Middle-East
Israeli strikes on Syria intensify, raise tensions with Iran
Suspected Israeli airstrikes in Syria in recent weeks have killed two Iranian military advisers, temporarily put the country’s two largest airports out of service, and raised fears of regional escalation.
While Israel has fought a shadow war with Iran in Syria for years, it has intensified recently, with near-daily airstrikes attributed to Israel by Syrian officials over the past week.
The escalation of attacks comes after what appears to be a rare infiltration by an armed man from Lebanon into Israel and Iran’s reconciliation with regional rival Saudi Arabia last month. It also comes against the backdrop of a major domestic crisis in Israel over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government plan to overhaul the judiciary.
Israel, which has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment in neighboring Syria, has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets in government-controlled parts of that country in recent years — but rarely acknowledges them. Since the beginning of 2023, Syrian officials have attributed 10 strikes on Syrian territory to Israel, including four airstrikes within five days as of Tuesday.
The United States, Israel’s closest ally, has had its own recent run-ins with Iranian forces in Syria. In late March, U.S. forces retaliated with airstrikes on sites in Syria used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard following a suspected Iran-linked drone attack that killed a U.S. contractor and wounded six other Americans in northeast Syria. An official with an Iranian-backed group in Iraq said the U.S. strikes killed seven Iranians.
The flareup between the U.S. and Iran did not escalate, but some fear the back-and-forth between Israel and Iran could.
Since the early years of Syria’s 12-year-old conflict, Iran has deployed hundreds of military advisers as well as thousands of Iran-backed fighters from countries including Iraq and Lebanon who helped tip the balance of power in President Bashar Assad’s favor. Iran-backed fighters are deployed in different parts of Syria.
Israel has long considered Iran to be its top enemy, citing Iranian calls for Israel's destruction, its support for anti-Israel militant groups like Hezbollah and its nuclear program. Israel and Western countries say Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapons — a charge Iran denies.
Iran has blamed Israel for attacks on its territory, including the killings of some of its nuclear scientists and damage to nuclear installations.
The airstrikes in Syria reflect Israel's concerns about fighters being deployed close to its northern border and fears that Iran is trying to transfer sophisticated weapons, such as guided missiles, to Hezbollah. Both Israel and Hezbollah have avoided an all-out war since their 34-day war in 2006 ended with a draw. Israel considers Hezbollah, which is believed to possess over 130,000 rockets and missiles, to be a major threat.
Lebanese military expert and former army general Hisham Jaber said Iran has about 1,800 military advisers in Syria, most of them deployed with Syrian troops.
The increase in strikes on Syria began with a Jan. 2 attack that temporarily put Damascus airport out of service, just after the most right-wing government in Israel’s 74-year history took office.
The strikes continued despite mass protests in Israel, including open disagreement between Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, over the government's controversial plans for a judicial overhaul. At one point, Netanyahu fired Gallant for criticizing the plan, but then backtracked and temporarily halted the push for the overhaul until parliament reconvenes in a month.
The two men have made a number of public appearances in recent days, alluding to military activity in Syria without overtly confirming it.
“We will not allow the Iranians and Hezbollah to harm us. We have not allowed it in the past, we won’t allow it now, or anytime in the future,” Gallant said this week. “When necessary, we will push them out of Syria to where they belong – and that is Iran.”
Strikes attributed to Israel in Syria in recent weeks have targeted both Iranian-linked figures and infrastructure.
They have hit the airports of Damascus and Aleppo, a move which was apparently intended to prevent the flow of arms shipments into Syria, but which also disrupted aid shipments after the deadly Feb. 6 earthquake that struck Syria and Turkey.
On Feb. 19, the first reported Israeli strikes after the earthquake targeted residential areas in Syria’s capital Damascus, killing at least five people and wounding 15. Opposition activists said the strikes targeted Iranian-backed militias.
In mid-March, the Israeli army said its soldiers had killed an armed man suspected of entering the country from Lebanon and blowing up a car. The incident, which wounded one Israeli, unnerved Israelis. Officials suspect the man infiltrated from Lebanon and may have been dispatched by Hezbollah or directly by Iran.
A few days after the alleged infiltration, a commander with the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad was shot dead outside his apartment building near Damascus in what the group described as an assassination by Israeli agents.
Last Tuesday, Netanyahu said Israel's intelligence agency Mossad helped Greece prevent a terrorist attack planned against at least one Jewish site in Athens. Greek authorities said two men described as being of Pakistani origin were arrested for allegedly planning an attack on a Jewish center.
On Friday, an Israeli strike on a southern suburb of Damascus killed two advisers from Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Hours later, Israel’s air force shot down a drone that entered Israel from Syria and alleged that Iran was behind its launch.
Yoel Guzansky, an Iran expert and senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank, said Israel’s stepped-up action in recent weeks could be in response to the recent alleged infiltration from Lebanon.
Guzansky noted that Iran rarely acknowledges the death of its officers and advisers as quickly as it did after Friday's attack. He said the swift public acknowledgement could signal that "Iran will avenge or respond to the Israeli attacks,” possibly targeting Israelis abroad.
An official with an Iran-backed group in the region warned that if Israel continues with the strikes, Tehran and its allies will retaliate. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue with the media.
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted the Revolutionary Guard as saying that the killing of two Iranian advisers “will definitely not pass without retaliation.”
Israel holding over 1,000 without charge, most since 2003
Israel is holding over 1,000 Palestinian detainees without charge or trial, the highest number since 2003, an Israeli human rights group said Tuesday.
Israel says the controversial tactic, known as administrative detention, helps authorities thwart attacks and hold dangerous militants without divulging incriminating material for security reasons. Palestinians and rights groups say the system is widely abused and denies due process, with the secret nature of the evidence making it impossible for administrative detainees or their lawyers to mount a defense.
HaMoked, an Israeli rights group that regularly gathers figures from prison authorities, said that as of April, there were 1,016 detainees held in administrative detention. Nearly all of them are Palestinians detained under military law, as administrative detention is very rarely used against Jews. Four Israeli Jews are currently being held without charge.
“There is no sense of when the nightmare will end,” said 48-year-old Manal Abu Bakr in Dheisheh, a refugee camp near the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Her 28-year-old son Mohammed lost his four college years to administrative detention. Her husband, Nidal, a journalist and radio presenter, remains in custody. He has spent 17 years behind bars in the past three decades, more than half of it without charge, according to a prisoner’s rights group, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club.
The hearing on the renewal of his detention is set for September. “I’m exhausted," Manal said. “It's hard even to hope.”
HaMoked says 2,416 Palestinians are serving sentences after being convicted in Israeli military courts. An additional 1,409 detainees are being held for questioning, have been charged and are awaiting trial, or are currently being tried.
Among the 76 Palestinians incarcerated in the last month, 49 are administrative detainees. Administrative detention orders can be issued for a maximum of six months, but can be renewed indefinitely.
“The numbers are shocking,” said Jessica Montell, the director of HaMoked. “There are no restraints on the use of what should be a rare exception. It's just getting easier and easier for them to hold people with no charge or trial.”
A widespread military crackdown on Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank has helped fuel the sharp rise in administrative detentions.
Israel's campaign of raids into Palestinian cities and towns following a string of deadly Palestinian attacks last year led to the arrest of over 2,400 Palestinians since March 2022, according to the Israeli military. Israel's Shin Bet security service did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the latest administrative detention figures.
Israel describes the ramped-up raids as a counterterrorism effort to prevent further attacks. Palestinian residents and critics say the operation only further stokes the cycle of bloodshed, as the incursions ignite violent protests and firefights with Palestinian militants.
Nearly 90 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli fire this year, according to an Associated Press tally. Palestinian attacks against Israelis have killed 15 people in the same period. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were militants, but the dead have included stone-throwing youths and bystanders who were not involved in violence.
The last time Israel held this many administrative detainees was in May 2003, HaMoked said, in the throes of a violent Palestinian uprising known as the Second Intifada.
“The numbers always increase when there are heightened tensions on the ground,” said Sahar Francis, a director of Addameer, a Palestinian prisoners’ rights group . Administrative detention "is an efficient tool for the arrest of hundreds of people in a short time.”
The West Bank has been under Israeli military rule since Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state.
The territory’s nearly 3 million Palestinian residents are subject to Israel’s military justice system, while the nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers living alongside them have Israeli citizenship and are subject to civilian courts.
Israeli police clash with worshipers at Jerusalem holy site
Israeli police raided Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City early Wednesday and attacked Palestinian worshippers, Palestinian media reported, raising fears of wider tensions as Islamic and Jewish holidays overlap.
The incidents sparked a wave of Palestinian protests, condemnations and violence. The Israeli military said sirens warning of incoming rockets sounded in Israeli communities around the Gaza Strip.
Tension has already been high in east Jerusalem and the West Bank for months, and fears of further violence were fueled with the convergence of the Muslim holy fast month and the Passover.
Such confrontations at the contested holy compound, the third holiest shrine in Islam that is also the most sacred site in Judaism and referred to as the Temple Mount, have sparked deadly cross-border wars between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers in the past, the last was in 2021.
Videos on social media purportedly showed Israeli police officers beating Palestinians with batons and rifle butts at the mosque in the contested hilltop site revered by both Muslims and Jews.
The official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, reported that dozens of worshipers, who spend all the night in Ramadan praying, were injured when the police raided the mosque.
It was not immediately clear what sparked the violence. The Israeli police said it used force to evacuate worshippers who were holed up at the mosque with fireworks, rocks, and sticks. They added that an officer was injured in his leg by a stone and that dozens of “rioters” were arrested.
Talab Abu Eisha, 49, said more than 400 men, women and children were praying at Al-Aqsa when the police encircled the mosque.
“The youths were afraid and started closing the doors,” he said, adding that police forces “stormed the eastern corner, beating and arresting men there."
”It was an unprecedented scene of violence in terms of police brutality and intention to hurt the youths," he said, denying police claims that young men were hiding fireworks and rocks. He added that the police prevented all men under 50 years old from passing through the Old City's gates leading to the compound for the dawn prayers.
The violence in Jerusalem triggered protests and condemnations from Palestinians. in Gaza, Hamas called for large protests and people started gathering in the streets, with calls to head for the heavily guarded Gaza-Israel frontier for more violent demonstrations.
The Palestinian leadership condemned the attack on the worshippers. The spokesman of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, warned Israel that such a move “exceeds all red lines and will lead to a large explosion."
In Gaza, Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad also called for Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Israel to go and gather around Al-Aqsa Mosque and confront Israeli forces.
The Israeli military said Gaza militants fired two barrages of rockets toward southern Israel. Five rockets were intercepted and four landed in open areas. There were no reports of casualties or damage.
Earlier on Tuesday, a Palestinian suspect stabbed two Israelis near an army base south of Tel Aviv , police said, in the latest incident in a yearlong spate of violence that shows no sign of abating.
The Magen David Adom paramedic service said first responders treated two men for serious and light stab wounds in the incident on a highway near the Tsrifin military base. The men were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment their injuries.
Israeli media identified the two victims as soldiers.
Police said that civilians at the scene apprehended the suspected attacker, who was taken into police custody for questioning.
Israeli-Palestinian violence has surged over the last year, as the Israeli military has carried out near-nightly raids on Palestinian cities, towns and villages and as Palestinians have staged numerous attacks against Israelis.
At least 88 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire this year, according to an Associated Press tally. Palestinian attacks against Israelis have killed 15 people in the same period.
Israel holding over 1,000 Palestinian without charge, most since 2003
Israel is holding over 1,000 Palestinian detainees without charge or trial, the highest number since 2003, an Israeli human rights group said Tuesday.
Israel says the controversial tactic, known as administrative detention, helps authorities thwart attacks and hold dangerous militants without divulging incriminating material for security reasons. Palestinians and rights groups say the system is widely abused and denies due process, with the secret nature of the evidence making it impossible for administrative detainees or their lawyers to mount a defense.
HaMoked, an Israeli rights group that regularly gathers figures from prison authorities, said that as of April, there were 1,016 detainees held in administrative detention. Nearly all of them are Palestinians detained under military law, as administrative detention is very rarely used against Jews. Four Israeli Jews are currently being held without charge.
"There is no sense of when the nightmare will end," said 48-year-old Manal Abu Bakr in Dheisheh, a refugee camp near the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Her 28-year-old son Mohammed lost his four college years to administrative detention. Her husband, Nidal, a journalist and radio presenter, remains in custody. He has spent 17 years behind bars in the past three decades, more than half of it without charge, according to a prisoner's rights group, the Palestinian Prisoners' Club.
The hearing on the renewal of his detention is set for September. "I'm exhausted," Manal said. "It's hard even to hope."
HaMoked says 2,416 Palestinians are serving sentences after being convicted in Israeli military courts. An additional 1,409 detainees are being held for questioning, have been charged and are awaiting trial, or are currently being tried.
Among the 76 Palestinians incarcerated in the last month, 49 are administrative detainees. Administrative detention orders can be issued for a maximum of six months, but can be renewed indefinitely.
"The numbers are shocking," said Jessica Montell, the director of HaMoked. "There are no restraints on the use of what should be a rare exception. It's just getting easier and easier for them to hold people with no charge or trial."
A widespread military crackdown on Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank has helped fuel the sharp rise in administrative detentions.
Israel's campaign of raids into Palestinian cities and towns following a string of deadly Palestinian attacks last year led to the arrest of over 2,400 Palestinians since March 2022, according to the Israeli military. Israel's Shin Bet security service did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the latest administrative detention figures.
Israel describes the ramped-up raids as a counterterrorism effort to prevent further attacks. Palestinian residents and critics say the operation only further stokes the cycle of bloodshed, as the incursions ignite violent protests and firefights with Palestinian militants.
Nearly 90 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli fire this year, according to an Associated Press tally. Palestinian attacks against Israelis have killed 15 people in the same period. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were militants, but the dead have included stone-throwing youths and bystanders who were not involved in violence.
The last time Israel held this many administrative detainees was in May 2003, HaMoked said, in the throes of a violent Palestinian uprising known as the Second Intifada.
"The numbers always increase when there are heightened tensions on the ground," said Sahar Francis, a director of Addameer, a Palestinian prisoners' rights group . Administrative detention "is an efficient tool for the arrest of hundreds of people in a short time."
The West Bank has been under Israeli military rule since Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state.
The territory's nearly 3 million Palestinian residents are subject to Israel's military justice system, while the nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers living alongside them have Israeli citizenship and are subject to civilian courts.
Palestinians say 2 killed in Israeli army raid in West Bank
Two Palestinian men were killed by Israeli troops in an army raid in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus on Monday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, the latest in a year-long spike of violence that shows no sign of abating.
The Israeli military said that troops arrested two people suspected of assisting a gunman who shot two soldiers in the occupied West Bank town of Hawara last month. The army said its soldiers came under fire during the raid and shot back, confirming “hits.”
Violence has surged in recent months in the West Bank and east Jerusalem amid near-daily Israeli arrest raids in Palestinian-controlled areas and a string of Palestinian attacks.
The U.S. has tried to broker talks between Israel, Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinians to try to defuse tensions during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, now in its second week.
At least 88 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli or settler gunfire this year, according to an Associated Press tally. Palestinian attacks against Israelis have killed 15 people in the same period.
Israel says most of those killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and people not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for their future independent state.
Saudi Prince MBS' next audacious plan: Giving peace a chance
In the years since Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman catapulted to power, it has been hard to find a controversy in the Middle East that doesn't somehow involve the 37-year-old heir to the throne. Now he's pivoting to his next audacious plan: Giving peace a chance.
The moves toward reaching a détente with Iran, reestablishing ties to Syria and ending the kingdom's yearslong war in Yemen could extricate Prince Mohammed from some of the thorniest regional issues he faces.
Whether it succeeds will have profound impacts on the wider Middle East and on his expansive plans to reshape the kingdom away from oil and further into his image. Failure threatens not only his impending rule over a nation crucial to global energy supplies, but a wider region shaken by years of tensions, inflamed in part by his decisions.
Prince Mohammed's rise accelerated in 2015 after his father, King Salman, appointed him as deputy crown prince. That year saw Mohammed, also the country's defense minister at the time, plunge Saudi Arabia into a military campaign in Yemen, a civil war that grew into a regional proxy battle still continuing today. Riyadh supports Yemen's exiled government against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels who hold Sanaa, the country's capital.
The tensions with Iran, at the time still in a nuclear deal with world powers, escalated with Saudi Arabia's execution of a prominent Shiite cleric in 2016. Protesters stormed Saudi diplomatic posts in Iran, and Riyadh broke off ties to Tehran.
In 2017, Saudi Arabia joined three other Arab nations in boycotting Qatar, which maintains ties to Iran. The same year, the prince made what appeared to be a heavy-handed attempt to break Iranian-backed Hezbollah's domination of Lebanon's government by inviting Lebanon's prime minister to the kingdom and then allegedly forcing him to announce his resignation. The attempt failed and Saudi Arabia's influence in Lebanon has been diminished ever since.
Prince Mohammed days later launched a purported anti-corruption campaign that saw the Saudi elite locked in the Ritz Carlton until they handed over billions in assets. The slaying of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, believed by the United States and others to be at the prince's orders, followed in 2018.
But an attack that followed likely changed the prince's calculations. In September 2019, a barrage of cruise missiles and drones struck at the heart of Saudi Arabia's oil industry, temporarily halving production.
While the Houthis initially claimed the assault, the West and Saudi Arabia later blamed the attacks on Tehran. Independent experts also linked the weapons to Iran. Though Tehran still denies carrying out the attack, even United Nations investigators said that “the Houthi forces are unlikely to be responsible for the attack.”
Saudi Arabia never retaliated publicly for the attack, nor did the U.S. under President Donald Trump as the longtime security guarantor for the Gulf Arab states. That, as well as America's later chaotic 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, led to a reconsideration in the region of how much to rely on U.S. promises.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia maintained a close relationship with Russia as part of the OPEC+ group. The organization's oil production cuts, even as Moscow's war on Ukraine boosted energy prices, angered President Joe Biden and American lawmakers. China, emerging from the coronavirus pandemic, also wants to secure its supply of Saudi oil.
Both Russia and China offer Saudi Arabia and Prince Mohammed the cachet of being respected by the world's great powers without the persistent human rights concerns of the West. Prince Mohammed has hosted and spoken by phone with both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin.
The Chinese-mediated deal on the kingdom reestablishing ties with Iran also provides Prince Mohammed with a new opportunity to show the U.S. that others can shape Mideast politics. It also offers a needed lull to allow the prince to instead focus on his planned $500 billion futuristic desert smart city project called Neom in the kingdom's northwest, and the Mukaab in Riyadh — a 400-meter-high (523-yard) cube-shaped mini-city full of holograms and entertainment venues — to anchor a new downtown in the Saudi capital, likely to cost billions more if completed.
A lull in tensions is desperately sought by Iran as well, particularly in the wake of the Mahsa Amini protests that represent one of the greatest challenges to its theocracy since the chaotic years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. U.S. sanctions over Tehran's collapsed nuclear deal as well still choke Iran's economy.
For Prince Mohammed, the time must have appeared right to make the move. Already, Saudi Arabia led efforts to reestablish ties to Qatar in 2021. Easing tensions with Iran may provide him the avenue to finally fully pull out of the Yemen war.
Still, Prince Mohammed instructing Saudi officials to sit down with Iranian counterparts to reopen embassies represents a dramatic change for a leader who in 2018 said: “I believe the Iranian supreme leader makes Hitler look good.”
Meanwhile, talks are ongoing on restoring ties with Syria, still under Iranian-backed President Bashar Assad after years of civil war. An upcoming Arab League summit being hosted by the kingdom in May could see Syria formally brought back into the fold. Even Lebanon, beset by crises ranging from fiscal to even time keeping, could benefit from a Saudi-Iran rapprochement.
The kingdom will also face a transition in the future. King Salman is already 87. His predecessor, King Abdullah, was the oldest Saudi monarch when he died at the age 90. Prince Mohammed likely will be the youngest ever to take the throne — and could have decades more to make his mark on the kingdom.
What that mark will be depends just as much on him as it does on whether he can cool the tensions he helped kindle.
Israeli strikes in Syria’s Homs province wound 5 soldiers
Israeli airstrikes hit several sites in Syria's Homs province early Sunday, wounding five soldiers, Syrian state media reported.
In Iran, state media reported that an Iranian adviser who was wounded in an Israeli strike on Friday died of his wounds. Since the start of Syria's conflict in March 2011, Iran has been a main supporter of President Bashar Assad's government and has sent advisers since the early days of the war.
Sunday's strike marked the ninth time Israel has struck targets in Syria since the beginning of the year, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition-linked war monitor.
State news agency SANA, citing military sources, said the strikes targeted sites in the city of Homs and surrounding countryside. Syrian air defenses intercepted the missiles and shot down some of them, it said.
The observatory reported that the missiles targeted Syrian military sites and those of Iran-linked militias, including a research center.
There was no immediate statement from Israel on the strikes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not directly mention the strikes at a meeting of his Cabinet on Sunday, but said Israel was acting against foreign threats.
“We are exacting a high price from the regimes that support terror outside Israel’s borders,” he said.
Netanyahu said that a major domestic crisis over his government’s plan to overhaul the judiciary has not affected Israel’s ability to strike.
“The internal argument in Israel doesn’t harm and won’t harm our determination or intensity or our capabilities to act against our enemies on all fronts, in any place and at any time necessary,” he said.
Reservists have pledged not to show up for duty so long as the overhaul moves forward, prompting military and defense officials to warn of damage to the military’s capabilities. Netanyahu has paused the overhaul for now.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, including attacks on the Damascus and Aleppo airports, but it rarely acknowledges specific operations.
Israel says it targets bases of Iran-allied militant groups, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to support Assad’s forces.
On Friday, Israeli airstrikes hit the suburbs of Syria’s capital city, Damascus, killing an Iranian adviser, the state media of Syria and Iran reported. Iran’s state television reported Friday that Milad Heidari, an Iranian military adviser, was killed during what it called a “criminal strike” by Israel.
Iranian sate media reported Sunday that another Revolutionary Guard adviser who was wounded in Friday's strike succumbed to his wounds. Iran’s state TV identified the adviser as Meghdad Mahghani, adding that his funeral would be held Sunday in Damascus.
An Israeli airstrike last month targeting the airport in Aleppo put it out of commission for two days. The airport has been a main conduit for aid shipments since the deadly 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit Syria and Turkey on Feb. 6.
Israel has also struck seaports in government-held areas of Syria, in an apparent attempt to prevent Iranian arms shipments to militant groups backed by Tehran, including Hezbollah.
Israeli strikes in Syria's Homs province wound five soldiers
Israeli airstrikes hit several sites in Syria's Homs province early Sunday, wounding five soldiers, Syrian state media reported.
It marked the ninth time Israel has struck targets in Syria since the beginning of the year, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition-linked war monitor.
State news agency SANA, citing military sources, said the strikes had targeted sites in the city of Homs and surrounding countryside. Syrian air defenses intercepted the missiles and shot down some of them, it said.
The observatory reported that the missiles targeted Syrian military sites and those of Iran-linked militias, including a research center.
There was no immediate statement from Israel on the strikes.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, including attacks on the Damascus and Aleppo airports, but it rarely acknowledges specific operations.
Israel says it targets bases of Iran-allied militant groups, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to support Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.
On Friday, Israeli airstrikes hit the suburbs of Syria’s capital city, Damascus, killing an Iranian adviser, the state media of Syria and Iran reported.
Iran’s state television reported Friday that Milad Heidari, an Iranian military adviser, was killed during what it called a “criminal strike” by Israel.
An Israeli airstrike last month targeting the airport in Aleppo put it out of commission for two days. The airport has been a main conduit for aid shipments since the deadly 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit Syria and Turkey on Feb. 6.
Israel has also struck seaports in government-held areas of Syria, in an apparent attempt to prevent Iranian arms shipments to militant groups backed by Tehran, including Hezbollah.
Israeli police fatally shoot man at Jerusalem's holiest site
Israeli police shot and killed a man who they alleged tried to snatch an officer’s gun at an entrance to a Jerusalem holy site early Saturday, raising fears of further violence during a time of heightened tensions at the flashpoint compound.
Palestinian worshippers at the entrance to the site on Saturday morning had a different account, saying that police shot the man at least 10 times after he tried to prevent them from harassing a woman who was on her way to the holy compound.
The police said the slain man was 26-year-old Mohammed Alasibi from Hura, a Bedouin Arab village in southern Israel. The village council called for a thorough investigation of his killing and a general strike Saturday in protest.
Hours after the incident, the muddy stone alleyway leading to Al-Aqsa Mosque was still stained with blood. Israeli Arab politicians identified Alasibi as a physician who had recently passed his exams and earned his M.D. in Romania. They widely condemned his killing and demanded that Israeli police release security camera footage of the incident.
“He was killed in cold blood after finishing his prayers,” said prominent Arab lawmaker Ahmad Tibi. “As with previous crimes committed by the police, we are accustomed to many false narratives.”
Police said they detained the man for questioning outside the sacred compound home to Al-Aqsa Mosque in the heart of Jerusalem's Old City — the third holiest shrine in Islam. The compound, revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, is also the most sacred site in Judaism.
The city's contested compound has been a focus for clashes in the past, particularly in times of turmoil in Israel and the West Bank. This year, as violence surges in the occupied territory under the most right-wing government in Israeli history, fears of an escalation in Jerusalem have mounted with the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Israeli police have boosted their forces as tens of thousands of Muslim worshippers flock to Al-Aqsa Mosque for prayers.
On Friday, more than 200,000 Palestinians gathered at the compound for noon prayers, which passed peacefully.
Just after midnight Saturday, police said Alasibi attacked one of the officers and grabbed his gun, managing to fire two bullets into the air as the officer struggled to restrain him. Police described the incident as an attempted terrorist attack and said they shot and killed him in self-defense.
But Palestinian worshippers at the compound Saturday insisted that the man was not a terrorist. Noureddine, a 17-year-old who lived in the neighborhood and declined to give his last name for fear of reprisals, said he saw Alasibi confront police who had stopped a female worshipper on her way to Al-Aqsa Mosque. Alasibi's relationship to the woman was not clear. He said some kind of disagreement broke out between Alasibi and the officers before he heard a dozen shots ring out.
“Nothing could justify that many shots,” he said, pointing to chaotic footage he filmed that showed Palestinian vendors and worshippers screaming at the sound of bullets being fired in rapid succession. “They were fired at close range."
Noureddine said police forced Palestinian vendors and worshippers out of the area after the incident, beating him and others with batons. Israeli police briefly closed the site before reopening it for dawn prayers.
Confrontations at the hilltop compound have triggered wider violence in the region in the past. Clashes at the site in May 2021 helped fuel the outbreak of a bloody 11-day war between Israel and Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers.
This year's convergence of Ramadan with the Jewish holiday of Passover could increase the possibility of friction as the Old City hosts a massive influx of pilgrims.
Early on Saturday, residents of the Old City shared videos of Israeli police entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound to remove a banner belonging to the Islamic militant group Hamas hanging over the shrine that called worshippers to confront right-wing Jews who were planning to tour the compound on Sunday.
Devout Jewish Israelis, including Israeli settlers, have visited the Temple Mount in rising numbers in recent years. Under a long-standing agreement known as the status quo, Jews are allowed to visit but not pray at the site. Any small perceived change to the status quo at the site can trigger violence.
For the past year, Israeli-Palestinian fighting has surged in the occupied West Bank. At least 86 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli or settler gunfire this year, according to an Associated Press tally. Palestinian attacks against Israelis have killed 15 people in the same period. Israel says most of those killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting police incursions and people not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
Israeli police fatally shoot man at Jerusalem's holy site
Israeli police shot and killed a man who allegedly tried to steal an officer’s weapons at a flashpoint Jerusalem site late Friday, police said.
The police said the slain man was 26 years old and from an Arab village in southern Israel.
Authorities said the incident in Jerusalem's Old City happened when officers stopped the man for questioning outside Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which is the third holiest shrine in Islam.
Footage shared widely on social media showed Israeli police deploying heavily in the alleys and gates leading to the compound after the shooting. Scuffles broke out between police and Palestinian vendors and worshipers who spend the night praying at the mosque during the holy month of Ramadan.
More than 200,000 Palestinians had gathered earlier for Friday's noon prayers at the compound and the ceremony ended without the usual frictions with Israeli police.
The hilltop compound is revered also by Jews as the Temple Mount, and incidents in previous years have spilled into clashes in the West Bank and fighting between Israel and Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers.
Read more: 6 Palestinians killed during Israeli West Bank raid
Since last spring, violence between Israel and the Palestinians has been high. Eighty-six Palestinians have been killed by Israeli or settler gunfire this year, according to an Associated Press tally. Palestinian attacks have killed 15 Israelis in the same period.
Israel says most of those killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting police incursions and people not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for their future independent state.