Bio
Walid Al Nofal
Walid Al Nofal is a journalist with Syria Direct originally from Daraa province in southern Syria. He worked as a field reporter shortly after the Syrian revolution began in 2011 until he moved to Jordan in 2013. Today, Walid’s work focuses on documenting humanitarian violations committed by various actors in the Syrian conflict.
Latest Articles
Daraa residents turn to clan reconciliation over the court system
People in Syria’s southern Houran region have long turned to clan reconciliation processes to resolve thorny disputes. The practice increased after 2011, and peaked over the past three years, with residents choosing the clans over the courts with the encouragement of regime legal representatives.
Communities in southern Syria take on the drug trade
Communities and local armed groups in Syria’s southern Suwayda and Daraa provinces are taking the fight against drug traffickers and smugglers into their own hands. With Damascus and Hezbollah profiting from the trade, they face an uphill battle.
Idlib camps increasingly permanent despite ‘dream of return’
Thirteen years after the Syrian revolution, displacement camps in Idlib’s Atma look increasingly like towns, tents replaced by cement buildings. Has the dream of return been lost?
Under the axe: The fall of Daraa’s forests and fruit trees
Trees have fallen under the axe in Daraa and across Syria since the spring 2011 revolution, cut for wood to sell or use as an alternative to heating and cooking gas during war, siege and economic crises. Since 2020, however, logging has increased to include fruit-bearing trees on private farmland and within cities.
How does IS resurrect itself in southern Syria, defeat after defeat?
After each blow to the Islamic State in southern Syria inflicted by former opposition factions, the group simply reshuffles its ranks and reactivates its cells. How does IS regenerate itself, what is its future in the south and what is the regime’s relationship with it?
‘Worst since the beginning of the 20th century’: What does 2024 hold for Syria’s economy in freefall?
In 2023, the Syrian pound fell to an unprecedented low, with living conditions in the country at their “worst since the beginning of the 20th century.” Will 2024 bring any relief, or only more of the same?
HTS looks to Idlib’s Christians and Druze to whitewash violations (map)
After years of violations, HTS aims to adopt a new policy of openness towards Idlib’s minorities, returning some seized properties and encouraging Christians and Druze to return. Still, discrimination persists and the hardline group has not compensated property owners for years of losses.
Israel strikes and Iran mobilizes: Is further escalation likely in Syria?
Syria’s fronts with Israel remain relatively quiet, while intensified Israeli strikes and mobilization by Iran-linked forces in the country leave the door open to increased escalation.
‘We pay the price for their conflict’: Civilians across northern Syria under Damascus and Ankara’s bombs
Bombings across northern Syria this month—by the Syrian regime and Russia against the HTS-controlled northwest, and by Turkey in the SDF-controlled northeast—have something in common: killing civilians and damaging infrastructure.
As Assad ‘ignores’ Suwayda’s uprising, what is the movement’s future?
Damascus continues to outwardly ignore Suwayda’s uprising—the longest, most organized and widespread protests in the southern province’s recent history—while demonstrators believe their movement can hold strong.