DAMASCUS: The Syrian government has agreed to extend by another three months the use of two border crossings with Turkiye into the rebel-held northwest that were opened for aid delivery after a deadly earthquake in February, Syrian and UN officials said Saturday.
Syrian President Bashar Assad had agreed to open the border crossings at Bab Al-Salameh and Al-Rai for three months to allow aid to flow into Idlib province a week after the Feb. 6, earthquake that hit southern Turkiye and northern Syria.
The earthquake has killed more than 50,000 people, including over 6,000 in Syria, according to the United Nations. The quake also displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
Following a request by the UN and ensuing discussions, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad conveyed to UN Under-Secretary-General Martin Griffiths the decision by Syria’s government to allow the UN to continue using the two border crossing points for an additional three months, said Eri Kaneko, spokesperson for the UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Syria’s ambassador to the UN Bassam Sabbagh tweeted that the period has been extended for another three months based on Syria’s determination to enhance “stability and improve the living and humanitarian” conditions of all Syrians. He added the move also aims to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to those in need in all of Syria.
Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib is home to some 4 million people, many of whom had been earlier displaced during the country’s 12-year civil war, which has killed nearly half a million people.
David Carden, the UN’s Deputy Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria crisis, said during a visit to Idlib earlier this month that since the earthquake some 2,000 trucks have crossed the border from Turkiye, providing assistance such as shelter, food, medical supplies and other services.
Carden added that the earthquake damaged or destroyed the homes of about 855,000 people.
In 2014, the Security Council authorized four border crossings to deliver aid to northwest Syria — two from Turkiye, one from Jordan and one from Iraq. In January 2020, Syria’s close ally Russia used its veto threat to reduce the number of crossing to the two from Turkiye. The following July, China and Russia used their veto power to reduce the number to just a single crossing.
Syria extends opening of 2 border crossings with Turkiye for quake aid
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Syria extends opening of 2 border crossings with Turkiye for quake aid
- Syrian President Bashar Assad had agreed to open the border crossings at Bab al-Salameh and al-Rai for three months
- Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad conveyed to UN Under-Secretary-General Martin Griffiths the decision
Gaza rescuers say 3 aid workers killed in Israel strike
- The agency said the aid workers killed were Palestinian employees of World Central Kitchen
- The US aid group did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment
GAZA: Gaza’s civil defense agency said three aid workers were killed in an Israeli air strike in the Hamas-run territory on Saturday but the Israeli army said it killed a “terrorist.”
The agency said the aid workers killed were Palestinian employees of World Central Kitchen. The US aid group did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment.
The Israeli army said it had “struck a vehicle with a terrorist that took part in the murderous October 7 massacre,” referring to militant group Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel last year.
“The claim that the terrorist was simultaneously a WCK worker is being examined,” it added in a statement.
Civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the bodies of “at least five dead were transported (to hospital), including (those of) the three employees of World Central Kitchen.”
“All three men worked for WCK and they were hit while driving in a WCK jeep in Khan Yunis,” Bassal said, adding that the vehicle had been “marked with its logo clearly visible.”
The Israeli army insisted its strike in the main southern city hit “a civilian unmarked vehicle and its movement on the route was not coordinated for transporting of aid.”
In April, an Israeli air strike killed seven WCK staff — an Australian, three Britons, a North American, a Palestinian and a Pole.
Israel said it had been targeting a “Hamas gunman” in that strike but the military admitted a series of “grave mistakes” and violations of its own rules of engagement.
The October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,207 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed 44,382 people in Gaza, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.
Several wounded in two Israeli strikes in south Lebanon, health ministry says
- Later on Saturday, another person was injured in a separate Israeli strike on Al Bisariya
- The Israeli military said it had attacked a Hezbollah facility
CAIRO: An Israeli strike on a car wounded three people, including a seven-year-old child, on Saturday in the south Lebanon village of Majdal Zoun, the Lebanese Health Ministry said in a statement.
Later on Saturday, another person was injured in a separate Israeli strike on Al Bisariya, which lies near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, the ministry said.
The Israeli military said it had attacked a Hezbollah facility in Sidon that housed rocket launchers for the armed group.
It added that it had also hit a vehicle in southern Lebanon loaded with rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and military equipment as part of its actions against ceasefire violations.
A truce came into effect on Wednesday, but both sides have accused each other of breaching a ceasefire that aims to halt over a year of fighting.
West faces ‘reckoning’ over Middle East radicalization: UK spy chief
- MI6 head Richard Moore cites ‘terrible loss of innocent life’
- ‘In 37 years in the intelligence profession, I’ve never seen the world in a more dangerous state’
LONDON: The West has “yet to have a full reckoning with the radicalizing impact of the fighting, the terrible loss of innocent life in the Middle East and the horrors of Oct. 7,” the head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service MI6 has warned.
Richard Moore made the comments in a speech delivered to the British Embassy in Paris, and was joined by his French counterpart Nicolas Lerner.
Moore said: “In 37 years in the intelligence profession, I’ve never seen the world in a more dangerous state. And the impact on Europe, our shared European home, could hardly be more serious.”
Daesh is expanding its reach and staging deadly attacks in Iran and Russia despite suffering significant territorial setbacks, he added, warning that “the menace of terrorism has not gone away.”
In October last year, Ken McCallum, the head of Britain’s domestic intelligence service MI5, said his agency was monitoring for increased terror risks in the UK due to the Gaza war. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in over a year of fighting.
In Lebanon, a 60-day truce agreed this week between Hezbollah and Israel brought an end to a conflict that has killed thousands of Lebanese civilians.
Israel military strikes kill 32 Palestinians in Gaza, medics say
- Among the 32 killed, at least seven died in an Israeli strike on a house in central Gaza City
The Israeli military said it killed a Palestinian it accused of involvement in Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel in a vehicle strike in Gaza, and is investigating claims that the individual was an employee of aid group World Central Kitchen.
At least 32 Palestinians were killed in Israeli military strikes across Gaza overnight and into Saturday, with most casualties reported in northern areas, medics told Reuters.
Later on Saturday medics said seven people were killed when an Israeli air strike targeted a vehicle near a gathering of Palestinians receiving aid in the southern area of Khan Younis south of the enclave.
According to residents and a Hamas source, the vehicle targeted near a crowd receiving flour belonged to security personnel responsible for overseeing the delivery of aid shipments into Gaza.
Among the 32 killed, at least seven died in an Israeli strike on a house in central Gaza City, according to a statement from the Gaza Civil Defense and the official Palestinian news agency WAFA early on Saturday.
The Gaza Civil Defense also reported that one of its officers was killed in attacks in northern Gaza’s Jabalia, bringing the total number of civil defense workers killed since October 7, 2023, to 88.
Earlier on Saturday, WAFA reported that three employees of the World Central Kitchen, a US-based, non-governmental humanitarian agency, were killed when a civilian vehicle was targeted in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
The World Central Kitchen has not yet commented on the incident.
Syria’s military ‘temporarily’ withdraws from Aleppo to prepare for counteroffensive
- Syrian military confirms militants enter Aleppo, says dozens of soldiers killed
AMMAN: The Syrian military said on Saturday that dozens of its troops had been killed during a militant attack in northwestern Syria and that militants had managed to enter large parts of Aleppo city, forcing the army to redeploy.
The Syrian military statement was the first public acknowledgement by the army that insurgents led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham had entered the government-held city of Aleppo in a surprise attack that began earlier this week.
“The large numbers of terrorists and the multiplicity of battlefronts prompted our armed forces to carry out a redeployment operation aimed at strengthening the defense lines in order to absorb the attack, preserve the lives of civilians and soldiers, and prepare for a counterattack,” the army said.
The insurgent attack marks the most significant challenge in years to President Bashar Assad, jolting the frontlines of the Syrian civil war that have largely been frozen since 2020.
The Syrian military statement said that the insurgents had not been able to establish fixed positions in Aleppo city due to the army’s continued bombardment of their positions.
Two Syrian military sources said earlier that Russian and Syrian warplanes targeted insurgents in an Aleppo suburb on Saturday. Russia deployed its air force to Syria in 2015 to aid Assad in the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011.
The insurgent force began its surprise offensive earlier this week, sweeping through government-held towns and reaching Aleppo nearly a decade after government forces backed by Russia and Iran drove militants from the city.
Speaking on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow regarded the militant attack as a violation of Syria’s sovereignty. “We are in favor of the Syrian authorities bringing order to the area and restoring constitutional order as soon as possible,” he said.
