By Canadian Press

Middle East latest: Death toll from Israel-Hamas war tops 45,000. Israel strikes Syrian targets

Dec 16, 2024 | 6:07 AM

Palestinian health officials said Monday the death toll from the Israel-Hamas war, now in its 14th month, topped 45,000 people.

This comes as 52 dead arrived at hospitals across the bombed-out strip over the past 24 hours, including a family of four, in Gaza City overnight, according to Palestinian medics.

The Israel-Hamas war erupted on Oct. 7 last year when Hamas militants stormed southern Israel, killing some 1, 200 people and taking another 250 hostage. Israel responded with heavy bombardment and a ground incursion into the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, a UK-based war monitor says Israeli airstrikes early Monday hit missile warehouses in Syria and called it the “most violent strikes” since 2012.

Israel has been pounding what it says are military sites in Syria after the dramatic collapse of President Bashar Assad’s rule, wiping out air defenses and most of the arsenal of the former Syrian army. Israeli troops have also seized a border buffer zone, sparking condemnation, with critics accusing Israel of violating the 1974 ceasefire and possibly exploiting the chaos in Syria for a land grab.

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The Assad family’s rule, which lasted more than half a century, collapsed just over a week ago following a stunning rebel advance.

The new Syrian administration, led by the former insurgents who toppled Assad, has complained to the U.N. Security Council about the Israeli bombardment and incursions into Syrian territory in the Golan Heights. However, it has also said it does not want a military confrontation with Israel.

Here is the latest:

Assad says he wanted to keep fighting but Russians evacuated him

DAMASCUS, Syria — Ousted Syrian leader Bashar Assad says he had no plans to leave the country after the fall of Damascus a week ago but the Russian military evacuated him after their base in western Syria came under attack.

The comments are the first by Assad since he was overthrown by insurgent groups.

Assad said in a statement on his Facebook page that he left Damascus on the morning of Dec. 8, hours after insurgents stormed the capital. He said he left in coordination with Russian allies to the Russian base in the coastal province of Latakia, where he planned to keep fighting.

Assad said that after the Russian base came under attack by drones, the Russians decided to move him on the night of Dec. 8 to Russia. “I did not leave the country as part of a plan as it was reported earlier,” Assad said.

Death toll from Israel-Hamas war tops 45,000

Health officials in the Gaza Strip say the death toll from the 14-month war between Israel and Hamas militants has reached 45,028 people.

The Gaza Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. It said more than half of the fatalities were women and children. The Israeli military says it has killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The Health Ministry also said 106,962 have been wounded since the start of the war.

Turkey condemns Israeli plan to expand settlements in the occupied Golan Heights

ANKARA, Turkey — A Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said Monday the decision marked a “new stage in Israel’s goal of expanding its borders through occupation,” adding that Ankara was concerned that the move would harm efforts to establish peace and stability in Syria.

“The international community must show the necessary reaction to Israel and ensure that the illegal activities of (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu’s government come to an end,” the statement read.

Qatar also condemned the decision, calling it “a new episode in a series of Israeli aggressions on Syrian territories and a blatant violation of international law.”

The Israeli government approved Netanyahu’s plan on Sunday with the aim to encourage population growth in the area.

Israel captured the Golan Heights in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it, though the international community except for the U.S. regards it as occupied. Israeli figures show the remote territory is home to about 50,000 people, about half of them Jewish Israelis and the other half Arab Druze, many of whom still consider themselves Syrians.

Mourners in Gaza gather for funeral of Al Jazeera journalist

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — In central Gaza’s Nuseirat urban refugee camp, mourners carried Monday the body of Ahmad Baker Al-Louh, 39, a Palestinian journalist working for Al Jazeera, from the hospital through the streets. His blue bulletproof vest rested atop him.

Al-Louh was killed the day before in a strike on a point for Gaza’s civil defense agency and Al Jazeera said had been covering rescue operations of a family wounded in an earlier bombing when he was killed.

Sunday’s strike also killed three civil defense workers, including the local head of the agency, according to al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. The civil defense is Gaza’s main rescue agency and operates under the Hamas-run government.

Israeli strike kills 10 in Gaza City

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — The 10 included a family of four, Palestinian medics said Monday, as the Israel-Hamas war raged on for the 14th month in the Gaza Strip.

The strike late Sunday hit a house in Gaza City’s eastern Shijaiyah neighborhood, according to the Health Ministry’s ambulance and emergency service. Rescuers recovered the bodies of 10 people from under the rubble, including those of two parents and their two children, it said.

US embassy advises Americans to leave Syria

DAMASCUS, Syria — The U.S. embassy in Damascus advised Americans to leave Syria, saying the security situation there continues to be volatile and unpredictable with armed conflict and “terrorism throughout the country.”

The embassy, which has been closed since 2012, posted a statement on X, warning U.S. citizens who were unable to leave the country to prepare “contingency plans for emergency situations.” It didn’t give further details.

The statement also said that the U.S. government is unable to provide any routine or emergency consular services to U.S. citizens and those who need “emergency assistance to depart should contact the U.S. Embassy in the country they plan to enter.”

Sleeper cells of the Islamic State group have claimed responsibility for deadly attacks over the past months in different parts of Syria. Despite their defeat in March 2019, the extremists still pose a threat in the war-torn country.

War monitor says Israel targets missile warehouses

DAMASCUS, Syria — The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, reported early Monday that Israeli airstrikes pounded missile warehouses and other former Syrian army sites along Syria’s coast in the “most violent strikes in the Syrian coast region since the beginning of the (Israeli) strikes in 2012.”

The Israeli military declined to comment on the strikes.

The observatory said that “violent explosions” were heard in the coastal city of Tartous “as a result of the successive strikes and the flying of ground-to-ground missiles from the warehouses.”

The Associated Press