Closing summary
Geir Pedersen, the UN’s special envoy for Syria, has warned that the conflict “has not ended” even after the dramatic ousting of former president Bashar al-Assad, highlighting clashes between Turkish-backed and Kurdish groups in the north.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesperson denied reports that he is in Cairo for Gaza ceasefire talks. Netanyahu was holding a briefing on Mount Hermon, a strategic location overlooking Damascus, a statement from the prime minister’s office said.
Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, said ceasefire talks in Qatar aimed at a truce and hostage-prisoner exchange in Gaza were “serious and positive”, while White House national security communications spokesperson John Kirby said “we believe we are getting closer to a Gaza ceasefire deal”.
Israeli lawmakers narrowly approved the country’s 2025 state budget in an initial vote. The 59-57 vote in the Knesset – the Israeli parliament – to pass the wartime austerity budget in its first of three readings.
A UN refugee agency official said that about one million Syrian refugees are expected to return to the country in the first six months of 2025, with thousands of people already having returned to the country mostly from Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, said his country’s forces will maintain “security control” over the devastated Gaza Strip, even after the war is over, with Israeli soldiers able to act with “full freedom of action” over the territory.
At least 45,059 Palestinian people have been killed and 107,041 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement. Of those, 31 Palestinians were killed and 79 injured in the latest 24-hour reporting period, the ministry said.
At least 10 people were confirmed killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City that destroyed the building, while further north in the town of Beit Lahiya at least 15 people were reportedly killed while they were sheltering in a house.
Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that toppled Assad, said all rebel factions would “be disbanded and the fighters trained to join the ranks of the defence ministry” during a meeting with members of the minority Druze community.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said the bloc would send an ambassador back to Damascus. “We are ready to reopen our delegation, which is the European embassy, and we want this to be fully operational again,” she said. Kallas added that the EU would aim to help authorities restore basic services like electricity, water and infrastructure.
We are closing this blog now. Thanks for following along. You can find all of our latest Middle East coverage here.
Israeli airstrikes killed extended families in homes in two parts of the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, medics have said. At least 10 people were confirmed killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City that destroyed the building, while further north in the town of Beit Lahiya at least 15 people were killed while they were sheltering in a house, according to Al Jazeera. Beit Lahiya is among the areas in the devasted northern Gaza Strip that have been under siege for more than 70 days by Israeli forces.
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Swiss judicial authorities have suggested the trial of Rifaat al-Assad, an uncle of the recently ousted Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, be cancelled due to the defendant’s illness, a spokesperson has said.
He was due to face trial in Switzerland for alleged crimes committed dating back to his time as a military commander in 1982.
“I can confirm to you that due to the state of health of the accused, who would be physically incapable of travelling to Switzerland and psychologically incapable of participating in debates, those responsible for the trial invited the parties to decide on whether to close the case,” a spokesperson for the Federal Criminal Court told Reuters.
She added that the court - the highest criminal authority in the country - has not yet taken a decision on whether or not to terminate the case and expected to have input from all parties by mid-January. Rifaat al-Assad has denied any wrongdoing.
The Attorney General’s office said in March that Rifaat al-Assad had been charged with “ordering homicides, acts of torture, cruel treatments and illegal detentions” in February 1982 when he was in charge of troops in the western city of Hama. His current whereabouts are unknown. He lived in exile, mostly in France, from the mid-1980s, after being accused of trying to topple his brother, then-President Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father.
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We mentioned in the opening post that German diplomats were expected to hold their first talks with representatives of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Damascus today, focusing on a transitional process for Syria and the protection of minorities.
The delegation, led by Germany’s Middle East commissioner Tobias Tunkel, has now held talks with HTS leader Ahmed al Sharaa, its foreign affairs representative Zaid al-Attar and the transition government’s education minister, the German foreign office has said in an updated statement.
At Tuesday’s meeting the two sides discussed the political transition in Syria and human rights, the foreign office said. The German delegation spoke with civil society and religious organisations and inspected Germany’s embassy building in Damascus.
The UN’s special envoy for Syria also said that Israel had conducted more than 350 strikes on Syria following the departure of the former regime, including a major strike on Tartous.
“Such attacks place a battered civilian population at further risk and undermine the prospects of an orderly political transition,” Geir Pedersen said.
Israeli air raids have hit bases, heavy weapons, sites associated with the former Assad regime’s missile and chemical weapons programme, and destroyed Syria’s small naval force in port of Latakia.
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UN envoy to Syria warns that the conflict is not over
Geir Pedersen, the UN’s special envoy for Syria, has warned that the conflict “has not ended” even after the dramatic ousting of former president Bashar al-Assad, highlighting clashes between Turkish-backed and Kurdish groups in the north.
The Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) rebels have been involved in clashes with the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Pedersen also called at the UN security council for Israel to “cease all settlement activity in the occupied Syrian Golan”.
“There have been significant hostilities in the last two weeks, before a ceasefire was brokered... A five-day ceasefire has now expired and I am seriously concerned about reports of military escalation. Such an escalation could be catastrophic,” he said.
The comments come after Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that toppled the Assad regime, said all rebel factions would “be disbanded and the fighters trained to join the ranks of the defence ministry”. The HTS group are Syria’s new de-facto rulers.
Pedersen said he had met with the new leadership and has called for an end to sanctions to allow for reconstruction of Syria.
“Concrete movement on an inclusive political transition will be key in ensuring Syria receives the economic support it needs,” Pedersen said.
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Here are some of the latest images being sent to us over the newswires from Syria and Gaza:
Summary of the day so far...
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesperson denied reports that he is in Cairo for Gaza ceasefire talks. Netanyahu was holding a briefing on Mount Hermon, a strategic location overlooking Damascus, a statement from the prime minister’s office said.
Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, said ceasefire talks in Qatar aimed at a truce and hostage-prisoner exchange in Gaza were “serious and positive”, while White House national security communications spokesperson John Kirby said “we believe we are getting closer to a Gaza ceasefire deal”.
Israeli lawmakers narrowly approved the country’s 2025 state budget in an initial vote. The 59-57 vote in the Knesset – the Israeli parliament – to pass the wartime austerity budget in its first of three readings.
A UN refugee agency official said that about one million Syrian refugees are expected to return to the country in the first six months of 2025, with thousands of people already having returned to the country mostly from Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, said his country’s forces will maintain “security control” over the devastated Gaza Strip, even after the war is over, with Israeli soldiers able to act with “full freedom of action” over the territory.
At least 45,059 Palestinian people have been killed and 107,041 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement. Of those, 31 Palestinians were killed and 79 injured in the latest 24-hour reporting period, the ministry said.
The US military on Tuesday said it bombed a Houthi military facility in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in what was the latest US-led attack on the Iranian-backed rebels. The Houthi media office said the airstrike hit part of the sprawling complex that houses the rebels’ defense ministry.
Hamas says Gaza ceasefire talks in Doha are 'serious and positive'
Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, has issued a statement in relation to the talks being held in Qatar aimed at a truce and hostage-prisoner exchange in Gaza, calling the discussions “serious and positive”.
Hamas said:
Hamas affirms that, in light of the serious and positive discussions taking place today in Doha under the auspices of our Qatari and Egyptian brothers, reaching an agreement for a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange is possible if the occupation ceases to impose new conditions.
Qatar, along with the US and Egypt, has been involved in months of behind-the-scenes negotiations for a Gaza truce and hostage release.
Hamas and other Palestinian militia now reportedly appear to be more open and flexible over a slower, phased end to the fighting with talks focused on the number of hostages to be released in any first phase.
As my colleague Peter Beaumont notes in this story, sticking points that torpedoed previous rounds of talks, including the presence of Israel troops in the so-called Philadelphi and Netzarim corridors inside Gaza, appear to have been sidelined for now, although a continuing issue is understood to be the ability of Palestinians in Gaza to return to their homes in the strip’s north.
Netanyahu’s spokesperson denies reports that PM is visiting Cairo for Gaza ceasefire talks
Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesperson has denied reports that he is in Cairo for Gaza ceasefire talks. Netanyahu was holding a briefing on Mount Hermon, a strategic location overlooking Damascus, a statement from the prime minister’s office said on Tuesday. The briefing involved discussions about the situation in Syria and was reported to be with Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, and the IDF’s chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, to “review the IDF’s preparations in the field, and set the rules for the next stage”.
“The summit of Mount Hermon serves as Israel’s eyes for identifying both near and distant threats,” Katz said.
Netanyahu ordered Israeli troops to seize the buffer zone on the Golan Heights after Bashar al-Assad’s rule collapsed in Syria (Israel captured about two-thirds of the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 six-day war. Last week, it moved troops and armour into a supposedly demilitarised buffer zone beyond the land it already occupies).
Israel has framed the move as temporary and defensive, with Netanyahu claiming it was in response to a “vacuum on Israel’s border and in the buffer zone”.The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said he was “deeply concerned by the recent and extensive violations of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
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White House national security communications spokesperson John Kirby said “we believe we are getting closer to a Gaza ceasefire deal” in a Fox News interview, reports Reuters.
“We believe – and the Israelis have said this – that we’re getting closer, and no doubt about it, we believe that, but we also are cautious in our optimism,” Kirby said. “We’ve been in this position before where we weren’t able to get it over the finish line.”
Kirby did not respond when asked if Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was traveling to Cairo for talks.
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Hamas said in a statement that a ceasefire and hostages deal is possible if Israel stops setting new conditions, reports Reuters.
Updated
Netanyahu reportedly travelling to Cairo for talks on Gaza ceasefire
A Gaza ceasefire deal expected to be signed in the coming days, according to sources briefed on the talks, reports Reuters. Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly on his way to Cairo for talks on the ceasefire.
Israeli minister accuses HTS leader of being 'wolf in sheep's clothes' because of his jihadist history
Israel’s deputy foreign minister Sharren Haskel accused the head of the group that led the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Syria of being “a wolf in (sheep’s) clothes” because of his jihadist history.
Speaking at a press conference, Haskel held up a photo collage of Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the head of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), showing him while a member of jihadist organisations, reports AFP.
“It is important to avoid falling for the attempt to whitewash jihadist (groups) in Syria. We know who they are and their true nature, even if they change their names, and we understand how dangerous they are to the West,” said Haskel.
“These are terrorist organisations and this is a wolf in (sheep’s) clothes.”
Jolani, who now uses his real name Ahmed al-Sharaa over his nom de guerre, fought for al-Qaida in Iraq in the aftermath of the 2003 US invasion. He later set up the al-Qaida subsidiary in Syria, the Al-Nusra Front, which for a period was allied with the Islamic State group.
However, Jolani later broke with and fought against both jihadist organisations and eventually rebranded Al-Nusra as the Islamist HTS.
Since taking Damascus earlier this month, Jolani and his group have pledged to protect religious minorities and denied having plans to impose strict Islamic rule. Jolani has also said “general exhaustion” in Syria meant it did not want another war.
Nevertheless, HTS remains proscribed by several western governments as a terrorist organisation and is under UN-backed sanctions.
Israeli lawmakers narrowly approved the country’s 2025 state budget in an initial vote.
The 59-57 vote in the Knesset – the Israeli parliament – to pass the wartime austerity budget in its first of three readings.
Total budget spending in 2025 will be 756 billion shekels ($210bn), with a deficit target set at 4.4% of gross domestic product. The budget includes spending cuts and tax increases of 37 billion shekels, which are needed to keep the deficit under control as war costs have soared. Spending on defence will be 108 billion shekels next year.
All three agencies have cut Israel’s credit rating this year due to war expenses that have pushed the budget deficit to near 8% of GDP, Reuters reported. The budget next goes to the Knesset finance and other committees, where it could face changes. It is not expected to be fully approved until at least January.
Updated
Israeli forces have detained at least 12 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank since last night, the Palestinian Authority’s Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs Commission and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said.
According to Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, the detentions were carried out in Hebron, Ramallah, Nablus, Bethlehem and Jerusalem.
These detentions were accompanied by assaults, threats against detainees and their families and the destruction of homes, Wafa reported.
It is estimated that over 12,100 Palestinians have been arrested in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since last October.
Human rights groups and international organisations have alleged widespread abuse of inmates detained by Israel in raids in the West Bank.
They have described alleged abusive and humiliating treatment, including holding blindfolded and handcuffed detainees in cramped cages as well as beatings, intimidation and harassment.
France has raised its flag over its embassy in Damascus, Syria, after it had been closed for 12 years during the country’s civil war, the foreign ministry said.
France sent a team of diplomats to Syria on Tuesday to assess the political and security situation. The team will not be staying, however, and the gesture does not mean the embassy has reopened, according to reports.
French diplomats who went to Damascus to meet the new authorities made clear that Paris would closely watch security in Syria after the fall of the brutal Assad regime, “including continuing the fight against Daesh (IS) and other terrorist groups, and preventing the proliferation of the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons,” it said.
UK foreign minister David Lammy said Britain had sent a delegation of senior UK officials “to Damascus this week for meetings with the new interim Syrian authorities and members of civil society groups in Syria”. German diplomats, meanwhile, are also planning talks with representatives of HTS in Damascus today (see opening summary).
Israeli negotiators head to Qatar as hopes rise for Gaza hostage deal
Peter Beaumont is a senior international reporter for the Guardian
An Israeli negotiating team has arrived for talks in Qatar amid renewed optimism that a ceasefire-for-hostages deal with Hamas in Gaza can be achieved by the end of the year.
Both sides have expressed optimism in recent days that a deal may be close for a phased release of the surviving hostages in Gaza in exchange for a ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
About 60 living hostages, mainly Israeli and and dual nationals, are believed to be still in captivity in Gaza as well as the bodies of 35 others, out of more than 240 who were abducted to Gaza during Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.
The incoming US president, Donald Trump, has said he wants to see the hostages released or “all hell’s going to break out” and has sent a hostage envoy to Israel for meetings with senior politicians, including the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Trump spoke to over the weekend.
On Monday, the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, briefed lawmakers that Israel and Hamas were “the closest we’ve been to a hostage deal since the last deal”, which took place in November 2023 and resulted in the release of more than 100 hostages.
He added that he expected the deal to get widespread support. “There will be a sweeping majority in the security cabinet and the cabinet for the emerging hostage deal.”
Although details of an emerging deal are being negotiated under tight secrecy, it is understood that it would involve a phased ceasefire with an initial cessation of hostilities for 60 days in exchange for the release of surviving hostages, including women, the elderly and those suffering illness.
You can read the full story here:
We are leading the blog with the UN saying it expects around one million people uprooted during the war to return to Syria in the first half of 2025 (see post at 12.16 for more details).
As a reminder, the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, said on a visit to Damascus yesterday that 7 out of 10 Syrians needed aid, meaning that a lot of humanitarian assistance is needed to match the rising demands of the existing and returning population.
Fletcher said:
We want to get a massive flow of support into Syria, really scale up fast. Food, medicine, shelter, but also the funds to redevelop the Syria that people can believe in again. We want a hopeful narrative for Syria.
Hyperinflation has made basic food unaffordable to most Syrians, according to the International Rescue Committee (IRC), which estimates that more than 72% of Syrians rely on aid, with hunger levels rising. As well as food shortages, the IRC said that people in overcrowded refugee camps are at risk of cholera, with half of healthcare facilities remaining non-functional.
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UN refugee agency expects one million Syrians to return in the first half of 2025
A UN refugee agency official has said that about one million Syrian refugees are expected to return to the country in the first six months of 2025, asking countries to refrain from forced returns.
Rema Jamous Imseis, Unhcr director for the Middle East and north Africa, said:
Now we have forecasted that we hope to see somewhere in the order of one million Syrians returning between January and June next year so we shared this plan with donors, asking for their support.
At least 374,000 Syrians have been displaced by the fighting that led to the toppling of Bashar-al Assad, according to UN estimates, on top of the millions already made homeless by the country’s 13-year civil war, which started after the former Syrian president crushed pro-democracy protests in 2011.
Imseis said that thousands of people had fled Syria this month as rebels seized power from the Assad regime, while thousands had also returned to the country mostly from Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.
Many European countries have said they will suspend the processing of asylum applications from Syrians, with Austria among those already preparing a “repatriation and deportation” programme to the country.
Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan said earlier today that he expected the EU to support the return home of Syrians who left the country during the civil war. Millions of Syrians fled to Turkey to seek refuge, with the majority living in Istanbul, Gaziantep or Sanliurfa.
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Reuters has been told by sources that Syria has only a small amount of foreign currency reserves in cash.
Here is an extract from the Reuters report:
Syria’s gold reserves stood at 25.8 tons in June 2011, according to the World Gold Council, which cites the Central Bank of Syria as its data source. That is worth $2.2bn at current market prices, according to Reuters calculations.
The central bank’s foreign exchange reserves amount, however, to just around $200m in cash, one of the sources told Reuters, while another said the US dollar reserves were “in the hundreds of millions”.
While not all reserves would be held in cash, the drop is substantial compared with before the war. At the end of 2011, Syria’s central bank reported $14bn in foreign reserves, according to the International Monetary Fund. In 2010, the IMF had estimated Syria’s foreign reserves to stand at $18.5bn.
The dollar reserves have been nearly depleted because the regime increasingly used them to fund food, fuel and Assad’s war effort, current and former Syrian officials have told Reuters.
Israeli airstrike in Gaza kills at least 8 people from the same family, medics say
An Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed at least eight people from the same family, most of them women and children, Palestinian medics have said.
The deadly airstrike hit a house in Gaza City’s central neighborhood of Daraj yesterday evening, according to the health ministry’s ambulance and emergency service.
Among the bodies recovered from the rubble were a father and his three children, and the children’s grandmother, according to a casualty list obtained by The Associated Press.
In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, Israeli tanks pushed deeper towards the western area of al-Mawasi, a so-called humanitarian evacuation zone, residents said.
Heavy fire from tanks rolling into the area forced dozens of families sheltering there to flee northwards towards the southern city of Khan Younis, Reuters reports.
Al-Mawasi is a 10-mile (16km) strip of sandy farmland that stretches along the Mediterranean coast, which was first designated as a “humanitarian zone” by the IDF last December. Since then, there have been widespread reports that the water supply is inadequate, there is almost no sanitation, healthcare is rudimentary and infectious diseases are rife. The area has been targeted in deadly Israeli airstrikes and is severely overcrowded.
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The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Tuesday that two soldiers were killed during combat in southern Gaza.
It named one of the soldiers as reservist Major Moshiko Maxim Rozenwald, 35, who was a company commander in an engineering battalion of the Nahal Brigade. The IDF says the name of the second soldier will be released later.
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As we mentioned in the opening post, European countries, including Italy, Britain and France, have signalled a willingness to engage with the transitional Syrian government following the rebels ousting of former President Bashar al-Assad more than a week ago.
The EU has now said that it will reopen its delegation (which is like an embassy) in Syria. While the EU delegation was never officially closed, there had not been an accredited ambassador in Damascus during the war in Syria, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said this morning.
Kallas told the European Parliament:
We are ready to reopen our delegation, which is the European embassy, and we want this to be fully operational again. I think this is a very important step, that we will reopen the delegation in Syria.
Kallas said she had asked the EU’s delegation head to go to Damascus on Monday to establish contact with the new leadership in Syria and various other groups. Germany, the US and Britain had earlier already established contact with Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) after it led the overthrow of Assad.
Kallas has said Russia and Iran – which backed Assad’s regime militarily – “should not have a place” in Syria now that he is gone. She has also said that the EU will not lift sanctions on Syria before its new rulers ensure minorities are not persecuted and women’s rights are protected within a unified government that disavows religious extremism.
Updated
Death toll from Israeli airstrikes on Gaza reaches 45,059, says health ministry
At least 45,059 Palestinian people have been killed and 107,041 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
Of those, 31 Palestinians were killed and 79 injured in the latest 24-hour reporting period, the ministry said.
Gaza’s health ministry has said in the past that thousands of other dead people are most likely lost in the rubble of the territory..
Israel’s defence minister says his country’s forces will be free to act in the Gaza Strip even after war ends
We are restarting our coverage of the ongoing crisis in the Middle East, with Israel’s war on Gaza continuing and the Syrian rebel groups scrambling to form a transitional government in the wake of the fall of the Assad regime.
Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, has said his country’s forces will maintain “security control” over the devastated Gaza Strip, even after the war is over, with Israeli soldiers able to act with “full freedom of action” over the territory.
In a post on X, Katz, the former foreign minister, said:
After we defeat Hamas’ military and governmental power in Gaza, Israel will have security control over Gaza with full freedom of action, just as it did in Judea and Samaria (an Israeli term for the occupied West Bank).
We will not allow any terrorist organization against Israeli communities and Israeli citizens from Gaza. We will not allow a return to the reality of before October 7th.
The question of Gaza’s postwar governance has remained unresolved, a year after the 7 October 7 Hamas-led attack, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage.
Katz’s predecessor Yoav Gallant, who was sacked in November, was opposed to any prolonged Israeli control of Gaza, from which Israel withdrew troops and settlers in 2005 after decades of direct rule. Hamas seized full control of Gaza in 2007.
In May, then as defence minister, Gallant said that he would “not agree to the establishment of an Israeli military administration in Gaza”. “Israel must not have civilian control over the Gaza Strip,” Gallant said at the time, urging the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to devise a postwar plan for the territory.
In other developments:
The head of the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism, a UN investigative body, has written to Syria’s new authorities to express a willingness to engage with them and to travel to Syria to secure evidence that could implicate top officials of the former government. “There is now the possibility of accessing evidence of the highest level of (the) regime,” he said. The comments come after the head of a US-based Syrian advocacy organization on Monday said that a mass grave outside Damascus contained the bodies of at least 100,000 people killed by the former government of ousted President Bashar al-Assad.
German diplomats will hold their first talks with representatives of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Damascus today, focusing on a transitional process for Syria and the protection of minorities, the German foreign ministry said. France, a key early backer of the uprising, also sent a delegation to the Syrian capital on Tuesday, with special envoy Jean-Francois Guillaume saying his country was preparing to stand with Syrians during the transitional period. Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, meanwhile, said her country was ready to engage with Syria’s new leadership after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, but urged caution. The US state department said on Monday that the American government has had more than one communication with HTS over the past week.
US president-elect Donald Trump characterised the ousting of Assad as an “unfriendly takeover” by Turkey, which has historically backed the opposition. “I think Turkey is very smart … Turkey did an unfriendly takeover, without a lot of lives being lost. I can say that Assad was a butcher, what he did to children,” Trump told reporters at his residence in Florida.
Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of the HTS group that toppled Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, said all rebel factions would “be disbanded and the fighters trained to join the ranks of the defence ministry” during a meeting with members of the Druze community. He stressed the need in a meeting with a delegation of British diplomats to end “all sanctions imposed on Syria so that Syrian refugees can return to their country”. The UK, along with other western countries, considers HTS to be a terrorist organisation, though this designation may soon change.
The US military on Tuesday said it bombed a Houthi military facility in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in what was the latest US-led attack on the Iranian-backed rebels. The Houthi media office said the airstrike hit part of the sprawling complex that houses the rebels’ defense ministry. There were no immediate reports of casualties. US Central Command said the strike late yesterday evening targeted a key command and control facility that was “a hub for coordinating Houthi operations,” including attacks on US navy and merchant vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
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