This is Beirut, 18/12 11:20 - Reading : 1 minute(s)
Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli strikes Monday across the territory killed at least 12 people, the majority displaced Palestinians taking shelter in a house in the north. More than 14 months into the Israel-Hamas war, the violence continued even as the United States expressed "cautious optimism" about the prospects of reaching a ...
This is Beirut, 18/12 09:25 - Reading : 3 minute(s)
Damascus Israel UN Security Council
A UN envoy has warned that Syria's protracted conflict "has not ended yet", even as victorious Islamist-led rebels stepped up contacts with governments that deemed ousted president Bashar al-Assad a pariah. The United Nations' special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, said on Tuesday "there have been significant hostilities in the last two weeks, ...
This is Beirut, 17/12 22:50 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
The United States said Tuesday it felt "cautious optimism" on the prospects of reaching a ceasefire in the 14-month war in Gaza, although it acknowledged that similar hopes had been dashed before. Hamas on Tuesday said that talks mediated by Qatar were "serious and positive," a day after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz described the two ...
This is Beirut, 17/12 19:40 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Israel Syria Benjamin Netanyahu Mount Hermon
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security briefing Tuesday atop a strategic Syrian mountain inside the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights that Israel seized this month, the defense minister said. Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz and the heads of the armed forces and the domestic security agency visited ...
Samar El-Kadi, 17/12 18:20 - Reading : 5 minute(s)
Like everywhere else in Syria, the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s totalitarian regime was acclaimed with joy and celebrations in the predominantly Druze southern province of Sweida. While they have historically been close to the regime, the esoteric minority Druze community, making up some 3 to 4% of Syria’s ...
This is Beirut, 17/12 12:20 - Reading : 4 minute(s)
Israel Middle East Turkey Ukraine USA Vladimir Putin
After backing the rebels who overthrew Bashar al-Assad and brokering a key Horn of Africa peace deal, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan has boosted his international standing, leaving him well-placed to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, analysts say. Although Turkey was not directly involved in the Syrian strongman's overthrow, it has long ...
This is Beirut, 17/12 12:10 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Hamas Israel Palestine United Nations West Bank
Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday that his country's forces would be free to act in the Gaza Strip even after its war with Hamas ends. "After eliminating Hamas's military and governmental capabilities in Gaza, Israel would have security control over Gaza with complete freedom of action" for the Israeli military, Katz said in a ...
This is Beirut, 17/12 11:40 - Reading : 1 minute(s)
Lebanon Israel Naqoura Lebanese Army
In their most recent operations in southern Lebanon, Israeli forces conducted excavation operations using bulldozers in Naqoura early on Tuesday, demolishing several homes. In Kfar Kila, numerous houses were destroyed while drones flew at low altitudes over Tyre. The Israeli Army also fired machine guns toward Naqoura, a town it infiltrated ...
This is Beirut, 16/12 21:05 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Israel Katz Israel Gaza Hostages Gaza Hamas
Israeli negotiators have "not been this close to an agreement" for the release of hostages in Gaza since the November 2023 truce in the war between Israel and Hamas, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Monday. "We have not been this close to an agreement on the hostages since the previous deal," Katz told members of the Israeli parliament's ...
This is Beirut, 16/12 20:40 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Two Palestinian officials told AFP on Monday that Israel, via Russian mediators, was seeking to locate in Syria the remains of famous Israeli spy Eli Cohen and missing soldiers. Israel for years has been trying to find and repatriate the body of Cohen, and in 2021 a war monitor said Russian forces had been searching the Yarmuk Palestinian refugee ...
This is Beirut, 16/12 14:30 - Reading : 2 minute(s)
Israeli strikes targeted military sites in Syria's coastal Tartus region overnight, a war monitor said Monday, calling them "the heaviest strikes" there in years. "Israeli warplanes launched strikes" targeting a series of sites including air defense units and "surface-to-surface missile depots", the Syrian ...
This is Beirut, 16/12 12:05 - Reading : 1 minute(s)
Damascus Israel Turkey Golan Syria
Turkey on Monday denounced an Israeli plan to double the population living in the occupied and annexed Golan Heights as a bid to "expand its borders". "This decision is a new stage in Israel's goal of expanding its borders through occupation," the foreign ministry said in a statement condemning the move. Israel's government on Sunday approved a ...