Syrians celebrate first Friday since al-Assad ouster

Celebrations continued in Syria’s capital on the first Friday since the overthrow of al-Assad, with people taking to the streets waving the opposition’s new flag, balloons, and flowers.

Opposition flag replaces Assad regime’s in Syria and abroad

As Bashar al-Assad was toppled, Syrians in Syria and abroad celebrated by replacing the flag of the regime with the flag adopted by opposition groups.

The regime flag’s red fess is replaced with green and three red stars represent the three main districts of Syria: Aleppo, Damascus and Deir Az Zor.

_{A woman celebrates the fall of the al-Assad regime by wearing a flag adopted by Syria’s new rulers, in the Damascus old city}

_{Syrians in Sweden celebrate by waving the flag adopted by Syria’s new rulers}

Massive celebration in Sweida

Verified videos on social media show a massive demonstration in Sweida, a mainly Druze city located in southwestern Syria, celebrating the toppling of Bashar al-Assad. Thousands gathered to chant slogans invoking unity and the Syrian revolution.

Amnesty granted to prisoners in areas under Kurdish control in Syria

To celebrate the fall of the al-Assad regime, the Kurdish administration that controls areas of northeast Syria has issued an amnesty for prisoners held in territory under their control, The Associated Press news agency reports.

The amnesty, however, does not include those jailed for terrorism, rape and sexual assault, the AP said.

The release of prisoners by the Kurdish administration follows the recent opening by rebel forces of prisons in areas of Syria that were controlled by the al-Assad forces.

AP said there were joyful scenes as relatives, who had been waiting outside Navkur prison in northeastern Syria’s Qamishli city for several hours, hugged their loved ones as they were freed.

New administration faces ‘massive’ challenge of rebuilding

We’ve met people who have come back to this city. We’ve met people in Idlib, in Manbij and other parts [of the country], as well, who tell us that they have a lot of expectations from the incoming government. They like the words they’re hearing, but they have to be followed by actions.

Everybody here is cognizant of the fact that this regime that existed for 60 years, and a collapsing system – which is a void right now – will take time to fill.

This used to be the industrial hub for Syria. It was actually considered to be a richer city than Damascus itself. [People] say that now life, they expect, is going to come back to normal. They believe that this is an opportunity for Syrians to go back and rebuild.

The challenges this incoming government is going to face are massive: building basic infrastructure, returning life to the areas where no life had existed for more than a decade.

People here are celebrating, people here are with hope – but they’re also asking the people who are in charge, do not miss this opportunity to run Syria according to the aspirations of the Syrian people.

Russian wheat supplies to Syria suspended: Report

Russian wheat supplies to Syria have been suspended because of uncertainty about the new government and payment delays, Russian and Syrian sources told the Reuters news agency today.

Two vessels carrying Russian wheat for Syria did not reach their destinations.

Russia, the world’s largest wheat exporter, was a staunch supporter of Bashar al-Assad and supplied wheat to Syria through complex financial and logistical arrangements, circumventing Western sanctions imposed on both Syria and Russia.

A Russian source close to the government told Reuters that supplies to Syria have been suspended because exporters are concerned by uncertainty over who will manage wheat imports on the Syrian side following the change of power in Damascus.

“I think no one would dare supply wheat to Syria under the current circumstances,” the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, told Reuters.

Shipping data shows one vessel, the Mikhail Nenashev, is anchored off the Syrian coast, while another, the Alpha Hermes, is heading towards the Egyptian port of Alexandria after remaining off the Syrian coast for several days.

Kyiv ready to supply food to Syria as Russia supplies suspended

KYIV: Ukraine, a global producer and exporter of grain and oilseeds, is ready to supply food to Syria following the fall of Bashar Assad, Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Vitaliy Koval told Reuters on Friday.

“Where it is difficult, we have to be there with our food. We are open to supplying our food and if Syria needs food — then we are there,” Koval told Reuters.

Ukraine’s exports were buffeted by Russia’s February 2022 invasion, which severely reduced shipments via the Black Sea. Ukraine has since broken a de facto sea blockade and revived exports from its southern ports of Odesa.

Kyiv traditionally exports wheat and corn to Middle Eastern countries, but not to Syria. Since the fall of Assad, a close Russian ally, Kyiv has voiced a desire to restore relations with Syria.

Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said Kyiv was ready “to pave the way for the restoration of relations in the future and reaffirm our support for the Syrian people.”

 
EU to deliver aid to Syria via Turkiye ‘air bridge’

The European Commission has announced the launch of an “air bridge” operation to deliver an initial 50 tonnes of health supplies to Syria via neighbouring Turkiye.

The items from EU stockpiles in Dubai will be flown to Adana, Turkiye for distribution in Syria “in the coming days,” a commission statement said.

A further 46 tonnes of relief supplies will be trucked from an EU stockpile in Denmark to Adana, for distribution in Syria by UNICEF and the World Health Organization.

The UN humanitarian agency says more than a million people, mostly women and children, have been newly displaced in Syria since the launch of the opposition offensive that deposed President al-Assad.

Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said she would “be further discussing the delivery of humanitarian aid” when she travels to Turkiye to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday.

ICRC says 35,000 people registered as missing in 13 years of conflict in Syria

The head of the delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Syria has called “on all parties across Syria to prevent the destruction of crucial records, like arrest logs, lists of detainees or deceased persons, as well as court and hospital records”.

Stephan Sakalian made the statement after his team visited Sednaya Prison, where they “saw piles of damaged documents scattered throughout different rooms”.

“These records may contain crucial information that could help families find long-awaited answers,” he said.

The statement repeated the ICRC’s call for access to all places of detention in Syria.

“The images we saw this week illustrate how vital this access is to prevent some of the worst human suffering in Syria or anywhere else in the world,” Sakalian added.

Researchers conclude at least 80,000 missing Syrians have been killed

The head of Syria’s Network for Human Rights says only 33,000 detainees have been found and freed from Syria’s prisons since the fall of al-Assad.

So where are the 80,000 other missing people?

What is Captagon, the addictive drug mass-produced in al-Assad’s Syria?

Four days since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, opposition fighters who have taken control of Damascus have uncovered large stashes of Captagon, a narcotic substance that has long been mass-produced in the country – so much so that it became almost synonymous with the nation’s removed leadership.

Ahmed al-Sharaa (also known as Abu Mohammed al-Julani), the top commander of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has in recent days accused the former regime of turning Syria into “the world’s leading source of Captagon”. He has promised to crack down on Captagon manufacture and trade.

But what is Captagon?

It’s an addictive, amphetamine-type stimulant, that has been primarily produced in Syria in recent years and smuggled to the Gulf states.

Although the al-Assad regime denied any involvement in the trade, observers say production and smuggling of the drug brought in billions of dollars for the ousted president and his associates as they looked for an economic lifeline. The substance also became a bargaining chip for al-Assad in talks that led to the Arab League reinstating Syria’s membership last year, as nations looked to curb the illicit drug trade.

New Syria inherits collapsed healthcare system

The new Syrian administration is inheriting a healthcare system devasted by years of civil war.

Since 2011, the majority of healthcare workers have fled the country and the UN says more than half of the country’s health infrastructure has been destroyed or damaged.

Mufaddal Hamadeh, president of the Syrian American Medical Society, who was operating in the country’s northwest during the conflict, explains the situation:

New Syria to face economic crisis

One of the top challenges the new Syrian administration will have to tackle is the economy. Syria was already in bad shape before the start of the civil war, but throughout the conflict, the country’s economic crisis further deepened.

Turkiye, US discuss possible roles in Syria’s future: FM Fidan

Turkiye’s Hakan Fidan says his country’s priority in Syria is ensuring the stability and prevention of domination by groups deemed “terrorists” after the toppling of ruler al-Assad.

Speaking alongside US Secretary of State Antony Blinken after their meeting in Ankara, Fidan said the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and ISIL (ISIS) should not gain ground in post-Assad Syria, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency.

Blinken said they discussed the imperative of continuing efforts to keep ISIL down in Syria.

The top diplomat met Turkish President Erdogan earlier in the day.

The concern is always about terrorists. Instead of helping the new government so they can enforce the rule of law, Blinken is only concerned about bombing ISIL.


Video shows White House spokesman evading question on Israel’s military operations in Syria

Reporter Niall Stanage and national security spokesperson John Kirby had this exchange yesterday, in which the reporter asked Kirby why foreign troops are still in Syria if the White House wants an independent and sovereign state after the fall of al-Assad.

Israeli troops seized land inside Syria’s Golan Heights, adjacent to the territory it already illegally occupies there. It has also carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syria since al-Assad fled the country less than a week ago.

Kirby claimed that Israel’s moves in Syria are “temporary”, and the reporter followed up by pointing out that the Golan Heights have been partially occupied by Israel since 1967.

_{An aerial picture taken by a drone shows damaged Syrian government warplanes in the Mezzeh military airport in Damascus, Syria, on Thursday}

Netanyahu visits Golan Heights as Israeli troops occupy Mt Hermon peak

Israel Katz, the country’s defence minister, has posted a picture on X showing himself alongside the prime minister observing the mountain.

“Overlooking the Syrian peak of Mount Hermon, which returned to Israeli control after 51 years. An exciting historical moment”, Katz wrote in a post accompanying the photo.

Israeli troops in recent days have moved into the demilitarised zone inside Syria, including the Syrian side of the strategic Mount Hermon that overlooks Damascus, where it took over an abandoned Syrian military post.

Israel has repeatedly said that any operations its ground troops are undertaking in Syria are temporary and for the safety of Israel.

The UN has called on Syria’s neighbours to respect its territorial integrity as it undergoes this period of transition.


_{A drone view shows damage to ships at Latakia port after the Israeli military said it attacked Syrian defence facilities on Wednesday}

Katz orders Israeli troops to prepare to remain on Mount Hermon during winter

The Israeli defence minister has given the order considering the developments in Syria, according to a statement by his office. “Due to what is happening in Syria – there is enormous security importance to our holding on to the peak of Mount Hermon,” the statement said.

Following President al-Assad’s fall on Sunday, Israeli troops moved into the demilitarised zone inside Syria created after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. The Syrian side of the strategic Mount Hermon overlooks Damascus. An abandoned Syrian military post has also been seized, according to the Israeli army.

Meanwhile the massacres in Gaza continue

Dozens killed in Israeli air strike on Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp

A post office sheltering displaced Palestinian families has been hit in Nuseirat, as well as nearby houses, according to a medic.

More than 30 Palestinians have been killed and 50 others injured in an Israeli air attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. Medics told the Reuters news agency that a post office sheltering displaced Palestinian families was hit, as well as nearby houses.

Photographs from the scene show young children coated with dust and blood in the rubble of a collapsed building.

Nuseirat is one of the Gaza Strip’s eight historical refugee camps established in 1948 after the forced expulsion of Palestinians from nearby areas, often called the Nakba or “catastrophe”.

Palestinians decry ‘barbaric’ Israel strike on Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp

Palestinian authorities have said that at least 36 people were killed in an Israeli strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, as Israel continues to conduct devastating attacks across the strip.

The Government Media Office in Gaza called the Thursday attack a “barbaric and heinous massacre”, noting that most of those killed hailed from the al-Sheikh Ali family. “The [Israeli] occupation army knew that this is a residential block with many apartment buildings housing dozens of civilians, children, women and displaced people,” the office said.

On Thursday, the watchdog group Airwars, which assesses civilian harm from air strikes, released a report stating that Israel’s campaign in Gaza was “by far the most intense, destructive, and fatal conflict for civilians” that it had ever recorded.

The report found that, during the first month of the war, the number of civilians killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza was nearly four times greater than the death toll of “any conflict Airwars has documented since it was established in 2014”, over a comparable time period.

Experts and rights groups also say that the Gaza death toll is likely a vast undercount, with thousands more buried beneath mountains of rubble and the strip’s health services struggling to maintain operations.

Israel accused of targeting women and children after dozens killed in Gaza bombing

At least 84 others are missing after the air strikes late on Thursday, with many presumed trapped under the rubble of the building, the office said.

“Civil defence teams rushed to the scene immediately but the scale of destruction was overwhelming," Gaza civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told The National. “The majority of the bodies recovered were women and children who had no reason to be targeted in such a horrific manner.”

‘Catastrophic’ Israeli barrage hits hospital in northern Gaza, doctor says

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/13/middleeast/israel-gaza-hospital-doctor-aid-intl/index.html

The Israeli military battered Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza with heavy ground and aerial bombardment overnight Thursday into Friday, according to the director of the facility, who described as a “catastrophic” barrage.

Israeli forces dropped bombs from quadcopters and injured at least three medical staff, including one colleague who had been injured at least twice before, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, told CNN on Friday.

“Tonight was one of the most difficult nights,” Abu Safiya said on a voice message, which was punctuated by the sound of bombardment. The area around the hospital has been targeted with intense strikes this week.


The scale and ferocity of the attacks blew off doors and windows on one side of the hospital, said Abu Safiya, adding water tanks “were blown away from the intensity of the explosion.”

“As of now, heavy bombing persists throughout the night, accompanied by ongoing destruction of buildings,” he added. “It is a catastrophic scene, with airstrikes and artillery shelling occurring with unprecedented intensity and frequency.”

Israeli forces launched an aerial and ground incursion in several parts of northern Gaza in early October, saying they were targeting Hamas’ renewed presence there. The two-month onslaught has razed streets into carpets of debris, killed entire families, and severely depleted food, water and medical stocks. The Israeli military has fired on Kamal Adwan Hospital on a daily basis, and raided the facility at least six times since October 5, Abu Safiya told CNN.

The Israeli military says Hamas uses hospitals for its military operations. Hamas denies using hospitals as cover. CNN cannot independently verify either claim. CNN has reached out to the Israeli military about Abu Safiya’s accusations.

Gaza And Israel Evokes Holocaust Film 'The Zone Of Interest' - Israeli Journalist Gideon Levy

The contrast between the apocalyptic wasteland of Gaza, and the continued Western lifestyles of Israelis on the other side of the barrier, has been on my mind a lot. I discuss this with courageous Israeli journalist Gideon Levy. He is at pains to stress that comparisons with the Shoah are "morally and factually wrong", yet this extreme divide evokes the Holocaust film 'The Zone of Interest'.

Recap for December 13th

• A series of explosions have been heard in Damascus, an Al Jazeera correspondent reports, as Israel conducts renewed strikes on “strategic areas” across Syria, particularly in and around the capital.
• The Arab League has issued a resolution condemning Israel’s seizure of a buffer zone in the occupied Golan Heights, adding that Arab countries have approached the UN Security Council to hold a session on Israel’s actions against Syria since al-Assad’s fall.
• Jordan is set to host a summit to coordinate a response to the situation in Syria – including humanitarian relief, security, and democratic rule – attended by Arab diplomats, as well as representatives from Turkiye, the US, the EU and the UN.
• Russia appears to be packing up equipment at a military base in Syria, according to satellite imagery, after Moscow announced it had initiated contact with the rebels about maintaining its presence in the country.
• Turkiye Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan says he urged Russia and Iran not to intervene to support al-Assad’s forces as the opposition mounted its lightning advance last week.

Syria’s UN ambassador deplores Israel’s ‘aggression’ in letter to Security Council

Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations is a holdover from the al-Assad regime. Damascus asked him to stay on in his current position and continue his work and that’s exactly what he is doing, representing the new administration in Syria and the Syrian people more broadly.

Earlier this week, the ambassador sent a letter to the UN Security Council – which we have obtained – deploring Israel’s aggression and breaches of Syria’s sovereignty, particularly the bombing of military sites as well as violations of the 1974 disengagement agreement overseen by the UN Disengagement Observer Force.

”At a time when the Syrian Arab Republic is witnessing a new phase in its history in which its people aspire to establish a state of freedom, equality and the rule of law and to achieve their hopes for prosperity and stability, the Israeli occupation army has penetrated additional areas of Syrian territory in Mount Hermon and Quneitra Governorate,” al-Dahhak wrote.

Al-Dahhak, an al-Assad regime appointee, said he was acting ”on instructions from my government” in making the demands, in what appears to be the first letter sent from Syria’s new interim government to the UN.

On Friday, the UN secretary-general’s spokesperson commented about exactly that. The letter from Syria’s ambassador calls on the UNSC to do whatever it can to compel Israel to stop all of its attacks, as well as withdraw from areas – immediately – that Israel has occupied over the past few days.

On Tuesday, the UNSC will meet to discuss Syria’s political and humanitarian situation.

Israeli warplanes attack targets in vicinity of Damascus, across Syria 

The large explosions heard in the Syrian capital Damascus on Friday night were from more Israeli air strikes, which targeted military installations near the city and in the surrounding countryside, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Syria’s capital Resul Serdar said.

The air strikes targeted the Syrian army’s Fourth Division and a radar battalion in the countryside near Damascus, Serdar said.

“There are two things interesting about this. The first is that the Fourth Division, during the al-Assad regime, it was directly under the responsibility of Maher al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad’s brother,” Serdar said.

Secondly, the radar battalion that was attacked is in an area where air defence systems are located, near the notorious Sednaya Prison, and which Israeli forces had already targeted with air strikes and had previously destroyed military equipment.

According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Israeli warplanes attacked a target at the summit of Mount Qasioun in Damascus, Khalkhala airport in the countryside of Sweida, and the Defence and Research Laboratories in Masyaf, located in the western countryside of Hama.

Earlier on Friday, Israeli air strikes hit six military sites in the countryside of Damascus and Sweida, the observatory said.

Israeli military releases video of operations inside Syrian border territory

Israeli military forces have carried out patrols and raids inside Syrian territory near the occupied Golan Heights where they claim to have seized weapons including antitank missiles, bulletproof vests and ammunition.

Israel’s military said tanks, engineering units and paratroopers have been deployed to “points in Syrian territory and along the border”, in what the UN has said is an incursion into a “buffer zone” between Israel and Syria, and which contravenes the UN-endorsed 1974 disengagement agreement that ended fighting between Israeli and Syrian forces.

The commander of Israel’s Golan Heights Divisional Battle Team, Brigade 474, said in comments alongside the videos that his forces were deployed in the buffer zone to protect Israeli residents of the occupied Golan Heights and cared nothing for events in Syria. “We have no interest in anything currently happening in Syria – except for carrying out the mission of protecting the residents of the Golan,” he said.