As Israeli aggression in Gaza, Lebanon, and Post-Assad Syria deepens human suffering and regional instability, and amid growing international calls for ceasefires and de-escalation, Ahram Online covers the latest developments in the Middle East as they unfold on Sunday, 29 December.
22:00 Ahmed al-Sharaa said local Kurdish-led forces, which Turkey opposes, would be integrated into the national army in an interview with Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television on Sunday.
"Weapons must be in the hands of the state alone. Whoever is armed and qualified to join the defence ministry, we will welcome them," he said, adding that based on these criteria, "we will open a negotiations dialogue with the SDF, to perhaps find an appropriate solution," referring to the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria's north and northeast.
21:20 Syria's de facto ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa said Sunday that his country needed ties with Iran, a major ally of deposed leader Bashar al-Assad, but said relations had to be based on mutual "respect" for sovereignty.
"Syria cannot continue without relations with an important regional country like Iran, but they must be based on respect for the sovereignty of both countries and non-interference in the affairs of both countries," Sharaa said in an interview with Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television.
20:30 Nine Palestinians were killed and at least 15 others, including women and children, wounded in Israeli shelling northwest of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, the WAFA news agency reported on Saturday.
20:00 Forty Israeli soldiers were killed during a recent military operation in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, Israeli Army Radio reported on Saturday.
No further details were immediately available regarding the operation or the circumstances surrounding the casualties.
19:00 Gaza Government Media Office confirmed that two million displaced Palestinians are living in catastrophic humanitarian conditions due to the Israeli actions over the past 450 days, forcing people to seek refuge in temporary tents after the destruction of hundreds of thousands of civilian homes.
The office added that Palestinians are living in temporary tents throughout Gaza Strip, lacking the most basic necessities of life, emphasizing that 110,000 out of 135,000 tents have torn, with the onset of winter and the lack of infrastructure.
It called on the international community to take immediate action to stop the violence against civilians in Gaza and allow the provision of necessary support and basic needs.
18:00 Lebanese Al-Jadeed TV reported that Rifaat al-Assad, the uncle of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, left Lebanon last Tuesday, travelling to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates via Beirut airport.
The 87-year-old Rifaat al-Assad boarded a private plane bound for Dubai, accompanied by his 52-year-old son, Somar, and another individual, the channel said. No official confirmation of the departure has been issued by Lebanese or Emirati authorities.
Al-Jadeed published photographs of two passports that claimed to have been used by Rifaat and Somar al-Assad during their journey. However, the broadcaster did not disclose the source of the information.
Rifaat al-Assad, a controversial figure, has lived abroad for decades following his exile from Syria in the 1980s.
17:00 The Israeli military said approximately "five projectiles" were fired from northern Gaza into Israeli territory on Sunday, amid an ongoing Israeli offensive in the north of the Palestinian territory.
"Following the sirens that sounded at 16:26 (14:26 GMT) in the area of communities near the Gaza Strip, approximately five projectiles were identified crossing from the northern Gaza Strip into Israeli territory," the military said in a statement. "Two projectiles were intercepted" and the rest likely fell in unpopulated areas, it said.
14:45 Six people are reported killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting the Adra Industrial City on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, according to local sources.
14:30 Israeli Channel 12 said the Shin Bet, the country's security agency, is investigating why it did not receive any information about Hamas's intention to carry out the 7 October from its agents in Gaza.
The Shin Bet investigation shows that a number of the agency's agents in Gaza were deceiving Israel and not working with it.
Israel is aware of the difficulty of penetrating Hamas with agents since it is a closed organization.
Hamas operatives carry out summary executions of those suspected of collaborating with Israel, the Shin Bet investigation confirmed.
14:00 The death of Palestinian baby girl Joma'a Batran, the number of children who have frozen to death in Gaza's displacement camps over the last week has risen to five.
13:45 Syrian civil defence forces announced the discovery of three mass graves in the village of Qabu in Moms.
The remains of 20 individuals have been recovered so far.
Meanwhile, the Syrian Network for Human Rights reported that 112,414 prisoners were freed from jails since the fall of the Bashar Al-Assad government in early December.
13:00 The health ministry in Gaza said on Sunday that 30 people had been killed in the Palestinian territory in the past 24 hours, taking the overall death toll of the war to 45,514.
The ministry also said in a statement that at least 108,189 people had been wounded in more than 14 months of the Israeli genocidal war on the strip.
12:00 At least 13 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes on various parts of the Gaza Strip so far on Sunday.
Israeli bombardment of the Al-Wafaa Hospital for Rehabilitation in Gaza City killed three Palestinians.
11:30 Zaher Sahloul, president of MedGlobal, has called for the immediate release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, after his abduction by Israeli forces following a raid on the last remaining medical facility.
11:00 The new head of Syria's intelligence services announced on Saturday a plan to dissolve the institutions that were so feared under the rule of ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad.
"The security establishment will be reformed after dissolving all services and restructuring them in a way that honors our people," Anas Khattab said, two days after being appointed to his post by the country's new leadership that overthrew Assad in early December.
In a statement carried by the official Sana news agency, he stressed the suffering of Syrians "under the oppression and tyranny of the old regime, through its various security apparatuses that sowed corruption and inflicted torture on the people".
Prisons were emptied after Assad's fall as officials and agents of the deposed regime fled.
Most of these installations are now guarded by fighters of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group that led the armed coalition that seized power in Damascus.
Numerous Syrians have rushed to former detention centres in the hope of finding traces of relatives and friends who went missing during the 13 years of a devastating civil war that left more than a half million dead.
"The security services of the old regime were many and varied, with different names and affiliations, but all had in common that they had been imposed on the oppressed people for more than five decades," Khattab continued.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), more than 100,000 people died in Syrian prisons and detention centres during the conflict.
10:00 The World Health Organization (WHO) said that the lives of 75,000 Palestinians are threatened due to the Israeli siege on northern Gaza.
The organization said that it was "shocked by the airstrike targeting Kamal Adwan Hospital, which rendered the last major healthcare facility in northern Gaza out of service."
The Israeli occupation forces continued their acts of genocide, displacement, and starvation against approximately 80,000 Palestinians trapped in the areas of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahia in northern Gaza since 5 October.
This round of aggression has killed more than 4,000 people and injured 12,000.
The Israeli army also detained 1,750 people.
09:45 Medical sources have reported the death of a fifth Palestinian infant in Gaza in less than a week due to freezing temperatures and harsh living conditions.
On Sunday, one-month-old Jumaa Al-Batran succumbed to the cold while sheltering in a makeshift tent in Deir Al-Balah, located in central Gaza.
His twin brother, Ali, remains in critical condition.
Earlier this week, four newborns, aged between 4 and 21 days, also died as a result of severe cold and plummeting temperatures.
The ongoing humanitarian crisis has left thousands of families in Gaza struggling to survive in inadequate shelters with limited access to basic necessities.
Medical sources noted that widespread food insecurity among mothers is worsening the health of infants, leading to a surge in life-threatening conditions.
09:00 The Israeli army bombed the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City in a new Israeli attack targeting the health system in the Gaza Strip, particularly in the northern areas, WAFA news agency reported.
Local sources reported that the occupation's artillery directly targeted the top floor of the hospital, which is the only hospital still operating in northern Gaza after Kamal Adwan Hospital was rendered out of service.
On Friday, the occupation army stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, set it on fire, and detained more than 350 individuals inside, including patients and the hospital director, Hussam Abu Safieh.
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