BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest on Syria developments (all times local):
6 p.m.
Syrian state media are reporting that government airstrikes are targeting southeastern parts of southern Daraa province, ahead of a new offensive there.
State TV says the offensive aims to cut supply lines between eastern Daraa and rebel-held parts of the provincial capital, which carries the same name.
The TV says the operations that began on Tuesday afternoon near the province’s main grain silos that have been controlled by rebels for years.
Syrian troops have been on the offensive in Daraa for a week. The fighting has displaced nearly 50,000 people and left dozens of civilians dead.
The city of Daraa is where pro-democracy protests broke out in March 2011 that later turned into a civil war.
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4:45 p.m.
Jordan’s foreign minister says his country’s border with Syria will remain closed, as thousands of people in southern Syria flee a government offensive.
The U.N. estimated Tuesday some 50,000 people fled their homes in the southern Deraa province over the past week, as forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad move deeper into the area. U.N. officials said many of the displaced are heading toward the border with Jordan, without an apparent escape route.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi wrote Tuesday on Twitter that “our borders will remain closed,” and that it’s up to the United Nations to provide security in southern Syria.
Since Syria’s civil war began in 2011, Jordan has taken in 660,000 registered Syrian refugees, and it says the actual number is double that.
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2:55 p.m.
The U.N. has estimated that about 45,000 Syrians have been displaced since government troops and their allies launched an offensive in the southern part of the country a week ago.
Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, said on Tuesday that those fleeing fighting in the southern Daraa province were moving closer to the sealed border with Jordan, with no apparent escape route.
A Jordanian government spokeswoman said earlier this week that the kingdom would not take in any more Syrians.
Jordan is already hosting about 660,000 registered Syrian refugees and estimates that the number of displaced Syrians in the overburdened country is twice as high.
Laerke said aid officials are “deeply concerned” about the safety of the displaced who he said are fleeing ground fighting and air strikes.
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8:45 a.m.
Syria state media reports that two Israeli missiles have struck an area near the Damascus International Airport but didn’t name a target.
State news agency SANA says the strike Tuesday happened shortly after midnight. The agency linked the reported Israeli attack to the government’s ongoing offensive against rebel groups in Syria’s southwestern region, which borders Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Jordan.
SANA said the strike is part of Israel’s support for the rebels amid their “major losses” in the south and elsewhere in Syria.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the strikes, saying Israeli jets flew over the Golan Heights and targeted suspected weapons depots for Iranian-backed militias.
The area has come under repeated attacks, mostly believed to be by Israel. Israel rarely comments on such strikes.
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