BEIRUT: The death toll in Israeli air strikes on Syria has risen to 52, including 38 government soldiers and seven members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, a war monitor said Saturday.
Friday’s strikes fueled concerns of a wider regional conflagration.
They targeted “a rocket depot belonging to Lebanon’s Hezbollah” near the Aleppo airport in northern Syria, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
It was the latest deadly raid on Iran-backed forces in Syria, where Hezbollah has been backing the government in its fight against opponents since the 2011 Syria civil war erupted.
Israeli strikes on targets in Syria have increased since Israel’s war against the Hezbollah-allied Hamas group in the Gaza Strip broke out on October 7.
Israeli raids also regularly target Hezbollah in Lebanon in retaliation for cross-border fire.
Friday’s strikes killed 38 Syrian soldiers, seven Hezbollah members and seven Syrian pro-Iran fighters, the Observatory said, up from a total of 44 according to an earlier toll.
The number of Syrian soldiers killed was the highest in Israeli strikes since the war with Hamas broke out, said the war monitor, which relies on a network of sources in Syria.
Israel rarely comments on individual strikes, and has neither confirmed nor denied the raids on Syria.
But Israel’s military has said it killed the deputy head of Hezbollah’s rocket unit in Lebanon, Ali Naim, whose death the Iran-backed group confirmed.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on social media that he visited northern Israel on Friday “to closely examine another successful termination like the one that was executed this morning,” in Lebanon and Syria.
Israel’s army would keep up its operations against Hezbollah everywhere, he said, adding: “We will make them pay a price for every attack that comes out from Lebanon.”
Hezbollah, which has a powerful arsenal of rockets and missiles, has exchanged near-daily fire with the Israeli military since Hamas’s unprecedented October attack on southern Israel triggered the war in Gaza.
“Syria and Lebanon have become one extended battleground from the Israeli perspective,” Riad Kahwaji, head of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, told AFP.
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Death toll in Israeli strikes on Syria climbs to 52: monitor
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Death toll in Israeli strikes on Syria climbs to 52: monitor
- They targeted “a rocket depot belonging to Lebanon’s Hezbollah” near the Aleppo airport
- Israeli raids also regularly target Hezbollah in Lebanon in retaliation for cross-border fire
January settler attacks cause record West Bank displacement since Oct 2023: UN
RAMALLAH: Israeli settler violence and harassment in the occupied West Bank displaced nearly 700 Palestinians in January, the United Nations said Thursday, the highest rate since the Gaza war erupted in October 2023.
At least 694 Palestinians were forcefully driven from their homes last month, according to figures from the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA, which compiles data from various United Nations agencies.
The UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) said in late January that settler violence has become a key driver of forced displacement in the West Bank.
January’s displacement numbers were particularly high in part due to the displacement of an entire herding community in the Jordan Valley, Ras Ein Al-Auja, whose 130 families left after months of harassment.
“What is happening today is the complete collapse of the community as a result of the settlers’ continuous and repeated attacks, day and night, for the past two years,” Farhan Jahaleen, a Bedouin resident, told AFP at the time.
Settlers in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, use herding to establish a presence on agricultural lands used by Palestinian communities and gradually deny them access to these areas, according to a 2025 report by Israeli NGO Peace Now.
To force Palestinians out, settlers resort to harassment, intimidation and violence, “with the backing of the Israeli government and military,” the settlement watchdog said.
“No one is putting the pressure on Israel or on the Israeli authorities to stop this and so the settlers feel it, they feel the complete impunity that they’re just free to continue to do this,” said Allegra Pacheco, director of the West Bank Protection Consortium, a group of NGOS working to support Palestinian communities against displacement.
She pointed to a lack of attention on the West Bank as another driving factor.
“All eyes are focused on Gaza when it comes to Palestine, while we have an ongoing ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and nobody’s paying attention,” she told AFP.
West Bank Palestinians are also displaced when Israel’s military destroys structures and dwellings it says are built without permits.
In January, 182 more Palestinians were displaced due to home demolitions, according to OCHA.
Excluding Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the West Bank is home to more than 500,000 Israelis living in settlements and outposts considered illegal under international law.
Around three million Palestinians live in the West Bank.
At least 694 Palestinians were forcefully driven from their homes last month, according to figures from the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA, which compiles data from various United Nations agencies.
The UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) said in late January that settler violence has become a key driver of forced displacement in the West Bank.
January’s displacement numbers were particularly high in part due to the displacement of an entire herding community in the Jordan Valley, Ras Ein Al-Auja, whose 130 families left after months of harassment.
“What is happening today is the complete collapse of the community as a result of the settlers’ continuous and repeated attacks, day and night, for the past two years,” Farhan Jahaleen, a Bedouin resident, told AFP at the time.
Settlers in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, use herding to establish a presence on agricultural lands used by Palestinian communities and gradually deny them access to these areas, according to a 2025 report by Israeli NGO Peace Now.
To force Palestinians out, settlers resort to harassment, intimidation and violence, “with the backing of the Israeli government and military,” the settlement watchdog said.
“No one is putting the pressure on Israel or on the Israeli authorities to stop this and so the settlers feel it, they feel the complete impunity that they’re just free to continue to do this,” said Allegra Pacheco, director of the West Bank Protection Consortium, a group of NGOS working to support Palestinian communities against displacement.
She pointed to a lack of attention on the West Bank as another driving factor.
“All eyes are focused on Gaza when it comes to Palestine, while we have an ongoing ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and nobody’s paying attention,” she told AFP.
West Bank Palestinians are also displaced when Israel’s military destroys structures and dwellings it says are built without permits.
In January, 182 more Palestinians were displaced due to home demolitions, according to OCHA.
Excluding Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the West Bank is home to more than 500,000 Israelis living in settlements and outposts considered illegal under international law.
Around three million Palestinians live in the West Bank.
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