Summary of the day
It is approaching 8pm in Beirut, Tel Aviv and Gaza City, and 9pm in Damascus
Syrian insurgents have entered towns north of the country’s third largest city, Homs, sweeping along a highway that eventually leads to the capital, Damascus, in a lightning-fast advance that has shaken the Middle East
Militants spearheaded by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) took control of the city of Hama on Thursday before moving south, swiftly capturing two key towns on the road south of the city before arriving in Al-Dar al-Kabera, a town five miles from the centre of Homs
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran would continue to support Syria “with whatever is needed” as President Bashar al-Assad’s forces face a lightning rebel offensive
The Russian embassy in Damascus instructed Russian nationals to leave Syria, in a rare show of alarm. Moscow has remained a key ally of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, including providing military support
The escalation in fighting in Syria has displaced about 280,000 people in just over a week, the UN said on Friday, warning that numbers could rise to 1.5 million
Lebanon’s general security directorate said on Friday that the country is closing all land border crossing with Syria except for a main one that links Beirut with the Syrian capital Damascus. Jordan has closed its only passenger and commercial border crossing into Syria, the interior ministry said
US-backed Syrian Kurds have seizeed control of the eastern Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor, two security sources told Reuters
Speaking to reporters outside a mosque in Istanbul, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, offered a message of support to the insurgency
Turkey confirmed it would meet Russian and Iranian foreign ministers for talks on the escalating Syrian civil war in Qatar on Saturday
Israel’s military has announced that as a result of developments in Syria it is “reinforcing aerial and ground forces in the Golan Heights area”, strategically valuable territory that it captured from Syria in 1967 and unilaterally claimed to annex in 1981
Israeli forces stormed into Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya in north Gaza overnight on Friday and expelled some staff and displaced people before withdrawing, its director said
Four people have been wounded and one killed by Israeli security forces in the Israeli-occupied West Bank
And in the United States: Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy has held talks with senior officials from Israel and Qatar in efforts to facilitate a ceasefire in Gaza and secure the release of Israeli hostages before Trump potentially returns to the White House, The Financial Times reports.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, has met members of Hamas’s political bureau in Doha. The official X page of Turkey’s foreign ministry published these photographs from the meeting:
Minister of Foreign Affairs @HakanFidan met with the members of the Hamas Political Bureau, in Doha. pic.twitter.com/9racU6QNOX
— Turkish MFA (@MFATurkiye) December 6, 2024
