People killed in Israeli attack on Damascus, Syrian media says
Several people have been killed and others injured in Israeli attacks that targeted two residential buildings in suburbs of the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, Syrian state news agency SANA said.
Citing SANA, Reuters reports that one building was located in Damascus suburb of Mazzeh and the other in Qudsaya, west of the capital.
Israeli army radio said the targets of the attack in Damascus were assets and the headquarters of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad.
Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up such raids since last year’s Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian group Hamas on Israeli territory that sparked the Gaza war.
Key events
France deploys thousands of police for Israel match after Amsterdam violence
Daniel Boffey
Police in Paris are braced for potential violence before Thursday’s France-Israel football match, with police deploying one officer for every five ticket holders at the Stade de France.
The match has been designated “high risk” after the hooliganism and antisemitism in Amsterdam last week when the Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv played Ajax.
Concerns over Thursday’s game were further raised after riot police clashed with pro-Palestinian protesters on Wednesday night outside a gala event in Paris where funds were being raised for the Israeli military.
Israel’s controversial far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, had been due to speak but subsequently cancelled.
Police pushed against dozens of protesters waving Palestinian flags and lighting flares near Saint-Lazare station, with reports suggesting that teargas had been deployed as officers struggled to contain the crowds.
The Uefa Nations League tie between France and Israel, which is due to start at 8.45pm local time (7.45pm UK), is not expected to attract a large crowd, with fewer than 20,000 tickets sold for the 80,000 capacity stadium. Only about 150 Israeli fans are expected.
Despite the low attendance, about 4,000 police officers are expected on the streets along with another 1,500 on public transport routes.
A pro-Palestinian demonstration has been organised at Saint-Denis plaza at 6pm local time to protest against the staging of the match at a time of war in the Middle East.
More on that attack in Damascus. These images have now appeared on the news wires:
People killed in Israeli attack on Damascus, Syrian media says
Several people have been killed and others injured in Israeli attacks that targeted two residential buildings in suburbs of the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, Syrian state news agency SANA said.
Citing SANA, Reuters reports that one building was located in Damascus suburb of Mazzeh and the other in Qudsaya, west of the capital.
Israeli army radio said the targets of the attack in Damascus were assets and the headquarters of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad.
Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up such raids since last year’s Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian group Hamas on Israeli territory that sparked the Gaza war.
Dutch authorities have said they are investigating reports of police violence against pro-Palestinian protesters after a banned rally on Wednesday evening had been broken up.
Amsterdam police said on X that they were aware of online footage, which seemed to show police officers beating protesters who had already been released after being taken away from the site of the protest.
A total of 281 protesters were detained as they rallied in central Amsterdam on Wednesday in defiance of a ban imposed after violence stemming from a football match between Ajax and the Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv last week.
Detained protesters were put on buses and driven to a location on the outskirts of the city, where they were released.
Read more here: Dutch authorities investigate alleged police violence after pro-Palestinian protest
Iranian news agency Tasnim reports that Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei has condemned remarks by Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich about Israeli intentions to fully and permanently annex the occupied West Bank.
It reports that Baqaei said the comments were a “clear sign of the racist and expansionist nature and the aggressive approach of a regime that was created and expanded based on grabbing Palestinian territories” and “part of the Israeli genocide and its policy of wiping out Palestine, which have been implemented in the most brutal way possible over the past year.”
Earlier in the week the finance minister Smotrich had welcomed the election of Donald Trump in the US, complaining that Joe Biden’s administration had “unfortunately chosen to intervene in Israeli democracy”, and that the incoming administration would be an “important opportunity” to “apply Israeli sovereignty to the settlements in Judea and Samaria,” a term used for the West Bank by some Israelis.
Israel: 30 ‘terror targets’ struck in the Dahieh area in Beirut in last 48 hours
In a statement on its official Telegram channel, Israel’s military has claimed that in the last 48 hours it has struck what it termed 30 “terror targets” in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahieh.
Considered to be a Hezbollah stronghold, the IDF said in its message it had struck at “weapons storage facilities, command centres, and additional terrorist infrastructure sites.”
The statement continued:
These strikes were a part of the IDF’s ongoing efforts to dismantle and degrade Hezbollah’s military capabilities, and the IDF is continuing to strike Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure sites in the Dahieh area.
Reporting from Beirut for the Guardian, on Tuesday William Christou noted that among the places targeted by the strikes were a ten-story block of flats, a chicken restaurant and a medical complex.
Lebanese authorities have put the number of people killed by Israeli airstrikes in recent weeks at over 3,000, with more than 14,000 injured. The casualties came on top of those inflicted by exploding pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon in an attack aimed at Hezbollah which Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he personally had ordered.
Israel claims to take mitigating precautions to avoid civilian casualties, ordering residents of neighbouring Lebanon out of their homes before it carries out what it claims are “intelligence-based strikes”.
Authorities in Lebanon have said about 1.2 million people have been displaced from their homes by fighting in southern Lebanon and the aerial bombardment.
Northern Israel has also come under near constant fire from Hezbollah, forcing tens of thousands of people there to evacuate their homes.
In the last few minutes warning sirens have again sounded in the western Galilee area of Israel.
There are reports of an Israeli attack on Damascus in Syria.
More details soon …
Summary of the day so far …
It is approaching 2pm in Beirut, Tel Aviv and Gaza City, and 3.30pm in Tehran. Here are the headlines …
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Israel is using evacuation orders to pursue the “deliberate and massive forced displacement” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, which says the policy amounts to crimes against humanity
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Israel’s Arabic-language mnilitary spokesperson has again issued orders for residents to evacuate specific locations in southern Beirut, which has been subject to multiple strikes by Israeli forces on Thursday. Israel claims to be targeting Hezbollah facilities. Several blocks of flats have been destroyed by Israeli strikes in Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon
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Hezbollah has claimed to have attacked Israeli troops inside the south-east of Lebanon between Houla and Markaba with a volley of rockets. The claims have not been independently verified
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Overnight the IDF announced that six Israeli soldiers had been killed inside Lebanon. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict
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In operational updates posted to its official Telegram channel, the IDF has claimed that in the past week it has killed “over 200” Hezbollah operatives and destroyed 140 rocket launchers in its attacks on southern Lebanon
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International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Grossi has been in Tehran, and said that Iran’s nuclear installations should “not be attacked”. The UN’s atomic energy chief has said it is important to make progress with Iran in order to avoid the possibility of war
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Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araqchi said the country was not prepared to negotiate about its nuclear programme while it was “under pressure and intimidation”. The head of Iran’s programme, Mohammad Eslami, issued a warning saying “Any interventionist resolution in the nuclear affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran will definitely be met with immediate countermeasures”. The west has accused Iran of enriching uranium for military purposes, which Iran denies
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The foreign ministry of the Palestinian Authority has suggested Israeli ministers have been outlining their ambitions to fully and permanently annex the Israeli-occupied West Bank as a test of international reaction to the policy
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According to a report Wednesday in the leftwing Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Israeli forces in Gaza are clearing large areas with the apparent intention to remain inside the territory until at least the end of 2025
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Overnight the Washington Post has suggested that Israel is working to time any ceasefire deal with Lebanon so that it appears as a “gift” to incoming US president Donald Trump when he takes office. The report says an Isreali official told the paper “There is an understanding that Israel would gift something to Trump … that in January there will be an understanding about Lebanon”
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Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani arrived in Ankara to meet Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Earlier this week Erdoğan said Turkey had broken off all ties with Israel over its actions in Gaza. Qatar has recently announced it would step back from its attempts to mediate between Israel and Hamas. It said it had concluded the two sides were no longer negotiating in good faith
Arwa Damon, who is in the central Gaza Strip for the International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance organisation, has told Al Jazeera that the situation in Gaza is “an impossible situation.”
Speaking from Deir el-Balah she told the network:
The bombing is relentless, there has been no adequate humanitarian assistance, and there isn’t sufficient medical care either. Part of the reluctance to leave the north is fear of the road. People are afraid to be targeted as they are leaving. There are families that are being separated.
Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani arrived in Ankara on Thursday, Reuters reports, where he will meet with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Earlier this week the Turkish president stated that his nation had cut off all ties with Israel over its actions in Gaza.
Qatar has recently announced it would step back from its attempts to mediate between Israel and Hamas. It said it had concluded the two sides were no longer negotiating in good faith.
In a statement today the foreign ministry of the Palestinian Authority has suggested that Israeli ministers have been outlining their ambition to fully and permanently annex the Israeli-occupied West Bank as a test of international reaction.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports the ministry’s spokesperson said:
The Israeli government began to issue a torrent of statements and positions regarding its expansionist colonial ambitions and projects calling for the annexation of the occupied West Bank or parts of it, as trial balloons to examine international reactions and the positions of countries in this regard, in an attempt to create a climate conducive to committing this heinous crime.
The ministry accused Israel of a “war of extermination, displacement and liquidation of the Palestinian cause … undermining any opportunity to implement the two-state solution.”
It accused Israel of “escalating its illegal unilateral measures on the ground, from seizing lands, demolishing homes, [and] paving more colonial roads,” and accused Israel of planning to displace approximately 1,500 citizens by demolishing a neighbourhood in Silwan in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.
International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Grossi has been in Tehran, and as part of his press conference earlier he said that Iran’s nuclear installations should “not be attacked.”
The facilities have been oft-mooted targets during the exchanges of fire between Iran and Israel during 2024, and the last attack on Iran by Israel was believed to have targeted air defences which in theory could protect Iran’s nuclear programme.
Israel’s recently appointed defense minister, Israel Kataz, this week pointedly said that Iran’s nuclear facilites were “more exposed than ever.”
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the newswires from the region.
with head of the Iranian atomic organisation Mohammad Eslami (R). Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA
In the UK, Hamish Falconer, who is the under-secretary of state for the Middle East in the Labour government, has added his voice to condemnation of comments by Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich concerning Israeli plans to fully and permanently annexe the West Bank, which it has occupied since 1967.
Smotrich, after the election of Donald Trump in the US, declared 2025 to be a “year of sovereignty” for the occupied West Bank, which he habitually calls Judea and Samaria.
Falconer said “I condemn minister Smotrich’s comments proposing annexation of land in the West Bank. Annexation only undermines the prospects for peace, would lead to greater instability and would be illegal under international law. The Israeli government must reject this.”
Smotrich, who has made similar assertions over the years and has described it as his life’s mission to thwart the creation of a Palestinian state, has faced no sanction from prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the comments.
