Mohammed al-Bashir appointed interim prime minister of Syria â reports
The rebel leader who helped bring down Bashar al-Assadâs regime has been appointed as Syriaâs interim prime minister, according to reports, which we have not yet been able to independently verify. Mohammed al-Bashir used a televised address to say he will stay in the post until 1 March 2025 to lead the transition government.
Al-Bashir headed the rebel-led Salvation government â which had already been governing parts of northwestern Syria and Idlib â before the lightning offensive over the last two weeks. The Salvation government is linked to Islamist group Hayat Tahrir-al Shams, which led the overthrow of al-Assadâs regime in Syria after 13 years of civil war.
Key events
Saudi Arabia has condemned Israelâs incursion into a buffer zone in Syria and a wave of Israeli airstrikes launched after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad. Turkey issued a similar statement earlier (see post at 12.22 for more details)
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the countryâs foreign ministry said:
The assaults carried out by the Israeli occupation government, including the seizure of the buffer zone in the Golan Heights, and the targeting of Syrian territory confirm Israelâs continued violation of the principles of international law and its determination to sabotage Syriaâs chances of restoring its security, stability and territorial integrity.
Saudi Arabia has been in talks with the US in recent years over normalizing relations with Israel in exchange for an American defence pact, American assistance in establishing a civilian nuclear program and a pathway to the establishment of a Palestinian state. But the kingdom has also repeatedly condemned Israelâs war on Gaza.
Britain, France and Germany urge Iran to ‘halt its nuclear escalation’
Britain, France and Germany have urged Iran to âimmediately halt its nuclear escalationâ after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported Tehran had sharply stepped up uranium enrichment activity.
âWe, the governments of France, Germany and the United Kingdom, condemn Iranâs latest steps … to expand its nuclear programme,â the three countries said in a joint statement, adding that they âstrongly urge Iran to reverse these steps, and to immediately halt its nuclear escalationâ.
Iran admits it has been withdrawing its cooperation from the IAEA inspectorate since the 2018 decision by Donald Trump to pull the US out of the agreement. Iran had signed up to the original deal in 2015 monitoring its nuclear programme in return for the west lifting economic sanctions.
Spain will keep processing asylum requests from Syrian nationals as usual, the countryâs foreign minister, Jose Manuel Albares, has said.
Some European countries, including Germany and France, have suspended
the processing of applications by Syrians, despite uncertainty about what lies ahead for Syria. Austria signalled yesterday it would soon deport refugees back to Syria.
In London, a Home Office spokesperson said it had âtemporarily paused decisions on Syrian asylum claims whilst we assess the current situationâ.
Albares said there was no need to change Spainâs approach for now since the number of applications received by Spain was smaller, comparatively (in the first 11 months of the year, 1,393 Syrians sought asylum in Spain).
Mohammed al-Bashir appointed interim prime minister of Syria â reports
The rebel leader who helped bring down Bashar al-Assadâs regime has been appointed as Syriaâs interim prime minister, according to reports, which we have not yet been able to independently verify. Mohammed al-Bashir used a televised address to say he will stay in the post until 1 March 2025 to lead the transition government.
Al-Bashir headed the rebel-led Salvation government â which had already been governing parts of northwestern Syria and Idlib â before the lightning offensive over the last two weeks. The Salvation government is linked to Islamist group Hayat Tahrir-al Shams, which led the overthrow of al-Assadâs regime in Syria after 13 years of civil war.
As we have been reporting, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been giving evidence in a court in Tel Aviv in his long-running corruption trial.
Netanyahu says he works 17 to 18 hours a day and that he is engulfed in meetings, especially during the past year, with Israelâs ongoing war on Gaza.
The Israeli leader has denied charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases.
On Sunday, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli troops had temporarily seized control of a demilitarized buffer zone in the occupied Golan Heights, a rocky plateau about 60km (40 miles) south-west of Damascus. Israel advanced into the Golan Heights gradually in the years following the 1948 war Arab-Israeli war, and occupied it entirely in the 1967 war.
As the Assad regime fell over the weekend, Netanyahu said a 50-year-old âseparation of forces agreementâ between Syria and Israel had collapsed as âthe Syrian army abandoned its positionsâ because of the rebel takeover of the country. âWe will not allow any hostile force to establish itself on our border,â he said.
Reuters reported earlier today that an Israeli military incursion into southern Syria had reached about 25 km (16 miles) southwest of the capital. Three security sources said on Tuesday the Israelis had advanced beyond the demilitarised zone. One Syrian source said they had reached the town of Qatana, several km (miles) to the east of the zone and just a short drive from Damascus airport.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has denied reports that Israeli tanks are advancing towards Damascus.
As we mentioned in an earlier post, Turkeyâs foreign ministry has strongly condemned the Israeli militaryâs incursion into the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights.
In a statement, the ministry said:
We strongly condemn Israelâs violation of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement by entering the Israeli-Syria zone and its continuing advance in to Syrian territory.
In this sensitive period, when the possibility of achieving the peace and stability that the Syrian people have been longing for for many years, Israel is once again displaying its occupying mentality.
We resolutely reiterate our support for Syriaâs sovereignty, political unity and territorial integrity.
There have been widespread reports of Israeli airstrikes on Syrian territory since the dramatic fall of the Assad regime. Israel is claiming that it is acting to prevent weapons falling âinto the hands of extremistsâ.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, said yesterday that âIsraeli warplanesâ had struck âthe Barzeh scientific research centreâ and naval vessels/army warehouses in and around the Latakia military port.
The US was among the western countries that had struck the research facility in Barzeh in 2018, saying then that it was related to Syriaâs âchemical weapons infrastructureâ.
A journalist from the Agence France-Presse (AFP) is now reporting that three blocks of buildings that made up the research centre have been completely destroyed. Here is some of the AFP report:
Hundreds of documents were scattered on the ground, some on fire, as a strong smell of explosives lingered in the air.
An employee who worked at the centre for 25 years and came to inspect the damage said that âthe buildings destroyed were not militaryâ.
âThe military centres were destroyed in the past, and the current research was civilian,â he added, requesting anonymity.
A âsecond scientific research centreâ, based in Jamraya near Damascus, was also hit by strikes Monday night and âtotally destroyedâ, he said.
Netanyahu says in court the charges against him are ‘an ocean of absurdness’
In his court appearance this morning, Israelâs prime minister has described the charges against him as âan ocean of absurdnessâ.
Speaking in Tel Aviv, Benjamin Netanyahu said âI have waited eight years for this moment, to say the truth as I remember it, which is important for justice. But I am also a prime minister. I am leading the country through a seven-front war. And I think the two can be done in parallel.â
Netanyahu has been given dispensation by the court to take urgent breaks and receive notes during proceedings, as he is the sitting prime minister and running a war.
He claimed he did not care about favourable media coverage of him, arguing âthe reality is the exact opposite. I am not focused on my future, but on the future of the state of Israel.
Netanyahu claimed his family had faced âattacks, slander and lies on a scale that few public figures have likely experienced ⦠it is doubtful there are any other similar cases in the world.â
Netanyahu is charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases. The 75-year-old is accused of accepting tens of thousands of dollarsâ worth of cigars and champagne from a billionaire Hollywood producer in exchange for assisting him with personal and business interests.
In response to questions about those claims, Netanyahu said âIt is a complete lie. From time to time I indulge in a cigar … [but] I hate champagne.â
He said the charges were not just absurd, but a disgrace. The trial continues.
Israeli strikes across Gaza Strip kill at least 34 Palestinians
Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 34 Palestinians overnight and on Tuesday, Reuters reports medics in the territory have said.
An Israeli airstrike killed at least 25 people in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, where Israeli forces have operated since October, and injured dozens of others in a multi-floored building.
The Palestinian civil emergency service said most of those killed were from the same family, including women and children.
Another airstrike on a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed at least seven people, while at least two people were killed in Rafah in the south.
In a statement, Israelâs military said it has âeliminated ten terroristsâ who took part in an attack on Monday which led to the deaths of three Israeli soldiers in northern Gaza.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that what it describes as âa wide-scale arrest campaignâ has taken place in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since last night, with at least 40 Palestinians arrested by Israeli security forces.
Wafa reports that the number of arrests made by Israeli security forces in the occupied West Bank since the 7 October 2023 attack now exceeds 12,000.
Turkeyâs president Recep Tayyip ErdoÄan has spoken to Nato secretary general Mark Rutte, and told the allianceâs leader that Turkey âwill continue to do its utmost to help build a unified and terrorism-free Syria.â
In a statement about the call from ErdoÄanâs office, it claimed Turkey has always âsupported the preservation of Syriaâs territorial integrity and stability since the very first day of the civil war.â
Turkey has had a long-running conflict with Kurdish separatists based in the north of Syria who Turkey considers to be terrorists.
Qatar: ‘unacceptable’ that Israel seeks to exploit situation in Syria
Qatarâs foreign ministry spokesperson has said it is âunacceptableâ that Israel is seeking to take advantage of the situation in Syria, and added that Israel has violated Syriaâs sovereignty.
Saying that there should be no foreign interference in Syria, the spokesperson added that all channels of communication are open with Qatar for all parties in Syria for dialogue about the future, and that the region is witnessing historic days.
There is, the spokesperson said, a ray of hope for the Syrian people.
Reuters reports that the foreign ministry of Turkey has also strongly condemned Israelâs ground invasion into Syrian territory, which it launched from the Golan Heights which Israel has occupied since 1967.
Israelâs military has denied that its troops have moved inside Syria beyond the buffer zone next to the Golan Heights. The UNâs special envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, has said Israel is in breach of the Israel-Syria disengagement agreement from 1974.
Here are some of the latest images sent over the news wires from Syria.
The UN has announced that Najat Rushdie, the deputy special envoy for Syria, is convening a humanitarian task force to co-ordinate responses to the collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.