BEIRUT: Syrian state media is reporting that the last group of opposition fighters and their relatives are getting ready to leave southern parts of eastern Ghouta near the capital Damascus.
State TV said 38 buses have entered the towns of Zamalka, Ein Tarma, Arbeen and Jobar to take more than 1,700 rebels and civilians to the northwestern province of Idlib.
State news agency, SANA, said 38,000 fighters and civilians have headed to Idlib recently.
The transportation is one of the largest displacements since Syria’s conflict began seven years ago.
The move comes as negotiations are still ongoing with the Army of Islam rebel group to leave Douma, the last town in eastern Ghouta.
The government has given an ultimatum for the group to agree on leaving Ghouta by Saturday night.
State TV: 4 towns in Syria’s Ghouta to be cleared of rebels
State TV: 4 towns in Syria’s Ghouta to be cleared of rebels
Syria accuses Hezbollah of firing shells into its territory
- “The Syrian Arab Army will not tolerate any aggression targeting Syria,” the army said in a statement to SANA
DAMASCUS: Syria said Iran-backed Hezbollah had fired artillery shells into its territory from Lebanon overnight, state media reported on Tuesday, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Lebanese Shia movement.
Syrian army officials said artillery shells fired from Lebanon landed near the town of Serghaya, west of Damascus, the state news agency SANA reported on Tuesday.
The army accused Hezbollah of targeting Syrian army positions, telling the news agency it observed Hezbollah reinforcements at the Syrian-Lebanese border.
“The Syrian Arab Army will not tolerate any aggression targeting Syria,” the army said in a statement to SANA.
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war last week when Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during US-Israeli strikes.
Hezbollah and Israeli forces have clashed in eastern Lebanon in recent days, and Israel has carried out strikes across Lebanon, including on the capital Beirut.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun accused Hezbollah of working to “collapse” the state, while the head of the group’s parliamentary bloc said it had “no other option... than the option of resistance.”
Hezbollah provided military support to former Syrian president Bashar Assad, who was overthrown in December 2024 by an Islamist coalition hostile to the pro-Iranian Shia movement.
Since then, its supply routes from Syria have been cut off, and Lebanese and Syrian authorities are trying to combat smuggling across the porous border between the two countries.
