BEIRUT/DAMASCUS: By ousting opposition groups from Daraa, the cradle of the Syrian uprising, Bashar Assad strengthened his grip on the country — but large swathes of territory remain beyond the regime’s control.
Syrian opposition fighters in Daraa were surrendering their heavy weapons to regime forces on Saturday, state media said, under a deal brokered by Russia.
It came a day after the regime and opposition began dismantling the dirt barriers that had divided the city for years, AFP’s correspondent said.
The agreement reached on Wednesday will see Daraa city fall back into regime control.
Negotiated by Moscow, it provides for the opposition to hand over heavy- and medium-duty weapons and to “reconcile” legally with the regime, according to state media.
Those who rejected the deal would be allowed safe passage out of the city.
The terms mirror a broader deal announced on July 6 for the entire province of Daraa, which would be implemented in three stages: The eastern countryside first, then the city, and finally the province’s west.
While the opposition groups have handed over weapons to regime forces in dozens of towns, no transfers of fighters or civilians to the opposition-held north have taken place yet.
The Daraa deals are the latest in a string of so-called “reconciliation” agreements that typically follow blistering military offensives.
After using the strategy to secure Damascus and other strategic parts of Syria since 2015, Assad turned his attention to the south.
Beginning on June 19, Syrian and Russian bombardment pounded opposition-controlled areas in Daraa and the neighboring province of Quneitra, ostensibly protected by an internationally agreed cease-fire.
The onslaught came to an end with the July 6 cease-fire.
Following Russia’s military intervention at the end of 2015, the regime secured a series of victories with additional support from its Iranian ally.
This year it secured the capital Damascus and its surroundings for the first time since 2012, before launching the offensive to take Daraa in the south of the country.
Loyalist forces now control more than 60 percent of Syria, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.
Syria’s main cities — Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Hama and Daraa — known as “useful Syria,” are all in regime hands.
Regime-held territory accounts for 72 percent of the population, according to Fabrice Balanche, a political geographer specializing in Syria.
The northwestern province of Idlib, on the border with Turkey, is the main bastion of Syria’s insurgents.
In the north and northwest, Ankara-backed groups control the town of Al-Bab in Aleppo province and other areas near the Turkish border.
With their rebel allies, Turkish forces seized the town of Afrin in March, ousting Kurdish fighters who pledged an insurgency to retake it.
In the south, opposition groups remain in Quneitra province, which borders the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Overall, the insurgents control no more than 9 percent of the country, according to the Observatory.
In addition to the military defeats, groups have split geographically and have also broken up into smaller factions over the years of war.
The semi-autonomous Kurdish zone, established during the war, represents the largest part of Syria outside of regime control.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-Arab coalition backed by the US, controls 27.4 percent of the country, Observatory figures show.
Within this are important oil fields in northeastern Syria.
The SDF has played a fundamental role in the fight against Daesh during the war.
With the backing of the anti-jihadist coalition led by Washington, last year the SDF drove Daesh out of Raqqa, which the group had declared its de-facto capital in Syria.
After mounting a lightning offensive across Iraq and Syria in 2014, proclaiming a cross-border “caliphate,” Daesh has seen its territory drastically reduced.
The terror outfit now holds just a few pockets in eastern Syria, along the Iraqi border and close to the Euphrates, and it is also present in some central desert areas such as Homs province.
Having once controlled nearly half of Syria, Daesh has seen its territory reduced to less than 3 percent of the country, the Observatory says.
Syria’s conflict has killed more than 350,000 people and displaced millions since it started in 2011.
Swaths of Syria out of regime hands despite Daraa victory
Swaths of Syria out of regime hands despite Daraa victory
- Following Russia’s military intervention at the end of 2015, the regime secured a series of victories with additional support from its Iranian ally
- Loyalist forces now control more than 60 percent of Syria, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor
WHO says no medical supplies received in Gaza for 10 days
GENEVA: The World Health Organization said Friday that it has received no medical supplies in the Gaza Strip for 10 days as Israel pursues a new offensive against Hamas.
Israel’s closure of the Rafah crossing into Gaza has caused “a difficult situation,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said. “The last medical supplies that we got in Gaza was before May 6.”
Israeli troops entered the city of Rafah on May 7 to extend their offensive against Hamas over the militant group’s attacks seven months earlier. They closed the Rafah crossing into Egypt that is crucial for humanitarian supplies.
With UN agencies warning of a growing risk of famine in Gaza, the Kerem Shalom and Erez crossings from Israel are also virtually shut down.
Jasarevic said the biggest concern was over fuel needed to keep clinics and hospitals running. Gaza’s health facilities need up to 1.8 million liters of fuel a month to keep operating.
The spokesman said only 159,000 liters had entered Rafah since the border closure. “This is clearly not sufficient,” he added, highlighting how only 13 out of 36 hospitals across the Palestinian territory were now “partially” operating.
“Hospitals still functioning are running out of fuel, and that puts so many lives at danger,” said Jasarevic. “Current military operations in Rafah are putting countless lives at risk.”
The Hamas attack on October 7 resulted in the death of more than 1,170 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. Out of 252 people taken hostage, 128 are still held inside Gaza, but the army says 38 have died.
More than 35,300 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the Palestinian territory since the war broke out, according to data provided by the health ministry of Hamas-run Gaza.
Hezbollah uses new weapons in Israel attacks
- The Israeli army said three soldiers were wounded in an attack on Thursday
- Hezbollah has a large arsenal of weapons, that it has expanded significantly in recent years
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s powerful armed group Hezbollah announced on Thursday it had used a drone capable of firing rockets at a military position in one of its latest attacks in northern Israel.
Israel and Hezbollah have been involved in near-daily exchanges of fire since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7.
Hezbollah announced it had used an “armed attack drone” equipped with two S-5 rockets on a military position in Metula in northern Israel.
The Iran-backed group published a video showing the drone heading toward the position, where tanks were stationed, with the footage showing the moment the two rockets were released followed by the drone exploding.
It was the first time they had announced the use of this type of weapon since the cross-border exchanges with Israel erupted in October.
The Israeli army said three soldiers were wounded in Thursday’s attack.
Hezbollah-affiliated media said that the drone’s warhead consisted of between 25 and 30 kilogrammes (55 and 66 pounds) of high explosive.
Military analyst Khalil Helou told AFP that the use of drones offers Hezbollah the ability to launch the attack from within Israeli territory, as they can fly at low altitudes, evading detection by radar.
Hezbollah also announced on Wednesday that it had launched a strike using “attack drones” on a base west of the northern Israeli town of Tiberias.
That attack was the group’s deepest into Israeli territory since fighting flared, analysts said.
In recent weeks, the Lebanese militant group has announced attacks that it has described as “complex,” using attack drones and missiles to hit military positions, as well as troops and vehicles.
It has also used guided and heavy missiles, such as Iran’s Burkan and Almas missiles, as well as the Jihad Mughniyeh missile, named after a Hezbollah leader killed by Israeli fire in Syria in 2015.
Helou, a retired general, said that depite its new weaponry, Hezbollah still relied primarily on Kornet anti-tank missiles with a range of just five to eight kilometers.
They also use the Konkurs anti-tank missile, which can penetrate Israel’s Iron Dome defense system.
Hezbollah has a large arsenal of weapons, that it has expanded significantly in recent years.
The group has said repeatedly that it has advanced weapons capable of striking deep inside Israeli territory.
Analysts have described the skirmishes between Israel and Hamas as a war of “attrition,” in which each side is testing the other, as well as their own tactics.
Hezbollah has expanded the range of its attacks in response to strikes targeting its munitions and infrastructure, or its military commanders.
One such Israeli strike on Wednesday targeted the village of Brital in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, with the Israeli army later announcing it had hit a “terror target related to Hezbollah’s precision missile project.”
Helou said Hezbollah’s targeting of the base near Tiberias and its use of the rocket-equipped drone “can be interpreted as a response to the attack on Brital, but it remains a shy response compared to the group’s capabilities.”
He suggested that the Israeli strike likely hit a depot for Iranian missiles that had not yet been used by Hezbollah.
“Hezbollah does not wish to expand the circle of the conflict,” Helou said.
“What is happening is a war of attrition through which it is trying to distract the Israeli army” from Gaza and seeking to prevent it from “launching a wide-ranging attack on Lebanon.”
US officials held indirect talks with Iran on avoiding regional escalation: report
Two top Biden administration officials held indirect talks with Iranian counterparts this week in an effort to avoid escalating regional attacks, Axios reported on Friday.
The conversations marked the first round of discussions between the US and Iran since January, according to Axios.
One Palestinian killed, eight wounded in Israeli strike on West Bank refugee camp
- Israel has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry
RAMALLAH, West Bank: At least one person was killed and eight wounded on Friday in an Israeli air strike on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry and Israeli military said.
The Palestinian health ministry said the eight wounded people were in stable condition and receiving treatment at hospitals. Reuters could not immediately confirm their identities.
The Israeli military said a fighter jet conducted the strike, a rarity in the West Bank, where violence had been surging long before the Gaza war.
Residents of the refugee camp said a house was targeted.
The West Bank is among territories Israel occupied in a 1967 Middle East war. Palestinians want it to be the core of an independent Palestinian state.
Trapped US doctors are out of Gaza, White House says
- The Palestinian American Medical Association, a US-based non-profit, reported that its team of 19 health care professionals, including 10 Americans, had been denied exit from Gaza after their two-week mission
- Israel has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory
WASHINGTON: A group of US medical workers left the Gaza Strip after getting stuck at the hospital where they were providing care, the White House said on Friday.
Reports emerged earlier this week of American doctors being unable to leave Gaza after Israel closed the Rafah border crossing, including 10 from the US-based Palestinian American Medical Association, who had intended to leave after a two-week mission at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, a city near Rafah in southern Gaza.
On Friday, 17 American doctors and health care workers, out of a total of 20, got out of Gaza, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.
“I can assure you that any of them that wanted to leave are out,” Kirby said.
A State Department spokesperson told Reuters that some of the doctors that had been stuck made their way to safety with assistance from the US Embassy in Jerusalem.
Three of the US doctors chose not to depart Gaza, a source familiar with the situation said, adding that the doctors who stayed behind understood that the US Embassy may not be able to facilitate their departure as it did on Friday.
The Palestinian American Medical Association, a US-based non-profit, reported that its team of 19 health care professionals, including 10 Americans, had been denied exit from Gaza after their two-week mission.
The organization said on social media on Wednesday that it had a more doctors waiting to enter Gaza to replace the workers trying to leave.
Israel seized and closed the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt on May 7, disrupting a vital route for people and aid into and out of the devastated enclave.
Gaza’s health care system has essentially collapsed since Israel began its military offensive there after the Oct. 7 cross-border attacks by Palestinian Hamas militants on Israelis.
Aid deliveries began arriving at a US-built pier off the Gaza Strip on Friday.
