Israeli airstrikes shake Beirut moments after Biden says Israel and Hezbollah agreed to ceasefire deal

Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) — Israeli airstrikes shake Beirut moments after Biden says Israel and Hezbollah agreed to ceasefire deal.

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  • Fall of the House of Assad, with a billion-pound fortune and blood on its hands

    He didn’t look like a dictator. Awkward and gangly, his mannerisms unassuming, at least until he opened his mouth, Bashar al-Assad exuded none of the machismo of other Arab strongmen like Muammar Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein.

  • Watching with trepidation and glee, Netanyahu orders military to seize Syria buffer zone

    Israeli leaders are watching events across the border in Syria with trepidation, as 50 years of detente were upended in a matter of hours.

  • Syria – live: Israel says it has destroyed Syrian naval fleet as Mohammed al-Bashir appointed temporary PM

    Israel denies penetrating Syria beyond buffer zone in occupied Golan Heights

  • Syrians around the world celebrate, world leaders react, after rebels topple Assad

    Russia's state news is reporting that the deposed Syrian leader Bashar Assad is in Moscow, where he's been granted asylum.

  • Tears of joy and sadness as ‘disappeared’ Syrians emerge from Assad’s prisons

    Men, women and children, many jailed for speaking out against regime, reunite with their families

  • Why the Assad regime collapsed in Syria – and why so fast

    Syrian insurgents toppled President Bashar al-Assad's on Sunday after a stunning, two-week offensive that saw major cities slip from the regime’s fingers one by one, until rebel forces captured the capital Damascus almost without a fight. More than 50 years of Assad family rule in Syria collapsed with astonishing speed after insurgents burst out of a rebel-held enclave in the country’s north, capturing Aleppo and a string of other cities in a matter of days, before converging on Damascus. Opposi

  • Netanyahu assails media as he testifies for first time in his corruption trial

    TEL AVIV (Reuters) -Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the witness stand for the first time on Tuesday in his long-running corruption trial, saying he was being hounded for his hawkish security policies. Netanyahu, 75, is Israel's first sitting prime minister to be charged with a crime. Last week judges ruled that Netanyahu, indicted in 2019, must testify three times a week, forcing the longtime Israeli leader to juggle between the courtroom and the war room at Israel's Defence Ministry, minutes away from the courthouse.

  • Mapped: Where has Russia made advances on the frontline in Ukraine?

    Ukraine’s military say the hottest fighting along the roughly 640-mile frontline is taking place along multiple points in Donetsk

  • From eye doctor to dictator - the rise and fall of Assad's presidency

    Bashar al Assad's downfall marks an end to more than half a century of family rule, as rebel forces turned the tide in a civil war he had embraced. The authoritarian president ruled Syria for 24 years, five years short of his father's time in power, but the plan was never for him to take over the dynasty. Before his political career began to take shape, Assad was based in the UK, where he had an ophthalmology practice.

  • Huthi drone fired from Yemen hits central Israeli residential building

    A drone claimed by Yemen's Huthi rebels exploded on the top floor of a residential building in the central Israeli city of Yavne on Monday, causing no injuries, the Israeli military and emergency services said.The Huthis later claimed responsiblity for the strike, with a rebels spokesman saying "the drone units targeted a sensitive target of the Israeli enemy in Yavne".

  • Toddler released from jail with hopes of Syria on his shoulders

    First they tried to shoot the lock off. Then they tried crowbarring it. Maybe someone found a key.

  • Who is Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian leader whose family ruled with an iron fist for more than 50 years?

    Syria’s iron-fisted leader Bashar al-Assad is the second generation of an autocratic family dynasty that held power for more than five decades and his disappearance amid a lighting rebel advance cap an astonishing reordering of power in a strategically vital Middle Eastern nation.

  • Syria hit by US and Israeli airstrikes as war bloggers fret about 'threat' to Russian bases

    Syria's new rebel leaders are facing the daunting task of healing a divided nation - and the toppling of the Assad regime has not put an end to fighting in the country. In northern Syria, Turkey-backed opposition fighters are still battling US-allied Kurdish forces, while both Israel and the US launched airstrikes on Syria on Sunday. President Bashar al Assad fled Damascus with his family on Sunday morning and their whereabouts were unknown until Russian state media confirmed they had been given asylum in Moscow "on humanitarian grounds".

  • Syrians rejoice as Assad flees, ending brutal reign

    Syria's president Bashar al-Assad fled Syria as Islamist-led rebels swept into Damascus Sunday, triggering celebrations across the country and beyond at the end of his oppressive rule.Russian news agencies late Sunday said Assad and his family were in Moscow.Crowds toured Assad's luxurious home after the rebels declared he had fled, a spectacular end to five decades of brutal Baath party government.The government fell 11 days after the rebels began a surprise advance more than 13 years after Assad's crackdown on anti-government protests ignited Syria's civil war, which had become largely dormant until the rebel push."This victory, my brothers, is historic for the region," Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, leader of the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group (HTS) that spearheaded the advance, said in an address at the landmark Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.US President Joe Biden said Assad should be "held accountable" but called the nation's political upheaval a "historic opportunity" for Syrians to rebuild their country."The fall of the regime is a fundamental act of justice," Biden said from the White House.- 'Syria is ours' -Residents cheered in the streets as the rebel factions heralded the departure of "tyrant" Assad, saying: "We declare the city of Damascus free."Celebratory gunfire sounded along with shouts of, "Syria is ours and not the Assad family's".AFP correspondents saw dozens of men, women and children wandering through Assad's modern, spacious home whose rooms had been stripped bare."I can't believe I'm living this moment," tearful Damascus resident Amer Batha told AFP by phone."We've been waiting a long time for this day," he said.The rebel factions on Telegram proclaimed the end to "50 years of oppression under Baath rule, and 13 years of crimes and tyranny and displacement".It is, they said, "the start of a new era for Syria."The foreign ministry of Assad's key backer, Russia, had announced earlier Sunday that Assad had resigned from the presidency and left Syria.The head of war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP: "Assad left Syria via Damascus international airport before the army security forces left" the facility.Later Sunday, a Kremlin source told Russian news agencies that he and his family had arrived in Moscow where they had been granted asylum "on humanitarian grounds".- 'Historic opportunity' -Around the country, people toppled statues of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad's father and the founder of the repressive system of government he inherited.For the past 50 years in Syria, even the slightest suspicion of dissent could land one in prison or get one killed.During their advance, the rebels said they had freed prisoners, including on Sunday at the Sednaya facility, notorious for the darkest abuses of Assad's era.UN war crimes investigators urged those taking charge in the country to ensure the "atrocities" committed under Assad's rule are not repeated.Amnesty International called this a "historic opportunity" for those responsible for the abuses in Syria to face justice.The end of Assad's rule came just hours after HTS said it had captured the strategic city of Homs.Homs was the third major city seized by the rebels, who began their advance on November 27, the same day a ceasefire took place in neighbouring Lebanon between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.Hezbollah had supported Assad during the long civil war but has been severely weakened by Israeli strikes.The group's forces "vacated their positions around Damascus", a source close to the group said Sunday.HTS is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda but has sought to soften its image in recent years. It remains listed as a terrorist organisation by Western governments.On Sunday afternoon the rebels announced a curfew in the capital until 5:00 am (0200 GMT) Monday.The commander of Syria's US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which controls much of northeast Syria, hailed the fall of Assad's "authoritarian regime" as "historic".A military council affiliated with the SDF clashed Sunday with Turkish-backed Syrian fighters in Syria's north, leaving 26 fighters from both sides dead, the Observatory said, as the Turkish-backed group launched an offensive on the Manbij area. - 'We're going home' -The Observatory said Israel had struck government security buildings and weapons depots Sunday on the outskirts of Damascus, as well as in the eastern Deir Ezzor province.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the overthrow of Assad was a "historic day in the... Middle East" and the fall of a "central link in Iran's axis of evil"."This is a direct result of the blows we have inflicted on Iran and Hezbollah, Assad's main supporters," he added.The UN envoy for Syria said the country was at "a watershed moment". Turkey, which has historically backed the opposition, called for a "smooth transition".Iran said it expected "friendly" ties with Syria to continue, even as its embassy in Damascus was vandalised.Since the start of the rebel offensive, at least 910 people, mostly combatants but also including 138 civilians, have been killed, the Observatory said.Syria's war has killed more than 500,000 people, and forced half of the population to flee their homes.Millions fled abroad."I can barely remember Syria," said Reda al-Khedr, who was only five years old when he and his mother escaped Syria's Homs in 2014."But now we're going to go home to a liberated Syria," he told AFP in Cairo.Liberated, but facing enormous challenges.European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Sunday the bloc would help rebuild a Syria that safeguards minorities after Assad's fall.bur-it/jj

  • What’s happening in Syria? The key developments amid warnings of Isis threat

    The lightning quick collapse of Bashar al-Assad's has left the world taking stock on a new-look Middle East.

  • Australian police seek three suspects in 'terrorist' synagogue blaze

    Australian police said Monday they are hunting for three suspects over an arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue, designating it a terrorist act."Based on that, I am very confident that we now have had an attack, a terrorist attack on that synagogue," he said.

  • Nearly 200 dead in Haiti massacre as voodoo community reportedly targeted

    Nearly 200 people in Haiti were killed in brutal weekend violence reportedly orchestrated against voodoo practitioners, with the government on Monday condemning a massacre of "unbearable cruelty."More than 700,000 people are internally displaced in Haiti, half of them children; added to this are 5,000 forced from their homes by the weekend massacre, said the International Organization for Migration.

  • Israeli forces kill at least 34 people in Gaza, rescue workers say

    CAIRO (Reuters) -Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 34 Palestinians overnight and on Tuesday, medics said, as Israeli tanks pushed into areas in central and southern parts of the enclave. 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, medics said. The Palestinian Civil Emergency said most of those killed were from the same family, including women and children.

  • 'A perfect ending': Syrians in Ottawa celebrate fall of Assad regime

    For Abdul Nour Sakhniya, the last few days have been "a dream come true."Sakhniya was one of dozens who gathered Sunday afternoon in the parking lot of the Billings Bridge Shopping Centre, where they cheered, waved flags, and honked car horns in jubilation over the sudden fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime.For many community members — including those who fled the 13-year civil war and settled in Canada — the news brought overwhelming relief and a renewed sense of hope for the country's future."It'

  • Syria war – latest: Putin grants Assad asylum as deposed president arrives in Moscow, Russia says

    Syria rebel fighters raced into Damascus unopposed on Sunday, overthrowing President Assad