In the autonomous region of northern and eastern Syria, a woman was killed when a shell fired by the Turkish army hit her house on Saturday. Her husband was injured and hospitalized. Health officials said the 70-year-old man was not in danger of death.

The deadly attack targeted the village of Xalidiyê (al-Khalidiya), a few kilometres west of the town of Ain Issa. The victims were identified as Amsha Khalil Al-Bakari and Muhammad Al-Khalaf Al-Ali.

Al-Bakari's death brings the number of casualties since the beginning of Turkey's latest wave of attacks against northern and eastern Syria to at least sixteen. Nine of the victims are civilians. About twenty other people were injured. 

Since Thursday, the Turkish state has been carrying out a so-called "air-ground offensive" against north-eastern Syrian autonomous territory, justifying this with an attack by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Ankara on 1 October, when two PKK guerrillas carried out a sacrificial action in front of the Turkish Interior Ministry in the highly secured government quarter.

The Turkish air terror, which Ankara justifies with the right to self-defence, is specifically targeting the vital infrastructure of the civilian population of northern and eastern Syria. More than two million people are currently cut off from basic services, and the energy infrastructure of Hesekê, Qamişlo and Amûdê has been almost completely destroyed.

Attacks on the civilian population or civilian infrastructure constitute war crimes. The international community ignores this open breach of international law and lets Ankara have its way in its war against the Kurds without consequence. Not only in Syria, but also in Iraq, Turkey is given a permanent green light for war crimes.