As the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) swept to power last week, it sought to reassure Syria’s minority groups that their way of life would not be at risk. Read more
Netanyahu said he spoke with Trump on Saturday night about the issue, which will loom large as one of the main foreign challenges facing Trump when he takes office if it is not resolved before he is sworn in on Jan. 20. Read more
Israel’s ambassador to Dublin was recalled following Ireland’s decision on a Palestinian state in May, Saar’s statement added. Last week, Dublin announced its support for South Africa’s legal action against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing Israel of genocide. Read more
An airstrike hit the civil emergency center in the Nuseirat market area in the central Gaza Strip, killing Ahmed Al-Louh, a video journalist for Al Jazeera TV, and five other people, medics and fellow journalists said. Read more
Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are estimated to have been killed since 2011, when Assad’s crackdown on protests against him spiraled into a full-scale war that drew in regional powers. Read more
Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to visit Jordan and Turkey, while U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan planned stops in Israel, Qatar and Egypt in coming days, U.S. officials said. Read more
Israeli officials said they were destroying weapons and military facilities to keep them out of the hands of Islamist extremists. Read more
In a brief address on state television, Mohammed al-Bashir, a figure little known across most of Syria who previously ran an administration in a pocket of the northwest controlled by rebels, said he would lead the interim authority until March 1. Read more
The United Nations Security Council met behind closed doors late on Monday, and diplomats said they were still in shock at how quickly Assad’s overthrow unfolded over 12 days, after a 13-year civil war. Read more
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Iran’s embassy was stormed by Syrian rebels following their capture of Damascus. Read more
Rebel sources said the military agreed to make an orderly withdrawal from Daraa under a deal giving army officials safe passage to the capital Damascus, about 60 miles north. Read more
The latest Israeli strikes came shortly after Hezbollah accused Israel of violating a ceasefire agreement and fired missiles on an Israeli military position in the disputed Shebaa Farms area in what the Iran-backed group called a “defensive warning strike.” Read more
The Hamas visit to Cairo was the first since the United States announced on Wednesday it would revive efforts in collaboration with Qatar, Egypt and Turkey to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza, that would include a hostage deal. Read more
World Central Kitchen confirmed the airstrike and said it had no knowledge about an employee involved in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack. Read more
Aleppo had been firmly held by the government since a 2016 victory there, one of the war’s major turning points. Read more
One rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, took control of “more than half of Aleppo” today without resistance from Syrian government forces, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitoring group based in Britain. Read more
Medics said they had recovered 19 bodies of Palestinians killed in northern areas of Nuseirat, one of the enclave’s eight long-standing refugee camps. Read more
The escalation came a day after Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah began a ceasefire in Lebanon, halting more than a year of hostilities and raising hopes among many Palestinians in Gaza for a similar deal with Hamas, which rules the enclave. Read more
Fighting across the Israel-Lebanon border will end at 4 a.m. local time (0200 GMT), Biden said. Read more
In Washington, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said, “We’re close” but “nothing is done until everything is done.” Read more
Israel also struck Beirut’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs, where intensified bombardment over the last two weeks has coincided with signs of progress in U.S.-led ceasefire talks. Read more
