France urges Israel to withdraw forces from Syria buffer zone
Israel must withdraw forces from the buffer zone separating the annexed Golan Heights from Syrian territory, Franceâs foreign ministry said on Wednesday, according to AFP.
âAny military deployment in the separation zone between Israel and Syria is a violation of the disengagement agreement of 1974,â a foreign ministry spokesperson said.
Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced on Sunday he had ordered the army to âseizeâ the demilitarised zone in the Syrian-controlled part of the Golan Heights after rebels swept Syrian president Bashar al-Assad from power.
âFrance calls on Israel to withdraw from the zone and to respect Syriaâs sovereignty and territorial integrity,â the foreign ministry spokesperson said, reports AFP.
The area is patrolled by a UN peacekeeping force known as UNDOF, with the global body warning Israel on Monday that it is in breach of the 50-year-old deal that ended a 1973 war with Syria.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a UN official in New York told AFP that Israeli forces had occupied seven positions in the buffer zone.
Franceâs intervention follows condemnations from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia and Turkey, as well as a US call for the Israeli incursion to be âtemporaryâ.
Key events
‘Inclusive’ Syria transition vital to avert ‘new civil war’, says UN envoy
Syriaâs transitional authorities must strive for a more inclusive process, bringing in different parties and communities to avoid new civil strife, the UN envoy for Syria said on Wednesday.
âMy biggest concern is that the transition will create new contradictions in the manner that could lead to new civil strife and potentially a new civil war,â Geir Pedersen told AFP in a brief interview in Geneva.
Longtime Syrian president Bashar al-Assad fled Syria on Sunday after a lightning offensive spearheaded by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group and its allies.
Mohammad al-Bashir, whom the rebels appointed as the transitional head of government, has sought to allay fears over how Syria would be ruled and how minorities would be treated. âPrecisely because we are Islamic, we will guarantee the rights of all people and all sects in Syria,â he told Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
Pedersen told AFP that Bashirâs appointment had âcreated some negative reactions among Syrians, because they were afraid that this was a way for one group to monopolise powerâ.
âI think itâs extremely important that the new authorities in Damascus make clear what they want to achieve during these three months,â he said.
The initial signals, Pedersen said, indicated the transitional authorities âunderstood that they need to prepare for a more inclusive processâ, bringing onboard different parties, sectors of society and armed factions, as well as women.
He said he hoped the need for inclusiveness was understood. âIf not, it will not only create nervousness inside of Syria, with the potential for new civil strife, even civil war, but it will also create negative reactions from neighbouring countries,â Pedersen warned.
He told AFP:
There is so much at stake that it is extremely important that messages coming out from the armed group in Damascus ⦠(are) reassuring to all communities in Syria and also to the international community.â
Pedersen also stressed that it was âimportant that no international actor is doing anything that could derail the very complicated transitional processâ.
Since Assadâs ouster, Israel, which borders Syria, has sent troops into a buffer zone on the east of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, in a move the UN has said violates the 1974 armistice.
âThis is obviously a violation of the agreement from the 1974 and itâs also a violation, it goes without saying, of Syria sovereignty and territorial integrity and unity,â Pedersen said.
The Israeli military has also said it has conducted hundreds of strikes against Syrian military assets in the past two days, targeting everything from chemical weapons stores to air defences to keep them out of rebel hands.
Pedersen said he had spoken with Syrian ambassadors, whom the transitional authorities asked to remain in their posts, about Israelâs chemical weapons fears. âThey are emphasising very strongly that they are respecting the agreements that were put in place and they are not going to play with this,â he said.
Lebanon says five people killed in Israeli strikes in south
Lebanonâs health ministry said Israeli strikes killed five people in the south on Wednesday, amid a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah after two months of all-out war, reports AFP.
The Lebanese army said it deployed troops around Khiam, a key town just 5km (three miles) from the border that saw heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.
âAn Israeli enemy drone strike on the town of Ainata killed one person and wounded another,â the health ministry said. An âIsraeli strike on the town of Bint Jbeil killed three people,â while a third âon Beit Lif killed one personâ, reports AFP.
A ceasefire came into effect on 27 November. Both sides have accused the other of repeated violations.
Under the terms of the agreement, the Lebanese army is to deploy in the south alongside UN peacekeepers as the Israeli army withdraws over a period of 60 days.
Hezbollah is required to withdraw its forces north of the Litani River, about 30km (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle its military infrastructure in the south.
The Lebanese army said âunits deployed in five positions around the town of Khiamâ in coordination with UN peacekeepers and âwithin the framework of the first phase of deployment in the area, at the same time as the Israeli enemy withdrawalâ.
âThe deployment will be completed in the next phase, while specialised unitsâ will survey the town to âremove unexploded ordnanceâ, it added.
The UN general assembly will vote on Wednesday on a draft resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza, a symbolic gesture after the US vetoed a similar action in the UN security council, reports AFP.
Late last month, Washington used its veto power on the council â as it has before â to protect its ally Israel, which has been at war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip since the Palestinian militant groupâs 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.
The US blocked the councilâs attempt to call for a ceasefire, saying a link between a ceasefire and a release of all hostages had to be maintained.
This time in the assembly, the draft resolution, which would be non-binding if approved, calls for both âan immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire,â and âthe immediate and unconditional release of all hostagesâ, reports AFP. The resolution also demands âimmediate accessâ to widespread humanitarian aid for the citizens of Gaza, especially in the besieged north of the territory.
During the debate before the vote, which is due to take place at about 3pm (8pm GMT), those who spoke largely backed the draft.
âGaza doesnât exist any more. It is destroyed,â Sloveniaâs UN envoy, Samuel Žbogar, told the assembly. âHistory is the harshest critic of inaction.â
That criticism was echoed by Algeriaâs deputy UN ambassador, Nacim Gaouaoui, who said:
The price of silence and failure in the face of the Palestinian tragedy is a very heavy price, and it will be heavier tomorrow.â
Damascus airport to reopen ‘in next few days’, says its director
Damascus airport, closed since rebel forces overran the Syrian capital at the weekend, is to reopen âin the next few daysâ, its director Anis Fallouh told AFP on Wednesday.
âGod willing, the airport will reopen as quickly as possible because we are going to work flat out,â Fallouh said. Pushed to give a timeframe for the reopening, he said it ought to happen âin the next few daysâ.
âWe can quickly let aircraft resume flights through Syrian airspace, which has been closed,â he added.
An AFP correspondent saw armed rebel fighters deployed around the airport.
Aircraft maintenance official, Samer Radi, said there were currently 12 aircraft on the ground, one of which had been stripped of its equipment by unknown looters during the rebel takeover.
There is a chance now for a deal to release all the hostages held in Gaza, including US citizens, Israelâs defence minister, Israel Katz, told his US counterpart Lloyd Austin in a phone call on Wednesday, Katzâs office said in a statement.
âMinister Katz updated secretary of defence Austin on the negotiations for the release of the hostages, and said that there is now a chance for a new deal that will allow the return of all the hostages, including those with American citizenship,â Katzâs office said in a statement, reports Reuters.
This combination of pictures created today shows (on the right) rebel fighters standing next to the burning gravesite of Syriaâs late president Hafez al-Assad at his mausoleum in the familyâs ancestral village of Qardaha in the western Latakia province, after it was stormed by opposition factions.
The picture on the left, released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on 10 June 2001, shows a Palestinian delegation visiting the same tomb during a ceremony marking the first anniversary of Hafez al-Assadâs death.
Greece on Wednesday suspended all decisions on asylum applications by Syrians after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, the government announced, as NGOs criticised conditions in reception camps for migrants, reports AFP.
âWe are temporarily freezing ⦠all procedures (for Syrians) until we have evaluated the new data,â migration minister, Nikos Panagiotopoulos, told Real FM radio.
Greece, the entry point for many of the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in Europe, is the latest to suspend asylum decisions after Assadâs ouster.
The announcement came as Save the Children and the Greek Council for Refugees urged the government to take immediate steps to improve living conditions in remote migrant reception camps, according to AFP.
Migrant and refugee arrivals to Greece rose to a five-year high in 2024, with more than 57,300 people entering the country in the first 11 months of the year, the charities said, quoting UN refugee agency (UNHCR) data. Of those, more than 13,000 were children who arrived by sea â up about 50% on 2023, they added.
The NGOs said children and their families should be moved to reception centres in towns and cities from the moment they arrive and seek asylum because of conditions in the camps.
Children in the camps have reported âalarmingâ conditions, including poor-quality and out-of-date food. There has also been a lack of child-protection measures and access to schooling or mental health support, as well as violence, reports AFP.
One 13-year-old boy from the Democratic Republic of Congo said he found life in one camp about 70km (45 miles) from Athens âdangerous and isolatingâ. He also claimed frequent discrimination, according to AFP.
Save the Children Europeâs director and EU representative, Willy Bergogne, said:
The EU and Greek authorities have a moral and legal obligation to act urgently to improve the conditions in the camps and protect these children and ensure they have access to safety, adequate services, and dignity.â
The director of the Greek Council for Refugees, Lefteris Papagiannakis, said the situation at the reception camps was longstanding. He added:
But what is surprising is that, after almost 10 years of enhanced experience in managing the reception of asylum seekers in Greece, weâre witnessing an ongoing downgrading in essential service provision, including services for children.â
Syriaâs new prime minister said the alliance that ousted president Bashar al-Assad will âguaranteeâ the rights of all religious groups and called on the millions who fled the war to return home, reports AFP.
Assad fled Syria after a lightning offensive spearheaded by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group and its allies.
With Assadâs overthrow plunging Syria into the unknown, its new rulers have sought to assure members of the countryâs religious minorities that they will not repress them, reports AFP.
They have also pledged justice for the victims of Assadâs iron-fisted rule, with HTS leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, vowing on Wednesday that officials involved in torturing detainees will not be pardoned.
Andrew Sparrow
In her House of Commons statement on immigration today, Yvette Cooper, the UK home secretary, said the government would be monitoring the situation in Syria before deciding whether or not to lift the pause on asylum applications from Syrians.
She told MPs:
Letâs be clear, most of the claims, many of the claims that have been made, have been made against the Assad regime for asylum, which is clearly not in place.
It would therefore not be appropriate to be granting asylum decisions on those cases in the current circumstances.
We do need to monitor the evolving situation so that we can get new country guidance in place and so that we can take those decisions, but we will do that in a sensible and serious way, which is about getting the asylum and the immigration systems back in control.â
And in a later answer she said:
Thereâs a lot we simply do not know about how events are going to play out in Syria.
Those who have taken over and who are involved in the initial overthrow of the Assad regime have said, initially, that they would pursue an approach which supported minorities, for example, within Syria, but of course we have seen further developments in recent days that raise questions about that and weâve also just seen the huge instability with different organisations and groups operating across the country.
That is why we need to monitor this closely, I think everybody wants to see greater stability. Weâve also seen the initial signs of people wanting to return from Turkey to Syria, for example, in the first few days. But this is very unstable at the moment and that is why we need to approach this with care and monitoring the detail of what is happening.â
Israelâs defence minister, Israel Katz, rebuffed on Wednesday Iranian accusation of a US-Israeli âplotâ to oust Syriaâs Bashar al-Assad, saying Tehran has itself to blame for the fall of its ally.
Katz, on a tour of the Jordanian border with military commanders, accused Iran of trying to establish an âeastern frontâ against Israel in the neighbouring kingdom, and vowed to prevent it, reports AFP.
Earlier on Wednesday, Iranâs supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Assadâs ousting this week by Islamist-led rebels âis the product of a joint US-Israeli plotâ, also blaming another unnamed âneighbouring state of Syriaâ.
Katz, according to a statement from his office, said that Khamenei âshould blame himselfâ and stop financing armed groups âin Syria, Lebanon and Gaza to build the octopus arms he leads in an attempt to defeat the State of Israelâ.
âI came here today to ensure that Iran will not succeed in building the octopus arm that it is planning and working to establish here, in order to create an eastern front against the State of Israelâ, he said.
According to AFP, Katz suggested Iran was behind âattempts to smuggle weaponsâ into the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which borders Jordan, as well as to âfund terrorism and promoteâ it.
The defence minister said he had instructed the army âto increase offensive operations against any terrorist activityâ in the West Bank, and to âaccelerate the construction of the fence on the Israel-Jordan borderâ.