Israel bombs Syrian army headquarters in Damascus
The US says it’s “very concerned” after a deadly Israeli strike in Syria, amid warnings of more possible attacks.
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Syria announced that its army had begun to withdraw from violence-hit Sweida, following a wave of Israeli strikes on the capital and a US call for government forces to leave the majority-Druze southern city.
The United States, which is close allies with Israel and has been trying to reboot its relationship with Syria, said an agreement had been reached to restore calm in the area, and urged “all parties to deliver on the commitments they have made”.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier voiced concern after ally Israel struck Syria’s army headquarters, saying the violence impeded efforts to bring stability to the war-torn country.
“We’re talking to both sides, all the relevant sides, on this and hopefully we can bring it to a conclusion, but we’re very concerned,” Mr Rubio said when asked by a reporter about the Israeli strikes.
In fuller comments afterwards, Mr Rubio did not directly reference Israel but spoke of the clashes in majority-Druze city of Sweida that Israel cited for its intervention.
“We are very worried about the violence in southern Syria. It is a direct threat to efforts to help build a peaceful and stable Syria,” Mr Rubio said in a statement.
“We have been and remain in repeated and constant talks with the governments of Syria and Israel on this matter.”
President Donald Trump has staunchly backed Israel including in its military campaigns in Gaza and Iran.
But Mr Trump has been prioritising diplomacy with Syria’s new leadership, seeing an opening after Sunni Islamist-led fighters toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December.
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IDF BOMBS LEBANON IN ‘MAJOR ESCALATION’
Israel strikes Lebanon killing 12 people in the country’s east in an attack which Hezbollah condemned as a “major escalation”.
Israel’s military said it struck targets belonging to the militant group’s elite Radwan force, in its latest attack on Lebanon on Tuesday despite a ceasefire between Israel and the Iran-backed group.
A military statement said Israeli fighter jets launched “numerous strikes” on “Hezbollah terror targets in the area of Bekaa”.
The targets included training facilities used to “plan and carry out terrorist attacks against (Israeli) troops and the State of Israel”, it added.
Lebanon’s health ministry said the attacks killed 12 people and injured 12 others.
Hezbollah said the strikes “constitutes a major escalation in the context of the ongoing aggression against Lebanon and its people”.
It called on Lebanese authorities to “take serious, immediate, and decisive action” to uphold a November ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
EX ISRAELI PM BREAKS SILENCE ON JEFFREY EPSTEIN MOSSAD RUMOURS
Israel’s former Prime Minister has slammed the wild conspiracy theories circulating about convicted sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.
Last week, American broadcaster Tucker Carlson sparked an uproar when he spoke at the Turning Point USA in Florida where he claimed Epstein worked with Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.
Naftali Bennet served a brief tenure as Israeli Prime Minister from June 2021 to June 2022 at a time when the Jewish state was experiencing significant political instability with numerous snap elections called.
“As a former Israeli Prime Minister, with the Mossad having reported directly to me, I say to you with 100 per cent certainty: The accusation that Jeffrey Epstein somehow worked for Israel or the Mossad running a blackmail ring is categorically and totally false,” Mr Bennett shared to X.
“Epstein’s conduct, both the criminal and the merely despicable, had nothing whatsoever to do with the Mossad or the State of Israel.
“Epstein never worked for the Mossad.”
Mr Bennett slammed Carlson for sparking the conspiracy theories with his unsubstantiated claim.
“This accusation is a lie being peddled by prominent online personalities such as Tucker Carlson pretending they know things they don’t,” Mr Bennett wrote.
“They just make things up, say it with confidence and these lies stick, because it’s Israel.
“There’s a vicious wave of slander and lies against my country and my people, and we just won’t take it anymore.”
IRANIAN PRESIDENT HURT IN ISRAELI STRIKE
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was reportedly injured by an Israeli air strike during the recent 12-day war between Iran and Israel.
According to state media reports, the Iranian President was one of the officials who gathered at an underground facility in Tehran on June 16 for an emergency meeting of the state’s Supreme National Security Council.
Pezeshkian is said to have suffered injuries to his leg as he and the other officials escaped through an emergency shaft when six bombs were dropped on the location.
According to the state outlet, the air strikes were “extremely precise” but Pezeshkian and the other top officials managed to get out alive.
Last week, Pezeshkian was interviewed by former Fox host Tucker Carlson, where the Iranian president said he had been targeted by an air strike during a high-stakes meeting.
“They did try, yes. They acted accordingly, but they failed,” Pezeshkian said in the interview.
“I was in a meeting. We were discussing the ways to move forward, but thanks to the intelligence by the spies that they had, they tried to bombard the area in which we were holding that meeting.”
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz denied the allegations.
– with New York Post
CEASEFIRE TALKS AT DEADLOCK
Talks in the Qatari capital Doha to seal a 60-day ceasefire and hostage release were in the balance after Israel and Hamas accused each other of trying to block a deal.
Despite the deadlock, Trump said “hopefully we’re going to get that straightened out over the next week”, speaking to reporters Sunday as he echoed similarly optimistic comments he made July 4.
Hamas wants the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, but a Palestinian source with knowledge of the talks said Israel had presented plans to maintain troops in more than 40 per cent of the territory.
The source said Israel wanted to force hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into the south of Gaza “in preparation for forcibly displacing them to Egypt or other countries”.
A senior Israeli official said Israel had demonstrated an openness “to flexibility in the negotiations, while Hamas remains intransigent, clinging to positions that prevent the mediators from advancing an agreement”.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is prepared to enter talks for a more lasting end to hostilities once a temporary truce is agreed, but only if Hamas disarms.
Netanyahu on Sunday evening faced renewed pressure to secure the release of all hostages when protesters beamed images of captives onto buildings near his Jerusalem office.
“The absolute majority want a deal even (at the cost of) ending the fighting,” Yotam Cohen, whose brother Nimrod is still being held, told AFP.
ISRAELI BOMBARDMENT KILLS 43; IDF BLAMES ‘TECHNICAL ERROR’
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli air strikes on Sunday killed more than 40 Palestinians, including at a market and a water distribution point, as talks for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas stalled.
Delegations from Israel and the Palestinian militant group have now spent a week trying to agree on a temporary truce to halt 21 months of devastating fighting in the Gaza Strip.
But on Saturday, each side accused the other of blocking attempts to secure an agreement at the indirect talks in the Qatari capital, Doha.
On the ground, civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said at least 43 people were killed in the latest Israeli strikes, including 11 when a market in Gaza City was hit.
Elsewhere, eight children were among the 10 victims of a drone strike at a water point in the Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza, Bassal said.
Israel’s military blamed a technical problem for that strike, saying it had been targeting a member of Hamas ally Islamic Jihad.
“As a result of a technical error with the munition, the munition fell dozens of meters from the target,” a statement read. “The incident is under review.”
Khaled Rayyan told AFP he was woken by the sound of two large explosions after a house was hit in Nuseirat.
“Our neighbour and his children were under the rubble,” he said. Another resident, Mahmud al-Shami, called on the negotiators to secure an end to the war.
“What happened to us has never happened in the entire history of humanity,” he said. “Enough.”
The Israeli military, which has recently intensified operations across Gaza, said in a statement that in the past 24 hours the air force “struck more than 150 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip”.
It released aerial footage of what it said were fighter jet strikes attacking Hamas targets around Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza, showing explosions on the ground and thick smoke in the sky.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which led to 1,219 deaths, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Of the 251 people taken hostage by militants that day, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry says that at least 58,026 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory campaign. The UN considers those figures reliable.
UN agencies on Saturday warned that fuel shortages had reached “critical levels”, threatening to worsen conditions for Gaza’s more than two million people.
Originally published as Israel bombs Syrian army headquarters in Damascus
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