Battles rage in Syria, Israel and Hezbollah trade fire threatening truce

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad must reconcile with his own people and hold talks with the opposition, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has said.

After talks with Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi yesterday, Fidan said the pair have agreed to resume diplomatic efforts to help restore calm in Syria following last week’s surprise rebel offensive.

Turkey backs forces opposed to Assad, while Iran has thrown its support behind his government.

“Recent developments show once again that Damascus must reconcile with its own people and the legitimate opposition,” Fidan said at a joint news conference. “Turkey is ready to make all the necessary contribution toward this.”

Gaza is suffering from an “epidemic of traumatic injuries,” the commissioner general of the United Nations refugee agency wrote on X today.

The enclave now suffers from the “highest number of child amputees per capita in the world,” Phillipe Lazzarini said.

The World Health Organization estimates that “one in four people injured during the war sustained life-changing injuries & will need rehabilitation services, including care for amputations & spinal cords injuries,” he added.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has thrown his support behind Syria’s “government and people” during a phone call with President Bashar al-Assad, a statement from Assad’s office said on Telegram today.

It said the two leaders discussed “combating and defeating terrorism,” and that Maduro blamed the U.S. and the West for seeking to “weaken Syria”

Assad said “the fate of independent nations is to confront the schemes of the U.S. and the West against them.”

Israeli forces stormed the Turkish hospital in the occupied West Bank this morning and arrested its general manager and other citizens, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported today.

A “visitor” was shot inside the hospita, and Israeli forces arrested five medical personnel and assaulted the head of the emergency department, the agency reported.

An earlier report said that Israeli bombs killed two people after bombing a vehicle at the entrance of the hospital.

The Palestinian Health Ministry condemned the attack in a statement. It said Israeli forces had fired “bullets and bombs inside” inside the hospital and assaulted “staff and patients.”

NBC News has reached out to the IDF for comment.

Qatar is working with Turkey and other partners in the region to bring solutions to end hostilities in Syria, Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said in a press conference today.

When asked about reports in Iranian state media that Iran, Russia and Turkey would meet to discuss Syria at the Doha Forum foreign policy conference this weekend, Al-Ansari said he was not aware of any such plans, but that Qatar was always open.

The rebel group leading the offensive against Syria’s government announced today that it is “accepting applications” from defectors in the northern city of Aleppo.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham said in a statement that anyone who has worked for Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime “is required to visit the designated police stations and bring their personal identification, weapons, and any other relevant materials.”

Defectors must do this “no later than Friday,” in order to obtain “temporary identification cards that would exempt them from legal prosecution and protect their rights,” the statement added.

Israel said it struck targets in Lebanon after promising to retaliate for a Hezbollah attack on its positions in the disputed Shebaa farms area.

At least 10 people were killed by Israeli strikes on two southern villages, the Lebanese Health Ministry said on X this morning. Another person was killed in a separate strike.

Israel said there were no injuries in Hezbollah’s strikes, which came as both sides accused each other of violating last week’s ceasefire agreement.

Shebaa Farms is an enclave where the borders of Israel, Lebanon and Syria meet. Israel says it is part of the Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria in 1967 and has controlled since.

Syrian and Russian warplanes have launched “concentrated air and missile strikes” on the central Idlib province, “killing and wounding dozens of terrorists and destroying their vehicles and weapons,” the Syrian Defense Ministry said today.

Syrian forces are advancing in the countryside near Aleppo, Hama and Idlib as it seeks to secure territory claimed by rebel forces.

Yesterday, Russian airstrikes targeted a group of health centers and hospitals in the rebel-held city of Idlib in northwest Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights today.

President-elect Donald Trump said there will be “HELL TO PAY” unless the Israeli hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza are freed before he takes office in January, in a social media post yesterday.

“Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity,” he said in the post on Truth Social.

“Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody who has been hit in the long and stories history of the United States of America,” he added.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog thanked Trump in a post on X.

The conflict between Syrian regime and rebel forces risks spreading across the entire region, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said following talks in Syria with President Bashar al-Assad.

“Conflict carries 100%-guaranteed spillover of terrorism to the whole neighborhood,” he said on X yesterday. “All agreed: NO ONE benefits from another war in Syria.”

Araghchi reiterated Iran’s support for the “Syrian people, Government and Army in their fight against terrorism.”

His comments came after Iran-backed militias based crossed into Syria from Iraq, to support Assad’s military, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Fighter jets and helicopters carried out 45 airstrikes near the Syrian city of Hama last night as the Syrian government tried to block rebel groups from advancing in the region, according to a leading monitoring group.

The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in an online update that the clashes between government and rebel forces were “the most violent” since the rebels launched their shock offensive last week

The government had “upset attempts” by rebels to advance into the town of Qala’at Madiq, but that rebels had take control of several villages in the northern Hama countryside, it added.