The US is set to take the Syrian Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) off its list of foreign terrorist organisations on Tuesday, according to a state department memo. The group led a rebel offensive in December that toppled the Assad regime, which had ruled Syria for 54 years. Its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa is now the country’s interim president. HTS, also known as al-Nusra Front, was previously al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria until al-Sharaa severed ties in 2016. In recent months, Western countries have sought to reset relations with Syria – which has faced heavy sanctions aimed at the old regime.…
Author: dmnews
The names of the 52 people killed in London’s 7/7 bombings were read out at a memorial service at St Paul’s Cathedral on the 20th anniversary of the attacks. Saba Edwards, the daughter of Behnaz Mozakka who died when one of the bombs detonated on the London Underground, began to cry as she read out her mother’s name among the list of victims. Thelma Stober, who was injured in the attack, joined her at the lectern as thousands of white petals were dropped from the cathedral’s ceiling. Families and survivors were joined by members of the Royal Family and the…
King Charles will say the UK and France must stand united in the face of a “multitude of complex threats”, when he speaks at a state banquet for French President Emmanuel Macron. Macron and his wife Brigitte were met by the Prince and Princess of Wales as they arrived on Tuesday for a three-day state visit – the first by a French president since 2008, and the first by a European Union leader since Brexit. The issue of how to stop small boats crossing the Channel is expected to discussed at a UK-France summit that will be hosted by the…
An American Israeli man who was held captive by Hamas has told the BBC that US President Donald Trump has the power to secure the release of the remaining hostages and end the war in Gaza. Keith Siegel, 66, was kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza during the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023. He was released this February after 484 days in captivity under a ceasefire deal that Trump helped broker just before he took office. He was taken along with his wife, Aviva, who was held for 51 days before being freed during an earlier ceasefire. Mr…
Israel’s defence minister says he has instructed its military to prepare a plan to move all Palestinians in Gaza into a camp in the south of the territory, Israeli media reports say. Israel Katz told journalists on Monday he wanted to establish a “humanitarian city” on the ruins of the city of Rafah to initially house about 600,000 Palestinians – and eventually the whole 2.1 million population. He said the goal was to bring people inside after security screening to ensure they were not Hamas operatives, and that they would not be allowed to leave. If conditions allowed, he added,…
Hamas used sexual violence as “part of a deliberate genocidal strategy” during the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, an all-women group of Israeli legal and gender experts allege in a new report calling for justice. The Dinah Project says the report is based on a review of evidence including first-hand testimony from a survivor of an attempted rape and 15 former hostages held in Gaza, as well as accounts from witnesses to sexual assaults. It lays out what the group describes as “a legal blueprint for prosecuting these crimes, even when direct attribution to individual perpetrators is impossible”. Hamas…
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has made his first public appearance since the start of Iran’s conflict with Israel, according to state media. State television footage showed him greeting worshippers at a mosque on Saturday during a ceremony a day before the Shia festival of Ashura. Khamenei’s last non-public appearance was in a recorded address after the ceasefire that ended the 12-day war, which began on 13 June and during which top Iranian commanders and nuclear scientists were killed. Israel launched a surprise attack on nuclear and military sites in Iran, after which Iran retaliated with aerial attacks targeting…
A controversial aid operation for Gaza backed by Israel and the US says two of its workers have been injured in an attack while giving out relief. Two militants threw grenades at the aid centre in Khan Younis, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) said. It blamed Hamas for Saturday’s incident. The injured US workers are in a stable condition and are receiving medical treatment. No other aid workers or civilians were harmed, the group added. The GHF began its operations in May, distributing aid from several sites in southern and central Gaza. The system has been widely criticised for forcing…
Israeli forces say they killed the commander of Hamas’s naval force in northern Gaza in a strike on a seaside cafe in which dozens of civilians were killed. After the attack on the popular al-Baqa cafe in Gaza City on Monday, family members in Gaza and abroad told the BBC of their shock at the scale of civilian casualties. In a statement on Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the strike killed Ramzi Ramadan Abd Ali Saleh, along with Hisham Ayman Atiya Mansour, deputy head of Hamas’s mortar unit, and Nissim Muhammad Suleiman Abu Sabha. Saleh was a “significant…
A senior officer in Hamas’s security forces has told the BBC the Palestinian armed group has lost about 80% of its control over the Gaza Strip and that armed clans are filling the void. The lieutenant colonel said Hamas’s command and control system had collapsed due to months of Israeli strikes that have devastated the group’s political, military and security leadership. The officer was wounded in the first week of the war, which began after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, and has since stepped away from his duties for health reasons. He shared several voice messages…