BEIRUT: Iyad Abdelaziz, a council member of the opposition-controlled town of Douma in the Eastern Ghotua suburbs of Damascus, said reports of an agreement to surrender the town to the central government are not true.
Abdelaziz said there was no agreement reached to have the Army of Islam rebel faction leave Douma for northern Syria and hand over the town to government forces.
He said, however, that “humanitarian cases” will be allowed to evacuate on Monday.
Douma has been besieged by regime forces since 2013. It was one of the earliest hubs of the Arab Spring-styled uprising against President Bashar Assad that swept through the country in 2011.
Hundreds of residents are believed to require care for war wounds and medical conditions exacerbated by the siege. The regime routinely blocks aid groups from evacuating patients from besieged areas for medical care.
An opposition official said the Army of Islam was still engaged in talks with Russia over the future of Douma. Russia is a key backer of the Syrian government.
Ahmad Ramadan said Turkey, which backs various Syrian opposition groups, and shares control over a part of opposition territory in north Syria, is also party to the talks.
The Syrian regime’s media earlier said fighters belonging to the Army of Islam group had agreed to evacuate their stronghold in the suburbs of Damascus, giving the regime complete control of the Eastern Ghouta region which has been rebel-held since 2011.
The Central Military Media outlet, which is linked to the Syrian military, said the Army of Islam had agreed to leave the town of besieged town of Douma for Jarablus, a town shared between rebel and Turkish control in north Syria.
It said a local council for Douma will be formed with the approval of the Damascus regime.
Douma was one of the earliest hubs of the uprising against President Bashar Assad in 2011. The security services responded by putting the town and other suburbs around Damascus under siege, bombing hospitals and residential areas, and blocking food and medical relief.
Douma is one of the last pockets of the opposition around the capital to hold out against the regime. The city’s fall would seal the rebels’ worst defeat since 2016.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported earlier in the day Russia’s military police would be deployed inside Douma to take custodianship of the town.
Opposition sources say Jaish Al-Islam officials have been desperately trying to strike a deal that would bring Russian military police into Douma, and let the group keep a role in maintaining internal security but under the state’s overall jurisdiction.
Russian military officers negotiating with Jaish Al-Islam told the group it accepted such an arrangement but the Syrian regime remained against it, a senior opposition source familiar with the talks said.
Russia was behind the main battle plan, directing elite forces and militias on the ground and calling in airstrikes from Syrian and Russian warplanes, two Western intelligence sources based in the region told Reuters this week.
The Syrian army last week warned the insurgents to surrender or face a military assault to drive them out.
The Syrian army command said on Saturday it had regained most of the towns and villages in Eastern Ghouta and was pressing its military operations in Douma.
The city’s fall would seal the rebels’ worst defeat since 2016.
The once bustling commercial hub on the outskirts of the capital was the main center of street protests in the Damascus suburbs against Assad’s rule that ignited the conflict more than seven years ago.
Defense analysts say a major goal of the regime’s campaign was to complete a security belt around the capital, where for years fighters dug into a network of tunnels and well-fortified positions resisted countless offensives to seize the enclave.
Many of the predominantly Sunni Muslim inhabitants of eastern Ghouta say they fear their displacement was part of a deliberate attempt to bring demographic changes in strategic areas that dilutes their presence in favor of Assad’s Alawite sect and other minorities.
Syrian rebels deny deal over Ghouta town
Syrian rebels deny deal over Ghouta town
Gazans salvage ancient books in mosque library damaged by war
- The Great Omari Mosque library sustained terrible damaged during the war in Gaza
- The mosque now stands largely ruined, with its library littered with rubble and dust
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Inside the dusty shell of one of the oldest libraries in the Palestinian territories, a group of Gazan volunteers work diligently to salvage what remains of their ancient cultural heritage.
The Great Omari Mosque library sustained terrible damaged during the war in Gaza, which erupted in October 2023 and devastated swathes of the Palestinian territory, including cultural and religious sites.
The mosque — in the old town of Gaza City — now stands largely ruined, with its library littered with rubble and dust.
“I was shocked and stunned when I saw the extent of the destruction in the library,” Haneen Al-Amsi told AFP, saying the scenes of devastation had spurred her to help launch the restoration initiative.
Amsi, who heads the Eyes on Heritage Volunteer Foundation, said the western part of the library was burned when the mosque was hit, causing irreversible damage.
“The library was estimated to contain about 20,000 books, but currently we are left with fewer than 3,000 or 4,000,” she explained.
Among the debris, volunteers hoping to restore the collection pored over charred fragments of manuscript and shards of yellowed paper.
“The library of the Great Omari Mosque is considered the third largest library in Palestine after the Al-Aqsa Mosque library and the Ahmed Pasha Al-Jazzar library,” Amsi said.
“It is an important historical library that contains original manuscripts and a diverse collection of books on jurisprudence, medicine, Islamic law, literature and various other subjects.”
Gaza’s history stretches back thousands of years, making the tiny territory a treasure trove of archaeological artefacts from past civilizations including Canaanites, Egyptians, Persians and Greeks.
But more than two years of war between Israel and Hamas took a heavy toll on Gaza’s heritage sites.
As of January 2026, the UN’s cultural agency UNESCO, had verified damage to 150 sites since the start of the war on October 7, 2023 sparked by Hamas’s attack on Israel.
These include 14 religious sites and 115 buildings of historical or artistic interest.
- ‘Represent history’ -
Inside one of the library’s old stone rooms, one woman used a paintbrush to dust off an old tome, while other volunteers wearing facemasks and gloves crouched on the floor to leaf through piles of books.
“The condition of the rare and historical books is deplorable due to their being left for more than 700 to 800 days,” Amsi said, talking of “immense damage and gunpowder residue” on the volumes.
An independent United Nations commission said in June 2025 that Israeli attacks on schools, religious and cultural sites in Gaza amounted to war crimes.
“Israel has obliterated Gaza’s education system and destroyed more than half of all religious and cultural sites in the Gaza Strip,” the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory said in a report.
Israel rejected the commission as “an inherently biased and politicized mechanism of the Human Rights Council” and said the report was “another attempt to promote its fictitious narrative of the Gaza war.”
For Amsi, the importance of restoring the books lay in preserving crucial historic records.
“These books represent the history of the city and bear witness to historical events,” she said.
