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Syrian Rebels Capture Key City of Hama in Fresh Blow to Assad
A poster depicting Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad is placed on a building in Damascus, after last week’s rebel seizure of Aleppo marked the biggest offensive for years, Syria, Dec. 5, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
Syrian rebels captured the key city of Hama on Thursday, bringing the insurgents a major victory after a lightning advance across northern Syria and dealing a new blow to President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies.
The Syrian army said it was redeploying outside the city “to preserve civilians lives and prevent urban combat” after what it called intense clashes.
Rebels said they were preparing to keep marching south towards Homs, Syria’s great crossroads city that links the capital Damascus to the north and coast.
“Your time has come,” said a rebel operations room in an online post, calling on city residents to rise up in revolution.
Al Jazeera television broadcast what it said were images of rebels inside Hama, some of them greeting civilians near a roundabout while others drove in military vehicles and on mopeds.
The rebels took the main northern city of Aleppo last week and have since pushed south from their enclave in northwest Syria. Fighting has raged around villages outside Hama for two days.
The fall of Hama, which was in government hands throughout the civil war triggered by a 2011 rebellion against Assad, will send shockwaves through Damascus and fears of a continued rebel march south.
Assad relied heavily on Russian and Iranian backing throughout the most intense years of the conflict, helping him to claw back most territory and the biggest cities before front lines froze in 2020.
The collapse of pro-government forces in northern Syria over the past week underlines the problems that alliance has faced since.
Russia has been focused on the war in Ukraine since 2022. Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which had been the most potent Iran-backed force in Syria, has suffered heavy losses in its own war with Israel.
As his forces swept into Hama, the main insurgent commander Abu Mohammed al-Golani issued a video statement warning against any involvement by the other main regional force that is aligned with Iran — Iraq’s Hashd al-Shaabi militias.
Some Iraqi fighters entered Syria early this week to support Assad, Iraqi and Syrian sources said. The Hashd al-Shaabi has mobilized along the border with Syria saying this was purely preventative in case of spillover into Iraq.
“We urge him [Iraq’s prime minister] again to keep Iraq away from entering into the flames of a new war tied to what is happening in Syria,” Golani said.
PIVOTAL CITY
Hama lies more than a third of the way from Aleppo to Damascus and its capture would prevent any quick attempt by Assad and his allies to launch a counteroffensive against rebel gains of the past week.
A rebel advance on Homs, 40km (24 miles) south of Hama, could meanwhile cut Damascus off from the coastal region that is a stronghold of Assad‘s Alawite sect and where his Russian ally has a naval base and airbase.
“Assad now cannot afford to lose anything else. The big battle is the one coming against Homs. If Homs falls, we are talking of a potential change of regime,” said Jihad Yazigi, editor of the Syria Report news letter.
Hama is also critical to control of two major towns with big minority religious communities: Muhrada, home to many Christians, and Salamiya where there are many Ismaili Muslims.
Although Hama had not previously been taken by rebels during the war, it was historically a center of opposition to the Assad dynasty’s rule.
In 1982 Muslim Brotherhood activists rose up in revolt there and the military launched a devastating three-week assault that killed more than 10,000 people and would come to be seen as a model for Assad‘s campaign against the rebels.
Golani referred to that bloody episode in his statement, saying “the revolutionaries have begun entering the city of Hama to cleanse that wound that has persisted in Syria for 40 years.”
However, he added that rebels taking Hama would not exact revenge for the events of 1982.
ADVANCE
The most powerful rebel faction is the militant Sunni Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. Golani, its leader, has pledged to protect Syria’s religious minorities and has called on them to abandon Assad, but many remain fearful of the insurgents.
On Wednesday, Golani visited Aleppo’s historic citadel, a symbolic moment for rebels driven out of the city in 2016 after months of siege and intense fighting, their biggest defeat of the war. Aleppo was Syria’s biggest city before the war.
HTS and the other rebel groups are trying to consolidate their rule in Aleppo, bringing it under the administration of the so-called Salvation Government they established in their northwestern enclave.
Aleppo residents have said there are shortages of bread and fuel, and that telecoms services have been cut.
Turkey, which designates HTS as a terrorist organization, has long been the biggest external backer of other rebel factions and its role will be critical to the future of any enlarged insurgent region in Syria.
Ankara has denied having any role in the rebels‘ sudden sweep into Aleppo last week. It has maintained a military presence in northern Syria since 2016 and its stance will be critical for any expanded rebel enclave in the north.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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