Illustrative. Smoke billows over the city of Khan Younis in Gaza during an IDF ground assault. Photo: Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

The Israeli military said on Saturday it had killed a terrorist who took part in the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel and who it said was employed by a US-based charity, World Central Kitchen, in Gaza.

The family of the man, Ahed Azmi Qdeih, said the Israeli allegations were false and meant to justify his unlawful killing. They said he was an engineer who dedicated his life to charitable work.

The military said that he had taken part in the attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel and was under surveillance but did not offer any evidence. Reuters could not independently verify whether he took part in the attack last year.

World Central Kitchen confirmed the airstrike and said it had no knowledge about an employee involved in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack.

“We are heartbroken to share that a vehicle carrying World Central Kitchen colleagues was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza,” it said in a statement posted on X. “World Central Kitchen had no knowledge that any individual in the vehicle had alleged ties to the October 7th Hamas attack.”

The charity group said it was pausing operations in Gaza, adding that it was working with incomplete information and was urgently seeking more details.

Hamas did not immediately comment.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that three employees of the charity were killed when an Israeli strike targeted a vehicle in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. Medics said a total of five people were killed.

In a later attack in Khan Younis, medics said at least nine Palestinians were killed when an Israeli airstrike hit a car near a crowd receiving flour, a vehicle that was used by security personnel tasked with overseeing aid deliveries into Gaza.

The Israeli military says that it does not target civilians and accuses Hamas of operating from civilian facilities and using Gaza’s population as human shields, which the group denies.

NEW CEASEFIRE EFFORTS

Meanwhile, leaders of Hamas were expected to arrive in Cairo on Saturday for ceasefire talks with Egyptian officials, days after Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon, two officials of the group told Reuters.

The visit is the first since the United States announced earlier this week it would revive efforts in collaboration with Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza.

The Hamas delegation is expected to meet with Egyptian security officials to explore ways to reach a ceasefire deal with Israel that could secure the release of hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners.

Progress before now has been limited in a series of on-off talks over months.

Hamas is seeking an agreement that would end the war while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that the war will end only when Hamas is eradicated.

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Syrian opposition fighters gather at Saadallah al-Jabiri Square, after rebels opposed to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad said they had reached the heart of Aleppo, Syria November 30, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Hasano

The Syrian army said on Saturday dozens of its soldiers had been killed in a major attack by rebels who swept into the city of Aleppo, forcing the army to redeploy in the biggest challenge to President Bashar al-Assad in years.

The surprise attack, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, was the boldest rebel assault for years in a civil war where front lines had largely been frozen since 2020.

The war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced many millions, has ground on since 2011 with no formal end, although most major fighting halted years ago after Iran and Russia helped Assad’s government win control of most land and all major cities.

Aleppo had been firmly held by the government since a 2016 victory there, one of the war’s major turning points, when Russian-backed Syrian forces besieged and lay waste to rebel-held eastern areas of what had been the country’s largest city.

“I am a son of Aleppo, and was displaced from it eight years ago, in 2016. Thank God we just returned. It is an indescribable feeling,” said Ali Jumaa, a rebel fighter, in television footage filmed inside the city.

Acknowledging the rebel advance, the Syrian army command said insurgents had entered large parts of Aleppo.

After the army said it was preparing a counterattack, airstrikes targeted rebel gatherings and convoys in the city, the pro-Damascus newspaper al-Watan reported. One strike caused casualties in Aleppo’s Basel square, a resident told Reuters.

Overnight, images from Aleppo showed a group of rebel fighters gathered in the city’s Saadallah al-Jabiri Square, a billboard of Assad looming behind them.

Images filmed on Saturday showed people posing for photos on a toppled statue of Bassil al-Assad, late brother of the president. Fighters zipped around the city in flat-back trucks and milled around in the streets. A man waved a Syrian opposition flag as he stood near Aleppo’s historic citadel.

The Syrian military command said militants had attacked in large numbers and from multiple directions, prompting “our armed forces to carry out a redeployment operation aimed at strengthening the defense lines in order to absorb the attack, preserve the lives of civilians and soldiers.”

The rebels also took control of Aleppo airport, according to a statement by their operations room and a security source.

Two rebel sources also said the insurgents had captured the city of Maraat al Numan in Idlib province, bringing all of that area under their control.

The fighting revives the long-simmering Syrian conflict as the wider region is roiled by wars in Gaza and Lebanon, where a truce between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah took effect on Wednesday.

With Assad backed by Russia and Iran, and Turkey supporting some of the rebels in the northwest where it maintains troops, the offensive has brought into focus the conflict’s knotted geopolitics. Fighting in the northwest had largely abated since Turkey and Russia reached a de-escalation agreement in 2020.

RUSSIAN, TURKISH MINISTERS TALK

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a phone call with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, discussing the situation in Syria, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.

“Both sides expressed serious concerns at the dangerous development of the situation,” the ministry said. They agreed that it was necessary to coordinate joint actions to stabilize the situation in the country.

Turkish security officials had said on Thursday that Ankara had prevented operations which opposition groups wanted to organize, in order to avoid further tensions in the region.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Lavrov in a phone call that the rebel attacks were part of an Israeli-US plan to destabilize the region, Iranian state media said.

The Syrian Civil Defense, a rescue service operating in opposition-held parts of Syria, said in a post on X that Syrian government and Russian aircraft carried out airstrikes on residential neighborhoods in rebel-held Idlib, killing four civilians and wounding six others.

Two Syrian military sources said Russia has promised Damascus extra military aid that would start arriving in the next 72 hours.

The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which spearhead the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces that control much of northeastern and eastern Syria and have long had a foothold in Aleppo, widened their control in the city as government troops left, a senior YPG source said.

Mustafa Abdul Jaber, a commander in the Jaish al-Izza rebel brigade, said the rebels’ speedy advance had been helped by a lack of Iran-backed manpower to support the government in the broader Aleppo province.

Iran’s allies in the region have suffered a series of blows at the hands of Israel as the Gaza war has expanded through the Middle East.

The opposition fighters have said the campaign was in response to stepped-up strikes in recent weeks against civilians by the Russian and Syrian air forces on areas of Idlib province, and to preempt any attacks by the Syrian army.

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Smoke billows over Khiam, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as pictured from Marjayoun, near the border with Israel, Oct. 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Karamallah Daher

JNS.org – The Israel Defense Forces struck more than 12,500 Hezbollah terrorist sites in Lebanon during the nearly 14-month war that began when the Iranian proxy opened fire on the Jewish state a day after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of some 1,200 people.

The terrorist assets destroyed include 1,600 command and control centers and 1,000 weapons storage facilities.

The IDF also confirmed killing some 2,500 Hezbollah terrorists, although the military estimates the actual figure is closer to 3,500. According to a joint assessment by Israel’s Channel 12 and the Institute for National Security Studies, the fatalities include at least 11 brigade-level commanders, 37 battalion commanders and 46 company commanders.

The figure is more than 10 times the number of Hezbollah terrorists killed during the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between terrorists and noncombatants, reports 3,823 killed and 15,895 injured during the conflict.

Hezbollah’s chain of command was also devastated, as highlighted by the Sept. 27 targeted killing of Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut. Other high-ranking officials killed include Hashem Safieddine, Nasrallah’s successor; Radwan Force commanders Ibrahim Aqil and Wisam al-Tuwail; Ali Karaki, commander of the Southern Front; and Fuad Shukr, the terrorist group’s chief of staff.

Furthermore, some 80% of Hezbollah’s stockpile of 150,000 to 200,000 rockets and 70% of its drone arsenal were destroyed during the war.

Hezbollah launched some 16,000 rockets, missiles and drones at Israel during the war.

Nearly 70,000 residents of northern Israel have been internally displaced due to the cross-border attacks from Lebanon. During “Operation Northern Arrows,” the Israeli military’s name for the northern war, 45 Israeli civilians and 79 IDF soldiers were killed, according to the most recent data from the Alma Research and Education Center, which monitors the northern fronts.

Israeli authorities estimate property damage to exceed $273 million, according to Reuters, while Channel 12 and INSS reported that according to World Bank estimates, Lebanon suffered $8.5 billion in damages and economic losses during the war—$3.4 billion in physical infrastructure damage and $5.1 billion economic losses.

An analysis of satellite data by The Washington Post in early November revealed that nearly a quarter of all buildings in 25 Lebanese towns and villages near the Israeli border were damaged or destroyed. At least 5,868 buildings were affected, with almost half located in the heavily impacted areas of Aita al-Shaab and Kafr Kila. Approximately 80% of the damage occurred after Oct. 2, 2024, coinciding with Israel’s ground offensive.

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