Biden calls Israel and Hezbollah ceasefire 'good news' as sides come to terms on agreement to pause fighting

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Biden calls Israel and Hezbollah ceasefire 'good news' as sides come to terms on agreement to pause fighting.

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    Bashar al-Assad’s family fled to Russia in the days after rebel forces launched a shock offensive that captured swathes of territory across northern Syria, it has been revealed.

  • Undercover Israeli forces raid West Bank hospital, seize alleged militant from ICU

    Israeli forces dressed in civilian clothes raided a hospital in the northern occupied West Bank on Wednesday night and detained an alleged Palestinian militant who had days earlier been injured in an Israeli airstrike that killed two Hamas militants.

  • How Syria’s rebel leader went from radical jihadist to a blazer-wearing ‘revolutionary’

    Jolani replaced his jihadist camo attire for a Western-style blazer, established a semi-technocratic government in Idlib and promoted himself as a viable partner in Western efforts to curb Iran’s influence in the Middle East.

  • A ‘weakened’ Assad is better than jihadists on Israel’s border

    As Syria’s fragmented opposition groups continue their offensive against Bashar al-Assad’s forces, Israel is closely monitoring the situation across its border.

  • Strikes on key bridge linking Syria's Homs, Hama: war monitor

    Air strikes targeted a bridge on the highway linking the Syrian cities of Homs and Hama, a war monitor said Friday, as government forces scramble to secure Homs after Islamist-led rebels captured Hama and commercial hub Aleppo."Fighter jets executed several airstrikes, targeting Al-Rastan bridge on (the) Homs-Hama highway... as well as attacking positions around the bridge, attempting to cut off the road between Hama and Homs and secure Homs," the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Right

  • Mapped: The rebel-held areas of Syria

    The Syrian government currently controls the capital of Damascus and much of the county’s south east, as well as its Mediterranean coastline.

  • In Syria, a ruthless dictator is under siege. Will anyone step up to save him?

    Across northern and central Syria this week, families who've been torn apart by more than a decade of civil war have been holding joyous reunions."I didn't believe it, it was very emotional," said Ismail Alabullah, a volunteer with the Syrian NGO the White Helmets, as he described returning to the city of Aleppo for the first time since 2013 and reuniting with his sister."I couldn't believe I was seeing her again," he told CBC News from northern Syria. "I lost my brother, my mother and father ov

  • Dozens killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza; Amnesty calls Israel's actions 'genocide'

    The Israeli military killed at least 39 Palestinians in strikes across the Gaza Strip overnight, medics said on Thursday, including at least 20 in an attack that set ablaze tents sheltering displaced families in a crowded camp. Residents carried a body wrapped in carpets out of the charred wreckage of the makeshift shelters in Mawasi, near the beach west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, where tens of thousands of people have sheltered for months. Israel calls the area a humanitarian zone and has long told people to go there for their safety.

  • Lebanon counts cost of the war between Israel and Hezbollah: ‘We need a miracle to rebuild’

    ON THE GROUND: Bel Trew and Rana Najjar meet residents in and around Beirut looking to reconstruct their lives as a fragile ceasefire holds

  • Young Georgians see homeland at turning point amid pro-EU protests

    Almost every night since pro-EU protests erupted in Georgia last week, young husband-and-wife duo Mamuka Matkava and Gogona Parkaia have been working flat out to feed their fellow demonstrators. Each night the couple, one a musician and the other an artist, spend three to four hours cooking dozens of mchadi, a traditional cornbread native to their home region of Mingrelia in western Georgia, in their small flat in a quiet residential neighbourhood of the capital Tbilisi. Adding to each piece a slice of salty Georgian sulguni cheese, they dish out the snacks to protesters gathered on Tbilisi’s central Rustaveli Avenue, the epicentre of the protests.

  • AP PHOTOS: After 15 months of abandonment, hostage homes are empty memorials

    After 15 months of war, the homes of Israeli hostages are like time capsules of a war zone. There’s a small blue bicycle flung to the ground outside the house of the Bibas family — all of whom, including two young boys Kfir and Ariel, are still in captivity. Nearby, the walls of Oded Lifshitz’s home are singed, the ceilings have partially collapsed, scars of the initial Hamas attack Oct. 7, 2023, in which the elderly man and his wife, Yocheved, were abducted.

  • Clashes break out in Athens after march to mark 2008 student killing by police

    Clashes broke out between police and protesters in Athens on Friday after thousands marched to mark the 16th anniversary of the police killing of a teenage boy, whose death triggered Greece's worst riots in decades. About 5,000 people joined the annual march to commemorate the fatal shooting of Alexandros Grigoropoulos, who was 15 at the time. As the march ended, hooded protesters set garbage containers on fire in the Exarchia district, where the unarmed boy was shot dead by a policeman.

  • Netanyahu claims Melbourne synagogue attack linked to Albanese government’s ‘anti-Israel position’

    Labor’s support for UN resolution calling for end to Israel’s occupation of Gaza to blame for Melbourne synagogue fire, Jewish state’s leader says

  • Israeli military kills four doctors in raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, eyewitnesses say

    Four doctors were killed at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in besieged northern Gaza on Friday, after Israeli forces stormed the compound, killing and injuring dozens of people in areas surrounding the facility, eyewitnesses told CNN.

  • Dozens killed in Mozambique post-election violence

    At least 90 people have been killed in Mozambique amid clashes between anti-government protesters and security forces sparked by October's disputed presidential elections, civil society group Plataforma Decide said Friday. In a post on social media Plataforma Decide said 90 people had been killed between October 21 and December 5 and nearly 3500 people detained.

  • Georgians vow to continue protests 'until victory' as unrest continues for ninth night

    Police have reportedly resorted to more heavy handed tactics in a bid to clamp down on the unrest with more than 400 protesters, including opposition leaders and activists, detained and more than 100 people treated for injuries.View on euronews

  • US-backed Syrian Kurds seize eastern city of Deir el-Zor, sources say

    HASAKEH, Syria (Reuters) -A U.S.-backed alliance led by Syrian Kurdish fighters captured the main city in eastern Syria and the main border crossing with Iraq on Friday, taking effective control of Syria's vast eastern desert in two rapid moves. Two security sources based in eastern Syria said that by Friday afternoon the alliance, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), had taken full control of the city of Deir el-Zor, the third city to fall out of President Bashar al-Assad's control in a week.

  • Zelenskyy announces sanctions against Georgian government's pro-Russian elements

    Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused the ruling Georgian Dream party of pushing the country towards dependence on Russia.View on euronews

  • Israel hits out at ‘fanatical’ Amnesty after genocide report says Gazans treated as subhuman

    Israel has lashed out at Amnesty International after the rights group accused the nation of committing genocide against Palestinians.

  • Australian leader blames antisemitism for arson that extensively damaged a Melbourne synagogue

    Arsonists extensively damaged a Melbourne synagogue on Friday in what Australia’s prime minister condemned as an antisemitic attack on Australian values. The blaze in the Adass Israel Synagogue is an escalation in targeted attacks in Australia since the war began between Israel and Hamas last year. Cars and buildings have been vandalized and torched around Australia in protests inspired by the war.