The U.S. government would “recognize and fully support” a future Syrian government that results from an inclusive and transparent transition process, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday, outlining a first set of principles regarding the Biden administration’s hopes to influence discussions over Syria’s future after the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad.
Israel expands airstrikes across Syria amid widening power vacuum
Israel launched waves of heavy airstrikes across Syria on Tuesday, hitting what it said were military targets to prevent abandoned weapons from falling into the hands of rebel fighters.
The intensified aerial campaign, carried out in parallel with Israel’s first ground operation in Syrian territory since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, drew international condemnation and added another dangerous variable to the fast-moving situation in Syria, where armed groups are trying to create a new political order after the overthrow of dictator Bashar al-Assad.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement Tuesday that warplanes had launched 350 strikes on Syrian territory since Sunday, destroying dozens of missiles, an airfield, weapons production sites across five cities, and 15 naval vessels — effectively eliminating the Syrian navy.
Images of the aftermath on Syrian television showed sunken boats and smoldering wreckage in the western city of Latakia, the country’s main port and a former stronghold of Assad and his minority Alawite base. Other videos showed scorched buildings, a destroyed aircraft hangar and loud explosions from the heavy bombardment.
Israeli officials have characterized the extensive strikes as preemptive in nature, protecting the country from future attack rather than responding to a current threat. They invoked a similar rationale Monday in defending the movement of troops beyond a U.N.-monitored buffer zone in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
“I approved the air force bombing of strategic military capabilities left by the Syrian military so that they will not fall into the hands of the jihadists,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video address Tuesday.
Netanyahu said Israel wants relations with the new government in Syria, but he warned the rebels against attacking Israel or allowing Iran or its proxies to regain a foothold in the country. “We will respond with force and exact a heavy price,” he said.
This is an excerpt from a full story.
Analysis: Iran reels from ‘tectonic shift’ in Middle East amid scramble for Syria
DOHA, Qatar — The scramble for Syria is underway. Days after President Bashar al-Assad quit the country in the face of triumphant rebel forces, foreign powers are jockeying for control.
Israel has exploited the security vacuum to cross the disputed borders of the occupied Golan Heights to seize Syrian military positions. The United States, while taking a largely hands-off approach, has enabled an allied militia in Syria’s northeast to move into areas once held by Assad and Iranian-backed groups. Turkish-backed rebel forces in Syria’s northwest have pushed into territory once garrisoned by Kurdish fighters aligned with the United States. Russia, which a decade ago rushed thousands of troops into the country to save Assad, has apparently evacuated some inland bases as it tries to hold onto its pivotal Tartus naval facility on the Mediterranean.
Beyond Syria, the country most affected by Assad’s dramatic fall is Iran. The regime in Tehran long saw in Assad’s Syria not just a committed partner, but the crucial beachhead for its strategy of “forward defense” — a staging ground for Iran’s network of proxy groups locked in a sprawling shadow conflict with Israel and other regional rivals. Syria was a thoroughfare for materiel and personnel that bolstered the Lebanese Shiite organization Hezbollah’s ability to threaten Israel. Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon were also instrumental in securing Assad’s fragile victories in earlier stages of Syria’s civil war.
Israel’s punishing campaign against Hezbollah over the past year has killed thousands of people and led to sustained strikes on Iranian assets in Syria, damaging Tehran’s ability to reinforce its decimated Lebanese proxy. With Assad gone, the entire project of Iran’s “axis of resistance” — an alliance of militant proxies arrayed across the Middle East — could “just unravel,” a Western diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told my colleagues.
Assad’s ouster marks “a tectonic shift” in the region, with “consequences that are going to reverberate” well beyond the Middle East, Mehran Kamrava, a professor of government at Georgetown University’s campus in Qatar, told me. “We do not know the shape of the new Syria to come.”
But we do know that whatever emerges is unlikely to benefit Iran. A generation of Syrians brutalized under Assad will not be quick to forgive Tehran for the role it played in sustaining their repression. Even in neighboring Iraq, where Iran’s influence remains more secure, many locals, including Iraqi Shiites, resent its meddling and overreach.
This is an excerpt from a full story.
About 26 killed in strike in Beit Hanoun in north Gaza, rescue workers say
About 26 people were killed in a strike on a multistory residential building in the besieged city of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip late Monday, according to Gaza Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal.
He said Israel targeted the building housing displaced members of the extended Kahlout family. As of Tuesday midday, 16 bodies had been recovered, he said. “Residents of the area are still trying to extract the rest of the dead, about 10 people, including women and children,” Basal added.
Photos posted online, which The Washington Post was not able to verify, showed more than a dozen bodies wrapped in blankets being buried in a mass grave.
The Israel Defense Forces did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday that at least 28 people have been killed and 54 others injured in Israeli attacks over the past 24 hours. The Health Ministry records casualties that reach hospitals, but the enclave’s medical system has collapsed, and rescue workers say many dead and injured go uncounted. More than 44,700 Palestinians have been killed in the 14-month-long war, according to the Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says most of the dead are women and children.
Since early October, Israeli forces have encircled Gaza’s northernmost border communities — Jabalya, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun — bombarded the areas and forced tens of thousands of residents to flee. The IDF said it is targeting regrouping Hamas militants.
Basal told The Post by WhatsApp that the ongoing northern operation has killed about 3,700 people “between those who were buried in the streets and those whose fate is still unknown and who remain under the rubble and are missing.”
“There are no rescue teams, no medical crews, no Civil Defense, and no health [care],” he added. The Civil Defense said in late October it could no longer safely operate in the areas due to Israeli strikes on its crews and equipment.
The IDF said Monday that Hamas fighters killed three Israeli soldiers and injured 12 others in an attack in northern Gaza. Israeli media reported that the forces were preparing to leave Jabalya. The IDF said in a statement Tuesday that it “eliminated ten terrorists” who took part in the attack but did not specify where they were killed. An IDF spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
As the war grinds into its 14 month, there are signs of progress toward a ceasefire and Israeli hostage-release deal. Though previous rounds mediated by Egypt and Qatar and backed by the United States have broken down, the latest proposal being considered by Israeli and Palestinian officials calls for an initial 60-day ceasefire similar to the deal last month that ended fighting between Israel and Lebanon.
Despite optimism over an interim deal, there is still no long-term plan for how postwar Gaza will be governed.
Netanyahu takes the stand in his corruption trial as supporters, critics gather outside
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at a Tel Aviv courthouse on Dec. 10 to testify in his corruption trial. (Video: Reuters)
TEL AVIV — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu testified in his corruption trial Tuesday morning, becoming the country’s first sitting leader to take the stand as a criminal defendant.
Netanyahu has tried for years to avoid appearing in court, with critics accusing him of undermining Israel’s judicial system. The stakes have never been higher for Netanyahu, who may face jail time, and for the court itself, which his far-right supporters have characterized as a threat to democracy.
Netanyahu faces charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases. He is accused of accepting extravagant gifts — including champagne, cigars and jewelry — in exchange for diplomatic favors and offering favorable regulatory treatment to one of Israel’s largest media moguls in return for positive coverage.
Outside Tel Aviv District Court, several dozen supporters of Netanyahu gathered, holding signs reading “Stop the persecution!” and slogans against the judicial system. Some right-wing Knesset members and government ministers were among them.
There were fewer anti-Netanyahu demonstrators, chanting “You’re the head — you’re to blame.” Some also carried photos of hostages still held in Gaza.
Rachel, a resident of Ramat Gan in her 60s, said Netanyahu’s trial should be canceled: “I don’t care if Bibi eats, drinks or smokes, as long as he runs the country and doesn’t harm its security. What do I care?”
She said she voted for Netanyahu in the last election but not wholeheartedly. “There’s no one else to vote for. Give me an alternative.”
On the other side of the police barricade stood Einat and Elisheva, two women in their 50s from central Israel, who like Rachel would be identified only by their first names for fear of retribution, citing high political tensions. They said they came “to support the judicial system and hope for a fair trial.” Asked whether the trial should be postponed because of the war, Einat said: “No, absolutely not. Every day, there’s another excuse to delay the trial.”
Elisheva added: “This trial is a defining moment. It begins a process of justice, but it also deepens the polarization in the nation.” Rachel also expressed sadness over the country’s division: “I feel like it’s two nations.”
Roads around Damascus littered with abandoned military vehicles and uniforms
DAMASCUS, Syria — The roads around the Syrian capital are littered with the evidence of the army’s spectacular collapse earlier this week in the face of the rebel assault that ended 24 years of Bashar al-Assad’s rule.
On a highway in Qudssaya suburb, just outside Damascus, on Tuesday a half-dozen army vehicles remain where their fleeing occupants had abandoned them.
Uniforms and army boots lay in piles at the side of the road next to three army trucks, where fleeing soldiers had torn them off to avoid being detected.
A little up the street, the fatigues of a member of Assad’s presidential guard had been left next to a pickup truck.
As they led the lightning advance to Damascus, the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham told members of Assad’s military that those who surrendered would be assured safety, but it is evident that many did not believe them. Identity cards lay strewn in the dust.
