Reports & Papers

What does it mean to destroy not just a city, but the very conditions that make return possible? Spatial planner Marh Echtai examines the July 2025 assault on Suweida through the interlocking frameworks of urbicide, domicide, and ecocide, arguing that the violence visited upon the Druze community was not a security operation gone wrong, but a deliberate, layered strategy of spatial erasure.

This paper begins from a central question about how issues of ownership and its documentation, the need for new planning schemes, and population shifts linked to displacement and return, reveal the challenges faced by returnees and residents in these informal settlements - especially women - in securing their rights to housing and property and to living in stable environments after the fall of the Assad regime.

This paper analyses how the transitional administration has dealt with the housing, land and property (HLP) file in Syria following the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024. It points to the continued rights violations despite some initial positive steps taken by the transitional government. While acknowledging the difficulty of the current phase and the short span of time since the new administration assumed power, the current approach remains circumstantial and transitional, lacking a unified vision or a clear rights-based path.

This report, exposes the widespread forgery of civil and property records in Azaz after 2017, including ID cards, legal powers of attorney, and property deeds, which were used to sell the properties of absent and deceased owners without their knowledge. The report also highlights the profound impact of these practices on trust in property institutions and on investment in the area, in addition to the disputes arising between original owners and new buyers.

This report, examines two interconnected cases: the seizure of properties and lands belonging to displaced people from Afrin after the “Olive Branch” operation and the construction of new villages on them, as well as the appropriation of privately-owned lands in rural Idlib for the construction of camps.

This report, examines two interconnected cases: the seizure of properties and lands belonging to displaced people from Afrin after the “Olive Branch” operation and the construction of new villages on them, as well as the appropriation of privately-owned lands in rural Idlib for the construction of camps.

Since its establishment in November 2017, the SSG has addressed issues related to housing, land, and property (HLP) rights in its areas of control. A review of SSG’s previous decisions can shed light about the upcoming phase. One of the most significant challenges faced by the SSG was addressing the aftermath of the February 6, 2023 earthquake, which caused the collapse of hundreds of properties in Idlib and parts of rural Aleppo. Additionally, the substantial population pressure resulting from displacement and forced migration to Idlib posed challenges regarding urban planning, population organisation, and the growing demand for housing.

This report seeks to define the concept of early recovery in the Syrian context and its relationship to the reconstruction process in Syria and directing attention to the potential effects of early recovery projects on HLP rights in Syria.

This policy-orientated report examines the capacity of regime-controlled areas to effectively engage in early recovery and rehabilitation and uses Damascus as the primary case study due to the scale of its destruction and the variety of reconstruction projects undertaken there in recent years.

The following report by the Syrians for Truth and Justice NGO documents the illegal seizure of agricultural lands owned by IDPs in the Hama and Idlib governorates.

In the current Syrian political discourse, the term "early recovery" has been used increasingly to refer to various, often vague, concepts, with its meaning largely dependent on who is using the term and their intentions. Mazen Ezzi, the editor of our HLP section, seeks to uncover what lays behind this expression.

This article focuses on the case study of Aleppo and documents the results of an original public opinion survey of 1,600 residents on how they value their heritage, how they perceive its destruction, whether they view reconstruction as a priority, and the extent to which they support foreign efforts to rebuild.

This 41-page research report sheds light on the violations of housing, land, and property rights perpetrated by the Turkish military and the SNA-affiliated armed groups in the Ras Al-Ayn/Serê Kaniyê and Tal Abyad areas.

This research report briefs 90 face-to-face interviews PÊL conducted with victims of property rights violations or with their families. This paper also sheds light on the arbitrary rule of the Turkish Army and Syrian rebels over Afrin and their ongoing human rights violations and abuses against the original population of the region in general and the Kurds in particular.

The objective of this paper is to inform a policy dialogue on area-based approaches for urban recovery in general, and cultural heritage preservation and restoration in particular. In doing so, the aim is to foster debate on the challenges and opportunities that urban cultural heritage recovery represents.

This brief focuses on 12 laws, enacted by the Syrian Government, which have the effect, by specific design or as a by-product of another goal, of creating obstacles for returning Syrians to recover property that was in their possession prior to the conflict.

This legal analytical and policy paper assesses both the development and current state of HLP rights and security of tenure in informal settlements with the aim of informing future international programming and domestic policy decisions addressing or otherwise impacting informal settlement communities in Syria.

This paper outlines how Syria can develop more liveable, economically viable, and environmentally sustainable places in the post-conflict phase. It projects four scenarios, each with varying numbers and characteristics of returning refugees and IDPs.

In this paper we describe and explain geographical patterns of destruction, reconstruction and housing practices in Damascus in 2019, less than one year after the city has been brought back under government control.

This article advances the concept of urbicide, or the deliberate killing of a city. It argues that the ruination in Syria is not simply collateral damage or driven by military necessity, but also involves economic and political calculations.