AMMAN/ANKARA: Russian and Syrian warplanes bombed rebel-held northwest Syria near the border with Turkiye on Thursday to push back an insurgent offensive that captured territory for the first time in years, Syrian army and rebel sources said.
Rebels led by militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham launched an incursion on Wednesday into a dozen towns and villages in the northwestern province of Aleppo, which is controlled by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.
The attack was the biggest since March 2020 when Russia, which backs Assad, and Turkiye, which supports the rebels, agreed to a ceasefire that ended years of fighting that uprooted millions of Syrians opposed to Assad’s rule.
In its first statement since the surprise campaign, the Syrian army said it had inflicted heavy losses on what it described as terrorists who had attacked on a wide front.
The army said it was cooperating with Russia and unnamed “friendly forces” to regain ground and restore the situation.
Rebels advanced almost 10 km (6 miles) from the outskirts of Aleppo city and a few kilometers away from Nubl and Zahra, two Shiite towns where Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah has a strong militia presence, an army source said.
They attacked Al-Nayrab airport east of Aleppo, where pro-Iranian militias have outposts.
Russian jets pounded newly captured areas and hit populated towns in the last opposition-held enclave, according to two army sources.
The opposition-run rescue service known as the White Helmets said at least 16 civilians were killed in the rebel-held town of Atareb when a Russian jet bombed a residential area.
The main Aleppo-Damascus highway was closed as a result of the fighting, residents and witnesses said.
Rebels say the campaign responded to stepped-up strikes in recent weeks against civilians by the Russian and Syrian air forces on areas in southern Idlib province, in Syria’s far northwest, and to preempt any attacks by the Syrian army, which they said was building up troops near front lines with rebels.
Syrian and Russian jets bomb rebel-held northwest Syria
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Syrian and Russian jets bomb rebel-held northwest Syria
- Rebels led by militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham launched an incursion on Wednesday into a dozen towns and villages in the northwestern province of Aleppo
Israeli fire kills 11 Palestinians in Gaza, including two children, local hospital officials say
- The two boys were killed in separate incidents
- It wasn’t immediately clear whether the men had crossed into Israeli-controlled areas
CAIRO: Israeli forces on Wednesday killed at least 11 Palestinians in Gaza, including two 13-year-old boys who were collecting firewood, three journalists and a woman, hospitals in the war-battered enclave said.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on any of the incidents.
The two boys were killed in separate incidents. In one strike, the 13-year-old, his father and a 22-year old man were hit by Israeli drones on the eastern side of the central Bureij refugee camp, according to officials from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central town of Deir Al-Balah, which received the bodies.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the men had crossed into Israeli-controlled areas.
The other 13-year-old was shot and killed by troops while collecting firewood in the eastern town of Bani Suheila, the Nasser hospital said, after receiving the body. In a footage circulated online, the boy’s father is seen weeping over his son’s body on a hospital bed.
Later Wednesday, an Israeli strike on the central town of Zahraa hit a vehicle carrying three Palestinian journalists who were filming a newly established displacement camp managed by an Egyptian government committee, said Mohammed Mansour, the committee’s spokesman.
The bodies of two journalists were taken to the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, while the third body was taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital.
Mansour said the journalists were documenting the committee’s work in the newly established camp in the Netzarim area in central Gaza. He said the strike occurred about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Israeli-controlled area.
He said the vehicle was known to the Israeli military as belonging to the Egyptian committee.
Video footage circulating online showed the charred, bombed-out vehicle by the roadside, smoke still rising from the wreckage, with debris scattered about.
Nasser Hospital officials also said they received the body of a Palestinian woman shot and killed by Israeli troops in the Muwasi area of the southern city of Khan Younis, which is not controlled by the military.
In a separate attack, three brothers were killed in a tank shelling in the Bureij camp, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, where the bodies were taken.
The deaths were the latest among Palestinians in Gaza since the ceasefire that stopped the war between Hamas and Israel went into effect in October.
More than 470 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, according to the strip’s health ministry. At least 77 have been killed by Israeli gunfire near a ceasefire line that splits the territory between Israeli-held areas and most of Gaza’s Palestinian population, the ministry says.
The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.
The ceasefire paused two years of war between Israel and Hamas militants and allowed a surge in humanitarian aid into Gaza, mainly food.
But residents say shortages of blankets and warm clothes remain, and there is little wood for fires. There’s been no central electricity in Gaza since the first few days of the war in 2023, and fuel for generators is scarce.
More than 100 children who have died since the start of the ceasefire in October — a figure that includes a 27-day-old girl who died from hypothermia over the weekend.
