IDLIB, Syria: The main insurgent group in rebel-held northwest Syria blasted the US on Thursday over its criticism of a crackdown on protesters in areas outside government control.
The group said Washington should instead respect protesters at American universities who have demonstrated against the war in Gaza.
The statement by the US Embassy in Damascus came after months of protests against Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, or HTS, in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province by people opposed to the rule of the group that was once known as the Nusra Front, the Syria branch of Al-Qaeda. The group later changed its name several times and distanced itself from Al-Qaeda.
Anti-HTS sentiments had been rising for months following a wave of arrests by the group of senior officials within the organization.
Earlier this month, HTS members attacked protesters demanding the release of detainees with clubs and sharp objects outside a military court in Idlib city, injuring several people. Days later HTS fighters fired into the air and beat protesters with clubs, injuring some of them as protests intensified to demand the release of detainees and an end to the group’s rule.
The rebel-held region is home to more than 4 million people, many of them displaced during the conflict that broke out in March 2011 and has so far killed half a million people.
The conflict began with protests against President Bashar Assad’s government before turning into a deadly civil war that left large parts of the country in ruins.
The US Embassy in Damascus posted on the social media platform X on Wednesday that it supports “the rights of all Syrians to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, including in Idlib.”
It added that “we deplore Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham’s regime-style intimidation and brutality against peaceful protesters as they call for justice, security, & respect for human rights.”
HTS responded in a statement saying that “liberated areas enjoy a safe environment for the expression of opinion” as long as they don’t aim to destabilize the region and spread chaos. It added that the US Embassy should back the Syrian people aiming to achieve “freedom and dignity against a criminal regime.”
“The rights of university students in the United States should be preserved and their demands in supporting the Palestinian people and Gaza should be respected,” HTS said in a statement.
Syria’s main insurgent group blasts the US Embassy over its criticism of crackdown on protesters
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Syria’s main insurgent group blasts the US Embassy over its criticism of crackdown on protesters
- The group said Washington should instead respect protesters at American universities who have demonstrated against the war in Gaza
- The statement by the US Embassy in Damascus came after months of protests against Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham
Hamas armed wing releases video of Gaza hostage
- The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said Albag’s family has not authorized publication of video
JERUSALEM: The armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, released a video on Saturday of an Israeli hostage held in Gaza since its October 2023 attack.
In the undated, three-and-a-half-minute video recording that AFP has not been able to verify, 19-year-old soldier Liri Albag called in Hebrew for the Israeli government to secure her release.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a campaign group for relatives of those abducted, said Albag’s family has not authorized publication of the video.
“We appeal to the prime minister, world leaders and all decision-makers: it’s time to take decisions as if it were your own children there,” the family said in a statement.
Albag was 18 when she was captured by Palestinian militants at the Nahal Oz base on the Gaza border along with six other women conscripts, five of whom remain in captivity.
Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have released a number of videos of Israeli hostages in their custody during nearly 15 months of fighting in Gaza.
The militants seized 251 hostages during the 2023 attack, of whom 96 remain in Gaza. The Israeli military says 34 of those are dead.
Hamas said late on Friday that indirect negotiations with Israel for a truce and hostage release deal were to resume in Qatar that same night. There has since been no update.
Mediators Qatar, Egypt and the US have been engaged in months of effort that have failed to end the war.
Weekly demonstrations organized by the hostages forum, the latest scheduled in Tel Aviv on Saturday, have kept up the pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a deal to free the hostages.
The prime minister’s critics in Israel have accused him of stalling on a deal.
The forum said the latest video was “firm and incontestable proof of the urgency of bringing the hostages home.”
On Thursday, Netanyahu’s office said he had authorized Israeli negotiators to join the latest round of truce and hostage release talks in Qatar.
Israeli strikes kill dozens in Gaza Strip as new ceasefire talks begin
- Surge in Israeli operations and number of Palestinians killed in recent days comes amid renewed push to reach truce
An Israeli military strike killed 12 people in a house in Gaza City early on Saturday, bringing the death toll from strikes across Gaza to 65 over the last day, Palestinian medics said, as mediators launched a new ceasefire push in Qatar.
Residents and medics said at least 14 people had been in the house of the Al-Ghoula family when the strike took place in the early hours, destroying the building.
People scoured the rubble for possible survivors trapped under the debris and medics said several children were among those killed. A few flames and trails of smoke continued to rise from burning furniture in the ruins hours after the attack.
“At about 2 a.m. we were woken up by the sound of a huge explosion,” said Ahmed Ayyan, a neighbor of the Al-Ghoula family, adding that 14 or 15 people had been staying in the house.
“Most of them are women and children, they are all civilians, there is no one there who shot missiles, or is from the resistance,” Ayyan told Reuters.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the incident.
The military said in a statement on Saturday that its forces had continued their operations this week in Beit Hanoun town in the northern edge of the enclave, where the army has been operating for three months, and had destroyed a military complex that had been used by Hamas.
In Jabalia in the north, an Israeli airstrike killed three Palestinians, medics said. Earlier in the day, another Israeli airstrike killed three people in a car east of the central town of Deir Al-Balah, they said.
Saturday’s deaths brought the toll to 65 since Friday, health officials said.
RENEWED CEASEFIRE PUSH
A surge in Israeli operations and the number of Palestinians killed in recent days comes amid a renewed push to reach a ceasefire in the 15-month-old war and return Israeli hostages before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
Israeli mediators were dispatched to resume talks in Doha brokered by Qatari and Egyptian mediators, and US President Joe Biden’s administration, which is helping to broker the talks, urged Hamas on Friday to agree to a deal.
Hamas said it was committed to reaching an agreement but it was unclear how close the two sides were.
Later on Saturday, the armed group released a video showing an Israeli female hostage — identified by Israeli media as a soldier — urging Israel to do more to secure the hostages’ release, saying her life and that of other captives was in danger because of the ongoing Israeli military action in Gaza.
There was no immediate comment by Israel’s military, which has in the past called such videos “psychological warfare” by Hamas.
Israel launched its assault on Gaza in response to the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, in which militants stormed border communities from Gaza, killing about 1,200 people and seizing around 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Its military campaign, with the stated goal of eradicating Hamas, has leveled swathes of the enclave, driving most people from their homes, and has killed 45,717 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry.
Damascus Airport to resume international flights starting January 7
- International aid planes and foreign diplomatic delegations have already been landing in Syria
DAMASCUS: Syria said on Saturday the country’s main airport in Damascus would resume international flights starting next week after such commercial trips were halted following last month’s ouster of president Bashar Assad.
“We announce we will start receiving international flights to and from Damascus International Airport from” Tuesday, state news agency SANA said, quoting Ashhad Al-Salibi, who heads the General Authority of Civil Aviation and Air Transport.
“We reassure Arab and international airlines that we have begun the phase of rehabilitating the Aleppo and Damascus airports with our partners’ help, so that they can welcome flights from all over the world,” he said.
International aid planes and foreign diplomatic delegations have already been landing in Syria. Domestic flights have also resumed.
On Thursday, Qatar Airways announced it will resume flights to the Syrian capital after nearly 13 years, starting with three weekly flights on Tuesday.
A Qatari official told AFP last month that Doha had offered the new Syrian authorities help in resuming operations at Damascus airport.
On December 18, the first flight since Islamist-led rebels ousted Assad on December 8 took off from Damascus airport to Aleppo in the country’s north, AFP journalists saw.
Palestinian health ministry says one dead in Israel West Bank raid
- Israeli raids refugee camp, with the military saying it had opened fire at ‘terrorists’
- Israel has occupied the West Bank since conquering it in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: The health ministry in the occupied West Bank said one person was killed and nine injured in an Israeli raid on a refugee camp, with the Israeli military saying Saturday it had opened fire at “terrorists.”
An 18-year-old man, Muhammad Medhat Amin Amer, “was killed by bullets from the (Israeli) occupation in the Balata camp” in the territory’s north, the Palestinian health ministry said in a late-night statement, adding that nine people were injured, “four of whom are in critical condition.”
According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, the raid began on Friday night and triggered violent clashes.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Israeli troops entered the camp from the Awarta checkpoint and “deployed snipers on the rooftops of surrounding buildings.”
In a statement on Saturday, the Israeli military said that during the “counterterrorism” operation, “terrorists placed explosives in the area in order to harm (military) soldiers, hurled explosives, molotov cocktails, and rocks and shot fireworks at the forces.”
“The forces fired toward the terrorists in order to remove the threat. Hits were identified,” the statement said.
Violence in the West Bank has intensified since war broke out in the Gaza Strip after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Since then, at least 815 Palestinians have been killed in the territory by Israeli troops or settlers, according to the Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah.
In the same period, Palestinian attacks in the West Bank have killed at least 25 Israelis, according to official Israeli figures.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since conquering it in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Fragile Israel-Hezbollah truce holding so far, despite violations
- The deal struck on Nov. 27 to halt the war required Hezbollah to immediately lay down its arms in southern Lebanon
- It gave Israel 60 days to withdraw its forces there and hand over control to the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers
BEIRUT: A fragile ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has held up for over a month, even as its terms seem unlikely to be met by the agreed-upon deadline.
The deal struck on Nov. 27 to halt the war required Hezbollah to immediately lay down its arms in southern Lebanon and gave Israel 60 days to withdraw its forces there and hand over control to the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers.
So far, Israel has withdrawn from just two of the dozens of towns it holds in southern Lebanon. And it has continued striking what it says are bases belonging to Hezbollah, which it accuses of attempting to launch rockets and move weapons before they can be confiscated and destroyed.
Hezbollah, which was severely diminished during nearly 14 months of war, has threatened to resume fighting if Israel does not fully withdraw its forces by the 60-day deadline.
Yet despite accusations from both sides about hundreds of ceasefire violations, the truce is likely to hold, analysts say. That is good news for thousands of Israeli and Lebanese families displaced by the war still waiting to return home.
“The ceasefire agreement is rather opaque and open to interpretation,” said Firas Maksad, a senior fellow with the Middle East Institute in Washington. That flexibility, he said, may give it a better chance of holding in the face of changing circumstances, including the ouster of Syria’s longtime leader, Bashar Assad, just days after the ceasefire took effect.
With Assad gone, Hezbollah lost a vital route for smuggling weapons from Iran. While that further weakened Hezbollah’s hand, Israel had already agreed to the US-brokered ceasefire.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023 – the day after Hamas launched a deadly attack into Israel that ignited the ongoing war in Gaza. Since then, Israeli air and ground assaults have killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians. At the height of the war, more than 1 million Lebanese people were displaced.
Hezbollah rockets forced some 60,000 from their homes in northern Israel, and killed 76 people in Israel, including 31 soldiers. Almost 50 Israeli soldiers were killed during operations inside Lebanon.
Here’s a look at the terms of the ceasefire and its prospects for ending hostilities over the long-term.
What does the ceasefire agreement say?
The agreement says that both Hezbollah and Israel will halt “offensive” military actions, but that they can act in self-defense, although it is not entirely clear how that term may be interpreted.
The Lebanese army is tasked with preventing Hezbollah and other militant groups from launching attacks into Israel. It is also required to dismantle Hezbollah facilities and weapons in southern Lebanon – activities that might eventually be expanded to the rest of Lebanon, although it is not explicit in the ceasefire agreement.
The United States, France, Israel, Lebanon and the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, are responsible for overseeing implementation of the agreement.
“The key question is not whether the deal will hold, but what version of it will be implemented,” Maksad, the analyst, said.
Is the ceasefire being implemented?
Hezbollah has for the most part halted its rocket and drone fire into Israel, and Israel has stopped attacking Hezbollah in most areas of Lebanon. But Israel has launched regular airstrikes on what it says are militant sites in southern Lebanon and in the Bekaa Valley.
Israeli forces have so far withdrawn from two towns in southern Lebanon – Khiam and Shamaa. They remain in some 60 others, according to the International Organization for Migration, and around 160,000 Lebanese remain displaced.
Lebanon has accused Israel of repeatedly violating the ceasefire agreement and last week submitted a complaint to the UN Security Council that says Israel launched some 816 “ground and air attacks” between the start of the ceasefire and Dec. 22, 2023.
The complaint said the attacks have hindered the Lebanese army’s efforts to deploy in the south and uphold its end of the ceasefire agreement.
Israel says Hezbollah has violated the ceasefire hundreds of times and has also complained to the Security Council. It accused Hezbollah militants of moving ammunition, attempting to attack Israeli soldiers, and preparing and launching rockets toward northern Israel, among other things.
Until it hands over control of more towns to the Lebanese army, Israeli troops have been destroying Hezbollah infrastructure, including weapons warehouses and underground tunnels. Lebanese authorities say Israel has also destroyed civilian houses and infrastructure.
What happens after the ceasefire has been in place for 60 days?
Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanese towns has been slower than anticipated because of a lack of Lebanese army troops ready to take over, according to Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, a military spokesman. Lebanon disputes this, and says it is waiting for Israel to withdraw before entering the towns.
Shoshani said Israel is satisfied with the Lebanese army’s control of the areas it has already withdrawn from, and that while it would prefer a faster transfer of power, security is its most important objective.
Israel does not consider the 60-day timetable for withdrawal to be “sacred,” said Harel Chorev, an expert on Israel-Lebanon relations at Tel Aviv University who estimates that Lebanon will need to recruit and deploy thousands more troops before Israel will be ready to hand over control.
Hezbollah officials have said that if Israeli forces remain in Lebanon 60 days past the start of the ceasefire, the militant group might return to attacking them. But Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Kassem said Wednesday that, for now, the group is holding off to give the Lebanese state a chance to “take responsibility” for enforcing the agreement.
Over the final two months of the war, Hezbollah suffered major blows to its leadership, weapons and forces from a barrage of Israeli airstrikes, and a ground invasion that led to fierce battles in southern Lebanon. The fall of Assad was another big setback.
“The power imbalance suggests Israel may want to ensure greater freedom of action after the 60-day period,” Maksad, the analyst, said. And Hezbollah, in its weakened position, now has a “strong interest” in making sure the deal doesn’t fall apart altogether “despite Israeli violations,” he said.
While Hezbollah may not be in a position to return to open war with Israel, it or other groups could mount guerilla attacks using light weaponry if Israeli troops remain in southern Lebanon, said former Lebanese army Gen. Hassan Jouni. And even if Israel does withdraw all of its ground forces, Jouni said, the Israeli military could could continue to carry out sporadic airstrikes in Lebanon, much as it has done in Syria for years.