Israel denies its tanks near Damascus as Syrian rebels vow to pursue Assad’s ‘war criminals’ – Middle East crisis live

William Christou reports for the Guardian from Syria

Israel carried out overnight strikes in Damascus, shaking windows across the capital city as it targeted any assets or advanced weaponry that could be seized by rebels after they toppled the Assad regime. An Israeli drone’s buzz could be heard in Damascus into the late hours of the night preceding the airstrikes.

Earlier in the day, residents in Kanaker, south of Damascus, said they heard Israeli strikes on the outskirts of the village, as Israeli tanks reached 25km south-west of Damascus. “They are trying to create a belt of fire [a buffer zone] between the two countries,” one resident said. A Guardian correspondent saw two black smoke plumes rising from beyond Ommayad Square in Damascus, a result of apparent Israeli strikes, late on Monday afternoon.

Israeli media reported officials saying they did not plan to operate beyond the borders of the buffer zone that existed between Syria and Israel – though tanks had already crossed beyond it.

In the capital city, residents were waiting for life to return back to normal. Internet service had gone out in many parts of Damascus, as telecom operators ran out of diesel. Data was in short supply as the country’s banking system was still frozen, paralysing the entire economy.

The fate of the country’s currency, which still bore the emblem and two stars of the Assad regime, was unknown. In restaurants and stores, people hadn’t agreed on a stable exchange rate.

Despite the uncertainty of the country’s fate, people were eager to move forward. Bassel, who runs a clothing shop in the old market of Damascus, said he was going to re-open his store today. “We will return, re-open and everything will hopefully be better,” he said. A state of cautious calm prevailed over the city, with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham fighters deployed throughout, particularly in front of public institutions.

Outside Damascus, life had already come roaring back. Residents of Douma, a suburb of Damascus made infamous after Assad’s forces carried out chemical attacks on it in 2013 and 2018, hung banners welcoming residents returning from north Syria after years of displacement. Unlike in the capital city, storefronts were open and people lined up outside of shawarma restaurants, doling out sandwiches to rejoicing families in the destroyed cityscape.

Israel has denied reports that its tanks have reached Qatana, which is 10km (six miles) into Syrian territory, east of the demilitarised zone separating the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from Syria, and on the approach to Damascus.

Reuters, citing Syrian security sources, said Israeli troops had reached Qatana, and that Israel’s military had declined to comment. Sky News in the UK reports that the IDF had denied the claims to it. Qatana is about 25 km (16 miles) south-west of Syria’s capital.

On Monday, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel for almost 60 years, will remain part of Israel “for eternity”. The strategically valuable territory provides a vantage point over Israel, Lebanon and Syria.

Netanyahu said control of the high ground “ensures our security and sovereignty”, after he had ordered troops to move into a UN-patrolled buffer zone separating Israeli-controlled territory from Syria.

Regional security sources and officers within the fallen Syrian army told Reuters heavy Israeli airstrikes continued against military installations and airbases across Syria overnight, destroying dozens of helicopters and jets, as well as Republican Guard assets in and around Damascus. The rough tally of 200 raids had left nothing of the Syrian army’s assets, they said.

Reunited families celebrate as Syrian rebels return home

William Christou

William Christou is reporting for the Guardian from eastern Ghouta, Syria.

This time, the doors of the Syrian state broadcaster were held open for Mohammed Abu al-Zaid.

The rebel commander strode into the building, camo-clad and with a pistol on his hip, and greeted the channel’s staff. The warm welcome was a far cry from his entrance on Sunday morning, when he stormed the building and announced live on air that Bashar al-Assad’s regime had officially fallen.

“I hadn’t planned it; I decided in the moments before that I would do it,” Zaid, a commander of the Southern Operations Room, said on Monday, sitting in the anchor seat of the state broadcaster’s studio.

Behind him was the three-starred flag of the Syrian opposition, which he had put in place of the old Assad government flag.

He recounted the tale to his uncle, Abu Bilal, a rebel fighter who had returned to Damascus from the northern front just a few hours before.

“You know, we didn’t have that much time to watch the news, we’ve been a bit busy,” Bilal said as he watched a video of his nephew announcing the fall of the 54-year long Assad regime on his phone.

Bilal was one of thousands of fighters and displaced people who returned to Damascus and its countryside on Monday, having finished fighting on the frontlines against the Syrian army in Homs, central Syria, two days earlier.

For years, the nearly 4.5 million people – many of them displaced – living in northwest Syria had been unable to see their family in government-held territory.

Fighters came half a dozen at a time, loaded in the back of lorries. The fighters’ journey south were accompanied by cars racing alongside them, honking and waving the Syrian revolutionary flag.

The Syrian Civil Defense has ended its search for possible remaining detainees at the infamous Sednaya prison, adding that it had not uncovered any “evidence of undiscovered secret cells or basements”.

In a statement, the group also known as the White Helmets said:

Specialized teams from The White Helmets conducted a thorough search of all sections, facilities, basements, courtyards, and surrounding areas of the prison. These operations were carried out with the assistance of individuals familiar with the prison and its layout. However, no evidence of undiscovered secret cells or basements was found.

The operation involved five teams, including two K9 (trained police dog) units. The teams inspected all entrances, exits, ventilation shafts, sewage systems, water pipes, electrical wiring, and surveillance camera cables. Despite these extensive efforts, no hidden or sealed areas were identified.

The group said it “shared the profound disappointment of the families of the thousands who remain missing and whose fates remain unknown”, while urging social media users to be mindful of the widespread misinformation and rumors circulating about prisons and detainees.

Raed al-Saleh – the director of Syria’s Civil Defence organisation, known as the White Helmets – earlier said on Monday that the prison was “hell” for those detained in it.

“[Sednaya] doesn’t give the impression that it is a prison. It is a human slaughterhouse where human beings are being slaughtered and tortured,” Saleh told Al Jazeera.

Syria’s new leader has two identities – but which one will take the country forward?

Jason Burke

On Sunday morning, a bearded 42-year-old man wearing a plain green military uniform walked into the Umayyad mosque in Damascus and addressed a small crowd, the Syrian nation, the region and the world.

With the mosque’s glittering decorations providing a backdrop, Ahmed al-Sharaa described the fall of the house of Assad as “a victory for the Islamic nation” and called for reflection and prayer.

“I left this land over 20 years ago, and my heart longed for this moment,” he said. “Sit quietly my brothers and remember God almighty.”

For most of the last two decades, the de facto ruler of much of Syria has not used his real name at all. Ahmed al-Sharaa, who grew up in a progressive household in a prosperous neighbourhood of Damascus and studied medicine, entirely disappeared. In his place was Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, a nom de guerre formulated according to the convention of jihadi militants seeking new identities redolent of historic Muslim glory and offering the shield of anonymity.

So it was Jolani who fought US soldiers in Iraq alongside jihadi insurgents between 2003 and 2006, and was then incarcerated there for five years in detention camps. It was Jolani too who returned to Syria in 2011 to play important roles in the campaigns of both the Islamic State (IS) and then al-Qaida.

It was Jolani who took over the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and from 2017 imposed his rule on 2 million people in the north-western Syrian enclave of Idlib. Last month, it was Jolani who launched a rebel coalition dominated by HTS on its blistering 12-day campaign that ended in Damascus on Sunday.

The question now is which man will rule Syria: Jolani, who is designated as a terrorist by the US, UK and others and has a $10m price on his head, or Sharaa, who has gone out of his way over recent years to signal that his organisation will not attack the west?

Iran has condemned Israel’s incursion into a UN-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights on the border with Syria as a “violation” of the law, AFP reports.

“This aggression is a flagrant violation of the United Nations charter,” foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said in a statement published Monday night.

Over the weekend, Benjamin Netanyahu ordered troops to move into the UN-patrolled buffer zone and attacked what it said were regime weapons depots with airstrikes, as the shock victory of Syrian rebels over Bashar al-Assad reshapes the region’s frontlines.

Speaking at a press conference in Jerusalem, the Israeli prime minister said the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel for almost 60 years, will remain part of Israel “for eternity”, amid growing criticism of an Israeli takeover of a previously demilitarised buffer zone in Syrian-controlled territory.

Syria’s rebel leader has said he will publish a list of former senior officials “involved in torturing the Syrian people” and vowed to pursue “war criminals” and hold them accountable.

“We will offer rewards to anyone who provides information about senior army and security officers involved in war crimes,” rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, now using his real name Ahmed al-Sharaa, said in a statement on Telegram.

The leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group began discussions with the ousted government on transferring power on Monday, a day after his opposition alliance dramatically unseated President Bashar al-Assad following decades of brutal rule. Prime minister Mohammed al-Jalali told al-Arabiya television he had agreed to hand over power to the rebel “salvation government”.

Rebel fighters said they had found about 40 bodies bearing signs of torture inside a hospital morgue near Damascus on Monday, stuffed into body bags with numbers and sometimes names written on them, AFP reported.

“We will not hesitate to hold accountable the criminals, murderers, security and army officers involved in torturing the Syrian people,” Sharaa said in the Tuesday statement, adding they “will pursue war criminals and ask for their hand over from the countries to which they fled”.

In other recent developments:

• The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said on Tuesday that Israel had “destroyed the most important military sites in Syria” with about 250 airstrikes since the fall of president Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The strikes had targeted airports and warehouses, aircraft squadrons, radars, military signal stations, and multiple weapons and ammunition depots over the past 48 hours, it said. Israel said its actions were “limited and temporary measures” to protect its citizens.

• The UN security council appears united on the need to preserve Syria’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and unity, the US and Russia said after a closed emergency meeting. The 15-member council will work on a joint statement on Syria in the coming days, they said.

• The Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, has ended its search for possible remaining detainees at the infamous Sednaya prison, adding that it had not uncovered any “evidence of undiscovered secret cells or basements”.

• Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel for almost 60 years, will remain part of Israel “for eternity”, amid growing criticism of an Israeli takeover of a previously demilitarised buffer zone in Syrian-controlled territory.

• Diplomats from Qatar spoke with the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) as regional states raced to open contact with the group that toppled Assad and position themselves favourably. The country will talk again on Tuesday with Mohamed al-Bashir, an HTS leader appointed to lead Syria’s transitional administration, Reuters reported.

• The recovery of the American journalist Austin Tice held hostage in Syria was a “top priority” of the Biden administration, national security adviser Jake Sullivan told ABC’s Good Morning America.

• Israel is now more optimistic about a possible hostage deal in Gaza, its foreign minister Gideon Saar said, amid reports that Hamas had asked for lists of all hostages still held by militant groups in the Palestinian territory.

• Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said President Vladimir Putin personally approved the decision to grant Bashar al-Assad asylum in Russia. Peskov said it was “premature” to discuss the future of Russia’s military presence inside Syria.