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Israel strikes Syrian city, vows to protect Druze from government forces

Update Israel strikes Syrian city, vows to protect Druze from government forces
Members of Syria's security forces patrol an area between Mazraa and Walga near the predominantly Druze city of Sweida on July 14, 2025, following clashes between Bedouin tribes and Druze fighters. (AFP)
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Updated 16 July 2025

Israel strikes Syrian city, vows to protect Druze from government forces

Israel strikes Syrian city, vows to protect Druze from government forces
  • Bursts of gunfire were heard and three bodies were seen on the ground
  • Dozens of people have been killed in fighting in the region since Sunday

SWEIDA, Syria: Israel carried out strikes against Syrian Arab Republic government forces in southwestern Syria for a second day on Tuesday, vowing to keep the area demilitarized and to protect the Druze minority as deadly clashes continued in the region at the Israeli frontier.

A Reuters reporter heard at least four strikes as drones could be heard over the predominantly Druze city of Sweida and saw a damaged tank being towed away. Bursts of gunfire were heard and three bodies were seen on the ground. Dozens of people have been killed in fighting in the region since Sunday.

The upsurge in violence underlines the challenges facing interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa who has struggled to assert control over the area near the Israeli border since toppling Bashar Assad in December.

While Sharaa has been buoyed by rapidly improving ties with US President Donald Trump’s administration, the violence has highlighted lingering sectarian tensions and distrust among minority groups toward his Islamist-led government — distrust that was deepened by mass killings of Alawites in March.

Israel, which has struck Syria several times in the name of protecting the Druze, carried out its latest attacks after influential Druze Sheikh Hikmat Al-Hajjri issued a statement accusing government troops of breaching a ceasefire and urging fighters to confront what he described as a barbaric attack.

After Al-Hajjiri appeared in a recorded statement, Syrian Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra issued a statement declaring that a complete ceasefire was in place, and saying government forces would only open fire if fired upon.

Abu Qasra also said that military police had been ordered to deploy in Sweida to “control military behavior and hold violators accountable,” the state news agency SANA reported.

The Reuters reporter saw men in fatigues burning and looting homes and shops, and setting fire to a store that sold alcohol.

The Druze are a minority group whose faith is an offshoot of Islam and has followers in Israel, Syria and Lebanon.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said they had ordered Israel’s military to strike “regime forces” and weaponry brought to Sweida to be used against the Druze.

In a statement, they said the deployment of government forces was in violation of a demilitarization policy that had called on Damascus to refrain from bringing forces and weapons into southern Syria that pose a threat to Israel.

“Israel is committed to preventing harm to the Druze in Syria due to the deep brotherhood alliance with our Druze citizens in Israel,” they said. “We are acting to prevent the Syrian regime from harming them and to ensure the demilitarization of the area adjacent to our border with Syria.

Reuters reported in May that Israel and the Syrian authorities had held direct talks focused on security.

The latest violence began on Sunday with fighting between armed Druze groups and Bedouin fighters in Sweida province, which displaced thousands of people.

The Druze spiritual leadership said in a written statement on Tuesday morning that it would allow Syrian forces to enter Sweida city to stop the bloodshed, calling on armed groups to surrender their weapons and cooperate with incoming troops.

But hours later, Al-Hajjri, a vocal opponent of the new Syrian leadership, said the statement had been “imposed” on them by Damascus and that Syrian troops had breached the arrangement by continuing to fire on residents.

“We are being subject to a total war of extermination,” he said in a recorded video statement, calling on all Druze “to confront this barbaric campaign with all means available.”

Convoys of Syrian army tanks, trucks and motorcycles entered parts of Sweida city by mid-morning and were continuing to fire on neighborhoods there, the Reuters reporter in Sweida said.

On Monday, Israel’s military said it had carried out several strikes on tanks approaching Sweida “to prevent their arrival to the area” because they could pose a threat to Israel.


Israel mulls West Bank annexation in response to moves to recognize Palestine

Israeli troops stand guard during a weekly settlers' tour in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, August 30, 2025.
Israeli troops stand guard during a weekly settlers' tour in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, August 30, 2025.
Updated 6 sec ago

Israel mulls West Bank annexation in response to moves to recognize Palestine

Israeli troops stand guard during a weekly settlers' tour in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, August 30, 2025.
  • Israel, which is facing mounting international criticism over the war in Gaza, is angered by pledges by France, Britain, Australia, and Canada to formally recognize a Palestinian state at a summit during the UN General Assembly in September

JERUSALEM: Israel is considering annexation in the occupied West Bank as a possible response to France and other countries recognizing a Palestinian state, according to three Israeli officials, and the idea will be discussed further on Sunday, another official said.
Extension of Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank — de facto annexation of land captured in the 1967 Middle East war — was on the agenda for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security Cabinet meeting late on Sunday, which was expected to focus on the Gaza war, a member of the small circle of ministers said.
It is unclear precisely where any such measure would be applied and when, whether only in Israeli settlements or some of them, or in specific areas of the West Bank, such as the Jordan Valley.

FASTFACT

The UN’s highest court in 2024 said that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, and its settlements there are illegal and should be withdrawn as soon as possible.

Additionally, it is unclear whether any concrete steps, which would likely entail a lengthy legislative process, would follow discussions.
Any step toward annexation in the West Bank would likely draw widespread condemnation from the Palestinians, who seek the territory for a future state, as well as Arab and Western countries. 
A spokesperson for Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar did not respond to a request for comment on whether Saar had discussed the move with his US counterpart Marco Rubio during his visit to Washington last week.
A past pledge by Netanyahu to annex Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley was scrapped in 2020.
The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 
The US said on Friday it would not allow Abbas to travel to New York for the UN gathering of world leaders, where several US allies are set to recognize Palestine as a state.
Israel, which is facing mounting international criticism over the war in Gaza, is angered by pledges by France, Britain, Australia, and Canada to formally recognize a Palestinian state at a summit during the UN General Assembly in September.
The UN’s highest court in 2024 said that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, and its settlements there are illegal and should be withdrawn as soon as possible.
Israel argues the territories are not occupied in legal terms because they are on disputed lands, but the UN and most of the international community regard them as occupied territory.
Its annexations of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights decades ago have not won international recognition.
Members of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition have been calling for years for Israel to formally annex parts of the West Bank, territory, to which Israel cites biblical and historical ties.

 


Morocco tests floating solar panels to save water

Morocco tests floating solar panels to save water
Updated 20 min 13 sec ago

Morocco tests floating solar panels to save water

Morocco tests floating solar panels to save water
  • According to official figures, Morocco’s water reserves lost the equivalent of more than 600 Olympic-sized swimming pools every day to evaporation between October 2022 and September 2023

TANGIER: Sun-baked Morocco, grappling with its worst drought in decades, has launched a pilot project aimed at slowing water evaporation while simultaneously generating green energy using floating solar panels.
At a major reservoir near the northern city of Tangier, thousands of so-called “floatovoltaic” panels protect the water’s surface from the blazing sun and absorb its light to generate electricity.
Authorities plan to power the neighboring Tanger Med port complex with the resulting energy, and if it proves a success, the technology could have far wider implications for the North African country.

A floating photovoltaic solar installation in put in place on the Oued Rmel dam, as part of a solar pannel farm near the Tanger Med port in the province of Fahs-Anjra, west of the city of Tangiers on August 7, 2025. (AFP)

According to official figures, Morocco’s water reserves lost the equivalent of more than 600 Olympic-sized swimming pools every day to evaporation between October 2022 and September 2023.
Over that same period, temperatures averaged 1.8C higher than normal, meaning water evaporated at a higher rate.
Alongside other factors like declining rainfall, this has reduced reservoirs nationwide to about one-third of their capacity.
Water Ministry official Yassine Wahbi said the Tangier reservoir loses around 3,000 cubic meters a day to evaporation, but that figure more than doubles in the hot summer months.
The floating photovoltaic panels can help cut evaporation by about 30 percent, he said.
The ministry has said the floating panels represent “an important gain in a context of increasingly scarce water resources,” even if the evaporation they stop is, for now, relatively marginal.
Assessment studies are underway for another two similar projects in Oued El-Makhazine, at one of Morocco’s largest dams in the north, and in Lalla Takerkoust near Marrakech.
Similar technology is being tested in France, Indonesia and Thailand, while China already operates some of the world’s largest floating solar farms.
Since the Moroccan pilot program began late last year, more than 400 floating platforms supporting several thousand panels have been installed.
The government wants more, planning to reach 22,000 panels that would cover about 10 hectares at the 123-hectare Tangier reservoir.
Once completed, the system would generate roughly 13 megawatts of electricity — enough to power the Tanger Med complex.
Authorities also have plans to plant trees along the banks of the reservoir to reduce winds, believed to exacerbate evaporation.
Climate science Prof. Mohammed-Said Karrouk called it a “pioneering” project.
He noted, however, that the reservoir is too large and its surface too irregular to cover completely with floating panels, which could be damaged with fluctuating water levels.
Official data shows water reserves fed by rainfall have fallen by nearly 75 percent in the past decade compared with the 1980s, dropping from an annual average of 18 billion cubic meters to only five.
Morocco has so far mainly relied on desalination to combat shortages, producing about 320 million cubic meters of potable water a year.
Authorities aim to expand production to 1.7 billion cubic meters yearly by 2030.
Karrouk said an urgent priority should be transferring surplus water from northern dams to regions in central and southern Morocco that are more impacted by the years-long drought.
The country already has a system dubbed the “water highway” — a 67-kilometer canal linking the Sebou basin to the capital Rabat — with plans to expand the network to other dams.

 


Post-war plan sees US administering Gaza for at least a decade: Washington Post

Palestinians stand next to a heavily damaged building in the Rimal neighborhood, in Gaza City, Sunday, Aug. 31, 2025.
Palestinians stand next to a heavily damaged building in the Rimal neighborhood, in Gaza City, Sunday, Aug. 31, 2025.
Updated 26 min 32 sec ago

Post-war plan sees US administering Gaza for at least a decade: Washington Post

Palestinians stand next to a heavily damaged building in the Rimal neighborhood, in Gaza City, Sunday, Aug. 31, 2025.
  • Anyone who owns land would be offered a “digital token” in exchange for rights to redevelop their property, the Post reported

WASHINGTON: A post-war plan for Gaza is circulating within President Donald Trump’s administration that would see the US administer the war-torn enclave for at least a decade, the relocation of Gaza’s population and its rebuilding as a tourist resort and manufacturing hub, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.

The Washington Post said that according to a 38-page prospectus it had seen, Gaza’s 2 million population would at least temporarily leave either through “voluntary” departures to another country or into restricted areas within the territory during reconstruction.

Reuters previously reported there is a proposal to build large-scale camps called “Humanitarian Transit Areas” inside — and possibly outside — Gaza to house the Palestinian population. That plan carried the name of the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, a controversial US-backed aid group.
Anyone who owns land would be offered a “digital token” in exchange for rights to redevelop their property, the Post reported, adding that each Palestinian who left would be provided with $5,000 in cash and subsidies to cover four years of rent. They would also be provided with a year of food, it added.
The Post said the plan is called the “Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation Trust, or GREAT Trust,” and was developed by the GHF.
GHF coordinates with the Israeli military and uses private US security and logistics companies to get food aid into Gaza.

It is favored by the Trump administration and Israel to carry out humanitarian efforts in Gaza as opposed to the UN-led system which Israel says lets militants divert aid.

In early August, the UN said more than 1,000 people have been killed trying to receive aid in Gaza since the GHF began operating in May 2025, most of them shot by Israeli forces operating near GHF sites.
The White House and State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the plan to rebuild Gaza appears to fall in line with previous comments made by Trump.
On February 4, Trump first publicly said that the US should “take over” the war-battered enclave and rebuild it as “the Riviera of the Middle East” after resettling the Palestinian population elsewhere.
Trump’s comments angered many Palestinians and humanitarian groups about the possible forced relocation from Gaza.

Israeli forces pounded the suburbs of Gaza City overnight from the air and ground, destroying homes and driving more families out of the area as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet was set on Sunday to discuss a plan to seize the city.
The Israeli military has gradually escalated its operations around Gaza City over the past three weeks.

On Friday it ended temporary pauses in the area that had allowed for aid deliveries, designating it a “dangerous combat zone.”
On Sunday, the head of the World Food Programme said Israel’s designation would impact food access and put humanitarian aid workers in danger.
“It’s going to limit the amount of food that they have access to,” WFP executive director Cindy McCain said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” program.

A report released earlier this month by the global hunger monitor, Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), said that approximately 514,000 people — nearly a quarter of Gaza’s population — are facing famine conditions in Gaza City and surrounding areas.
Israel has dismissed the IPC’s findings as false and biased, saying it had based its survey on partial data largely provided by Hamas, which did not take into account a recent influx of food.


Seven dead, 71 wounded as Sudan’s RSF shells besieged city

Sudanese residents gather to receive free meals in El-Fasher, a city besieged by Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Sudanese residents gather to receive free meals in El-Fasher, a city besieged by Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Updated 31 August 2025

Seven dead, 71 wounded as Sudan’s RSF shells besieged city

Sudanese residents gather to receive free meals in El-Fasher, a city besieged by Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
  • El-Fasher has become the most violent front line in the war between the Sudanese army and the RSF, which erupted in April 2023

KHARTOUM: Shelling by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces killed at least seven people and wounded 71 others in El-Fasher, a medical source said Sunday, as the paramilitary group launched its fiercest offensive yet on the besieged city.
El-Fasher, the last major city in the vast western Darfur region still under army control, has become the most violent front line in the war between the Sudanese army and the RSF, which erupted in April 2023.
In recent weeks, paramilitary forces have escalated their long-running siege, launching fierce artillery barrages and ground incursions into densely populated neighborhoods, the city’s airport and the famine-hit Abu Shouk displacement camp.
The few hospitals still operational have been repeatedly bombarded and the local police headquarters captured by the RSF.
The medical source, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, said the true toll from Saturday’s attack was “likely higher,” as many injured had been unable to reach the hospital due to the intensity of the RSF’s strikes.
Among the wounded, mostly suffering from shrapnel injuries, 22 were reported to be in a critical condition, according to the source, who was reached via satellite Internet to bypass a communications blackout.
Local activists said the attack struck several neighborhoods in the city’s west near the airport, which RSF forces have sought to capture.
The RSF, which evolved from the Janjaweed Arab militias accused of genocide in Darfur in the early 2000s, is seeking to wrest full control of the region from the army after being pushed out of the capital Khartoum earlier this year.
Satellite imagery from Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab revealed Thursday that the RSF had constructed more than 31 kilometers of berms — raised earth barriers — “creating a literal kill box” in the city, the report said.
Its imagery also identified munitions impact damage at the city’s water authority, which supplies El-Fasher with fresh drinking water.
Nathaniel Raymond, the lab’s executive director, said the RSF had confined the Sudanese army and its allied militias to less than five square kilometers in the city.
“It’s the smallest it’s been since the siege began,” he told AFP.
The besieged population — estimated by the UN at some 300,000 — has endured severe shortages of water and food for over a year, according to humanitarian workers.
Famine was officially declared in three displacement camps around El-Fasher last year, and the UN warned it could spread to the city itself by last May.
A lack of data has so far prevented an official declaration of famine, but the UN estimates that nearly 40 percent of children under five are acutely malnourished, with 11 percent severely so.
Many have resorted to eating animal fodder, while desperate attempts to escape into the desert often end in death from exposure, starvation or violence.
“The pattern of life is ending,” said Raymond.
“They are dying in poverty, crossfire and bombardment and they’re being killed as they’re trying to leave,” he added.
Yale’s satellite images show that cemeteries had been expanded over the past months.
“The most worrisome part will be when there’s no one left to dig the graves anymore.”
The RSF, which recently announced the formation of a parallel government in the region, would control all five Darfur state capitals if it were to successfully capture El-Fasher.
Experts have warned that the city’s non-Arab Zaghawa tribe may face a similar fate to the non-Arab Massalit tribe in West Darfur’s state capital of El-Geneina, where UN experts found up to 15,000 people, mostly from the tribe, were killed in 2023 massacres blamed on RSF forces.
Both warring sides have been accused of war crimes, but the RSF has, in particular, been accused of genocide, sexual violence and systematic looting.
In the early 2000s, the paramilitary force led a government-orchestrated campaign of ethnic cleansing against non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur, killing an estimated 300,000 people.
“The Janjaweed are about to win the entire genocide that began in the early 21st century,” Raymond said.
“And the world isn’t going to do anything about it.”


Houthis raid UN food and children’s agencies in Sanaa

Houthis raid UN food and children’s agencies in Sanaa
Updated 11 min 22 sec ago

Houthis raid UN food and children’s agencies in Sanaa

Houthis raid UN food and children’s agencies in Sanaa
  • Ammar Ammar, a spokesperson for UNICEF, said there was “an ongoing situation” related to their offices in Sanaa, without providing further details

CAIRO: Houthis on Sunday raided offices of the UN’s food and children’s agencies in Yemen’s capital, detaining at least one UN employee, officials said, as the militia tightened security across Sanaa following the Israeli killing of their prime minister and several Cabinet members.
Abeer Etefa, a spokesperson for the World Food Programme, said that Houthi forces raided the agencies’ offices in Sanaa on Sunday morning.
The agency said Houthis detained one of its employees in Sanaa, with more staff members feared apprehended elsewhere in the country.
“WFP reiterates that the arbitrary detention of humanitarian staff is unacceptable,” Etefa said.
Also raided were UNICEF offices, according to a UN official and a Houthi official.
Ammar Ammar, a spokesperson for UNICEF, said there was “an ongoing situation” related to their offices in Sanaa, without providing further details.
The UN official stated that contact with several other WFP and UNICEF staff members was lost and that they were likely also detained.
The raids were the latest in a long-running Houthi crackdown against the UN and other international organizations working in militia-held areas in Yemen.
They have detained dozens of UN staffers, as well as people associated with aid groups, civil society, and the now-closed US Embassy in Sanaa. The UN suspended its operations in the Houthi stronghold of Saada in northern Yemen after the militia detained eight UN staffers in January.
Sunday’s raids came on the heels of the killing of the Houthi prime minister and several of his Cabinet members.
Among the dead were Prime Minister Ahmed Al-Rahawi, Foreign Minister Gamal Amer, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Local Development Mohammed Al-Medani, Electricity Minister Ali Seif Hassan, Tourism Minister Ali Al-Yafei, Information Minister Hashim Sharafuldin, according to two Houthi officials and the victims’ families.
Also killed was a powerful deputy interior minister, Abdel-Majed Al-Murtada, the Houthi officials said.
They were targeted during a “routine workshop held by the government to evaluate its activities and performance over the past year,” a Houthi statement said on Saturday, two days after the strike.
Defense Minister Mohammed Nasser Al-Attefi survived while Abdel-Karim Al-Houthi, the interior minister and one of the most powerful figures in the group, did not attend the Thursday meeting, the Houthi officials said.
Thursday’s strike came after the Houthis attacked Israel on Aug. 21 with a ballistic missile that its military described as the first cluster bomb the militia had launched at Israel since 2023. 
The missile, which the Houthis said was aimed at Ben Gurion Airport, prompted air raid sirens across central Israel and Jerusalem, forcing millions into shelters.
The Houthis are likely to escalate their attacks on Israel and ships in the Red Sea, after they vowed in July to target merchant ships belonging to any company that does business with Israeli ports, regardless of nationality.
“Our military approach of targeting Israel, whether with missiles, drones or a naval blockade, is continuous, steady, and escalating,” the group’s leader said in a speech broadcast on Sunday on the Houthis’ Al-Masirah TV.
Abdul Malik Al-Houthi vowed to continue “targeting Israel with missiles and drones” and to escalate these attacks.
He added that recent Israeli strikes on Houthi-held areas of Yemen would not weaken the group or discourage its fighters.
The Houthis’ leader said that “the coming days will see additional success ... in thwarting Israel’s attempts to commit crimes against our dear people or to target official institutions and cities.”