The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

“Entrenchment” is the word that best describes the Middle East in March.

In Egypt, coup leader Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi “hung up” his military fatigues to announce his candidacy for president. Meanwhile, those opposed to Sisi and the coup continued to face the bloody consequences, as an Egyptian court sentenced 529 Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers to death.

In Turkey, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan continued his authoritarian trend by blocking access to Twitter, where his opponents had been releasing damning audio recordings that apparently revealed corruption in his inner circle. Despite the harsh reaction to this move, Erdogan’s AKP party emerged victorious in the country’s March 30 municipal elections.

In Syria, the killing continued and little progress was made on a diplomatic solution to the civil war. The flow of Syrian refugees into Lebanon also continued, causing significant logistical and social problems for the fragile nation.

Israel continued to show its defiance throughout the month by advancing plans to construct settlements in the West Bank. New statistics also show that the country is killing Palestinians at an alarming rate.

Below is a summary of March in numbers:

529 supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood were sentenced to death by a judge in Minya, Egypt for the death of a single police officer. This is the largest capital punishment conviction in the history of modern Egypt.

3,143 Egyptians are estimated to have been killed since the July 3 military coup, according to a new Carnegie Endowment for International Peace report. The report also noted that 18,977 Egyptians have been arrested for political reasons during the same time period.

150,000 people have died in the Syrian civil war, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

1 million Syrians are now residing in Lebanon, increasing the country’s total population by more than 20 percent.