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New Iran-Backed Group Emerges in Syria to Confront Israel

Khaled Brigade, a part of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), hold a military parade, after Syria’s Bashar al-Assad was ousted, in Damascus, Syria, Dec. 27, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

An armed organization calling itself the “Islamic Resistance Front in Syria” has demanded that Israeli forces withdraw from southern Syria and the demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights, claiming responsibility for several recent attacks against the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

The Iran-backed group, formerly known as the “Southern Liberation Front,” has emerged as a new force to oppose Israel, which borders Syria’s southern region. On Tuesday, the nascent militant organization announced that it has become a permanent front aimed at countering attempts at “division and displacement.”

According to its statement, the “resistance” group seeks to be a “unifying force for all segments of Syrian society,” regardless of religion, while prioritizing the protection of the country’s security and territorial integrity, Iraqi-based Shafaq News reported.

The group said its formation was a response to “the systematic and coordinated Zionist-Turkish-American transfer plan, backed by Arab support, to divide Syria following the end of the era of the resistant and defiant Syrian regime [of long-time Syrian President Bashar al-Assad], which had been the backbone of all resistance and liberation movements worldwide from 1970 until the end of 2024.”

“The front emerged from the Syrian people to confront any attempts to undermine the country’s security, amid the absence of the political and social forces that previously governed Syria,” the statement read.

In late January, Ahmed al-Sharaa became Damascus’s transitional president after leading a rebel campaign that ousted Assad, whose Iran-backed rule had strained ties with the Arab world during the nearly 14-year Syrian war.

The collapse of Assad’s regime was the result of an offensive spearheaded by Sharaa’s Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, a former al-Qaeda affiliate.

Part of the Iranian-led “Axis of Resistance” against Israel and US influence in the region, the Islamic Resistance Front in Syria is the religious extension of the battle of “the promise of the Hereafter,” a reference to a Quranic verse that has been interpreted as the final battle to “liberate Palestine,” according to Ahmad Sharawi and Joe Truzman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based think tank.

“The establishment of The Islamic Resistance Front in Syria is still in its infancy, and it’s unclear how the group is structured, what other armed organizations have joined its cause, and if it is a legitimate threat to Israeli troops operating on the Syrian border,” Sharawi and Truzman explained in the Long War Journal, an FDD publication.

In its statement, the group said its goal is “to restore the nation’s glory and protect it from terrorism and occupation,” while calling on Syrians to unite and stand against oppression.

“This step is a natural and legitimate response to the attempts at division and displacement facing the country,” the group’s general commander was quoted as saying in the announcement.

The statement was accompanied by a logo resembling those of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iranian regime’s chief proxy, the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, featuring a raised hand holding a rifle.

According to Alma, an Israeli research and education center, the Syrian National Socialist Party (SNSP) issued an official statement last year announcing the establishment of the Southern Liberation Front. However, at the beginning of this year, the group’s name was changed to the Islamic Resistance Front in Syria.

First published on the party’s website and social media platforms, the SNSP stated that the organization was established to protect the Syrian people and drive Israel out of Syrian territory. The SNSP also criticized Israel’s presence and activities in the country (referred to in the statement as “the Israeli enemy” and “the Israeli occupation”), as well as the silence from both Damascus’s new government and the broader Arab world on the issue.

Following Assad’s fall in December, Israel moved troops into a buffer zone along the Syrian border to secure a military position to prevent terrorists from launching attacks against the Jewish state. The previously demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights was established under the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement between Damascus and Jerusalem that ended the Yom Kippur War. However, Israel considered the agreement void after the collapse of Assad’s regime.

Syria’s new government has called for Israel to withdraw its forces but has used a noticeably less hostile tone than Iran or its proxies when speaking about the Jewish state.

Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would not tolerate the presence of HTS or any forces affiliated with Syria’s new rulers south of Damascus and demanded the area be demilitarized.

During a recent meeting in Brussels of the EU-Israel Association Council, which oversees the European bloc’s relationship with the Jewish state, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar dismissed any hope for real change in Syria despite the formation of a new government, calling for “realistic expectations” in Europe and labeling talks of regime transition as “ridiculous.”

The Islamic Resistance Front in Syria’s announcement came as a top Hezbollah official admitted this week that the collapse of Assad’s regime in Syria was “a major strategic loss” that weakens the terrorist group’s efforts against Israel.

The post New Iran-Backed Group Emerges in Syria to Confront Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

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