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Shelling Rocks Syria’s Aleppo as Clashes Intensify Between Government, Kurdish Fighters
Members of the Syrian Civil Defense work to extinguish a fire after shelling amid renewed clashes between the Syrian army and the Syrian Democratic Forces in Aleppo, Syria, Jan. 8, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Karam al‑Masri
Fighting intensified on Thursday between Syrian government troops and Kurdish fighters in the northern city of Aleppo, with a fierce exchange of fire extending into the night and rescue workers scrambling to put out fires ignited by the shelling.
Plumes of smoke rose above the city skyline at dusk, and the boom of artillery could be heard across Aleppo as the Kurdish fighters tried to repel the troops’ advance and cling on to neighborhoods under their control.
The fighting, which erupted on Tuesday, has driven more than 140,000 people from their homes and left at least seven civilians dead, according to Syrian authorities.
The deadly stand-off between Damascus and Kurdish authorities who have resisted integrating into the central government is a major challenge for Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who has pledged to unite the country after 14 years of civil war.
STALLED TALKS ON CEASEFIRE
Syria’s army gave a window on Thursday for residents to evacuate the neighborhoods held by Kurdish forces in Aleppo before launching new strikes there. It released more than seven maps identifying areas it said would be targeted and announced a curfew in the neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh from 3 pm (1200 GMT).
The Kurdish forces, including the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Asayish, or internal security forces, said they had pushed back Syrian troops’ attacks.
Syrian sources told Reuters the US was spearheading efforts to reach a ceasefire.
SDF head Mazloum Abdi said the government forces’ strikes and deployment of tanks had undermined “the chances of reaching understandings, create conditions for dangerous demographic changes, and expose civilians trapped in the two neighborhoods to the risk of massacres.”
Two government officials told Reuters that negotiations were underway over the withdrawal of Kurdish forces from the city.
The Asayish, in a written statement, denied that its forces had requested safe passage and called instead on the Damascus government to withdraw its forces.
Turkey said it stood ready to help Syria if asked.
“The attacks carried out against civilians in Aleppo have unfortunately exacerbated concerns about the true intentions of the SDF and created a pessimistic picture regarding peace efforts,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told a joint press conference with his Omani counterpart on Thursday.
“The SDF’s insistence on protecting what it has at all costs is the biggest obstacle to achieving peace and stability in Syria,” Fidan added.
Turkey views the US-backed SDF, which controls swathes of northeastern Syria, as a terrorist organization and has warned of military action if the group does not honor the integration agreement.
ACCUSATIONS OF ETHNIC CLEANSING
The Kurdistan Regional Government‘s Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said he was deeply concerned by attacks on Kurdish neighborhoods in Aleppo, warning that targeting civilians and attempts to alter the area’s demography amounted to what he described as ethnic cleansing.
Barzani called on all sides to exercise restraint, protect civilians and pursue dialogue.
The SDF said Damascus’s evacuation warnings ahead of shelling could amount to forced displacement and war crimes under international humanitarian law.
Kurdish-led authorities established a semi-autonomous administration in northeast Syria and parts of Aleppo during Syria’s 14-year war and have resisted fully integrating into the Islamist-led government that took power after former President Bashar al-Assad was ousted in late 2024.
Damascus reached a deal with the SDF last year that envisaged full integration by the end of 2025, but progress has been limited, with both sides accusing the other of stalling.
The US has sought to mediate, holding meetings as recently as Sunday, though those talks ended without tangible results.
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UCLA student government condemns campus Hillel for hosting former hostage
A campus event featuring freed Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov drew the condemnation of UCLA’s student government on Tuesday. In an open letter, the UCLA Students Associated Council said that bringing Tov to speak to students “served to legitimize and normalize” atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon.
Shem Tov, 23, was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in Southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and held hostage in Gaza until his release in a prisoner exchange in February 2025. UCLA hosted him on April 14 for a Yom HaShoah event.
“While we affirm the humanity of all people impacted by violence, we reject the selective platforming of narratives that obscure the broader reality of ongoing state violence,” the student government letter wrote in the letter, which was addressed to the UCLA administration and UCLA Hillel among others. “Israel is currently continuing to carry out what has been widely identified by human rights advocates as a genocide in Gaza, while also expanding its illegal military campaign into Lebanon.
“In this context, elevating a single narrative, absent of critical political and humanitarian framing, serves to legitimize and normalize these ongoing atrocities.”
Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, UCLA Hillel’s director emeritus, called the statement “completely ridiculous.”
“You can’t present the narrative of your experience without it being called ‘one sided,’” Seidler-Feller said. “There has to be a counter-story to persecution. Is there a counter-story to killing people?”
UCLA Hillel executive director Daniel Gold dismissed the criticism in Tuesday’s letter as antisemitic.
“Hillel at UCLA and Students Supporting Israel UCLA would like to apologize…for absolutely nothing,” he wrote in a statement. “Members of UCLA student government have once again shown they are anti-dialogue, anti-learning, anti-truth, anti-student and antisemitic.”
The USAC did not respond to a request for comment.
As college campuses across the country became a hotspot for pro-Palestinian activism following the Oct. 7 attack, UCLA, with an activist history and a large Jewish population, stood out as a major flashpoint. Its student encampment was the site of a riot in April 2024 and eventually cleared by police in riot gear.
The USAC has sided with pro-Palestinian protesters throughout. In a Feb. 2025 letter titled “We Are All SJP,” the USAC, which is democratically elected by the roughly 30,000-member UCLA student body, condemned Chancellor Julio Frenk’s suspension of Students for Justice in Palestine. The letter referred to Israel only as “the Zionist state” or put the country’s name inside quotation marks.
The University of California has since been sued by the Department of Justice, which said that UCLA created a hostile work environment against Jewish and Israeli faculty in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
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Trump extends ceasefire with Iran, even after Iran balks at new round of negotiations
(JTA) — President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he would unilaterally extend the U.S.-Israeli ceasefire with Iran, even though Iran had not agreed to his conditions or even to return to the negotiating table.
Trump announced the decision on Truth Social just hours before the two-week-old deal was set to expire. Citing Iran’s “fractured” leadership, Trump wrote that he had been asked by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to “hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal.”
Vice President JD Vance’s planned trip to Islamabad, where talks were set to take place, was postponed indefinitely after Iran failed to confirm its participation in negotiations.
Trump added that the United States would maintain its naval blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz, despite Iran’s repeated calls for the restrictions to be lifted.
The announcement marked a sharp departure from the president’s statements earlier in the day, telling CNBC that, if a deal was not made before the deadline, “I expect to be bombing.”
In a statement Tuesday, Sharif thanked Trump for his “gracious acceptance” of Pakistan’s request to extend the ceasefire, adding that the country would “continue its earnest efforts for a negotiated settlement of the conflict.”
The announcement adds to uncertain about the war’s future, including for Israelis who lived through six weeks of Iranian bombing, and renews questions about Trump’s commitment to achieving his war goals, which have varied and included blunting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, achieving regime change, and destroying Iran’s stockpile of ballistic missiles. He said earlier this week that he was asking Iran to limit its nuclear program for 20 years, five years longer than was required by the deal struck by Barack Obama in 2015. Trump exited that deal in 2018.
Last week, Trump announced a different ceasefire, between Israel and Lebanon, on Truth Social, contradicting Israel’s claim that the Iran ceasefire would not apply to its fighting with Hezbollah, an Iran-backed proxy in Lebanon.
Trump’s announcement of the ceasefire extension came during the night in Israel, after Israelis began their celebration of Independence Day. It drew criticism from one of his staunchest pro-Israel supporters, the Zionist Organization of America, whose national president Morton Klein said in a statement that “interminable delay is the standard Islamic Iranian regime negotiating tactic” and that acceding to it represented a victory for Iran. The statement did not mention Trump.
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Alan Dershowitz quits Democratic Party, calling it ‘most anti-Israel party in U.S. history’
(JTA) — Alan Dershowitz, the prominent pro-Israel attorney whose clients have included Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, announced on Monday that he was leaving the Democratic party and registering as a Republican.
Describing himself as a “lifelong Democrat,” Dershowitz wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that he had decided to “bite the bullet and register as a Republican,” citing Democratic support for an arms embargo on Israel last week and the Michigan Senate candidate Abdul el-Sayed’s anti-Israel rhetoric.
“There is no denying that the hard left, anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party has moved from the fringe to the mainstream,” Dershowitz wrote, adding that “Republicans have their own antisemitic fringe, but for now it remains a fringe.”
The announcement formalized a political evolution for Dershowitz, who defended Trump during his first impeachment and has increasingly broken with Democrats over Israel in recent years.
In 2021, Dershowitz nominated Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and Avi Berkowitz, Trump’s top Middle Eastern envoy during his first administration, for the Nobel Peace Prize over their hand in shaping the Abraham Accords.
Dershowitz — who has recently faced scrutiny over his ties to Epstein, and previously denied allegations of sexual misconduct made by one of Epstein’s accusers — panned the Democratic Party as the “most anti-Israel party in U.S. history” in the op-ed.
“I believe that the Democratic Party’s hostility to Israel represents a deeper and more dangerous shift away from the center and toward a radical approach that is bad for America and the free world,” Dershowitz wrote, adding that he intended to “work hard to prevent the Democrats from gaining control of the House and Senate.”
Dershowitz’s comments are in line with Trump’s statements about Jews and the Democratic Party. He has repeatedly expressed amazement at how any Jews could vote for the Democrats considering his own record when it comes to Israel.
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