Closing summary
We’re pausing our live coverage now. Here is a summary of the day’s main developments:
Jordan is hosting diplomats from the US, EU, and Turkey and Arab nations to discuss the developing situation in Syria, 24 hours after swathes of the nation’s population celebrated the ousting of president Bashar al-Assad.
An Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza killed at least seven and wounded 12 others, the civil emergency service in Gaza City said on Saturday.
The UN’s special envoy urged foreign powers to work to avoid a collapse of vital Syrian institutions on Saturday.
Gaza’s health ministry is reporting that 44,930 Palestinians have now been killed and 106,624 injured in Israel’s Gaza offensive since 7 October.
Gaza’s health ministry is reporting that 44,930 Palestinians have now been killed and 106,624 injured in Israel’s Gaza offensive since 7 October.
The toll includes 55 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry.
Updated
At least one person has been killed during clashes between the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestinian militants on Saturday in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, Reuters reports.
Residents identified the man who was killed as a militant, though his affiliation remains unconfirmed by those involved.
The PA said in a statement that its forces were attempting to restore law and order to Jenin’s historic refugee camp suburb.
The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which has fought Israeli forces in Gaza since the October 7 attacks, condemned the PA for the operation in Jenin; its allied group Islamic Jihad called for a day of protests.
Israel kills seven sheltering in Gaza school, local authorities say
An Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza killed at least seven and wounded 12 others, the civil emergency service in Gaza City said on Saturday.
The dead include a woman and her baby, according to medics.
Updated
As Syrians celebrated the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime on Sunday, three foreign powers – Israel, Turkey and the US – carried out airstrikes throughout the country. All three framed the bombings as an attempt to protect their interests after a lightning offensive by rebel fighters triggered Assad’s sudden ouster – and the withdrawal of his two main foreign protectors, Russia and Iran.
In the heady hours after Assad fled to Moscow, thousands of political prisoners were freed from the Baathist regime’s prisons and torture centers. Syrians tore down statues and photos of Assad and his father, Hafez, who took power in 1970 and turned Syria into a police state. All told, father and son had ruled Syria for 54 years. But millions of Syrians barely had time to absorb the fact that the Assad family’s reign had finally ended before it became clear that other outside actors would be jockeying to shape Syria’s future…
The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Mohammad Eslami says they won’t impede the UN nuclear watchdog’s access and inspection of its sites.
“We have not created and will not create any obstacles for the agency’s inspections and access,”says Eslami, as quoted by the Times of Israel.
“We operate within the framework of safeguards, and the agency also acts according to regulations—no more, no less,” he adds.
The fall of Assad in Syria, protests in Georgia, the Franklin Fire in Malibu and the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists…
In meetings with Pope Francis and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said “we must respect the will of the Syrian people, and we wish them all the best,” according to Lebanon’s National News Agency.
“We also look forward to relations between the two countries based on mutual respect and the interests of the two peoples.”
The UN’s special envoy urged foreign powers to work to avoid a collapse of vital Syrian institutions on Saturday.
Geir Pedersen, the UN’s special envoy for Syria, backed a “credible and inclusive” political process when forming Syria’s next government as he met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“We need to make sure that state institutions do not collapse, and that we get in humanitarian assistance as quickly as possible,” Pedersen said.
“If we can achieve that, perhaps there is a new opportunity for the Syrian people.”
Blinken said that the United Nations “plays a critical role” in humanitarian assistance and protecting minorities in Syria.
The Israeli Air Force carried out drone strikes against several primed rocket launchers in southern Lebanon this morning, the Times of Israel reports.
The IDF claims the Lebanese rockets were pointed at Israel, violating the ceasefire agreement between the two nations.
No political comeback for Assad: expert claims the ousted Syrian leader will live the rest of his days comfortably dull somewhere in Russia.
“Bashar and his family are avowedly secular, even though they identify with the Alawite sect, so Russia always had more appeal than Iran in that sense,” said David Lesch, a Syria expert at Trinity University in Texas who has met with Assad on multiple occasions.
“In Assad’s mind, Russia and Vladimir Putin can better protect his family from extradition or any other attempts by the international community to bring him to justice,” Lesch added.
Meanwhile, the leader of Syrian Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, Raed al-Saleh, has addressed the families of the victims and survivors of the former Syrian regime in front of the Palace of Justice in Damascus.
On a video posted on X, Al-Saleh promised to hold Assad accountable for his “violations”.
“Today, I promise you from in front of the Palace of Justice, not from anywhere else, to work with all legal institutions to hold the head of the regime accountable after all these violations,” he said.
Tens of thousands of Syrians have taken to the streets across Syria to celebrate their newfound freedoms five days after rebels toppled the 54-year long Bashar al-Assad regime.
In the Umayyad mosque in the heart of the old city of Damascus, one of the holiest religious sites in the Islamic world, thousands of people gathered for the first Friday prayers since Assad fled the country on Sunday, which has been named the country’s “freedom day.”…
One month ago, during a meeting in Beirut, a senior western diplomat was venting his frustration: when would international sanctions be lifted from the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad? Though the dictator had few friends, it seemed that the brutal killing and torture of hundreds of thousands of protesters had succeeded in finally crushing Syria’s 13-year revolution.
It was time to face facts, the diplomat said. Assad had won the war, and the world needed to move on.
As diplomats in Beirut talked, rebels in Syria were planning. A year earlier, figures in the Islamist opposition group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in north-west Syria had sent a message to rebels in the south: get ready…
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says Israel’s most recent strikes targeted military sites in Damascus and its countryside.
On Friday Israel air strikes targeted “a missile base at the top of Damascus’s Mount Qasyun”, the war monitoring group said, and an airport in southern Sweida province and “defence and research labs in Masyaf”, in Hama province.
“Israeli strikes destroyed a scientific institute” military facilities in Barzeh, in northern Damascus, and targeted a “military airport” in the capital’s countryside, it said.
The group added that strikes also targeted “Scud ballistic missile warehouses” and launchers in the Qalamun area, as well as “rockets, depots and tunnels under the mountain.”
Since Assad’s defeat, Israel has repeatedly attacked Syrian military sites.
Updated
Jordan to host Syria talks after Damascus erupts in celebration
Hello, we are restarting our live coverage of the ongoing crises in the Middle East.
Today, Jordan will welcome diplomats from the US, EU, and Turkey and Arab nations to discuss the developing situation in Syria, 24 hours after swathes of the nation’s population celebrated the ousting of president Bashar al-Assad.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken will be among envoys set to discuss Syria in the Jordanian city of Aqaba.
Syrians called the day the “Friday of victory” as fireworks illuminated the sky over Damascus. Assad had ruled the country with an iron fist for over fifty years when his dictatorship came to an end after rebels stormed the capital, bringing 14 years of war that claimed over 500,000 lives and displaced millions.
A Qatari diplomat said a delegation from the Gulf emirate would visit Syria on Sunday to meet transitional government officials and discuss aid and the reopening of their embassy.
Qatar, Unlike other Arab states, never restored diplomatic ties with Assad after a rupture in 2011.
We’ll bring you updates from those talks in Jordan, plus all the latest developments from around the Middle East
