Damascus: Three civilians were wounded Saturday in Israeli air strikes near the Syrian city of Homs, state media reported, with a war monitor saying a Hezbollah munitions depot was hit.
During more than a decade of war in Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its territory, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters as well as Syrian army positions.
While Israel rarely comments on the strikes it carries out on Syria, it has repeatedly said it will not allow its arch-foe Iran to extend its footprint in the war-torn country.
“At around 00:50 am ... the Israeli enemy carried out an air attack with a number of missiles, from the direction of north Lebanon, targeting several positions in the vicinity of the city of Homs,” state news agency SANA reported.
“Three civilians were wounded and a civilian petrol station caught fire and a number of fuel tanks and trucks were burned,” it said, adding that Syrian air defenses had intercepted some of the missiles.
When contacted by AFP, the Israeli military did not comment on the incident.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said Israel “destroyed a munitions depot belonging to Lebanon’s Hezbollah at the Dabaa military airport” in the countryside of Homs province.
Without reporting any casualties, it said there were “loud explosions as the munitions in the depot blew up, with fires seen burning at the site.”
On April 2, Israel carried out similar strikes targeting a Hezbollah depot in the Dabaa airport area, the Observatory had said, killing two pro-Iran fighters and wounding five soldiers.
The same day, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant repeated Israel’s often repeated charge that Iranians are “attempting to entrench themselves in Syria and Lebanon.”
“We will not allow the Iranians and Hezbollah to harm us. We have not allowed it in the past, we won’t allow it now, or anytime in the future. When necessary — we will push them out of Syria to where they belong — and that is Iran,” he told troops in the occupied West Bank.
On Monday, Israel’s army shelled a position belonging to a pro-Iran group in southern Syria near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, the second such bombardment in days, the Observatory said at the time.
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Israel strikes over night wound three civilians in Syria
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Israel strikes over night wound three civilians in Syria
- Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its territory, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters as well as Syrian army positions
Hamas official says group in final stage of choosing new chief
CAIRO: A senior Hamas official told AFP on Sunday that the Palestinian movement was in the final phase of selecting a new leader, with two prominent figures competing for the position.
Hamas recently completed the formation of a new Shoura Council, a consultative body largely composed of religious scholars, as well as a new political bureau.
Members of the council are elected every four years by representatives from Hamas’s three branches: the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank and the movement’s external leadership.
Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails are also eligible to vote.
The council subsequently elects the political bureau, which in turn selects the head of the movement.
“The movement has completed its internal elections in the three regions and has reached the final stage of selecting the head of the political bureau,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly.
He added that the race for the group’s leadership is now between Khaled Meshaal and Khalil Al-Hayya.
A second Hamas source confirmed the development within the organization, which fought a devastating war with Israel following its October 7, 2023 attack.
Hayya, 65, a Gaza native and Hamas’s chief negotiator in ceasefire talks, has held senior roles since at least 2006, according to the US-based NGO the Counter Extremism Project (CEP).
Meshaal, who led the political bureau from 2004 to 2017, has never lived in Gaza. He was born in the West Bank in 1956.
He joined Hamas in Kuwait and later lived in Jordan, Syria and Qatar. The CEP says he oversaw Hamas’s evolution into a political-military hybrid.
He currently heads the movement’s diaspora office.
Last month, a Hamas source told AFP that Hayya enjoys backing from the group’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassem Brigades.
After Israel killed former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July 2024, the group chose its then-Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar as his successor.
Israel accused Sinwar of masterminding the October 7 attack.
He too was killed by Israeli forces in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, three months after Haniyeh’s assassination.
Hamas then opted for an interim five-member leadership committee based in Qatar, postponing the appointment of a single leader until elections, given the risk of the new chief being targeted by Israel.
Hamas recently completed the formation of a new Shoura Council, a consultative body largely composed of religious scholars, as well as a new political bureau.
Members of the council are elected every four years by representatives from Hamas’s three branches: the Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank and the movement’s external leadership.
Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails are also eligible to vote.
The council subsequently elects the political bureau, which in turn selects the head of the movement.
“The movement has completed its internal elections in the three regions and has reached the final stage of selecting the head of the political bureau,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly.
He added that the race for the group’s leadership is now between Khaled Meshaal and Khalil Al-Hayya.
A second Hamas source confirmed the development within the organization, which fought a devastating war with Israel following its October 7, 2023 attack.
Hayya, 65, a Gaza native and Hamas’s chief negotiator in ceasefire talks, has held senior roles since at least 2006, according to the US-based NGO the Counter Extremism Project (CEP).
Meshaal, who led the political bureau from 2004 to 2017, has never lived in Gaza. He was born in the West Bank in 1956.
He joined Hamas in Kuwait and later lived in Jordan, Syria and Qatar. The CEP says he oversaw Hamas’s evolution into a political-military hybrid.
He currently heads the movement’s diaspora office.
Last month, a Hamas source told AFP that Hayya enjoys backing from the group’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassem Brigades.
After Israel killed former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July 2024, the group chose its then-Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar as his successor.
Israel accused Sinwar of masterminding the October 7 attack.
He too was killed by Israeli forces in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, three months after Haniyeh’s assassination.
Hamas then opted for an interim five-member leadership committee based in Qatar, postponing the appointment of a single leader until elections, given the risk of the new chief being targeted by Israel.
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