Closing summary
Israel has announced it will close its embassy in Ireland, citing Dublin’s decision last week to support a petition at the international court of justice accusing Israel of “genocide”. The move was announced by Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, who said it was prompted by the Irish government’s “extreme anti-Israeli policies”, noting its decision to join the ICJ petition last week.
Israel’s government approved a plan on Sunday to expand Israeli settlements on the Golan Heights it occupies, saying it had acted “in light of the war and the new front facing Syria” and out of a desire to double the Israeli population on the Golan. “Strengthening the Golan is strengthening the State of Israel, and it is especially important at this time. We will continue to hold onto it, cause it to blossom, and settle in it,” Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement reported by Reuters.
The United Nations envoy for Syria has called for a quick end to western sanctions after the overthrow of President Bashar Assad, the Associated Press reports. The Syrian government has been under strict sanctions by the United States, European Union and others for years as a result of Assad’s brutal response to what began as peaceful anti-government protests in 2011 and later descended into a civil war.
Syria’s de facto leader claims that Israel has “crossed the lines of engagement” over its military actions inside the country. Israeli troops moved into a demilitarised zone inside the country after the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group seized control last week, saying it did so to ensure border security for Israelis living in the occupied Golan Heights area.
The threats to Israel from Syria remain despite the moderate tone of rebel leaders who ousted president Bashar al-Assad a week ago, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said on Sunday, amid military moves by his country to counter such threats. “The immediate risks to the country have not disappeared and the latest developments in Syria increase the strength of the threat – despite the moderate image that the rebel leaders claim to present,” Katz told officials examining the country’s defence budget, according to a statement.
Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 44,976 Palestinians and wounded 106,759 since 7 October 2023, the Palestinian health ministry said on Sunday.
Israel struck dozens of sites in Syria overnight with airstrikes, despite the Syrian rebel leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, saying his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group was not interested in conflict with Israel. The latest airstrikes follow a statement by Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, that Israeli troops, who seized the Golan Heights buffer zone with Syria last week, would remain for the winter on Mount Hermon in positions they occupied last week.
Germany’s foreign minister is warning anyone involved in atrocities for the ousted Syrian government against seeking refuge in her country, saying they would face “the full force of the law.” Germany has been a major destination for Syrian refugees over the past decade, and several hundred thousand Syrian nationals live there. In rulings since 2021, former Syrian secret police officers already have been convicted in Germany for overseeing or facilitating the abuse of detainees.
The new administration in Syria should be given a chance to govern after their constructive messages, and Turkey stands ready to provide military training if such help is requested, Turkish defence minister Yasar Guler said. Nato member Turkey backed the Syrian rebels who toppled president Bashar al-Assad last weekend, ending a 13-year civil war, Reuters reported. Turkey reopened its embassy in Damascus on Saturday, two days after its intelligence chief visited the Syrian capital.
Turkey announced it had reopened its embassy in Damascus, nearly a week after the Islamist-led rebels toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and 12 years after the Turkish diplomatic mission was closed early in Syria’s civil war. Turkey has been a major player in Syria’s conflict, holding considerable sway in the north-west, financing armed groups there and maintaining a working relationship with HTS, which spearheaded the offensive that toppled Assad.
Antony Blinken said the US had made “direct contact” with Syria’s victorious Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebels as western and Arab states along with Turkey jointly voiced support for a united, peaceful Syria. The US secretary of state’s comment is despite Washington having designated the HTS rebels as terrorists in 2018. Blinken and other diplomats held talks on Syria in Aqaba, Jordan, on Saturday. “We’ve been in contact with HTS and with other parties,” Blinken said, without specifying how the contact took place.
That’s all from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the Middle East crisis live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
Israel has announced it will close its embassy in Ireland, citing Dublin’s decision last week to support a petition at the international court of justice accusing Israel of “genocide”.
The move was announced by Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, who said it was prompted by the Irish government’s “extreme anti-Israeli policies”, noting its decision to join the ICJ petition last week.
The Irish taoiseach, Simon Harris, said on X: “This is a deeply regrettable decision from the Netanyahu government. I utterly reject the assertion that Ireland is anti-Israel. Ireland is pro-peace, pro-human rights and pro-international law.
“Ireland wants a two-state solution and for Israel and Palestine to live in peace and security. Ireland will always speak up for human rights and international law. Nothing will distract from that.”
To prepare khubeiza, the leaves of the kale-like plant must be roughly chopped and sauteed with onions, garlic and a dash of salt. Folklore says that the recipe originated among the Alawite communities who lived in Syria’s mountainous coastline where the fibrous, wild-growing plant can be found in abundance.
So poor were the Alawites during Ottoman times, the story goes, that the only food they could find to eat was khubeiza, which sprouts like a stubborn weed every spring.
When Hafez al-Assad, a member of the minority Islamic Alawite sect, seized the reins of power in 1971, he promised to lift the neglected community out of its poverty and end its hunger.
Fifty-four years later, the streets of the town of Qardaha, the birthplace of Assad, tell a story of a promise unfulfilled. The town is dotted with shabby blocks of flats, where families huddled around diesel-fed stoves complain of constant blackouts and how the municipal water supply only comes for half an hour, once a week.
Ireland's taoiseach 'utterly rejects' Israeli assertion that its government is 'anti-Israel'
We have more on the Irish prime minister’s response to Israel’s decision to close its embassy in Dublin. Simon Harris called the move “deeply regrettable”.
“This is a deeply regrettable decision from the Netanyahu government. I utterly reject the assertion that Ireland is anti-Israel. Ireland is pro-peace, pro-human rights and pro-International law,” the taoiseach said in a post on X.
“Ireland wants a two state solution and for Israel and Palestine to live in peace and security. Ireland will always speak up for human rights and international law. Nothing will distract from that.”
Netanyahu approves plan to expand settlements on Israeli-occupied Golan
Israel’s government approved a plan on Sunday to expand Israeli settlements on the Golan Heights it occupies, saying it had acted “in light of the war and the new front facing Syria” and out of a desire to double the Israeli population on the Golan.
“Strengthening the Golan is strengthening the State of Israel, and it is especially important at this time. We will continue to hold onto it, cause it to blossom, and settle in it,” Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement reported by Reuters.
Ireland’s prime minister has responded to Israel’s decision to close its embassy in Dublin. The taoiseach, Simon Harris, called the move “deeply regrettable”.
Updated
Israel to close embassy in Dublin due to 'extreme anti-Israel policies of Irish government'
Israel has announced it will close its embassy in Ireland, citing Dublin’s decision to join a petition at the International Court of Justice in the Hague accusing Israel of genocide.
The decision was announced by Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar who said it was prompted by the Irish government’s “extreme anti-Israeli policy,” specifying its decision choice to join the ICJ petition.
However, Israel has not applied similar measures to other countries, including Egypt, Spain, and Mexico, which also joined the petition.
“It should be noted that in the past, Israel’s ambassador to Dublin was recalled following Ireland’s unilateral decision to recognise a ‘Palestinian state,’ said Sa’ar, adding the move “had been prompted by Ireland’s announcement of its support for South Africa’s legal action against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing Israel of ‘genocide.’”
Sa’ar said: “The actions and antisemitic rhetoric used by Ireland against Israel are rooted in the de-legitimisation and demonisation of the Jewish state, along with double standards. Ireland has crossed every red line in its relations with Israel.
“Israel will invest its resources in advancing bilateral relations with countries worldwide according to priorities that also take into account the attitudes and actions of these states toward Israel.”
Ireland’s prime minister Simon Harris said the decision was deeply regrettable: “I utterly reject the assertion that Ireland is anti-Israel.”
Updated
The United Nations envoy for Syria has called for a quick end to western sanctions after the overthrow of President Bashar Assad, the Associated Press reports.
The Syrian government has been under strict sanctions by the United States, European Union and others for years as a result of Assad’s brutal response to what began as peaceful anti-government protests in 2011 and later descended into a civil war.
The UN envoy Geir Pedersen told reporters during a visit to Damascus on Sunday that “we can hopefully see a quick end to the sanctions so that we can see really a rallying around building of Syria.”
Parts of Syria’s biggest cities remain damaged or destroyed by years of fighting. Reconstruction has been stymied largely by sanctions that aimed to prevent rebuilding of damaged infrastructure and property in government-held areas in the absence of a political solution.
Israel sees increased threat from Syria despite moderate tone of rebel leaders, defence minister says
The threats to Israel from Syria remain despite the moderate tone of rebel leaders who ousted president Bashar al-Assad a week ago, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz said on Sunday, amid military moves by his country to counter such threats.
“The immediate risks to the country have not disappeared and the latest developments in Syria increase the strength of the threat – despite the moderate image that the rebel leaders claim to present,” Katz told officials examining the country’s defence budget, according to a statement.
Syria’s de facto leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, said on Saturday that Israel was using false pretexts to justify its attacks on Syria, but that he was not interested in engaging in new conflicts as the country focuses on rebuilding, Reuters reported.
Sharaa – better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani – leads the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that swept Assad from power last Sunday, ending the family’s five-decade iron-fisted rule.
Updated
United in duplicity, if nothing else, Russia, Iran, Turkey and the US – key external players in Syria’s long-running drama – all agreed. The country’s “sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity” must be respected and maintained, each separately declared last week after Bashar al-Assad’s sudden, welcome downfall.
Even Israel, recklessly bombing Syria to blazes in the Jewish state’s largest ever military operation, denied it was interfering in the country’s internal affairs. Such cynicism is breathtaking. Like ravening wolves, supposed friends and neighbours tug at the still twitching corpse of the deposed regime. Unchecked, they could tear Syria apart, again.
Importunate foreign powers also have this in common: they seemingly cannot abide the thought of Syria’s people independently charting their own future. Last week’s revolution – the overdue denouement of a popular revolt begun in 2011 – was ultimately achieved despite them and largely without outside help.
For years, residents of Ghouta, an embattled opposition-held region on the outskirts of Damascus, grew used to death loudly announcing its presence. When Syrian and Russian jets or helicopter gunships roared overhead, bombs were never far behind. But the night of 7 April 2018 was different.
According to an extensive investigation by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), two yellow cylinders were dropped from a Syrian air force helicopter, crashing through the top floor of one apartment building and landing on a balcony of another, in the eastern Ghouta town of Douma.
The noise they made was negligible compared with the explosions of barrel bombs and airstrikes. But the concentrated green-yellow chlorine gas that hissed out of the canisters was no less deadly.
In air raids during the five-year-long siege of the town, the people of Douma usually sought shelter in basements. Chlorine is not as dangerous as sarin – a nerve agent that deposed president Bashar al-Assad deployed against civilians on several occasions in the 13-year civil war.
But because chlorine is heavier than air, it sank down through the storeys and street-level gratings into two basements. At least 43 people choked to death, their blistered bodies blue and black when civil defence workers bought the corpses out to the street.
One struggle ends, another begins. Revolution begets counter-revolution. Hopes soar, disappointment and disillusion follow. Is this what the future holds for Syria? In the immediate aftermath of last weekend’s sudden toppling of Bashar al-Assad’s despicable regime, euphoria reigns.
After 13 years of civil war, and more than 50 years of oppressive dictatorship, the scent of freedom is intoxicating. The people of Syria celebrated their liberation on the streets in vast numbers.
Statues of Assad and his father, Hafez, lifeless monuments to fear, were pulled down and smashed. Who would deny them these moments of vital joy? Theirs is a victory for all who love freedom.
Elation conceals deep anxiety. The challenges facing the country are numerous, complex and daunting. For many citizens, the overriding priority is to discover what happened to missing relatives and friends jailed or “forcibly disappeared”.
Large crowds gathered outside Damascus’s notorious Sednaya prison and other “slaughterhouses”, desperately seeking news of loved ones, living and dead. Perhaps half a million people were killed in the war.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights believes that 100,000 may have died under torture. One was Mazen al-Hamada who famously, publicly, defied the regime. His broken body was found in Sednaya.
Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 44,976 Palestinians and wounded 106,759 since 7 October 2023, the Palestinian health ministry said on Sunday.
Israel struck dozens of sites in Syria overnight with airstrikes, despite the Syrian rebel leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, saying his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group was not interested in conflict with Israel.
The latest airstrikes follow a statement by Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, that Israeli troops, who seized the Golan Heights buffer zone with Syria last week, would remain for the winter on Mount Hermon in positions they occupied last week.
Katz’s office said in a statement that “due to what is happening in Syria, there is enormous security importance to our holding on to the peak”.
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, a nom de guerre used by Ahmed al-Sharaa, told Syrian state media: “There are no excuses for any foreign intervention in Syria now after the Iranians have left. We are not in the process of engaging in a conflict with Israel.”
Germany’s foreign minister is warning anyone involved in atrocities for the ousted Syrian government against seeking refuge in her country, saying they would face “the full force of the law.”
Germany has been a major destination for Syrian refugees over the past decade, and several hundred thousand Syrian nationals live there. In rulings since 2021, former Syrian secret police officers already have been convicted in Germany for overseeing or facilitating the abuse of detainees.
“To any of [former President Bashar] Assad’s torturers who might be considering fleeing to Germany now, I can only say clearly: we will bring all the regime’s henchmen to account for their terrible crimes with the full force of the law,” foreign minister Annalena Baerbock told Sunday’s edition of the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
Baerbock called for international security authorities and intelligence services to work closely together.
Turkey ready to offer military training to Syria if new administration requests, minister says
The new administration in Syria should be given a chance to govern after their constructive messages, and Turkey stands ready to provide military training if such help is requested, Turkish defence minister Yasar Guler said.
Nato member Turkey backed the Syrian rebels who toppled president Bashar al-Assad last weekend, ending a 13-year civil war, Reuters reported. Turkey reopened its embassy in Damascus on Saturday, two days after its intelligence chief visited the Syrian capital.
“In their first statement, the new administration that toppled Assad announced that it would respect all government institutions, the United Nations and other international organisations,” Guler told reporters in Ankara in comments authorised for publication on Sunday.
“We think that we need to see what the new administration will do and to give them a chance.”
When asked whether Turkey was considering military cooperation with the new Syrian government, Guler said Ankara already had military cooperation and training agreements with many countries.
“[Turkey] is ready to provide the necessary support if the new administration requests it,” he added.
Turkey announced it had reopened its embassy in Damascus, nearly a week after the Islamist-led rebels toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and 12 years after the Turkish diplomatic mission was closed early in Syria’s civil war.
Turkey has been a major player in Syria’s conflict, holding considerable sway in the north-west, financing armed groups there and maintaining a working relationship with HTS, which spearheaded the offensive that toppled Assad.
In a joint statement after the meeting in Jordan, diplomats from the US, Turkey, the EU and Arab countries “affirmed the full support to the Syrian people at this critical point in their history to build a more hopeful, secure and peaceful future”.
They called for a Syrian-led transition to “produce an inclusive, non-sectarian and representative government formed through a transparent process”, with respect for human rights.
“Syria finally has the chance to end decades of isolation,” the group said.
Antony Blinken confirms ‘direct’ US contact with Syria’s rebel rulers HTS
Antony Blinken said the US had made “direct contact” with Syria’s victorious Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebels as western and Arab states along with Turkey jointly voiced support for a united, peaceful Syria.
The US secretary of state’s comment is despite Washington having designated the HTS rebels as terrorists in 2018.
Blinken and other diplomats held talks on Syria in Aqaba, Jordan, on Saturday. “We’ve been in contact with HTS and with other parties,” Blinken said, without specifying how the contact took place.
Israel ‘crossed lines of engagement’ with military actions inside Syria, de facto leader says
Good morning and welcome to the Middle East crisis live blog. I’m Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you all the latest developments throughout the region today.
We start with news that Syria’s de facto leader claims that Israel has “crossed the lines of engagement” over its military actions inside the country.
Israeli troops moved into a demilitarised zone inside the country after the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group seized control last week, saying it did so to ensure border security for Israelis living in the occupied Golan Heights area.
However, HTS leader Ahmad al Sharaa – known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al Jolani – told the Syrian TV website:
The Israelis have clearly crossed the lines of engagement in Syria, which poses a threat of unwarranted escalation in the region.
Syria’s war-weary condition, after years of conflict and war, does not allow for new confrontations.
The priority at this stage is reconstruction and stability, not being drawn into disputes that could lead to further destruction.
He added that diplomatic solutions were the only way to ensure security and stability and that “uncalculated military adventures” were not wanted.
The chief of staff for Israel’s military, Herzi Halevi, said:
We are not interfering in what is happening inside Syria, nor do we intend to govern it.
However, we are unequivocally involved in ensuring the security of Israeli citizens living in communities behind us in the Golan Heights.
In other news:
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.
Updated
