Region

SANAA — Yemen's Huthi rebels said Wednesday that they had fired a ballistic missile and drones at Israel, days after an attack on Tel Aviv wounded 16 people.

Israel's military said it intercepted the missile before it entered Israeli territory, but did not immediately comment on the drone attacks which the Huthis said hit their targets.

"The UAV (drone) force of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out two military operations" targeting Israel's commercial hub of Tel Aviv and the southern city of Ashkelon, a Huthi military statement said.

The missile was also aimed at the Tel Aviv area, the Huthis said. The Israelis reported it was shot down before it entered Israeli territory.

A Huthi military statement said the attack was carried out "using a hypersonic ballistic missile, type Palestine 2".

The Iran-backed Huthis have repeatedly launched missiles at Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians since the war in Gaza erupted more than a year ago.

Most have been intercepted, but on Saturday an attack that hit Tel Aviv wounded 16 people, prompting a warning from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"We will act against the Huthis... with force, determination and sophistication," he said in a video statement on Sunday.

In the missile attack on Wednesday, air raid sirens sounded over a wide swathe of central Israel as a precaution against falling debris.

"A missile that was launched from Yemen was intercepted before crossing into Israeli territory," the military said in a statement.

No injuries were reported, according to Israel's emergency medical services.

On Tuesday, the Israeli army said it had intercepted a projectile fired from Yemen.

In July, a Huthi drone attack on Tel Aviv killed an Israeli civilian, prompting retaliatory strikes on the Yemeni port of Hodeidah.

The Huthis have also regularly targeted shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, leading to retaliatory strikes by US and sometimes British forces.

DAMASCUS — Syria's new authorities launched an operation in a stronghold of ousted president Bashar Al Assad on Thursday, with a war monitor saying three gunmen affiliated with the former government were killed.

Assad fled Syria after an Islamist-led offensive wrested from his control city after city until Damascus fell on December 8, ending his clan's five-decade rule.

After 13 years of civil war sparked by Assad's crackdown on democracy protests, Syria's new leaders from Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) face the monumental task of safeguarding the multi-sectarian, multi-ethnic country from further collapse.

Rooted in Syria's branch of Al Qaeda, HTS has moderated its rhetoric and vowed to ensure protection for minorities, including the Alawite community from which Assad hails.

With 500,000 dead in the war and more than 100,000 missing, the new authorities have also pledged justice for the victims of abuses under the deposed ruler.

On Thursday, state news agency SANA said security forces launched an operation against pro-Assad militias in the western province of Tartus, "neutralising a certain number" of armed men.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, three gunmen linked with Assad's government were killed in the operation.

It comes a day after 14 security personnel of the new authorities and three gunmen were killed in clashes in the same province when forces tried to arrest an Assad-era officer, according to the Observatory.

The Britain-based monitor said the wanted man, Mohammed Kanjo Hassan, was a military justice official who had "issued death sentences and arbitrary judgements against thousands" of detainees at the notorious Saydnaya prison complex.

Hate or revenge

The Saydnaya complex, the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomised the atrocities committed against Assad's opponents.

The fate of tens of thousands of prisoners and missing people remains one of the most harrowing legacies of his rule.

During the offensive that precipitated Assad's ousting, rebels flung open the doors of prisons and detention centres around the country, letting out thousands of people.

In central Damascus, relatives of some of the missing have hung up posters of their loved ones, in the hope that with Assad's ouster, they may one day learn what happened to them.

World powers and international organisations have called for the urgent establishment of mechanisms for accountability.

But some members of the Alawite community fear that with Assad gone, they may be at risk of attacks from groups hungry for revenge or driven by sectarian hate.

On Wednesday, angry protests erupted in several areas around Syria, including Assad's hometown of Qardaha, over a video showing an attack on an Alawite shrine that circulated online.

The Observatory said that one demonstrator was killed and five others wounded "after security forces... opened fire to disperse" a crowd in the central city of Homs.

 'We want peace'

The transitional authorities appointed by HTS said in a statement that the shrine attack took place early this month, with the interior ministry saying it was carried out by "unknown groups" and that republishing the video served to "stir up strife".

On Thursday, the information ministry introduced a ban on publishing or distributing "any content or information with a sectarian nature aimed at spreading division and discrimination".

In one of Wednesday's protests over the video, large crowds chanted slogans including "Alawite, Sunni, we want peace".

Assad long presented himself as a protector of minority groups in Sunni-majority Syria, though critics said he played on sectarian divisions to stay in power.

In Homs, where the authorities imposed a nighttime curfew, 42-year-old resident Hadi reported "a vast deployment of HTS men in areas where there were protests".

"There is a lot of fear," he said.

In coastal Latakia, protester Ghidak Mayya, 30, said that for now, Alawites were "listening to calls for calm", but putting too much pressure on the community "risks an explosion".

Noting the anxieties, Sam Heller of the Century Foundation think tank told AFP Syria's new rulers had to balance dealing with sectarian tensions while promising that those responsible for abuses under Assad would be held accountable.

"But they're obviously also contending with what seems like a real desire on the part of some of their constituents for what they would say is accountability, maybe also revenge, it depends on how you want to characterise it," he said.

Since HTS and its allies swept to power earlier this month, a bevy of delegations from the Middle East, Europe and the United States have visited Damascus seeking to establish ties with the country's new rulers.

A delegation from Iraq met with the new authorities Thursday to discuss "security and stability needs on the two countries' shared border", Iraqi state media said, while Lebanon, which has a fraught history with Syria, said it hoped for better ties with its neighbour going forward.

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — Hamas accused Israel on Wednesday of imposing "new conditions" that it said were delaying a ceasefire agreement in the war in Gaza, though it acknowledged negotiations were still ongoing.

Israel has made no public statement about any new conditions in its efforts to secure the release of hostages seized on October 7, 2023.

Indirect talks between Israel and Hamas, mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, have taken place in Doha in recent days, rekindling hope for a truce deal that has proven elusive.

"The ceasefire and prisoner exchange negotiations are continuing in Doha under the mediation of Qatar and Egypt in a serious manner... but the occupation has set new conditions concerning withdrawal [of troops], the ceasefire, prisoners, and the return of displaced people, which has delayed reaching an agreement," the Palestinian militant group said in a statement.

Hamas did not elaborate on the conditions imposed by Israel.

On Monday, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told parliament that there was "some progress" in the talks, and on Tuesday his office said Israeli representatives had returned from Qatar after "significant negotiations".

Last week, Hamas and two other Palestinian militant groups -- Islamic Jihad and the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -- said in a rare joint statement that a ceasefire agreement was "closer than ever", provided Israel did not impose new conditions.

Efforts to strike a truce and hostage release deal have repeatedly failed over key stumbling blocks.

Despite numerous rounds of indirect talks, Israel and Hamas have agreed just one truce, which lasted for a week at the end of 2023.

Negotiations have faced multiple challenges since then, with the primary point of disagreement being the establishment of a lasting ceasefire in Gaza.

Another unresolved issue is the governance of post-war Gaza.

It remains a highly contentious issue, including within the Palestinian leadership.

Israel has said repeatedly that it will not allow Hamas to run the territory ever again.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last week, Netanyahu said: "I'm not going to agree to end the war before we remove Hamas."

He added Israel is "not going to leave them in power in Gaza, 30 miles from Tel Aviv. It's not going to happen."

Netanyahu has also repeatedly stated that he does not want to withdraw Israeli troops from the Philadelphi Corridor, a strip of land cleared and controlled by Israel along Gaza's border with Egypt.

Ninety-six of them are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the army says are dead.

Israel's campaign has killed at least 45,361 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the UN considers reliable.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The United Nations' peacekeeping force in Lebanon expressed concern on Thursday at the "continuing" damage done by Israeli forces in the country's south despite a ceasefire in the war with Hezbollah.

The truce went into effect on November 27, about two months after Israel stepped up its bombing campaign and later sent troops into Lebanon following nearly a year of exchanges of cross-border fire initiated by Hezbollah over the war in Gaza.

The warring sides have since traded accusations of violating the truce.

Under the ceasefire agreement, UNIFIL peacekeepers and the Lebanese army were to redeploy in south Lebanon, near the Israeli border, as Israeli forces withdrew over 60 days.

UNIFIL said in a statement on Thursday that "there is concern at continuing destruction by the IDF (army) in residential areas, agricultural land and road networks in south Lebanon".

The statement added that "this is in violation of Resolution 1701", which was adopted by the UN Security Council and ended the last Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006.

The UN force also reiterated its call for "the timely withdrawal" of Israeli troops from Lebanon, and "the full implementation of Resolution 1701".

The resolution states that Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only forces in south Lebanon, where Hezbollah exerts control, and also calls for Israeli troops to withdraw from Lebanese territory.

"Any actions that risk the fragile cessation of hostilities must cease," UNIFIL said.

On Monday the force had urged "accelerated progress" in the Israeli military's withdrawal.

Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) reported on Thursday "extensive" operations by Israeli forces in the south.

It said residents of Qantara fled to a nearby village "following an incursion by Israeli enemy forces into their town".

On Wednesday the NNA said Israeli aircraft struck the eastern Baalbek region, far from the border.

DAMASCUS — Syria's new leaders announced Tuesday that they had reached an agreement with the country's rebel groups on their dissolution and integration under the defence ministry.

Absent from the meeting were representatives of the US-backed, Kurdish-led forces that control swathes of Syria's northeast.

The meeting between the rebel groups and Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa "ended in an agreement on the dissolution of all the groups and their integration under the supervision of the ministry of defence", said a statement carried by the SANA news agency and the authorities' Telegram account.

The announcement comes just over two weeks after president Bashar Al Assad fled Syria, following a lightning offensive spearheaded by Sharaa's Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) group.

On Sunday Sharaa, long known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed Al Jolani, had said the new authorities would "absolutely not allow there to be weapons in the country outside state control".

That also applied to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), he said.

Last week, the military chief of HTS told AFP that Kurdish-held areas would be integrated under the new leadership, and that "Syria will not be divided".

Thirteen years of civil war in Syria has left more than half a million people dead and fragmented the country into zones of influence controlled by different armed groups backed by regional and international powers.

SDF spokesman Farhad Shami told AFP the question of his group's integration into the national armed forces "should be discussed directly".

He did not dismiss the possibility, saying that doing so would strengthen "the whole of Syria".

Shami added that his forces prefer "dialogue with Damascus to resolve all questions".

 'Economic leverage'

Turkey has long held ties with HTS, and analysts say that since the Islamists took over Syria, both sides have sought to profit from the relationship.

Ankara accuses the People's Protection Units (YPG) -- the main component of the SDF -- of being affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency on Turkish soil.

Earlier this month, a Syria specialist who advises Western diplomats in Turkey said: "The Turks would like to push HTS into striking at the Kurds but HTS doesn't want to get involved."

Although Ankara's role in Assad's overthrow had been "overstated", Turkey now has "real economic leverage" thanks to the 900-kilometre border it shares with Syria, the source said on condition of anonymity.

How the situation develops will also depend on US President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on January 20 but has already proclaimed that "Turkey is going to hold the key to Syria".

Since late November, the SDF has been battling Turkey-backed fighters who launched an offensive on Kurdish-held areas at the same time as HTS's anti-Assad campaign.

On Tuesday, the SDF said in a statement its fighters were waging deadly combat to the east of the key city of Manbij, with 16 deaths in its ranks.

Syria's Kurds, long oppressed under Assad's rule, saw an opportunity during the war to carve out a semi-autonomous territory in the northeast.

They proved an indispensable ally to the US-led coalition battling the Islamist State group.

Since Assad's ouster on December 8, they have issued numerous statements welcoming his downfall, and also put out calls for dialogue with the new leadership in Damascus and with Turkey.

In Syria's northeast, both the Kurdish flag and the three-star independence-era flag used by the new authorities can be seen.

TEHRAN — Iranian flights to Syria will remain suspended until late January, local media reported Tuesday, after the fall of long time Tehran ally president Bashar al-Assad.

"In order to fly to a country, the destination country must grant entry and admission permits," the head of Iran's Civil Aviation Organisation, Hossein Pourfarzaneh, was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.

"Currently, flights to Syria will not be allowed until January 22, after the New Year holidays," he added.

It was not clear exactly when Iran suspended flights to Syria.

Assad fled the country earlier this month as rebel forces led by the Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) entered the capital Damascus after a lightning offensive.

Thousands of Iranians have left Syria since the HTS takeover, which saw Tehran's embassy in Damascus vandalised.

Syria's new ruler and HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has spoken out against the Islamic republic's role in Syria over the years.

Tehran helped prop up Assad during the country's long civil war, and provided him with military advisers.

On Monday, Iran's foreign ministry said there was "no direct contact" with Syria's new ruling authority.

It has also warned Iranians against travelling to Syria after the recent developments.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told lawmakers on Monday that "some progress" had been made in negotiations to secure the release of hostages held in Gaza, more than 14 months into the war.

His comments in parliament come two days after Hamas said in a rare joint statement that a deal for a ceasefire in the Gaza war and to exchange prisoners was "closer than ever."

In recent days, indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States took place in Doha, rekindling hope of an agreement that has proven elusive.

"Everything we are doing cannot be disclosed. We are taking actions to bring them back. I wish to say cautiously that there has been some progress, and we will not stop acting until we bring them all home," Netanyahu said in parliament, on the same day he took the stand again at his ongoing corruption trial.

Hostage families have questioned the sincerity of government negotiation efforts, and critics have long accused Netanyahu of stalling in truce talks, prolonging the war partly to appease his far-right coalition partners.

On Saturday, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said progress had been made.

"The possibility of reaching an agreement [for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal] is closer than ever, provided the enemy stops imposing new conditions," the groups said after they held talks in Cairo.

 'Full force' 

Negotiations have faced multiple challenges since a one-week truce in November 2023, with the primary point of contention being the establishment of a lasting ceasefire. 

Another unresolved issue is the territory's post-war governance.

Hamas's armed wing said the fate of some of the hostages depends on how Israeli forces carry out their offensive.

"If the occupation army advances even a few hundred metres more in some areas where they are already on the ground, it will decide the fate of some of the enemy's hostages," Abu Obeida, spokesman for the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, said in a statement on Monday.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last week, Netanyahu said: "I'm not going to agree to end the war before we remove Hamas." He added Israel is "not going to leave them in power in Gaza, 30 miles from Tel Aviv. It's not going to happen."

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on October 23 that Israel had "managed to dismantle Hamas's military capacity" and eliminated its senior leadership. With those successes, he said, it was time to "get the hostages home and bring the war to an end with an understanding of what will follow."

Israel's occupation army on Monday said three soldiers were killed in northern Gaza, the focus for weeks of an offensive Israel said aimed to prevent Hamas from regrouping there.

In parliament, Netanyahu also warned the Iran-backed Huthi rebels of Yemen, who last week fired two missiles at Israel, including one that injured 16 people in the commercial hub of Tel Aviv on Saturday.

Israeli warplanes retaliated against ports and energy infrastructure, which the military said contributed to Huthi rebel operations, after a rebel missile badly damaged an Israeli school last week. The Huthis said the Israeli strikes killed nine people.

NAIROBI — South Sudan is facing a "completely overwhelming" influx of refugees from war-torn Sudan as well as a rapidly growing cholera epidemic, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned Monday.

The medical charity said up to 5,000 people were crossing the border every day. The United Nations recently put the figure even higher at 7,000 to 10,000 a day.

Sudan is suffering one of the world's worst humanitarian emergencies since conflict broke out between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in April 2023, with tens of thousands killed and millions displaced.

An MSF emergency coordinator in Renk town, near a transit centre holding some 17,000 people according to the UN, said they were working with the International Committee of the Red Cross to provide care.

"But the situation is completely overwhelming and it's not enough," said Emanuele Montobbio.

Facilities are expanding, he said, but "over 100 wounded patients, many with serious injuries, still await surgery." 

Alhida Hammed fled to Renk after his village was attacked and he was shot in Sudan's Blue Nile state.

"The houses were blazing, and everyone was running in different directions," he said.

He now has no shelter and is living under a tree, but does not want to return to Sudan.

"Home is no longer a home, it is filled with bad memories."

'Death's door' 

South Sudan is ill-equipped to handle the arrival of thousands seeking shelter from war, with the young country itself battling violence, endemic poverty and natural disasters.

Huge numbers of its own citizens are living in camps for internally displaced people and many now face an "alarming and rapid increase" in cholera cases, said MSF.

It said 92 people had died following an outbreak in Unity state, and that it had treated over 1,210 people in just four weeks in Bentiu city.

In sprawling camps near the capital Juba, home to tens of thousands, MSF said it had treated some 1,700 suspected cases with 25 deaths reported by the community.

"What we are witnessing is not just a cholera outbreak, it is the result of systemic neglect," said MSF's South Sudan head of mission Mamman Mustapha.

He described "mountains of uncollected waste", broken latrines and raw sewage in the camps, leaving behind a legacy of contaminated drinking water and infected inhabitants at "death's door".

Without immediate action, he said, "we expect cholera cases to skyrocket in the coming days and weeks."