22:47 Thousands of Israelis demonstrated for a deal to release the remaining Israeli detainees still held in Gaza after more than 14 months of genocidal war on the Palestinian territory.
ِQassam Brigades spokesperson Abu Ubaida said earlier that the Israeli occupation forces targeted a location in Gaza where the Israelis were being held.
"We hold war criminal Netanyahu, his government, and the Israeli military fully responsible for this incident and the lives of their prisoners," he added.
There has been optimism recently that a ceasefire and captives release deal for Gaza might finally be within reach after months of abortive mediation efforts.
US Security of State Antony Blinken said during a visit to Jordan: "This is the moment to finally conclude that agreement."
President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi met with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Middle East envoy Brett McGurk in Egypt.
"The meeting addressed efforts to reach an agreement for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange in Gaza," El-Sisi's office said.
A demonstrator stages a symbolic scene of the Israeli mass killing in Gaza during an anti-Netanyahu protest calling for action to secure the release of Israeli-held captivity in the Strip. AFP
22:34 Israel and Jordan held secret talks on Friday to discuss the situation in Syria and coordinate security strategies, according to three Israeli officials cited by Axios.
It said the meeting included senior officials from Israel's Shin Bet security agency, the Israeli army, Jordanian General Intelligence Service director Ahmad Husni, and top Jordanian military commanders.
The talks reportedly focused on shared security concerns, including the ongoing conflict in Syria and efforts to engage with Syrian rebel groups forming a transitional government. Jordan is said to be mediating between Israel and these groups, according to Axios.
Discussions also addressed weapons smuggling routes through Jordan, which Israel claims are supplying Palestinian resistance factions in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
22:00 Israel killed another journalist in Gaza.
Israeli troops killed Mohammed Jaber Al-Qerainawi, a journalist at Sanad News Agency, along with his wife and three children in Gaza, Quds news network reported.
Israeli warplanes targeted their home in the Al-Bureij refugee camp on Wednesday evening.
21:50 A Syrian war monitor and a journalist say gunmen attacked members of a Syrian insurgent group in the country’s coastal region, killing or wounding 15 of them, AP reported.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said loyalists to former President Bashar Assad killed and wounded members of the Failaq al-Sham group, which took part in the attacks that led to the overthrow of Assad.
The coastal region is home to many members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect.
Citizen journalist Taher al-Omar said Failaq al-Sham members were ambushed near the town of Jableh by “sectarian gunmen.” He said several were killed, without giving details.
21:17 The Israeli occupation army has killed at least 22 Palestinians across various areas of the Gaza Strip, according to an updated toll.
Medical sources at the Martyrs of Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza told the German News Agency (DPA) that the Israeli army's airstrikes killed at least 10 Palestinians and wounded dozens more in an attack on the Deir al-Balah municipal building.
Among the dead was Diab Al-Jaro, the mayor of Deir al-Balah. The sources added that several bodies were brought to the hospital "torn to pieces."
Eyewitnesses told DPA that they were shocked when multiple missiles targeted the municipal building while the area was crowded with displaced people, sparking widespread panic.
Mahmoud Bassil, spokesman for the Civil Defense, said that the Israeli army had also killed 11 Palestinians and injured dozens more in airstrikes on three schools housing displaced families in Gaza City. The targeted schools were Sacred Family, Al-Majda Wasila, and Jaffa.
Bassil added that Civil Defense teams transferred the victims to the Ahli Baptist and Al-Shifa Hospitals.
He also said that the Israeli army killed two additional Palestinians in an airstrike on the Sacred Family School in Gaza City's Rimal neighbourhood.
Earlier in the day, the Israeli army killed journalist Mohammed Bahlousha in an airstrike on his home in the Al-Saftawi neighbourhood of Gaza City.
21:14 A joint statement after a ministerial meeting on Syria's future calls for all parties to cease hostilities there and expresses support for a locally led transitional political process.
The statement was issued after a meeting in Jordan by several Arab nations, such as the United States, Turkey, the European Union, and others.
It called for preventing the reemergence of extremist groups in Syria and ensuring the security and safe destruction of chemical weapons stockpiles.
It also expressed full support for Syria’s territorial integrity.
Earlier, a separate statement issued by Arab foreign ministers called for UN-supervised elections based on a new constitution approved by Syrians.
That statement also condemned Israel’s incursion into Syria and adjacent sites over the past week as a “heinous occupation” and demanded the withdrawal of Israeli forces.
The UN Disengagement Observer Force, UNDOF, has reported that it observed an increase in the Israeli occupation army's presence in the Golan Heights buffer zone in Syria.
The agency noted that it had warned Israel of its actions, considering it "a violation of the 1974 disengagement agreement."
"UNDOF confirms that as of December 13, the IDF remains in the area of separation in multiple locations," said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric at a news conference.
20:50 Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called for Syrians who sought refuge in his country to return home following the fall of Assad.
"The consequences of the Syrian war made Lebanon home to the largest number of refugees per capita, with one-third of our population comprising of Syrian refugees," Mikati said at a Rome political festival.
"The strain on our resources has been substantial, worsening existing economic trouble and creating fierce competition for jobs and services," he added.
"Today, and after the political transformation in Syria, the best resolution to this issue is for Syrians to go back to their homeland," he said.
Authorities say Lebanon, population 5.8 million, currently hosts around two million Syrians, while more than 800,000 are registered with the United Nations — the highest number of refugees per capita in the world.
19:40 The leader of the armed group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, Ahmed al-Sharaa, aka Abu Mohamed Al-Jolani, criticized Israel for its incursion into southern Syria. Still, it stated that his country was too exhausted to engage in further conflict.
Israeli troops occupied the UN-patrolled buffer zone between Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights last weekend, a move the United Nations has condemned as a violation of the 1974 armistice agreement.
"The Israelis have clearly crossed the disengagement line in Syria, which threatens a new unjustified escalation in the region," Al-Jolani said in a statement released on the rebels' Telegram channel.
However, he emphasized that "the general exhaustion in Syria after years of war and conflict does not allow us to enter new conflicts."
19:12 Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem expressed hopes that Syria's new rulers would not recognise Israel or establish ties with it.
"We hope that this new party in power will see Israel as an enemy and not normalise relations with it," Qassem said in a televised speech.
Naim Qassem said Hezbollah had lost the military supply line through Syria, but the new authority there might reinstate the route. Otherwise, he said, “we might find other ways.”
18:59 Minister of Foreign Affairs Badr Abdelatty condemned Israel’s occupation of Syrian territories and its breach of the 1974 disengagement agreement, describing it as a clear breach of international law.
According to a statement by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Abdelatty reiterated Cairo's strong opposition to Israel's incursion into the buffer zone with Syria, alongside condemnation of Israeli airstrikes targeting Syria's military infrastructure.
18:41 Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli strikes on the territory killed 17 people on Saturday, including seven at a UN school housing displaced people.
Civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Bassal told AFP an Israeli strike on the town hall in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza killed mayor Deiab Al-Jaro and nine other people in "the humanitarian area in Deir el-Balah."
As we reported earlier, seven were killed, including women and children, and at least 10 were wounded "when Israeli warplanes targeted the Al-Majida Wasilla school west of Gaza City."
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees ran the school, but like many such facilities, it has been turned into a makeshift shelter for those displaced by the war in Gaza.
18:40 Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, has published footage purportedly showing the sniper targeting of an Israeli soldier during the occupation army's incursion south of Gaza City.
18:03 Al-Qassam Brigades spokesperson Abu Ubaida revealed that the Israeli occupation forces recently targeted a location in Gaza where Israeli detainees were being held.
"The occupation army recently bombed a place where some enemy prisoners were located and repeated the bombing to ensure their killings," he stated.
He added that resistance fighters attempted to rescue the prisoners and managed to save one, though his fate remains unknown. Abu Ubaida placed the responsibility for their lives squarely on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of deliberately endangering the detainees.
"We hold war criminal Netanyahu, his government, and the Israeli military fully responsible for this incident and the lives of their prisoners," he added.
File Photo: A snapshot of Al-Qassam Brigades spokesperson, Abu Ubaida. Photo courtesy of social media.
18:00 The United States has made "direct contact" with Syria's victorious Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebels despite designating the group as terrorists, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
"We've been in contact with HTS and with other parties," Blinken told reporters after talks on Syria in Jordan, without specifying how it took place.
17:41 A war monitor said the Islamic State group killed six shepherds in an area of the Syrian Desert notorious for extremist attacks.
"Six shepherds were killed on Saturday morning by fighters from Islamic State group cells... south of the city of Palmyra," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The terrorists "killed the shepherds and stole their livestock", the Britain-based war monitor added.
IS overran large swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014, proclaiming a "caliphate" and launching a reign of terror.
It lost its last territory in Syria in 2019. However, its remnants still carry out deadly attacks, particularly in the vast desert which runs from the outskirts of Damascus to the Iraqi border and beyond.
Most of its attacks in recent years have targeted Kurdish-led fighters or loyalists of the now-ousted government of President Bashar Al-Assad.
The Observatory said it had recorded six IS attacks in the Syrian Desert since Assad's overthrow. They killed 18 civilians and more than 50 Assad troops who had abandoned their posts.
On a regional tour, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Turkish officials it was "imperative" to work against any IS resurgence in Syria after Assad's fall and pledged to work with Iraq to ensure the extremist group "cannot re-emerge".
17:40 Turkey reopened its embassy in Syria on Saturday, becoming the first country to do so since the end of Assad’s rule last weekend.
The Syrian insurgents who overthrew Assad had received vital help from Turkey.
AP said the Turkish flag was raised over the diplomatic mission in the presence of the new charge d'affaires, Burhan Koroglu.
Representatives of the rebels' transitional government were present at the ceremony at the embassy in the capital's Rawda district, which also hosts other diplomatic missions.
The Damascus embassy closed in March 2012, a year after Syria's civil war began due to the deteriorating security situation.
Koroglu was previously Turkey's ambassador to Nouakchott, Mauritania.
Turkish television channels reported that Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin was in Damascus on Thursday.
A metal barrier blocks cars from parking outside the Embassy of Turkey in the capital, Damascus. AFP
17:10 The implementation of Israel's ban on UNRWA operations in Gaza and the West Bank would "deprive hundreds of thousands of girls and boys — living currently in the rubble, deeply traumatised — of the chance to return to a learning environment," warned Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of UNRWA.
In an interview with Christiane Amanpour on CNN, Lazzarini described the potential impact as a "total disaster," emphasizing the dire consequences for children already suffering from the horrors of the ongoing conflict.
17:03 Palestinian medical officials say at least 10 people were killed Saturday in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a municipal meeting in central Gaza.
The officials said the strike hit the municipality complex for Deir al-Balah city as officials from central and southern Gaza met to coordinate how to receive vehicles provided by the United Arab Emirates.
16:44 Top diplomats from eight Arab countries, meeting in Jordan, called for a peaceful transition in Syria with UN and Arab League support.
In a final statement after the talks in the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba, foreign ministers from Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar said they had agreed to "support a peaceful transition process" in Syria, "in which all political and social forces are represented".
The foreign ministers, meeting in Aqaba in the presence of Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said the political process in Syria should be supported by "the United Nations and the Arab League, in accordance with the principles of Security Council Resolution 2254" of 2015, which set out a roadmap for a negotiated settlement.
The Arab diplomats also declared their backing for a transitional rule agreed upon by Syrians, enabling "a political system that corresponds to the aspirations of all parts of the Syrian people, through free and fair elections overseen by the United Nations".
They also warned against "any ethnic, sectarian or religious discrimination" and called for "justice and equality for all citizens".
In their statement, the ministers said state institutions must be preserved to stop Syria from "slipping into chaos", also calling to boost joint "efforts to combat terrorism... as it poses a threat to Syria and to the security of the region and the world".
They condemned "Israel's incursion into the buffer zone with Syria", demanding "the withdrawal of Israeli forces" from Syrian territory.
They also denounced Israeli air strikes on Syria, which have targeted key military assets across the country.
16:04 Israel has killed at least 44,930 people in 14 months war on Gaza, the Palestinian health ministry reported in a most recent toll.
People carry a person wounded in an Israeli strike on the UNWRA, the Al-Majda Wasila Governmental School housing displaced Palestinians, on al-Jalaa Street in Gaza City. AFP
16:00 Clashes between Palestinian security forces and militants in the occupied West Bank killed one man, a medical source told AFP.
Fighting is usually rare between militants and Palestinian Authority (PA) security personnel, who exercise limited authority in the Israeli-occupied territory.
But for more than a week, the northern West Bank city of Jenin has seen intense violence after the PA -- which coordinates security matters with Israel — had arrested several militants.
The medical source said one body was brought to Jenin's Ibn Sina hospital on Saturday.
Several wounded people, both militants and PA personnel, also arrived at the hospital, said the source.
15:45 A senior UAE official said that his government had concerns about Al-Qaeda's affiliation with the forces that ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
"We hear some reasonable, rational language about unity, not imposing a system on all Syrians. On the other hand, the nature of the new forces, the affiliation with the (Muslim) Brotherhood, the affiliation with Al-Qaeda, I think these are all indicators that are quite worrying," said Anwar Gargash, a presidential adviser in the United Arab Emirates, in remarks at the World Policy Conference in Abu Dhabi.
15:35 Lebanon's health ministry said an Israeli drone strike in the south killed one person, the latest deadly raid despite a more than two-week ceasefire with Israel.
"An Israeli enemy drone strike... killed one person" in Marjayoun district, the health ministry said in a statement. The official National News Agency reported a car was hit.
15:25 Muhammad Baalousha, a correspondent for Al-Mashhad, was killed in an Israeli strike on the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood northwest of Gaza City.
Baalousha was confirmed dead at Al-Rantisi Hospital in Gaza City after being targeted in the strike, according to the Dubai-based network.
Before his killing, Baalousha had been battling pain from a double fracture in his right foot, which he sustained while covering the ongoing Israeli war in Gaza.
Al-Mashhad said that Baalousha was deliberately shot by an Israeli sniper near his home shortly after exposing the decomposing bodies of premature infants at Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital in Gaza.
Baalousha had infiltrated the hospital after the Israeli army ordered medical staff to leave, leaving the premature infants to decompose.
The infants had died due to a lack of electricity and medical supplies, a shortage caused by the ongoing Israeli siege of Gaza.
According to Al-Mashhad, Baalousha spent nearly a month treating his injuries with limited first aid before receiving hospital treatment, where he underwent surgery. He was discharged after only a few days due to the pressure on the hospital's operations amid the Israeli genocidal war.
Baalousha spoke of the severe toll his injuries took, describing moments when he feared for his life, even contemplating writing a will.
He described his suffering as only a fraction of what Palestinians in Gaza endure, highlighting the dangers faced by journalists during the Israeli escalation in the region.
"I wasn’t seeking to be a hero," he said. "I was just doing my duty."
Just days before his death, Baalousha posted on Instagram: "Death, shelling, destruction, and injustice fill every place in Gaza, but I am certain that on its land there is something worth living for."
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said on Thursday that, of the 54 journalists killed worldwide in 2024, 18 were killed by Israeli forces—16 in Gaza and two in Lebanon.
Since the war began in October 2023, Israel killed more than 145 journalists in Gaza; at least 35 of them were actively working at the time of their killings, RSF noted.
15:00 President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi held discussions with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and US National Security Council Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk in Cairo, the Egyptian presidency said in a statement.
According to the Egyptian presidency, the discussions centred on the latest developments in Gaza ceasefire talks, the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon, and the developments in Syria.
El-Sisi stressed to Sullivan and McGurk the urgent need to accelerate the provision of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, especially with the advent of winter.
The statement added that the two sides reaffirmed that the two-state solution remained the cornerstone for achieving peace and stability in the Middle East.
Furthermore, El-Sisi and the US officials addressed Lebanon's ceasefire agreement with Israel and the situation in Syria.
According to the statement, the two sides agreed that the ceasefire agreement constituted the basis for de-escalation in the region.
El-Sisi also affirmed the importance of protecting Syria's unity, territorial integrity, and people.
14:15 Seven people were killed and several others injured when an Israeli strike targeted a school housing displaced Palestinians west of Gaza City.
Local sources told the Palestinian news agency Wafa that the strike targeted Al-Majida Wasila School in the northern Al-Rimal neighbourhood west of Gaza City. They confirmed that women and children were among those killed.
Wafa added that one other person was killed and another injured when Israel bombed areas west of Al-Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, five citizens were injured when Israeli drones launched shells towards the Al-Shalh Chalet area in the Al-Mawasi area west of Rafah city, WAFA reported.
A Palestinian boy inspects the furniture of a house in the Nuseirat refugee in the central Gaza Strip. AFP
Israel has killed at least 44,875 people in 14 months of war on Gaza, according to the latest toll by the Palestinian health ministry.
The toll includes 40 deaths in the last 24 hours, according to the ministry, which added that another 106,454 people had been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the Israeli war on Gaza began on 7 October 2023.
14:00 The United Nations said the situation in Gaza is rapidly deteriorating, with scores of people killed in multiple Israeli airstrikes in recent days and the ensuing insecurity due to Israel's intense bombing hampering aid deliveries.
UN humanitarian coordinator Muhannad Hadi urged respect for the principles of “distinction, proportionality and precautions” and called on the parties to ensure the protection of civilians and safe and unimpeded passage of humanitarian aid.
A truck carrying Humanitarian aid drives on the main Salah al-Din road in the Nuseirat refugee Camp in the central Gaza Strip. AFP
Hadi cited the looting of a 70-truck convoy that was travelling at the Kerem Shalom crossing on Wednesday and the looting of four out of five trucks leaving the Kissufim crossing that same day.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA, reported that Israel denied more than 90 percent of the 137 missions the UN and its partners wanted to send to besieged northern Gaza since 6 October.
13:30 Syria’s interim government called on the UN Security Council to take action to compel Israel to immediately stop its attacks on Syria and withdraw from areas it has occupied in violation of a 1974 Disengagement Agreement.
In identical letters to the council and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres obtained Friday by The Associated Press, Syria’s UN Ambassador Koussay Aldahhak said he was acting “on instructions from my government” in making the demands. It appeared to be the first letter from Syria’s new interim government to the UN.
“At a time when the Syrian Arab Republic is witnessing a new phase in its history in which its people aspire to establish a state of freedom, equality and the rule of law and to achieve their hopes for prosperity and stability, the Israeli occupation army has penetrated additional areas of Syrian territory in Jabal Al-Shaikh (Mount Hermon) and Quneitra Governorate,” ambassador Aldahhak wrote.
The letters are dated 9 December, days after armed groups ousted President Bashar Assad and ended his family’s more than 50-year authoritarian rule of Syria.
An Israeli Soldier holds a portrait of ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in a Humvee vehicle near the village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. AFP
12:30 Turkey was set to reopen its embassy in Damascus today, nearly a week after forces backed by Ankara toppled President Bashar al-Assad and 12 years after the diplomatic outpost was shuttered early in Syria's civil war.
Ankara has been a major player in Syria's conflict, holding considerable sway in the northwest, financing armed groups there, and maintaining a working relationship with the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which spearheaded the offensive that brought down Assad.
Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the new charge d'affaires, Burhan Koroglu, left for Syria on Friday, with the embassy expected to be "operational" the following day.
Fidan also said Ankara had urged Assad backers Russia and Iran not to intervene as the armed groups mounted their lightning advance last week.
"The most important thing was to talk to the Russians and Iranians to ensure that they didn't enter the equation militarily... They understood," Fidan told the private television network NTV.
11:30 The Arab League Council, initiated by Egypt in collaboration with several member states, convened a meeting to establish a unified Arab stance against the Israeli army's occupation of additional territories in the occupied Syrian Golan.
Israeli army soldiers watch a tank that crosses through the fence into the UN-patrolled buffer zone, which separates Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights near the Israel-occupied Golan Heights. AFP
The council issued an Arab resolution condemning Israel's incursion into the buffer zone near Syria, including areas in Jabal Al-Shaikh (Mount Hermon), Quneitra, and Rif Dimashq.
The resolution deemed Israeli aggressions a violation of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement between Syria and Israel.
11:00 Geir Pedersen, the UN's special envoy for Syria, urged foreign powers to work to avoid a collapse of vital Syrian institutions following the downfall of leader Bashar Al-Assad, as diplomats gathered in Jordan for a conference on the crisis.
Pedersen also backed a "credible and inclusive" political process to form the next government as he met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The United Nations (UN) Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, speaks during his meeting with the US Secretary of State in Jordan's southern Red Sea coastal city of Aqaba. AFP
"We need to make sure that state institutions do not collapse, and that we get in humanitarian assistance as quickly as possible," Pedersen said.
"If we can achieve that, perhaps there is a new opportunity for the Syrian people."
Blinken, on a trip in which he met the leaders of Jordan, Turkey, and Iraq, has repeatedly called for an "inclusive" process that reflects all the diverse ethnic and religious communities in Syria.
Meeting Pedersen, Blinken said that the United Nations "plays a critical role" in humanitarian assistance and protecting minorities in Syria.
10:40 Israel launched strikes early Saturday targeting military sites in Damascus and its countryside, in the latest such aggression since rebels brought down Bashar al-Assad almost a week ago, A Syria war monitor said.
"Israeli strikes destroyed a scientific institute" and other related military facilities in Barzeh, in northern Damascus, and struck a "military airport" in the capital's countryside, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Strikes also hit "Scud ballistic missile warehouses" and launchers in the Qalamun area, as well as "rockets, depots and tunnels under the mountain", according to the Britain-based Observatory, which has a network of sources inside Syria.
The Observatory said several Israeli rounds of bombardment hit "military sites of the former regime forces, as part of destroying what is left of the future Syrian army's capabilities".
Israel air strikes on Friday bombed "a missile base at the top of Damascus's Mount Qasyun", the group said, as well as an airport in southern Sweida province and "defence and research labs in Masyaf" in Hama province.
Israel has repeatedly struck Syria for years, and even before Assad's fall, it had unleashed deadlier and more frequent air raids on the country. These attacks have sharply increased in frequency since the Gaza war erupted, with Israel acting with full impunity. "Tensions in the region have reached dangerous new levels with a series of incidents,” Geir Pedersen, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Syria, said in August.
He has at that time expressed alarm over the Israeli attacks on Homs, Hama, Deraa and then on the Syria-Lebanon border, as Israeli aviation carried out near-weekly strikes on Damascus and the suburbs and also on other Syrian provinces.
Since Assad's fall, Israel has launched hundreds of strikes against all the Syrian military assets, from the naval fleets to weapons stores to air defences.
In a move that has drawn international condemnation, Israel also seized a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone on the Syrian Golan Heights.
09:00 Jordan will host US, EU, Turkish, and Arab diplomats on Saturday for high-level talks on Syria, a day after celebrations in Damascus and nationwide rejoicing at the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad.
Syrians celebrated the day they called the "Friday of victory," with fireworks heralding the fall of the Assad dynasty.
Children wave the Syrian independence-era flag in the town of al-Dana, near Sarmada, in the northern Syrian province of Idlib. AFP
Assad's fall has also led to fast-moving diplomatic developments, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken among envoys set to discuss Syria in the Jordanian city of Aqaba.
Turkey, meanwhile, will reopen its embassy in Damascus, closed since 2012 amid calls by Ankara for Assad to step down.
A Qatari diplomat said a delegation from the Gulf emirate would visit Syria on Sunday to meet transitional government officials and discuss aid and the reopening of their embassy.
Unlike other Arab states, Qatar never restored diplomatic ties with Assad after a rupture in 2011.
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