Pope Francis took advantage of midday prayers before some 50,000 people to condemn the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria, citing “terrible reports” of dozens of dead, including women and children.
BEIRUT — Syrian activists, rescuers and medics said Sunday that a poison gas attack on a rebel-held town near the capital has killed at least 40 people, allegations denied by the Syrian government.
The Bashar Assad regime is preparing an offensive to retake southern Syria and the Syrian Golan Heights from rebel groups and has reportedly placed tanks and heavy artillery inside the demilitarized buffer zone on the country’s border with Israel.
BEIRUT — The most powerful Syrian rebel faction on the fringes of Damascus began abandoning its stronghold in the once rebel-held enclave of eastern Ghouta on Monday, opening the way for government forces to secure full control of the area, after seven years of revolt.
RICHFIELD, Ohio — US President Donald Trump insisted Thursday that US forces would pull out of Syria “very soon” and lamented what he said was Washington’s waste of $7 trillion in Middle East wars.
Top Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk has said in an interview to London’s Al-Hiwar television station that Hamas-Iran relations were the closest they had been since the Syrian civil war blew up in 2011.
Outgoing Military Intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi on Sunday accused Iran of bringing instability to the Middle East in its quest for hegemony, a trend that he said would shape the region this year.
UNITED NATIONS — Nine months ago, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley stormed the United Nations’ top human rights body demanding an end to what she said is its bias against Israel and raising the prospect of a U.S. pullout if it didn’t.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced on Saturday that she will lead a delegation of Democrats to the Middle East, with stops in Israel and Jordan.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel will prevent its enemies from obtaining nuclear weapons after its military admitted it carried out a 2007 air raid against a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor.
Rockets fired on a market in a government-controlled neighborhood of Damascus on Tuesday killed 35 people and wounded more than 20 others, Syrian state-run media said, marking one of the highest death tolls in a single attack targeting the capital.
BEIRUT — Syrian government and Russian airstrikes killed at least 46 people in a besieged town outside of Damascus on Friday, while Turkish shelling and attacks on a Kurdish-held town in northern Syria left at least 22 dead there, monitors and officials said.
HAMMURIYEH, Syria — Syrian regime forces broke into a key town in the beleaguered rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta late Wednesday amid heavy bombardment, a monitor said.
WASHINGTON, DC — The Russian- and Iranian-assisted regime of Bashar al-Assad is winning the civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands in Syria since 2011, suggested the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, stressing that toppling the dictator is not part of the American mission in the conflict-ridden country.
SEOUL – North Korea denied reports it had cooperated with Syria on chemical weapons, dismissing them as a fabrication by the United States to pressure the country, state media reported late Thursday.
Given the enormous death toll of the ongoing war in Syria, it is easy to overlook—or fail to attribute importance to—the psychological well-being of those who have endured. But the severe trauma faced by so many Syrians has left an entire generation with intangible scars. It is an issue that, somewhat counter-intuitively, Syria’s arch-enemy, Israel, is addressing.
A Russia-ordered “humanitarian pause” has gone into effect to allow civilians to leave a rebel-held enclave near Damascus, giving a brief respite to the residents of the besieged area that has been under intense attack by the Syrian government for weeks.
Fresh regime air strikes and heavy clashes shook Syria’s rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta on Sunday, despite a UN demand for a ceasefire to end one of the most ferocious assaults of Syria’s civil war.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — A child died and at least 13 other people suffered breathing difficulties after a suspected chemical attack on a besieged Syrian rebel enclave Sunday, a medic and a monitor said.
Israeli satellite imagery has confirmed the deployment of Russia’s newest Sukhoi Su-57 stealth fighter jets in war-torn Syria.
UNITED NATIONS — The UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution Saturday demanding a 30-day cease-fire across Syria “without delay” to deliver humanitarian aid to millions and evacuate the critically ill and wounded.
MOSCOW — Russia has tested over 200 new types of arms in Syria during its campaign in support of President Bashar al-Assad, a senior lawmaker said Thursday, as Moscow was accused of taking part in airstrikes against rebel-held Eastern Ghouta.
TEL AVIV — Hamas has angered the family of a senior Palestinian jihadist after the group told them they would not be allowed to erect a mourning tent on behalf of their relative to receive condolences as is customary in Palestinian society.
TEL AVIV — The Islamic State has released propaganda photos over the encrypted Telegram messaging application purporting to show the actions of its members along the border area between Syria and Iraq.
HAMOURIA, Syria — A heavy bombardment killed at least 100 civilians, 20 of them children, in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta on Monday, as regime forces appeared to be preparing for an imminent ground assault.
DAMASCUS: The Syrian government on Wednesday denied it possessed chemical weapons and branded the use of such arms “immoral and unacceptable,” following a French warning of punitive strikes.
“France will strike” if chemical weapons are found to have been used against civilians in the Syrian conflict in violation of international treaties, French President Emmanuel Macron has warned.
The American defense secretary gave his full-throated backing on Sunday to Israel’s actions in the aerial exchange of fire over the weekend with Syrian and Iranian forces in Syria.
Surveillance camera footage released Sunday showed an Israeli F-16 was on fire before it crashed on Saturday, apparently strengthening the prevailing view that the aircraft was shot down by a Syrian anti-aircraft missile.
Israeli security assessment on Sunday following the major aerial clashes in Syria a day earlier indicated that the current round of clashes has ended, but the next altercation is only a matter of time.
Jerusalem – Israel issued stark warnings on Sunday over Iran’s presence in neighbouring Syria after a confrontation threatened to open a new and unpredictable period in the country’s seven-year civil war.
JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israeli air strikes in Syria the previous day were a “heavy blow” to Iranian and Syrian forces in the war-torn country.
The Israeli military on Saturday accused Iran of controlling an airbase outside the Syrian city of Palmyra, from which the army said the Iranian drone that was shot down over northern Israel earlier in the day was launched.
Five civilians were treated for “suffocation” Sunday, after Syrian regime air strikes on the northwestern town of Saraqeb, a monitor said.
A delegation of senior Russian security officials visiting Israel this week reportedly sought to dissuade Jerusalem from striking Iranian and Hezbollah weapons facilities in Syria and Lebanon.
AFRIN, Syria — Syrian Kurds on Friday accused Turkey-backed rebels fighting them of mutilating then filming the body of one of their female fighters, after a video emerged of her corpse.
TEL AVIV — Despite its continued weakening position in Syria and near-complete removal from Iraq, the Islamic State terrorist organization has disseminated propaganda photos showing IS police beating a Syrian resident of accused of selling cigarettes.
Syrian media reported that Israel targeted several positions belonging to an Islamic State group affiliate in southern Syrian on Thursday.
Iran is currently controlling 82,000 fighters in Syria,” Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon told the UN Security Council on Thursday.
PARIS, France — Two dozen countries agreed Tuesday to push for sanctions against perpetrators of chemical attacks in Syria, with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson saying Russia “ultimately bears responsibility” for such strikes.
