Israel strikes military tanks in southern Syria as Syrian forces clash with Druze militias
Israel strikes military tanks in southern Syria as Syrian forces clash with Druze militias/node/2608039/middle-east
Israel strikes military tanks in southern Syria as Syrian forces clash with Druze militias
Update
Two fighters from the Sunni Bedouin clans, ride their motorcycle as they pass by Syrian government security forces deployed on the outskirts of the Sweida province where clashes erupted between Druze militias and Sunni Bedouin clans, southern Syria, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Israel strikes military tanks in southern Syria as Syrian forces clash with Druze militias
Fighting between Druze militiamen and Bedouin tribal fighters was the first time that sectarian violence erupted inside the city of Sweida itself
Updated 14 July 2025
AP
DAMASCUS: Israel has struck military tanks in southern Syria as Syrian government forces and Bedouin tribes clash with Druze militias there.
Dozens of people have been killed in the fighting between local militias and clans in Syria ‘s Sweida province. Government security forces that were sent to restore order Monday also clashed with local armed groups.
The Interior Ministry has said more than 30 people died and nearly 100 others have been injured in that fighting.
Dozens of people have been killed in fighting between local militias and clans in Syria ‘s Sweida province, where government security forces sent to restore order Monday also clashed with local armed groups.
The Interior Ministry said more than 30 people died and nearly 100 others have been injured. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor reported at least 50 dead, including two children and six members of the security forces.
Clashes initially broke out between armed groups from the Druze religious minority and Sunni Bedouin clans, the observatory said, with some members of the government security forces “actively participating” in support of the Bedouins.
Interior Ministry spokesperson Noureddine Al-Baba told the state-run state-run Al-Ikhbariya TV that government forces entered Sweida in the early morning to restore order.
“Some clashes occurred with outlawed armed groups, but our forces are doing their best to prevent any civilian casualties,” he said.
The observatory said the clashes started after a series of kidnappings between both groups, which began when members of a Bedouin tribe in the area set up a checkpoint where they attacked and robbed a young Druze man.
Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the observatory, said the conflict started with the kidnapping and robbery of a Druze vegetable seller, leading to tit-for-tat attacks and kidnappings.
Syria’s defense and interior ministries were deploying personnel to the area to attempt to restore order.
The Interior Ministry described the situation as a dangerous escalation that “comes in the absence of the relevant official institutions, which has led to an exacerbation of the state of chaos, the deterioration of the security situation, and the inability of the local community to contain the situation despite repeated calls for calm.”
Factions from the Druze minority have been suspicious of the new authorities in Damascus after former President Bashar Assad fled the country during a rebel offensive led by Sunni Islamist insurgent groups in December. Earlier this year, Druze groups in Sweida clashed with security forces from the new government.
The Druze religious sect is a minority group that began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam. In Syria, they largely live in the southern Sweida province and some suburbs of Damascus, mainly in Jaramana and Ashrafiyat Sahnaya to the south.
The Druze developed their own militias during the country’s nearly 14-year civil war. Since Assad’s fall, different Druze factions have been at odds over whether to integrate with the new government and armed forces.
US targets Chinese companies over drone components used by Hamas, Houthis
10 China companies in sanctions list for facilitating the purchase of components allegedly found in weaponized Houthi drones
5 more companies also sanctioned after components were found in weaponized drones operated by Hamas
Updated 48 min 1 sec ago
Abdul Aziz Abdul Wahid
WASHINGTON: The United States said on Wednesday it was adding 15 Chinese companies to its restricted trade list for facilitating the purchase of American electronic components found in drones operated by Iranian proxies including Houthi and Hamas militants.
Ten companies in China were placed on the Commerce Department’s Entity List for facilitating the purchase of components found in weaponized unmanned aircraft systems operated by proxies including Yemen’s Houthi militants, according to a post in the Federal Register.
Five additional Chinese companies were listed after information that around October 7, 2023, Israel Defense Forces recovered numerous weaponized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operated by Iranian proxies including Hamas, the post said, and the debris showed multiple US-origin electronic components.
Hamas-led militants staged an attack in Israel that day that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies, and triggered the war in Gaza.
In all, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security is adding 29 entries to the list.
Arrow China Electronics Trading in Shanghai and other Chinese cities and Arrow Electronics (Hong Kong) are among the companies being placed on the list over US components for weaponized drones operated by Iranian proxies like the Houthis.
Both companies are subsidiaries of Centennial, Colorado-based Arrow Electronics, a components distributor which says it had global 2024 sales of $28 billion.
The companies have been and are continuing to operate in compliance with export regulations and the law, according to a statement from the US-headquartered company.
“We are in discussion with BIS concerning these listings and will provide further details as soon as they become available,” Arrow spokesperson John Hourigan said in the statement. “In the meantime, we will work to minimize supply chain disruptions to our partners.”
The US also added another Chinese company to the list for being part of an illicit network that obtains and supplies UAV and other components to front companies of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force (IRGC-QF).
Companies are placed on the Commerce Department’s Entity List for activities deemed contrary to US national security and foreign policy interests. Licenses are required to export to companies on the list, and are likely to be denied.
Palestinian man shot dead by Israeli settler in West Bank near Ramallah
Palestinian Red Crescent Society says 26-year-old Jihad Mohammed Ajaj was hit by several bullets
The settler stopped Palestinian vehicles on a main road before opening fire, says the head of local town council
Updated 09 October 2025
Arab News
LONDON: A 26-year-old man was killed on Wednesday evening when an Israeli settler opened fire on a group of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, east of Ramallah.
Jihad Mohammed Ajaj was shot on a main road between the towns of Deir Jarir and Silwad. He was taken to the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah but could not be saved, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.
Fathi Hamdan, the head of Deir Jarir Council, said the settler had stopped Palestinian vehicles on the road before shooting at a group of people who approached him.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said Ajaj was hit by several bullets, and two other people were wounded, one in the groin and the other in the abdomen.
Attacks by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank have increased sharply since October 2023. They have blocked roads used by Palestinians, targeted private and commercial properties, and sabotaged agricultural land in a number of places over the past two years.
Ajaj is the 13th Palestinian killed by Israeli settlers this year, and the 34th since Oct. 7, 2023, Wafa said.
UN staff member released from Houthi detention in Yemen, UN spokesperson says
53 UN staff remain detained by Houthis, some have been held since 2021
Updated 09 October 2025
Reuters
A United Nations staff member who was recently detained by Yemen’s Houthi authorities has been released, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Wednesday.
“We continue to urge the de facto authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all UN and humanitarian workers who are supporting the most vulnerable people in Yemen,” Dujarric said.
He did not provide information about the timing or circumstances of the detention, which comes after nine other UN personnel were detained by Houthis.
Dujarric said 53 UN staff remain detained by Houthis, adding that some have been held since 2021.
Yemen has been the focus of one of the world’s largest humanitarian operations during a decade of civil war that disrupted food supplies. WFP says it provided assistance to 15.3 million people, or 47 percent of the population, in 2023.
WFP was among the UN offices raided by Houthis in the Yemeni capital Sanaa in August. Eleven UN personnel were detained as a result of the raid.
The raid, which followed an Israeli strike on Sanaa that killed the prime minister of the Houthi-run government and several other ministers, was condemned by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who described the detentions as “intolerable.”
Houthi officials said last month that the UN personnel’s legal immunities should not shield espionage activities.
The Houthi-run foreign ministry also accused the UN of bias for condemning what they called “legal measures taken by the government against spy cells involved in crimes,” while failing to denounce the Israeli attack.
Who are the prominent Palestinians held in Israeli jails?
Updated 08 October 2025
Reuters
JERUSALEM: A senior Hamas official said on Wednesday that negotiators from his group and Israel had exchanged lists of prisoners and hostages who would be released should a deal be reached during the ongoing Gaza ceasefire talks in Egypt.
Following are some of the most prominent Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. It is not yet clear if any of them will be released:
Abdullah Al-Barghouti: He was sentenced to 67 life terms in 2004 by an Israeli military court for his involvement in a series of suicide attacks in 2001 and 2002 that killed dozens of Israelis.
A father of three, he was born in Kuwait in 1972. In 1996, he moved with his family to live in Beit Rima village near Ramallah in the West Bank.
Ibrahim Hamed: He was handed 54 life terms after he was arrested in 2006 in Ramallah. He is accused by Israel of planning suicide attacks that killed dozens of Israelis.
Hamed, who had been on Israel’s wanted list for eight years before his arrest, was the top West Bank commander of the Izz El-Deen Al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas military wing.
Hassan Salama: Born in Gaza’s Khan Younis refugee camp in 1971, Salama was convicted of orchestrating a wave of suicide bombings in Israel in 1996 that killed dozens of Israelis and wounded hundreds more.
He was sentenced to 48 life terms in jail. Salama said the attacks were a response to the assassination of Hamas bombmaker Yahya Ayyash in 1996. Salama was arrested in Hebron in the West Bank later that year.
Marwan Al-Barghouti: A leading member of the Fatah movement that controls the Palestinian Authority, Barghouti is seen as a possible successor to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
He made his name as a leader and organizer in both of the Intifadas, or uprisings, waged by the Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1987.
He was arrested in 2002, charged with orchestrating gun ambushes and suicide bombings and sentenced to five life terms in 2004.
Ahmed Saadat: Saadat, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was accused by Israel of ordering the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi in 2001.
Pursued by Israel, he took shelter at the Ramallah headquarters of Arafat. Under a deal with the Palestinian Authority in 2002, Saadat stood trial in a Palestinian court and was incarcerated at a Palestinian Authority jail, where he was held under international supervision.
The Israeli military seized Saadat in 2006 following the withdrawal of the foreign monitors, and put him on trial in a military court. He was sentenced to 30 years in jail in 2008.
How Gaza’s children keep learning amid the destruction
Over half a million children in the Palestinian enclave remain out of school for a third year as the war grinds on
With schools destroyed, volunteers offer hungry and traumatized children improvised lessons among the rubble
Updated 08 October 2025
ANAN TELLO
LONDON: For the third consecutive year, as students elsewhere grab their backpacks and return to class, children in Gaza carry what little they have left, fleeing from one danger zone to another, their futures uncertain.
Some 660,000 school-age children in Gaza have been deprived of formal education since Oct. 7, 2023, when a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel triggered Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
For most Gazan families, survival has eclipsed every other concern. “Families have been uprooted 10, even 15 times. Their main focus is on food, water, clothing and sleep,” Issa Saaba, director of the Canaan Institute of New Pedagogy in Gaza, told Arab News.
More than 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents have been displaced multiple times, forced to seek shelter in tents, UNRWA schools, and hospitals — almost all of which have suffered some form of war damage.
Yet amid the devastation, Gaza’s children continue to cling to whatever schooling they can get. “Health and education have never been abandoned,” Saaba said.
A girl runs from the scene after Israeli strikes on a school sheltering displaced people at the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza. (Reuters)
“Once there was even a fleeting sense of stability; whether in open fields, partially destroyed homes, or tents along streets and yards, families and local initiatives sought to provide children with some form of schooling.”
Education has long been a cornerstone of Palestinian identity. In 2022, literacy in Palestine surpassed 97 percent, with near parity between men and women, according to Statista.
“Education is prized by Palestinians as a route to a future they’re being denied,” Iyas Al-Qasem, founder and trustee of the UK charity Hope and Play, told Arab News. “But when the genocide intensified, schools were destroyed, robbing children of both education and hope.”
Since the start of the war, Israeli strikes and ground operations have damaged or destroyed more than 95 percent of Gaza’s school buildings, UN figures show.
“Gaza is in ruins. So is its education system,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini wrote in a Sept. 1 post on X. He described Israel’s targeting of educational facilities as “scholasticide.”
Satellite imagery analysis by the UN Satellite Centre in July found that 91.8 percent of Gaza’s schools — 518 out of 564 — will need complete reconstruction or major repairs. Nearly three-quarters have suffered direct hits.
Despite the destruction, grassroots educators have created improvised classrooms. In March 2024, Saaba’s Canaan Institute and Hope and Play established three makeshift schools in Al-Zawaida of the Deir Al-Balah governorate, in Rafah, and in Al-Mawasi, western Khan Younis.
Palestinian teacher Doha al-Attar, 30 runs a class for children in a heavily damaged classroom in Khan Yunis. (AFP/File)
“When some displaced families returned north, a school was set up in tents in northern Gaza City,” Saaba said. “Altogether, we reached 610 students at the elementary level.”
Al-Qasem said such initiatives make a difference. “None of these children live in the conditions we wish for them, but we can still make things better,” he said.
Beyond traditional lessons, the groups launched creative learning programs, including puppet theater, storytelling, sports, and community play days, to offer both education and psychological relief.
“The big mouth puppet theater shows took nearly a month to develop and prepare, with the team working under some of the harshest conditions in a city devastated by destruction,” Saaba said.
“The plays promote values such as tolerance, love, cooperation, honesty, and respect for parents, while also warning children about the dangers of playing with remnants of war.”
INNUMBERS
• 660k+ Children deprived of formal education since Oct. 2023.
• 97% School buildings that have sustained some level of damage.
• 92% That require major repairs or complete reconstruction.
• 76% That have suffered direct hits.
(Source: UNRWA, UNOSAT)
He added that the show’s main song “is about rebuilding our destroyed homes with our own hands, full of excitement, fun, and music.”
About 60 performances were held in displacement camps, shelters, courtyards, and streets, reaching roughly 10,000 children and many parents. Another 80 shows, featuring clowns, stilt walkers, and bear mascots, brought laughter and lessons to devastated neighborhoods.
One unlikely initiative even introduced a rollerblading academy in central Gaza.
“They managed to get rollerblades and put a couple of hundred children through the academy,” Al-Qasem said. “You look at their faces and there’s joy — it’s bizarre and powerful to see joy in the midst of what’s going on.”
Amid rubble and ongoing Israeli strikes that reportedly hit school buildings in Gaza, educators and aid groups worked together to create makeshift schools. (Reuters/File)
Such activities, he added, gave both children and instructors “a sense of agency” in a situation where little else was under their control. “They weren’t just at the behest of the bombs; they were actually doing things.”
The courage and dedication of volunteers, Saaba said, was “remarkable.” Despite bombings, famine, and loss, “they showed rare commitment, solidarity and selflessness — examples rarely seen in history.”
In August 2024, the groups held a graduation ceremony in northern Gaza. “Kids waving their certificates in the air amid bombing — an act of both defiance and celebration,” Al-Qasem said.
By then, about 1,000 informal learning centers across Gaza were serving roughly 250,000 students. Many hosted more than 1,000 children each.
But even these acts of hope have not been spared from the violence. In March, 28-year-old artist Dorgham Quraiqi was killed alongside his wife and brothers when an explosion tore through the ruins of their home in Gaza City’s Shuja’iya neighborhood.
“He was our first team member to be killed,” said Al-Qasem. “We also lost a 20-year-old stilt-walking clown who was killed while driving back from a show for kids.
“Everything they do takes place under that shadow. It’s heartbreaking to think about how many of the children who joined our workshops are still alive — and, if alive, what life they now face.”
Save the Children and UN agencies report that more than 20,000 children have been killed since October 2023, with at least 42,000 injured and 21,000 permanently disabled.
More than 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents have been displaced multiple times. (Reuters/File)
James Elder, spokesperson for the UN children’s fund, UNICEF, described witnessing children killed near Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah. “It was a room full of children, four or five children, all who’d been shot by quadcopters,” he told the news website Zeteo in early October.
The loss of routine, safety and learning has deep psychological impacts on children.
“Schools are one of the strongest protective factors (in war),” Jeeda Alhakim, a specialist counseling psychologist at City, University of London, told Arab News.
“They offer routine, a sense of normalcy, and safe spaces where children can build supportive relationships with teachers and peers.
“When we think about children’s mental health in war, psychologists often talk about risk factors, things like exposure to violence, hunger, or displacement that increase distress, and protective factors — things that buffer against harm.”
Education, Alhakim said, “gives children hope” and reminds them “they are more than the war they are living through.”
But this is the same reason “schools are often deliberately targeted in war — precisely because they symbolize continuity and possibility.”
Attacks on schools “not only disrupt learning but also strip children of a key source of stability and resilience,” she said. “That’s why protecting education in conflict isn’t just about learning, it’s about safeguarding children’s mental health and well-being.”
Save the Children and UN agencies report that more than 20,000 children have been killed since October 2023. (Reuters/File)
Alhakim warned that Gaza’s children face overlapping traumas that “don’t just add up, they multiply.” Hunger weakens concentration; displacement severs social ties; disability isolates.
“Each one strains a child’s ability to cope, and when they overlap, the burden becomes much heavier,” she said.
In August, famine was officially declared in parts of Gaza, including Gaza City. More than half a million people are now trapped in conditions of starvation and destitution, according to an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification analysis released in August.
“A child who is hungry, displaced, and living with a disability isn’t just facing three separate problems, they’re facing a web of challenges that reinforce each other,” Alhakim said. “They may be cut off from school, miss out on food support, or find it harder to access safe spaces.”
She cautioned that “this cumulative risk makes mental health difficulties far more likely.”
Hundreds of UN-run schools and learning centers, many used as shelters, have been struck by Israeli airstrikes, according to Human Rights Watch. Israeli officials claim Hamas militants use civilian buildings to stash weapons and to mount attacks but have provided little evidence.
At least 42,000 children have been injured with 21,000 permanently disabled. (Reuters)
In July, Israeli outlets +972 Magazine and Local Call reported that the Israeli military had formed a “special strike cell” to identify and target schools labeled as “centers of gravity,” allegedly housing Hamas operatives.
The reports described “double tap” strikes — secondary attacks on the same site — as increasingly common.
HRW said it investigated Israeli strikes on the Khadija Girls’ School in Deir Al-Balah on July 27, 2024, which reportedly killed at least 15 people, and on the Al-Zeitoun C School in Gaza City on Sept. 21 that same year, which killed at least 34.
The New York-based rights monitor found no evidence of military activity at either site. It found that in only seven cases did Israel publish the names and photos of alleged combatants said to be present at targeted schools.
After the June 6, 2024, strike on Al-Sardi School, the Israeli military named 17 alleged fighters, but HRW found that three of those individuals had already been reported killed in earlier attacks.
While schools lose protection under international law if used for military purposes, HRW stressed that even then, attacks must not cause disproportionate civilian harm.
UNRWA’s Lazzarini warned that the longer Gaza’s children “stay out of school with their trauma, the higher the risk they become a lost generation, sowing the seeds for more hatred and violence.”
Al-Qasem echoed the concern. “My ambition when I founded Hope and Play was that the charity would cease to function because it was no longer needed — that Palestinian children would have their rights respected and be cared for by the institutions that should be there,” he said. “Sadly, I now think this will be a lifetime’s work.”
The loss of routine, safety and learning has deep psychological impacts on children. (Supplied)
He said the group’s next step is to shift “from emergency response to long-term rebuilding,” once the war ends. “A child who has lived through two years of this needs sustained support to create a future.”
Yet peace remains elusive. As Israel tightens its siege on Gaza City, ordering Palestinians on Oct. 1 to evacuate south or be labeled “terrorists and supporters of terror,” the dream of normal classrooms feels further away than ever.
On Oct. 4, US President Donald Trump urged Israel to “immediately stop bombing Gaza,” saying Hamas was “ready for a lasting peace.” The announcement came after the militant group said it had agreed to “immediately” enter negotiations for the release of all hostages.
However, at least 20 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes within 12 hours of Trump’s announcement, according to Gaza hospital reports cited by CNN.
