incursions and strikes in Syria to this day. Last week, at least 13 people, including children, were killed as Israel launched another incursion into Syrian territory in the Damascus countryside, in Beit Jinn.

Nanar Hawach, a senior Syria analyst at the International Crisis Group, said “Syria has opened a new chapter that many once thought impossible” by rebuilding diplomatic ties and drawing foreign investment. But “international rehabilitation means little if all Syrians don’t feel safe walking their own streets”.

Gamal Mansour, a researcher at the University of Toronto, says that many Syrians, terrified of the potential chaos a power vacuum could unleash, still view al-Sharaa as “the only option that provides guarantees”.

In al-Hama, Baig says there’s hope “the government will be able to deliver … unity and freedom for all Syrians.”