Latest news with #Syrian-Israeli
Dubai Eye
6 days ago
- General
- Dubai Eye
Israel strikes Syria after projectiles fired, holds Sharaa responsible
Israel has carried out its first airstrikes in Syria in nearly a month, saying it hit weapons belonging to the government in retaliation for the firing of two projectiles towards Israel and holding interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa responsible. Damascus said Israeli strikes caused "heavy human and material losses", reiterating that Syria does not pose a threat to any regional party and stressing the need to end the presence of armed groups and establish state control in the south. Israel had not struck Syria since early May - a month marked by U.S. President Donald Trump's meeting with Sharaa, the lifting of U.S. sanctions, and direct Syrian-Israeli contacts to calm tensions, as reported by Reuters last week. Describing its new rulers as jihadists, Israel has bombed Syria frequently this year. Israel has also moved troops into areas of the southwest, where it has said it won't allow the new government's security forces to deploy. The projectiles Israel reported fired from Syria were the first since longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad was toppled. The Israeli military said the two projectiles fell in open areas. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he held the Syrian president "directly responsible for any threat and fire toward the State of Israel". A Syrian foreign ministry statement said the accuracy of the reports of shelling towards Israel had not yet been verified. "We believe that there are many parties that may seek to destabilize the region to achieve their own interests," the Syrian foreign ministry added, as reported by the state news agency. A Syrian official told Reuters such parties included "remnants of Assad-era militias linked to Iran, which have long been active in the Quneitra area" and have "a vested interest in provoking Israeli retaliation as a means of escalating tensions and undermining current stabilization efforts". Several Arab and Palestinian media outlets circulated a claim of responsibility from a little-known group named "Martyr Muhammad Deif Brigades," an apparent reference to Hamas' military leader who was killed in an Israeli strike in 2024. Reuters could not independently verify the statement. The Syrian state news agency and security sources reported Israeli strikes targeting sites in the Damascus countryside and Quneitra and Daraa provinces. Local residents contacted by Reuters said Israeli shelling targeted agricultural areas in the Wadi Yarmouk region. They described increased tensions in recent weeks, including reported Israeli incursions into villages, where residents have reportedly been barred from sowing their crops. An Israeli strike also hit a former Syrian army base near the city of Izraa, a Syrian source said. Israel has said its goals in Syria include protecting the Druze, a religious minority with followers in both countries. Israel, which has occupied the Syrian Golan Heights since the 1967 Middle East war, bombed Syria frequently during the last decade of Assad's rule, targeting the sway of his Iranian allies. The newly-appointed U.S. envoy to Syria said last week he believed peace between Syria and Israel was achievable. Around the same time that Israel reported the projectiles from Syria, the Israeli military said it intercepted a missile from Yemen. Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis said they targeted Israel's Jaffa with a ballistic missile. The group says it has been launching attacks against Israel in support of Palestinians during the Israeli war in Gaza.
TimesLIVE
6 days ago
- General
- TimesLIVE
Israel strikes Syria after projectiles fired, holds al-Sharaa responsible
Israel has carried out its first air strikes in Syria in nearly a month, saying it hit weapons belonging to the government in retaliation for the firing of two projectiles towards Israel and holding interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa responsible. Damascus said Israeli strikes caused 'heavy human and material losses', reiterating that Syria does not pose a threat to any regional party and stressing the need to end the presence of armed groups and establish state control in the south. Israel had not struck Syria since early May — a month marked by US President Donald Trump's meeting with Sharaa, the lifting of US sanctions and direct Syrian-Israeli contacts to calm tensions, as reported by Reuters last week. Describing its new rulers as jihadists, Israel has bombed Syria frequently this year. Israel has also moved troops into areas of the southwest, where it has said it won't allow the new government's security forces to deploy. The projectiles Israel reported fired from Syria were the first since longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad was toppled. The Israeli military said the two projectiles fell in open areas. Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said he held the Syrian president 'directly responsible for any threat and fire towards the state of Israel'.
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's Syrian Outreach Turns an Enemy Into a Friend
Six months ago, U.S.-Syrian enmity seemed locked in for good. Congress was set to renew the Caesar Civilian Protection Act, a set of economic sanctions designed to weaken the government of Bashar al-Assad by preventing postwar reconstruction. And it was only the latest in a set of economic sanctions imposed in 1979, when the U.S. State Department declared Syria a state sponsor of terrorism. Even the revolution that overthrew Assad in December 2024 did not seem to change the trajectory. As rebels led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, then nicknamed Abu Mohammad al-Golani, advanced on Damascus, the Biden administration insisted that Golani and his men were also terrorists. Congress went ahead with the Caesar Act renewal, and hawkish factions in Washington prepared to put impossible conditions on sanctions relief. This week, however, the Trump administration seems to have let bygones be bygones. On Friday, the U.S. Department of the Treasury issued a three-page waiver lifting almost all economic sanctions on Syria unconditionally. On Wednesday, an American flag flew over Damascus for the first time in a decade as the Syrian government handed back the old U.S. ambassador's residence to Thomas Barrack, who serves as both U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria. Barrack said that President Donald Trump would soon be taking Syria off of the terrorism sponsors list, and claimed that the long-running Syrian-Israeli conflict is a "solvable problem," Reuters reported. "America's intent and the president's vision is that we have to give this young government a chance by not interfering, not demanding, by not giving conditions, by not imposing our culture on your culture," Barrack told the crowd at the residence. Later on his trip, Barrack followed up on the symbolism by signing off on a huge concrete investment: a $7 billion deal for a consortium of American, Turkish, and Qatari companies to build up Syrian electrical infrastructure. "Syria is OPEN FOR BUSINESS," Barrack declared on X. "Commerce not chaos!" It was the same tone Trump himself struck in Saudi Arabia earlier this month, where he denounced "so-called nation builders" who tried to impose their visions by force, bragged that "some of the closest friends of the United States of America are nations we fought wars against in generations past," and shook hands with Sharaa himself. Of course, a waiver isn't a permanent end to sanctions. The sanctions imposed by Congress have to be lifted by Congress. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that it should do exactly that. The administration could have taken a different approach. Sharaa had fought for Al Qaeda in the past, and Syria still has active territorial disputes with Israel, which captured the Golan Heights in a 1967 war and seized additional land after Assad fell. Some figures in the administration wanted to slow-roll sanctions relief as a way to keep the new Syrian government on its toes. But Rubio argued to Congress that keeping post-revolutionary Syria economically isolated could cause dangerous instability. By lifting almost all sanctions at once, the Trump administration demonstrated another foreign policy principle: You can just do things. Despite the bureaucratic tangle of sanctions, which some officials hinted would be a complicated process to undo, Trump simply waived them all with a short, simple declaration. And unlike the former Biden administration, which often complained that its hands were tied by hawkish Senate Democrats on foreign policy, Trump doesn't seem to be paying any political price for his outreach to Syria. A bigger test will be whether Trump can pull off the same maneuver with Iran, whose nuclear program he is currently negotiating to restrict. Sharaa won Syria a fresh start by overthrowing Assad. Iran, on the other hand, has a whole collection of ongoing, high-stakes disagreements with the U.S. And the U.S.-Iranian rivalry—which includes the 1979 embassy takeover and Iranian intervention in Iraq—has always been more emotionally charged than any U.S.-Syrian rivalry. Still, many of the same factors that led to "commerce not chaos" with Syria are aligned in favor of a deal with Iran. The Arab states now investing in Syria also want to do business with Iran without fear of U.S. sanctions, and have been reportedly lobbying Trump to deescalate that conflict. Trump himself seems pretty confident that a deal is around the corner—confident enough that he warned Israel not to attack Iran in the meantime. "I think we're going to see something very sensible," he told reporters at the White House on Wednesday. "That could change at any moment. It could change with a phone call. But right now, I think they want to make a deal, and if we make a deal, it would save a lot of lives." The post Trump's Syrian Outreach Turns an Enemy Into a Friend appeared first on
Al Bawaba
10-03-2025
- Politics
- Al Bawaba
Israeli airstrikes hit Syrian military targets in Daraa
Published March 10th, 2025 - 07:35 GMT Since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime's control over parts of the region, Israel has repeatedly expanded its military presence and invaded many areas in Syria, crossing the 1974 ceasefire line in Quneitra and occupying strategic areas. ALBAWABA- Israeli airstrikes targeted multiple Syrian military positions in the countryside of Daraa, southern Syria, in a renewed wave of attacks. Reports indicate that the 89th Regiment in Jbab and weapons depots belonging to the 12th Brigade near Izraa were hit in the strikes. According to Israel's Channel 14, Israeli aircraft also bombed observation platforms and tanks belonging to the Syrian army north of Daraa. The strikes come as Israeli officials openly push for the demilitarization of southern Syria, an area close to Israel's border. Since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime's control over parts of the region, Israel has repeatedly expanded its military presence and invaded many areas in Syria, crossing the 1974 ceasefire line in Quneitra and occupying strategic areas in defiance of international law and UN resolutions. The latest airstrikes further underscore the growing volatility along the Syrian-Israeli border as regional tensions intensify. © 2000 - 2025 Al Bawaba (
Al-Ahram Weekly
29-01-2025
- Politics
- Al-Ahram Weekly
Syria demands Israel pullout from occupied Golan Heights buffer zone: State media
Syria's new authority demanded, during talks with UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix on Wednesday, Israel's withdrawal from Syrian territory it occupied in the Golan Heights following the ousting of former Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad in December. The SANA news agency said that during Lacroix's meeting with Syria's foreign and defence ministers, "it was confirmed that Syria is ready to fully cooperate with the UN." Syria is also ready to redeploy forces to the Golan in line with a 1974 agreement establishing a buffer zone "provided Israeli forces withdraw immediately," SANA added. On Tuesday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz visited the Syrian summit of Jabal al-Sheikh, currently occupied by Israeli forces, and said Israel will remain there and in the buffer zone for an "unlimited time." Katz claimed Israel must stay in the zone to ensure "hostile forces" will not gain a foothold on the Israeli border nor anywhere within 50 kilometres (30 miles) beyond the zone, citing security for Israeli residents in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. For decades, the Syrian-Israeli border remained largely quiet under a 1974 agreement that established a UN-patrolled demilitarized buffer zone after the 1973 Mideast war. But after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's ouster, Israeli forces occupied the 400-square-kilometre (155-square mile) buffer zone. It also occupied several sites in southern Syria. Short link:
