2 Israeli airstrikes hit Syria's capital and suburb, killing 15 people, Syrian state media says
Damascus, Nov 14: Israel carried out at least two airstrikes on a western neighbourhood of Damascus and one of the capital's suburbs on Thursday, killing at least 15 people and wounding another 16, Syria's state news agency said.
The airstrikes on the Mazzeh neighbourhood in Damascus and the suburb of Qudsaya, northwest of the capital, struck two buildings, the SANA news agency said. An Associated Press journalist at the scene in Mazzeh said that a five-story building was damaged by a missile that hit the basement.
The Israeli military said it had hit infrastructure sites and command centres of the Islamic Jihad group in Syria, and had “inflicted significant damage to the organisation's command centre and to its operatives”.
The airstrikes in Damascus and the nearby suburb came shortly before Ali Larijani, an adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei, was scheduled to meet in the Syrian capital with representatives of Palestinian factions at the Iranian Embassy in Mazzeh.
The Israeli military said Islamic Jihad had participated alongside Hamas, the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip, in the Oct 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and saw 250 others abducted into Gaza.
The military “will continue to operate against the Islamic Jihad organisation wherever necessary,” it said.
Israel's retaliation to the Oct 7 attack and the ensuing Israel-Hamas war has spilled into the wider region, affecting Lebanon, Syria and leading to strikes between Israel and Iran. The war has left much of Gaza in ruins and has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to local health authorities who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
An official with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Group said that the strike in Mazzeh targeted one of their offices, and that several members of the group were killed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media.
Syria's state news agency SANA said that the country's air defences were activated against a “hostile target” south of the central city of Homs. It gave no further details.
Tehran has been a main backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad's government since a 2011 uprising turned into a full-blown civil war and has played an instrumental role in turning the tide of the conflict in his favor.
Iran has sent scores of military advisers and thousands of Iran-backed fighters from around the Middle East to Syria to fight on Assad's side. Tehran has also been an economic lifeline for Assad, sending fuel and credit lines worth billions of dollars.
Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria targeting members of neighbouring Lebanon's Hezbollah and officials from Iranian-backed groups.
Hezbollah began firing into Israel on Oct 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. Since then, more than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 14,200 wounded, the country's Health Ministry reported. In Israel, 76 people have been killed, including 31 soldiers.
Lebanon's state media said an Israeli airstrike Thursday hit a building in Baalbek city in eastern Lebanon, killing at least nine people and wounding five others.
The strike on Baalbek came without warning. The Israeli military did not immediately comment and the target was not clear.
Israeli warplanes intensified airstrikes on Thursday, targeting various areas in southern and eastern Lebanon, including the outskirts of the southern port city of Tyre city and the Nabatieh province, the National News Agency said.
Throughout the day, sporadic airstrikes targeted Beirut's southern suburbs in a clear uptick in attacks on the area over the past two days, with the Israeli army issuing evacuation warnings for several locations and buildings in the suburbs.
The Israeli military said it carried out strikes on Hezbollah targets in the Dahiyeh area, including weapons storage facilities and command centres.
Lebanon's Health Ministry said the death toll in Lebanon since the war began on Oct 8, 2023 has reached 3,365 while those wounded are 14,344. Nearly 1.2 million people have been displaced.
Before the war intensified on Sept 23, Hezbollah said it had lost nearly 500 members but the group has stopped releasing statements about their killed fighters since.
United Nations peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix, speaking during a visit to Lebanon, said the UN remains committed to keeping its peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, in place in all of its positions in southern Lebanon, despite intense ongoing battles between Israeli forces and Hezbollah group.
UNIFIL has continued to monitor the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah across the boundary known as the Blue Line despite Israeli calls for peacekeepers to pull back five km (three miles) from the border. UNIFIL has accused Israel of deliberately destroying observation equipment, and 13 peacekeepers have been injured in the fighting.
Lacroix visited some of the wounded peacekeepers during his trip.
UNIFIL forces “continue to be deployed in all the positions, and we think it is very important to preserve that presence everywhere,” LaCroix said. ”...Had we vacated some of the positions, then that would have certainly jeopardised the capacity for UNIFIL to continue today, but probably even more importantly, that would have significantly undermined the capacity for UNIFIL to play a role, tomorrow, when the cessation of hostilities takes place - hopefully sooner than later.”
Lacroix said there is still a “large consensus that resolution 1701 remains the critical framework for settlement,” referring to the UN Security Council resolution that ended the brutal monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, but which has never been fully implemented by either party.
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Bondi Beach shooting suspect conducted firearms training with his father, Australian police say
Melbourne (AP): A man accused of killing 15 people at Sydney's Bondi Beach conducted firearms training in an area of New South Wales state outside of Sydney with his father, Australian police documents released on Monday allege.
The men recorded a video about their justification for the meticulously planned attack, according to a police statement of facts that was made public following Naveed Akram's video court appearance Monday from a Sydney hospital where he has been treated for an abdominal injury.
Officers wounded Akram at the scene of the Dec. 14 shooting and killed his father, 50-year-old Sajid Akram.
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The New South Wales state government confirmed Naveed Akram was transferred on Monday from a hospital to a prison. Neither facility was identified by authorities.
The statement alleges the 24-year-old and his father began their attack by throwing four improvised explosive devices toward a crowd celebrating an annual Jewish event at Bondi Beach, but the devices failed to explode.
Police described the devices as three aluminium pipe bombs and a tennis ball bomb containing an explosive, black powder and steel ball bearings. None detonated, but police described them as “viable” IEDs.
Authorities have charged Akram with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder, 40 counts of causing harm with intent to murder in relation to the wounded survivors and one count of committing a terrorist act.
The antisemitic attack at the start of the eight-day Hanukkah celebration was Australia's worst mass shooting since a lone gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania state in 1996.
The New South Wales government introduced draft laws to Parliament on Monday that Premier Chris Minns said would become the toughest in Australia.
The new restrictions would include making Australian citizenship a condition of qualifying for a firearms license. That would have excluded Sajid Akram, who was an Indian citizen with a permanent resident visa.
Sajid Akram also legally owned six rifles and shotguns. A new legal limit for recreational shooters would be a maximum of four guns.
Police said a video found on Naveed Akram's phone shows him with his father "reciting their political and religious views and appear to summarise their justification for the Bondi terrorist attack.”
The men are seen in the video “condemning the acts of Zionists” while they also “adhere to a religiously motivated ideology linked to the Islamic State,” police said.
Video shot in October shows them “firing shotguns and moving in a tactical manner” on grassland surrounded by trees, police said.
“There is evidence that the Accused and his father meticulously planned this terrorist attack for many months,” police allege.
