BEIRUT: Seven people have been killed after air strikes destroyed a convoy of trucks carrying arms into eastern Syria from Iraq, a war monitor said Monday.
The seven were “truck drivers and their assistants, all of them non-Syrians,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that they were “killed as a result of unidentified aircraft targeting a convoy of Iran-backed groups, last night.”
The strikes destroyed a convoy of six refrigerated trucks transporting Iranian weapons in the Albu Kamal border region, the Observatory, which has a wide network of sources inside Syria, had said Sunday.
No country claimed the strikes, but Israel has carried out hundreds of air and missile strikes against Iran-backed and government forces in Syria, where the US military is also active.
“The trucks were transporting Iranian weapons,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman had told AFP Sunday.
Tehran provides military support to its ally Damascus in Syria’s civil war, including through armed factions.
The strikes hit a convoy of trucks, but also the headquarters of Iran-backed groups in the area, activist Omar Abu Layla, who heads the Deir Ezzor 24 media outlet, told AFP Monday.
“There was heavy damage in the area that was struck,” he said.
A pro-Syrian government radio station had reported Sunday that “unidentified war planes targeted, in a number of raids, six refrigerated trucks,” without providing further details.
The Observatory said at least two similar convoys had entered Syria from Iraq this week, offloading their cargo to pro-Iran groups in the eastern town of Al-Mayadeen.
Pro-Iran militias, including Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah group, have a major presence around the Iraq-Syria border, and are heavily deployed south and west of the Euphrates in Syria’s Deir Ezzor province.
Both Albu Kamal and Al-Mayadeen are in Deir Ezzor, and Albu Kamal has seen similar strikes in the past.
The Observatory said in November that a strike in the area hit a pro-Iran militia convoy of “fuel tankers and trucks loaded with weapons,” killing at least 14, though an Iraqi border guard official said there were no casualties.
In December, Israel’s military chief Aviv Kohavi said his country had launched the raid, adding that the convoy was carrying weapons bound for Lebanon where Hezbollah has an influential role.
A US-led coalition fighting the remnants of the Daesh group in Iraq and Syria has carried out strikes on pro-Iran fighters in Syria in the past.
Israel has also acknowledged carrying out hundreds of air and missile strikes in the country since civil war broke out in 2011.
Seven dead in strikes on arms convoy in Syria: monitor
https://arab.news/n5wfq
Seven dead in strikes on arms convoy in Syria: monitor
- The strikes destroyed a convoy of six refrigerated trucks transporting Iranian weapons in the Albu Kamal border region
- No country claimed the strikes, but Israel has carried out hundreds of air and missile strikes against Iran-backed and government forces in Syria
Hoping for better year ahead, Gazans bid farewell to ‘nightmare’
- Humanitarian agencies have warned that shortages of food, clean water and medical supplies persist, while winter conditions are worsening life in overcrowded camps
GAZA CITY: As 2025 draws to a close, Palestinians in Gaza are marking the new year not with celebration, but with exhaustion, grief and a fragile hope that their “endless nightmare” might finally end.
For residents of the battered territory, daily life is a struggle for survival.
Much of Gaza’s infrastructure lies in ruins, electricity remains scarce and hundreds of thousands of people live in makeshift tents after being repeatedly displaced by the two years of fighting that began with Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023.
“We in the Gaza Strip are living in an endless nightmare,” said Hanaa Abu Amra, a displaced woman in her thirties living in Gaza City. “We hope that this nightmare will end in 2026 ... The least we can ask for is a normal life — to see electricity restored, the streets return to normal and to walk without tents lining the roads,” she said.
Across Gaza, a territory of more than 2 million people, scenes of hardship are commonplace.
The outgoing year brought relentless loss and fear, said Shireen Al-Kayali.
“We bid farewell to 2025 with deep sorrow and grief,” she said.
“We lost a lot of people and our possessions. We lived a difficult and harsh life, displaced from one city to another, under bombardment and in terror.”
Her experience reflects that of countless Gazans who have been forced to flee repeatedly, often with little warning, taking with them only what they could carry.
Entire families have been uprooted, livelihoods destroyed, and communities fragmented as the war dragged on for two years.
Despite the devastation, some residents cling to the belief that the new year might bring an end to the fighting and a chance to rebuild.
For many Gazans, hope has become an act of resilience, particularly after the truce that came into effect on October 10 and has largely halted the fighting.
“We still hope for a better life in the new year, and I call on the free world to help our oppressed people so we can regain our lives,” said Khaled Abdel Majid, 50, who lives in a tent in Jabalia camp.
Faten Al-Hindawi hoped the truce would finally end the war.
“We will bid farewell to 2025, leaving behind its pain, and we hope that 2026 will be a year of hope, prayer, determination and success stories.”
