BEIRUT, Lebanon: Twelve Syrian soldiers were killed on Wednesday by an Al-Qaeda linked group in northwest Syria, according to a war monitoring organization, the highest such death toll in the region this year.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said “12 members of the regime forces, including an officer, were killed following suicide attacks carried out by special forces from the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group (HTS), targeting regime forces positions in the north of Latakia province” adjacent to Idlib, the last major rebel stronghold in the northwest.
The death toll is the “highest among the regime forces in the region since last September,” according to the observatory.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Observatory, told AFP that the attack was part of “an escalation by HTS since Monday, which included attacks on regime forces on several fronts.”
The Idlib region is subject to a ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkiye after a regime offensive in March 2020. Despite being repeatedly violated, the ceasefire is still largely holding.
HTS controls swathes of Idlib province and parts of neighboring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia.
More than five million people, most of them displaced, live in areas outside government control in the Idlib region.
HTS, considered a terrorist organization by Damascus, the United States and the European Union, regularly clashes with Syrian and allied Russian forces.
It is the main rebel organization active in northwest Syria, but there are other groups, some backed by Turkiye.
Syria’s war broke out after President Bashar Assad repressed anti-government protests in 2011, and has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country’s infrastructure and industry.
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12 Syrian soldiers killed in suicide attacks: war monitor
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12 Syrian soldiers killed in suicide attacks: war monitor
- The death toll is the “highest among the regime forces in the region since last September,” according to the observatory
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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