AMMAN: Syria and its main ally Russia blamed Israel for carrying out an attack on a Syrian air base near Homs on Monday which followed reports of a poison gas attack by President Bashar Assad’s forces on a rebel-held town.
Israel, which has struck Syrian army locations many times in the course of its neighbor’s seven-year-old civil war, has not confirmed nor denied mounting the raid.
But Israeli officials said the Tiyas, or T-4, air base was being used by troops from Iran and that Israel would not accept such a presence in Syria by its arch foe.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitor, said at least 14 people were killed including some fighters of various nationalities, a reference to Iranian-backed Shiite militia members, mostly from Iraq, Lebanon and Iran fighting alongside the Syrian army.
The attack demonstrated the multi-faceted nature of the Syria conflict, which started in March 2011 as an uprising against Assad and now involves several countries and various insurgent groups in a web of alliances.
It took place hours after US President Donald Trump warned of a “big price to pay” following the reports of a poison gas attack on the rebel-held town of Douma which killed dozens of people, including children.
Trump referred in a Tweet to “Animal Assad” and criticized Russia and Iran for backing the Syrian leader, directly naming Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Damascus denied its forces had launched any chemical assault and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said such allegations were false and a provocation. Lavrov also said the strike on the T-4 base was a dangerous development.
Syrian state TV initially said the US was suspected of carrying out the attack on T-4. Washington denied this, and France, which in February had said it would strike in the event of a chemical weapon attack on civilians by Syrian government forces, also said its forces were not involved.
The Russian military, whose support for Assad has turned the war in his favor, said two Israeli F-15 war planes carried out the strike. Interfax news agency cited the Russian Defense Ministry as saying Syrian air defense systems had shot down five of eight missiles fired.
Syrian state media, citing a military source, carried a similar report. “The Israeli aggression on the T4 airport was carried out with F-15 planes that fired several missiles from above Lebanese land,” state news agency SANA said.
Red lines
The Israeli government had no immediate comment.
Israel has accused Damascus of allowing Iran to set up a complex at the T-4 base to supply arms to its ally, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and in the past its forces have hit convoys and bases of Iranian-backed militias that fight alongside Assad’s troops.
Defense analysts say a number of Russian troops are also based there and jets fly regular sorties from T-4.
Israeli opposition lawmaker Yair Lapid told Army Radio: “Israel will not accept an Iranian military presence in Syria and will not accept Iran’s creeping entrenchment in Syria and this has costs.”
Housing Minister Yoav Galant, while also not confirming that Israel had carried out the attack, said: “We have clear interests in Syria. We laid down red lines there, which said that we would not allow Syrian land to be a springboard for game-changing weaponry to Lebanon, we would not allow the building of an Iranian army in Syria and we would not allow the opening of another front on the Golan Heights.
“In this context we are taking action with all means, over time.”
As international officials worked to try to confirm Saturday’s chemical attack on Douma, a Syria medical relief group said at least 60 people had been killed there and more than 1,000 injured in several sites.
Foam at the mouth
The Syrian American Medical Society and the civil defense service, which operates in rebel-held areas, said 49 people had been killed in the suspected gas attack. The Syrian opposition blamed the suspected chemical attack on government forces, who launched an air and ground assault on Douma, the last rebel-held town in the eastern Ghouta district, on Friday.
One video shared by activists showed bodies of about a dozen children, women and men, some with foam at the mouth.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports.
The US launched a missile strike on a Syrian air base a year ago in response to the killing of dozens of civilians in a sarin gas attack in an opposition-held town in northwest Syria. The gas attack was blamed on Assad.
US government sources said Washington’s assessment of Saturday’s attack was that chemical weapons were used. The EU also said evidence pointed to the use of chemical weapons by Assad’s forces.
Israel blamed for missile strike in Syria; 14 reported dead
Israel blamed for missile strike in Syria; 14 reported dead
- Syria, Russia accuse Israel over strike on Syrian air base
- Russia said two Israeli aircraft targeted the T4 air base in Homs province, firing eight missiles
Settler attacks push Palestinians to abandon West Bank village, residents say
The Israeli military said it was “looking into” the legality of the outpost at Maghayer Al-Deir
MAGHAYER AL-DEIR, Palestinian Territories: Palestinian residents of Maghayer Al-Deir in the occupied West Bank told AFP on Thursday that they had begun packing their belonging and preparing to leave the village following repeated attacks by Israeli settlers.
Yusef Malihat, a resident of the tiny village east of Ramallah, told AFP his community had decided to leave because its members felt powerless in the face of the settler violence.
“No one provides us with protection at all,” he said, a keffiyeh scarf protecting his head from the sun as he loaded a pickup truck with chain-link fencing previously used to pen up sheep and goats.
“They demolished the houses and threatened us with expulsion and killing,” he said, as a group of settlers looked on from a new outpost a few hundred meters away.
The West Bank is home to about three million Palestinians, but also some 500,000 Israelis living in settlements that are considered illegal under international law.
Settlement outposts, built informally and sometimes overnight, are considered illegal under Israeli law too, although enforcement is relatively rare.
The Israeli military told AFP it was “looking into” the legality of the outpost at Maghayer Al-Deir.
“It’s very sad, what’s happening now... even for an outpost,” said Itamar Greenberg, an Israeli peace activist present at Maghayer Al-Deir on Thursday.
“It’s a new outpost 60 meters from the last house of the community, and on Sunday one settler told me that in one month, the Bedouins will not be here, but it (happened much) more quickly,” he told AFP.
The Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission denounced Maghayer Al-Deir’s displacement, describing it as being the result of the “terrorism of the settler militias.”
It said in a statement that a similar fate had befallen 29 other Bedouin communities, whose small size and isolation in rural areas make them more vulnerable.
In the area east of Ramallah, where hills slope down toward the Jordan Valley, Maghayer Al-Deir was one of the last remaining communities after the residents of several others were recently displaced.
Its 124 residents will now be dispersed to other nearby areas.
Malihat told AFP some would go to the Christian village of Taybeh just over 10 kilometers (six miles) away, and others to Ramallah.
Uncertain they would be able to return, the families loaded all they could fit in their trucks, including furniture, irrigation pipes and bales of hay.
WFP says ‘handful of bakeries’ making bread again in Gaza
- “A handful of bakeries in south and central Gaza have resumed bread production,” WFP said
ROME: The UN’s World Food Programme said Thursday a “handful of bakeries” in Gaza had begun making and distributing bread again after Israel allowed aid trucks into the Strip.
“A handful of bakeries in south and central Gaza... have resumed bread production after dozens of trucks were finally able to collect cargo from the Kerem Shalom border crossing and deliver it overnight,” the WFP said in a statement.
“These bakeries are now operational distributing bread via hot meal kitchens,” it said.
Morocco to spend $670m to replenish livestock up to 2026
- Six years of drought reduced the cattle and sheep herds by 38 percent this year
- The government also includes aid to farmers
RABAT: Morocco plans to spend 6.2 billion dirhams ($670 mln) on a 2025-2026 program to replenish its livestock herd, which has been reduced following years of prolonged drought, agriculture minister Ahmed El Bouari said on Thursday.
Six years of drought caused mass job losses in the farming sector and reduced the cattle and sheep herds by 38 percent this year, compared to the last census nine years ago.
Under the recovery program, 3 billion dirhams will be allocated in 2025 and 3.2 billion next year to measures including debt relief and restructuring for livestock farmers, as well as feed subsidies, Bouari told reporters.
The government also includes aid to farmers who retain breeding female livestock, along with veterinary campaigns, genetic improvement and artificial insemination, he said.
In February, authorities asked citizens to forgo the ritual of slaughtering sheep on the Eid Adha this year, to help restore the sheep herd.
In north Lebanon, Syrian Alawites shelter among graves
- “We each have our own horror story that drove us to this place,” said a man with sunken eyes
- Around 600 people have sought shelter at the Hissa mosque
HISSA, Lebanon: Behind a ramshackle mosque in Hissa, north Lebanon, the living are making a home for themselves among the dead.
Beside mounds of garbage in the shade of towering trees, men, women and children from Syria’s minority Alawite community seek shelter among the graves surrounding the half-built mosque — grateful to have escaped the sectarian violence at home but fearing for their future.
“We each have our own horror story that drove us to this place,” said a man with sunken eyes.
One such story was of a mother who had been killed in front of her children by unknown militants as they crossed the border, said others staying at the mosque.
All of the refugees that spoke to Reuters requested anonymity for fear of retribution.
Around 600 people have sought shelter at the Hissa mosque. Hundreds sleep in the main hall, including a day-old baby.
On the building’s unfinished second story, plastic sheets stretched over wooden beams divide traumatized families.
Others sleep on the roof. One family has set up camp under the stairwell, another by the tomb of a local saint. Some sleep on the graves in the surrounding cemetery, others under trees with only thin blankets for warmth.
They are among the tens of thousands refugees who have fled Syria since March, when the country suffered its worst bloodshed since Bashar Assad was toppled from power by Islamist-led rebels in December.
Almost 40,000 people have fled Syria into north Lebanon since then, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said in a statement.
The outflow comes at a time when humanitarian funding is being squeezed after US President Donald Trump’s decision to freeze foreign aid and dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID) earlier this year.
NEEDS BUT NO RESOURCES
The recent violence in Syria, which has pitted the Islamist-led government’s security forces against fighters from the Alawite minority, the sect to which Assad’s family belongs, has killed more than 1,000 people since March.
For more than 50 years, Assad and his father before him crushed any opposition from Syria’s Sunni Muslims, who make up more than 70 percent of the population. Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, took many of the top positions in government and the military and ran big businesses.
Alawites now accuse the new government of President Ahmed Al-Sharaa of exacting revenge, but Sharaa says he will pursue inclusive policies to unite the country shattered by civil war and attract foreign investment.
Trump said last week he would lift sanctions on Syria, triggering hopes of economic renewal. But this has provided little comfort to the refugees in northern Lebanon, who are struggling to meet their basic needs.
“UNHCR, but also other agencies, are not now in a position to say you can count on us,” said Ivo Freijsen, UNHCR representative in Lebanon, in an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation in April.
“So, in response to new arrivals, yes, we will try, but it will be less (than before).”
More refugees come from Syria every day. Almost 50 people arrived over two days last week, said one camp representative, who asked not to be named for security reasons.
UNHCR is equipping new arrivals with essential items like mattresses, blankets and clothes, as well as providing medical help and mental health support, said a spokesperson.
“UNHCR is also conducting rehabilitation works in shelters to make sure families are protected,” the spokesperson added.
’FORGOTTEN’ REFUGEES
At the mosque, food is scarce and the portable toilets provided by an aid group have flooded. Garbage is piling up and is attracting vermin. Snakes have been killed in the camp, and one refugee spoke of the “biggest centipedes we have ever seen.”
The camp’s children have nowhere to go.
It can be difficult for refugee children to access Lebanon’s school system, Human Rights Watch has said, while the refugees at the mosque say private schools are too expensive and may not accept children enrolling mid-year.
“We are becoming a refugee camp without realizing it,” said another man, also speaking on condition of anonymity.
“We need schools, we need toilets, we need clinics.”
He said he fled his home in Damascus after being warned by his neighbor that militants were asking about him. He never expects to go back and is hoping to move abroad.
But in the meantime, he said he needs to create a life for his children.
“What’s his fault?” he asked, beckoning to his nine-year-old son. “He was a computer whiz and now he is not even going to school.”
The refugees sheltering in the mosque are among the millions of people affected by Trump’s decision to freeze US funding to humanitarian programs in February.
The UNHCR has been forced to reduce all aspects of its operations in Lebanon, Freijsen said, including support to Syrian refugees.
The UNHCR had enough money to cover only 14 percent of its planned operations in Lebanon and 17 percent of its global operations by the end of March, the UN agency said in a report.
“Our assistance is not what it is supposed to be,” Freijsen said. “In the past, we always had the resources, or we could easily mobilize the resources. These days are over, and that’s painful.”
The people in the mosque fear that they have been forgotten.
“Human rights are a lie,” a third man said, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. “It is just something (that the powerful) instrumentalize when they want.”
More than 70 UN member states demand protection of civilians amid mounting fears over Gaza
- Joint statement ahead of UN debate on the issue highlights plight of Palestinians as Israel launches major offensive
- ‘Today, we come with one clear message: The protection of civilians is not optional,’ the states say
NEW YORK CITY: More than 70 UN member states signed a joint statement calling for the urgent protection of civilians in armed conflicts, amid fears that thousands of Palestinians in Gaza could face starvation.
The statement preceded an annual open debate at the UN on the issue of protecting civilians, which included a briefing from the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, who this week warned that 14,000 babies in Gaza were at risk of dying from hunger. Israel launched its latest major military offensive in the territory this week.
“Civilians in armed conflicts continue to live under unthinkable conditions of constant danger, insecurity and suffering,” the joint statement said.
At least 36,000 civilian deaths were recorded in 14 armed conflicts last year, and tens of thousands of people were injured as a result of explosive devices, it added.
It cited reports from the UN’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, that warned Gaza is facing the “worst humanitarian crisis” since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October 2023.
“This cannot continue,” the statement continued. “Today, we come with one clear message: The protection of civilians is not optional. It is a legal obligation under international humanitarian law, and a moral imperative we cannot afford to neglect.
“Civilian women and men, children, older persons, and persons with disabilities, all suffer. Health workers, farmers, teachers are killed, injured and forced to flee. Civilians are too often targeted or simply abandoned in the calculus of war.
“Their protection must not be a secondary consideration — it must be central to all military planning and political decisions.”
The UN debate on Thursday also included a briefing by Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross. The organization has repeatedly warned of imminent famine in Gaza, following Israel’s implementation in March of a blockade on humanitarian goods entering the territory.
Although the blockade was lifted this week, the UN has still struggled to transport desperately needed aid into the enclave. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Wednesday that the Israeli military has provided aid trucks with access to Gaza only via an unsafe road. Discussions between the international organization and Israel are ongoing, he added.
The joint statement said: “We commend the vital role of humanitarian actors, and we condemn all acts of violence and threats against them. Last year was the deadliest year on record for humanitarian personnel, when more than 360 humanitarians were killed in 20 countries.
“This has to stop. We reaffirm our determination to take concrete measures and use diplomatic means to ensure the safety and security of humanitarian personnel, and to enable them to carry out their activities and mandate in accordance with humanitarian principles.”
Several major countries were absent from the list of signatories, but those who did sign included the EU, China and France, as well as Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Arab world.
“Let us reiterate our collective responsibility to protect the most vulnerable, to uphold international law, to prioritize the safety, dignity and rights of civilians, and to ensure that their faces and voices — so often invisible and silenced behind statistics — remain central to our actions,” the statement added.
“Let us recommit not only to words, but to concrete steps — toward protection, toward accountability, and ultimately, toward peace.”
