Banks, shops reopen in Damascus as Israel pounds Syria, Gaza

The New Arab's live blog on Syria and Gaza has now ended, and will resume at 0900am GMT.

Thank you for following.

Syrian fighters received about 150 drones as well as other covert support from Ukrainian intelligence operatives last month, weeks ahead of the rebels' advance that toppled Bashar al-Assad over the weekend, according to the Washington Post.

Citing unnamed sources familiar with Ukrainian military activities, the Post late on Tuesday said Ukrainian intelligence sent about 20 drone operators and about 150 first-person-view drones about four to five weeks ago to aid Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

Russia's foreign ministry had earlier said, without providing evidence, that the rebels had received drones from Ukraine and training in how to operate them, an accusation that Ukraine's foreign ministry at the time said it "categorically" rejected.

A former al Qaeda affiliate, HTS has moved to install an interim administration after Syria's 13-year civil war fractured the country amid one of the most oppressive police states in the Middle East under five decades of Assad family rule.

Russia, which is locked in its own conflict with Ukraine after invading the country in February 2022, is a key ally of Assad and stepped in to provide him military support in the country's civil war in 2015.

Gunfire has killed one 12-year-old boy and injured three others after opening fire on Wednesday on an Israeli bus in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military and medics reported.

The attack at around 11:30 pm (2130 GMT) happened south of Jerusalem, near Bethlehem at the so-called tunnels checkpoint.

"After intensive resuscitation attempts, the medical team pronounced the boy dead, who was evacuated in critical condition from the attack," said Hadassah hospital, located west of Jerusalem.

Israel's emergency medical service Magen David Adom said its medics treated four people, including "a 12-year-old child in serious condition with gunshot wounds".

The military said: "Israeli security forces are pursuing the terrorist, setting up roadblocks and encircling the area of Bethlehem".

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.

At least eight Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a group of Palestinians tasked with securing aid trucks into the Gaza Strip on Thursday, medics said.

Medics said at least 30 people were wounded and with several in critical condition, they feared the death toll may rise. The strike took place in western area of Rafah City, in the south of the enclave, medics and residents said.

Israeli forces conducted a first withdrawal from a town in south Lebanon and were replaced by the Lebanese military under a ceasefire deal, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Wednesday.

The command's leader General Erik Kurilla "was present at the implementation and monitoring headquarters today during the ongoing first Israeli Defense Forces withdrawal and Lebanese Armed Forces replacement in Al-Khiam, Lebanon as part of the (ceasefire) agreement," CENTCOM said in a statement.

A monitor of Syria's war on Wednesday said that Israeli air strikes targeted sites belonging to ousted president Bashar al-Assad's military in the coastal Latakia and Tartous provinces.

"Israeli warplanes launched air strikes" targeting "military sites" including "the Latakia port" as well as warehouses in neighbouring Tartous province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that "Israeli warplanes continue to destroy what remains of Syria's military arsenal for the fourth consecutive day since the fall of the former regime".

 The United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly voted on Wednesday to demand an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the immediate release of all hostages.

The ceasefire demand in the resolution - adopted with 158 votes in favor - is an escalation by the 193-member General Assembly, which in October last year called for and then - two months later - demanded an immediate humanitarian truce in Gaza.

General Assembly resolutions are not binding but carry political weight, reflecting a global view on the war. The United States, Israel and seven other countries voted against the ceasefire resolution, while 13 countries abstained.

The world body also threw its support behind the UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA, adopting a second resolution with 159 votes in favor to deplore a new law that will ban UNRWA's operations in Israel from late January.

It demanded that Israel respect UNRWA's mandate and "enable its operations to proceed without impediment or restriction." The US, Israel and seven other countries voted no, while 11 countries abstained.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad said on Wednesday that a delegation including its chief, Ziad al-Nakhala, arrived in Cairo on Wednesday to discuss developments related to talks on a hostages-for-prisoners deal with Israel. 

The United States welcomes recent comments made by the Syrian rebel leader about securing potential chemical weapons sites, but would wait to see what actions are taken, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

"We welcome this type of rhetoric but... actions have to meet words as well," Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters

Syria's new prime minister said the Islamist-led alliance that ousted president Bashar al-Assad will guarantee minority rights, in an interview published Wednesday, also calling on the millions who fled the war to return home.

With Assad's overthrow plunging Syria into the unknown, its new rulers have sought to assure religious minorities that they will not repress them.

Sunni Muslim HTS is rooted in Syria's branch of Al-Qaeda and is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by many Western governments, though it has sought to moderate its rhetoric.

"Precisely because we are Islamic, we will guarantee the rights of all people and all sects in Syria," Mohammad al-Bashir, whom the rebels appointed as the transitional head of government, told Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

Bashir, whose appointment was announced Tuesday, is tasked with heading the multi-ethnic, multi-confessional country until March 1.

Israel's strikes on Syria following the fall of longtime president Basher Al-Assad violate international law, United Nations experts said Wednesday, branding Israel's attempts to "preemptively disarm" its foes as "lawless".

Since Assad's ouster, Israel, which borders Syria, has sent troops into a buffer zone on the east of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, in a move the UN has said violates a 1974 armistice.

And Israel's military said it had conducted hundreds of strikes against Syrian military assets in the past two days, claiming to target everything from chemical weapons stores to air defences to keep them out of rebel hands.

"There is absolutely no basis under international law to preventively or preemptively disarm a country you don't like," said Ben Saul, UN special rapporteur on the promotion of human rights while countering terrorism.

"If that were the case, it would be a recipe for global chaos," he told reporters in Geneva, pointing out that "lots of countries have adversaries they would like to see without weapons".

"This is completely lawless."

Syria's Baath party announced Wednesday it was suspending work indefinitely, days after rebels ousted president Bashar al-Assad from power, ending more than half a century of the family and party's rule.

The Baath party central leadership has decided to "suspend party work and activity in all its forms... until further notice", said a statement published on the website of the party's newspaper, adding that its property and funds would be handed over to the interior and finance ministries.

Syrian rebel leader Ahmad al-Sharaa - better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani - told Reuters in a written statement on Wednesday that he would dissolve the security forces of the toppled regime of Bashar al-Assad.

He also said his group that now rules most of Syria was working with international organizations to secure possible sites where chemical weapons may be located.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz told his US counterpart Lloyd Austin on Wednesday that there was "currently a chance" for a deal to release the remaining hostages held in Gaza for more than 14 months.

"There is currently a chance for a new deal", Katz told Austin in a phone call, according to a readout from his office.

"We are hoping for the release of all the hostages, including US citizens," he said.

On Monday, a source close to Hamas told AFP that the group had told Egypt's spy chief of "efforts to collect information about the living Israeli prisoners."

The source said that Hamas had prepared a list of hostages who were still alive, including several prisoners with dual Israeli and US citizenship.

"If Israel agrees to the Egyptian proposal, I think the exchange deal will be ready for implementation," the source said.

Another upbeat assessment came from Qatar, which said on Saturday the election of Donald Trump as the next US president had created new "momentum" for negotiations.

At the same time, a source close to the Hamas delegation said that Turkey, as well as Egypt and Qatar, had been "making commendable efforts to stop the war," and a new round of talks could begin soon.

here are currently 99 million Swiss francs ($112 million) worth of frozen Syrian assets in Switzerland, most of which have been blocked for years, the Swiss government said on Wednesday.

The bulk of the total has been frozen since Switzerland adopted European Union sanctions against Syria in May 2011, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) said.

Switzerland this week added three more people to its Syria-related sanctions list, following a move by the EU.

"There are currently 318 individuals and 87 entities on the sanctions list," a Seco spokesperson told Reuters, declining to say if Switzerland had frozen any assets of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Swiss financial institutions once held blocked Syrian assets worth 130 million Swiss francs ($147 million), the Neue Zuercher Zeitung newspaper reported.

"Fluctuations in the total amount of restricted assets can be explained by several factors, including fluctuations in the value of restricted securities accounts and exchange rate effects and the delisting of certain sanctioned persons or entities," the Seco spokesperson said.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi met his Irish counterpart Michael Higgins and prime minister Simon Harris Wednesday for talks on the war in Gaza and boosting bilateral ties.

The two heads of state discussed the Middle East situation, including the political upheaval in Syria, according to a statement from Higgins's office.

"The outrageous suffering in the absence of a ceasefire in Gaza was the central part of their discussion," the statement added.

There had also been "agreement on the need to expand international recognition of the Palestinian state", said Egyptian presidential spokesman Mohamed al-Shenawy.

Ireland is among several European countries which in May formally recognised the State of Palestine, drawing anger from Israel.

Sisi praised Dublin's "courageous positions in support of the Palestinian cause," Shenawy added in a statement.

The UN on Wednesday appealed for $4.07 billion to provide desperately needed aid in Gaza and the occupied West Bank next year, saying that the actual amount needed was far higher.

The aim will be to provide assistance to "the entire population of Gaza, estimated at 2.1 million people, and 900,000 people in the West Bank," the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said in its appeal.

It said that the actual needs amounted to "at least $6.6 billion", but suggested that Israeli constraints placed on aid delivery meant it would be difficult to scale up operations to that level.

"To be able to implement the full scale of what is urgently needed, Israel must take immediate and effective measures to ensure the essential needs of civilians are met," the appeal said.

"Humanitarian actors anticipate being limited in what they can achieve in 2025 due to severe restrictions... and ever greater challenges to their ability to operate, including intensified and coordinated anti-UN rhetoric strategically aimed at delegitimising humanitarian efforts," the appeal said.

If all sides fully complied with international law, OCHA said it would be possible to deliver aid to the tune of $6.6 billion.

But "assuming humanitarian actors will continue to face a constrained operating environment, the 2025 OPT Flash Appeal calls for $4 billion of this amount", it said.

That, it said, meant that aid would reach three million people, rather than the 3.3 million in dire need.

Stressing that "the speed and scale of the killing and destruction in the Gaza Strip are unlike anything seen in recent history", OCHA cautioned that "without sustained solutions to end the violence, humanitarian needs will continue to rise".

It called among other things for safe and sustained access to all people in need across the occupied Palestinian territories, enabling the entry into Gaza of humanitarian goods at scale.

"Beyond peace, genuine efforts to enable humanitarian assistance will require critical changes in the operating environment," it said.

Syria's territorial integrity must be preserved following Bashar al-Assad's ouster in an rebel offensive, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Wednesday during talks in Madrid with his Lebanese counterpart.

During his meeting with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Sanchez "stressed the need for a peaceful and stable Syria, for the benefit of the Syrian people and all countries in the region, especially Lebanon", the Spanish government said in a statement after the closed-door meeting.

"He also called for an orderly political transition for the Syrian people while maintaining the territorial integrity of the country and avoiding further escalation in the region," it added.

Sanchez and Mikati also discussed the situation in Lebanon, where Israel and Hezbollah reached a fragile ceasefire agreement at the end of November after two months of all-out war.

The priority is for this agreement to become a "permanent ceasefire" and "pave the way for the full application" of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which stipulates that southern Lebanon must be free of arms that do not belong to the Lebanese state, the Spanish government statement said.

Adopted in August 2006, the resolution was key to ending the month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 and paving the way for long-term stability along the border.

"We confirm Lebanon's commitment" to this resolution, Mikati wrote on social network X, stressing the need for Israel to "respect the ceasefire decision and withdraw from the cities of southern Lebanon".

On Wednesday groups linked with Syria’s rebel led offensive dubbed "Operation Deter the Aggression" set fire to the grave of Hafez al-Assad located in the countryside of the Latakia governorate in northwest Syria.

Syrians and activists online shared video footage of the burning of the grave, with many noting how Hafez al-Assad was responsible for the torture and massacre of many Syrians for years.

"The grave of the damned Hafez al-Assad has been set alight – he, along with his son, Bashar al-Assad, burned hundreds of thousands and burned the hearts of millions. By God, I am gloating about this" a Mauritanian doctor named Muhammed al-Mukhtar commented on social media platform X.

"I hope the free revolutionaries look after this beautiful site which was built with the peoples’ money and transform it into an exhibition which showcases the martyrs instead” he added.

Al-Assad’s tomb is a vast elevated structure atop a hill which has an intricate architectural design with several arches. It’s exterior is embellished with ornamentation etched in stone.

It also houses the tombs of other Assad family members, including Bashar's brother Bassel, who was being groomed to inherit power before he was killed in a road accident in 1994.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday that there were signs of hope in Syria following the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad by rebel forces.

"As we speak, we are witnessing the reshaping of the Middle East ... We also see some signs of hope, and signs of hope, namely coming from the end of the Syrian dictatorship," Guterres said during a visit to South Africa.

He added after meeting South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola that the United Nations was totally committed to a smooth and inclusive transition of power in Syria.

"It's our duty to do everything to support different Syrian leaders in order to make sure that they come together, they are able to guarantee a smooth transition," Guterres told reporters.

Lebanon's health ministry said an Israeli strike on Wednesday in the country's south killed one person, amid a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

"An Israeli enemy drone strike on the town of Ainata killed one person and wounded another," the health ministry said in a statement.

Germany's foreign minister on Wednesday urged Israel and Turkey not to jeopardise a peaceful transition in Syria after the ousting of president Bashar al-Assad in an a rebel offensive.

"We must not allow the internal Syrian dialogue process to be torpedoed from the outside," said Annalena Baerbock, adding that "neighbours such as the Turkish and Israeli governments, which are asserting their security interests, must not jeopardise the process."

 European foreign ministers will discuss developments in Syria when they meet in Berlin on Thursday, as well as support for Ukraine, according to a spokesperson for the German foreign ministry.

"Given the dramatic events in Syria over the last few days, it will come as no surprise to you that there is also a second important topic, namely the current developments in Syria and their impact on the region and Europe," the spokesperson told reporters on Wednesday.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is set to host her counterparts from France, Poland, Spain, Italy, Britain and Ukraine for talks at a villa in the German capital on Thursday.

Greece on Wednesday suspended all decisions on asylum applications by Syrians after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, the migration minister announced.

Greece, the entry point for many of the hundreds of thousands of Syrians in Europe, is the latest European country to take the action. "We are temporarily freezing ... all procedures (for Syrians) until we have evaluated the new data," Migration Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos told Real FM radio.

The tomb of ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's father Hafez was torched in his hometown of Qardaha, AFP footage taken Wednesday showed, with rebel fighters in fatigues and young men watching it burn.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor told AFP the rebels had set fire to the mausoleum, located in the Latakia heartland of Assad's Alawite community. AFP footage showed parts of the mausoleum ablaze and damaged.

Gaza's civil defence agency said on Wednesday that an overnight Israeli air strike in the northern part of the enclave killed at least 22 people, including women and children.

"At least 22 people were martyred in the massacre committed by the occupation military after it bombed a house belonging to the Abu al-Tarabish family near Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza," agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

Bassal said that an Israeli jet had fired three missiles at the house around midnight, adding the strike completely destroyed the three-storey structure.

More than 50 people were living in the house, he said, with many still under the rubble.

"Rescuers were unable to evacuate the martyrs or the wounded until this morning," said Jaber Alian, 30, who witnessed the strike from a house near the hospital.

He told AFP there were several other bombings across the northern parts of the territory during the night.

The Israeli military confirmed it carried out a strike in the Jabalia area near the Kamal Adwan hospital on Tuesday night.

Qatar said on Wednesday that it would soon reopen its embassy in the Syrian capital Damascus after president Bashar al-Assad's ouster in an rapid rebel offensive.

The Gulf country "will soon reopen its embassy in the sisterly Syrian Arab Republic after completing the necessary arrangements", foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said in a statement.

The move aimed to "strengthen the close historical fraternal ties between the two countries", said the statement.

It also sought to "enhance coordination with relevant authorities to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid currently provided by Qatar to the Syrian people" via an air bridge, it added.

Doha closed its diplomatic mission in Damascus and recalled its ambassador in July 2011 after an uprising against the Assad government turned into a civil war.

Unlike other Arab countries, Qatar never restored diplomatic ties with Syria under Assad, who was toppled over the weekend as Islamist-led rebels swept into the capital.

Lebanon's Hezbollah group on Tuesday expressed hope that neighbouring Syria's new rulers would reject the "Israeli occupation" of their land, days after the ouster of president Bashar al-Assad.

"We hope to see Syria stabilise... and take a firm stand against Israeli occupation, while preventing foreign interference in its affairs," the group said in a statement.

The health ministry in Gaza said on Wednesday that Israel has killed at least 44,805 people in more than 14 months of war.

The toll includes 19 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 106,257 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since 7 October 2023.

Russia said on Wednesday that it wanted to see rapid stabilisation in Syria, criticising Israeli strikes and its creation of a "buffer zone" along the Israeli occupied Golan Heights.

Russia also said its military offensive on Ukraine remained its "absolute priority" amid questions over whether Moscow's almost three-year campaign there meant it could not support long-term ally Bashar al-Assad in the face of the lightning rebel offensive.

"We would like to see the situation in the country stabilised somehow as soon as possible," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

He also condemned Israel's strikes on Syrian military installations and the establishment of a "buffer zone" as aggravating the crisis.

"The strikes, the actions in the Golan Heights and the buffer zone hardly contribute to the stabilisation of the situation in the already destabilised Syria," he said.

Russia was continuing to discuss the fate of its military infrastructure in the country with Syria's new leadership, Peskov said.

"We are in contact with those who control the situation in Syria. This is necessary since our (military) base and diplomatic mission are there," Peskov said.

The Tartus naval base and Hmeimim air base in Syria are Russia's only military outposts outside the former Soviet Union and have been key to the Kremlin's activities in Africa and the Middle East.

Russia's 2015 intervention turned the tide of the Syrian civil war and is widely credited with saving Assad's regime as it fought a myriad group of rebel forces.

But with Moscow bogged down with its military offensive on Ukraine, some analysts say it did not have the resources or energy to come to his rescue again.

"The special military operation is the absolute priority for our country," Peskov said Thursday, using Moscow's preferred language for the offensive.

"All the objectives of the special military operation will be achieved," he added.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Turkey on Friday to discuss the developments in Syria after the toppling of  Bashar al-Assad, a Turkish official source said Wednesday.

"He will be in Turkey on Friday," the source said of the visit which will come just five days after Assad's unexpected ouster, pledging to share more details "as they are finalised".

For more than a decade, Washington has sought to keep out of Syria's political debacle, seeing no viable partner but the lightning offensive by the rebel groups is forcing a rethink.

Pope Francis on Wednesday called on the Syrian rebels who toppled the regime of President Bashar al-Assad to stabilise the country, and govern in a way that promotes national unity.

"I hope they find political solutions that, without other conflicts or divisions, responsibly promote the stability and unity of the country," he said during his weekly audience at the Vatican.

The pope, in his first public remarks about Syria since the ending of Assad's rule, also called on the country's diverse religious groups to "walk together in friendship and mutual respect for the good of the nation".

Francis, as leader of the 1.4-billion-member Catholic Church, often addresses global conflicts, and usually stresses the importance of de-escalation. He has decried the casualties in the Syrian conflict at various points over the years.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday that the toppling of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was the result of a plan by the United States and Israel.

One of Syria's neighbours also had a role, he said. He did not name the country but appeared to be referring to Turkey, which has backed anti-Assad rebels.

Assad's overthrow is widely seen as a major blow to the Iran-led "Axis of Resistance" political and military alliance that opposes Israeli and U.S. influence in the Middle East.

"What happened in Syria was mainly planned in the command rooms of America and Israel. We have evidence of this. A neighbouring government of Syria was also involved," Khamenei said in a speech reported by Iranian state media.

The neighbour had a "clear role and continues to do so," he said.

NATO member Turkey, which controls swathes of land in northern Syria after several cross-border incursions against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, has been a main backer of opposition groups aiming to topple Assad since the outbreak of the civil war in 2011.

Iran spent billions of dollars propping up Assad during the war and deployed its Revolutionary Guards to Syria to keep its ally in power.

Hours after Assad's fall, Iran said it expected relations with Damascus to continue based on the two countries' "far-sighted and wise approach" and called for the establishment of an inclusive government representing all segments of Syrian society.

In his speech, Khamenei also said the Iran-led alliance would gain in strength across the entire region.

"The more pressure you exert, the stronger the resistance becomes. The more crimes you commit, the more determined it becomes. The more you fight against it, the more it expands Khamenei said.

"Iran is strong and powerful—and will become even stronger," he said.

(Reuters)

Syria is seeing significant price hikes and food shortages for essential items like bread and oil, the UN’s humanitarian agency (OCHA) said on Wednesday.

The report added that the cost of bread has soared by 900 percent between 27 November and 9 December. 

They noted that the cost of chicken gas gone up by 119 percent, leaving many unable to afford it. 

The price increases have worsened an already bad humanitarian situation in some parts of the country, with aid efforts also disrupted due to ongoing aggression.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) announced on Wednesday that they have noted a high number of psychological trauma cases in Syria.

"Health needs in north-east Syria are particularly dire due to recent hostilities," the organisation said, noting that signs are particularly visible in children.

"Nine health facilities, including seven primary health centers and one hospital, were vandalized and looted in Menbij," they added, calling for urgent funding to restore healthcare facilities in the country.

Israeli forces have continued to pound military targets across Syria since the toppling of Bashar al-Assad.

At least 480 sites have been struck in the last 48 hours, including airports, air defence facilities, fighter jets and navy vessels. 

At least two civilians have been reported killed in the offensive, according to Al-Jazeera.

Israel's army say they estimate that around 80 percent of Syria's military capabilities have been destroyed.