DAMASCUS: Syria’s newly appointed president, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, said on Thursday he will form an inclusive transitional government representing diverse communities that will build institutions and run the country until it can hold free and fair elections.
Sharaa addressed the nation in his first speech since being appointed president for the transitional period on Wednesday by armed factions that ousted former Syrian President Bashar Assad in a lightning offensive last year.
The armed group that led the offensive, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, has since set up an interim government that has welcomed a steady stream of senior Western and Arab diplomatic delegations keen to help stabilize the country after 13 years of civil war.
Sharaa in his speech said he would form a small legislative body to fill the parliamentary void until new elections were held, after the Syrian parliament was dissolved on Wednesday.
He said he would also in the coming days announce the formation of a committee that would prepare to hold a national dialogue conference that would be a platform for Syrians to discuss the future political program of the nation.
That would be followed by a “constitutional declaration,” he said, in an apparent reference to the process of drafting a new Syrian constitution.
Sharaa has previously said the process of drafting a new constitution and holding elections may take up to four years.
Syrian leader Sharaa pledges to form inclusive government
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Syrian leader Sharaa pledges to form inclusive government
- Al-Sharaa said he would form a small legislative body to fill parliamentary void until new elections were held, after the Syrian parliament was dissolved on Wednesday
Israeli fire kills Palestinian in the occupied West Bank
- Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian Health Ministry figures
RAMALLAH: The Ramallah-based Palestinian Health Ministry said that Israeli forces killed a man in the northern occupied West Bank on Friday.
“Bahaa Abdel-Rahman Rashid (38 years old) was killed by Israeli fire in the town of Odala, south of Nablus,” the Health Ministry said in a statement.
Shortly before, the Palestinian Red Crescent said its teams handled the case of a man “who suffered a critical head injury during clashes in the town of Odala near Nablus, and CPR is currently being performed on him.”
The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident.
Witness and Odala resident Muhammad Al-Kharouf said that Israeli troops were patrolling in Odala and threw tear gas canisters at men who were exiting the local mosque for Friday prayer.
Rashid was killed by live fire in the clashes that followed, added Kharouf, who had been inside the mosque with him.
The Israeli military said on Friday it had completed a two-week counterterrorism operation in the northern West Bank during which it killed six militants, and questioned dozens of suspects.
It said that Rashid was not among the six militants killed over the past two weeks.
Dozens of men, including Rashid’s father, gathered at the nearby city of Nablus’ Rafidia Hospital to bid him goodbye on Friday, a journalist reported.
Violence in the West Bank has soared since Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war.
It has not ceased despite the fragile truce between Israel and Hamas that came into effect in October.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian Health Ministry figures.
