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Türkiye Urges Regional Countries to Take United Stance Against ‘Israel’s Barbaric War’

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan (AFP)
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan (AFP)
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Türkiye Urges Regional Countries to Take United Stance Against ‘Israel’s Barbaric War’

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan (AFP)
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan (AFP)

Türkiye on Monday stressed that it cannot remain silent to the collective targeting of Gaza under the pretext of destroying the Hamas movement, calling on regional countries to take a united stance against Israel's barbarity.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said his country was engaged in busy diplomatic efforts to end the massacres and de-escalate tensions after Israel’s continued attacks against civilians in the Gaza Strip.
At a briefing at the Planning and Budget Committee, Fidan said it is significant that regional countries collectively reacted to Israel.
“We never accept attacks targeting civilians and since the crisis began, we made it clear that the civilians should be absolutely protected. We cannot remain silent to collective targeting of hospitals, schools and mosques in the name of eradicating Hamas,” the Turkish top diplomat said.
Türkiye has sent 11 planeloads of humanitarian aid to Egypt to be delivered to Gaza, said Fidan, adding that a large ship with field hospitals, medical equipment, medicines, and other aid materials has also reached Egypt.
“We have also facilitated the evacuation of 27 patients and 12 attendants from Gaza, and have brought them to Ankara. Additionally, 61 patients and 49 attendants were transferred to Egypt,” he added.
Last Sunday, a group of 87 people, consisting of Turks, Turkish Cypriots and their relatives, arrived in Egypt from Gaza on Sunday and was set to fly to Istanbul late on Monday, the Foreign Ministry said.
In a related development, Turkish Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmus condemned the fact that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was denied entry to the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing.
Speaking at the first session of the 9th Meeting of Parliament Speakers of MIKTA held in Indonesia, Kurtulmus said, “If oppression against Palestinians cannot be ended ... if this war spreads to neighboring countries, I am afraid that it will ignite a global conflict.”
He therefore underscored the necessity of establishing a new world system characterized by fairness and justice.
The Speaker also stated that the international community has to work with the code of “urgent action” to end the humanitarian sufferings in Gaza.

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Arab World

Despite Keeping its Distance, Syria Still Feels the Fallout of the Iran War

02 March 2026, Syria, Ain Terma: People watch the damage after an intercepted missile fell in a residential building in Ain Tarma town. Photo: Moawia Atrash/dpa
02 March 2026, Syria, Ain Terma: People watch the damage after an intercepted missile fell in a residential building in Ain Tarma town. Photo: Moawia Atrash/dpa
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Despite Keeping its Distance, Syria Still Feels the Fallout of the Iran War

02 March 2026, Syria, Ain Terma: People watch the damage after an intercepted missile fell in a residential building in Ain Tarma town. Photo: Moawia Atrash/dpa
02 March 2026, Syria, Ain Terma: People watch the damage after an intercepted missile fell in a residential building in Ain Tarma town. Photo: Moawia Atrash/dpa

Syria’s efforts to remain largely outside the direct line of fire in the war between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other have not spared it the consequences rippling across the region.

Missile debris has fallen on scattered parts of the country, gas and electricity shortages have resurfaced, border crossings with Lebanon have become crowded with Syrians returning home, and cargo shipments have been disrupted.

Long electricity outages, shortages of household cooking gas and rising prices have again cast a heavy shadow over daily life, only months after a period of relative improvement.

The Syrian Ministry of Energy said Monday that the reduction in electricity supply hours was due to a decline in natural gas volumes arriving through Jordan and allocated to operate power-generation stations. The ministry said the shortfall was tied to the current regional escalation, which has temporarily made it impossible to maintain gas flows under previous agreements.

In a statement published on its official channels, the ministry said technical teams are continuing to manage the electricity system using available domestic gas production. It added that rationing is being set according to available capacity to ensure grid stability and continued operation, while efforts continue to boost local gas output to support the power system and improve supply in the next phase.

Jordan Temporarily Halts Gas Deliveries

In what was described as an early direct reflection of the regional escalation, Jordan has temporarily halted gas deliveries to Syria, according to a report published Monday by the energy platform Al-Taqa.

Citing unnamed sources, the report said Israel’s cutoff of gas supplies to Jordan pushed Amman to prioritize domestic demand.

Syria relies in part on gas coming from Jordan to support electricity generation, amid weak local production and infrastructure worn down over recent years.

The Syrian government began receiving natural gas through Jordan on Jan. 8 at a rate of 4 million cubic meters per day under an agreement linked to the Arab Gas Pipeline. Damascus also signed an agreement with Jordan to supply Syria with about 140 million cubic feet per day in an effort to ease the country’s electricity crisis.

Missile Debris and Growing Caution

On Monday, authorities in Damascus said a transformer at the Al-Otaybah industrial substation in the Damascus countryside was knocked out of service after it was hit by falling missile debris resulting from the exchange of strikes between Israel and Iran.

Caution has spread across parts of rural Damascus and southern Syria after missile remnants fell over the past two days, injuring civilians. Local sources in Daraa province said schools were closed and residents were urged to limit movement and gatherings and to avoid unfamiliar objects.

Syrian Civil Defense teams responded Monday to an incident involving the fall of military objects in the village of Al-Futaih, in the Ain Al-Sharqiyah area of the Jableh countryside on Syria’s coast. The Ministry of Emergency Situations said the incident was linked to the ongoing regional developments and urged citizens to follow safety guidance.

Israeli Arrest and Crowded Border Crossings

Amid heightened tensions, Israel has continued violations inside Syrian territory, according to the report. Israeli forces detained a shepherd on Monday west of the village of Kudna in the southern Quneitra countryside.

The Syrian Arab News Agency, SANA, said “occupation forces escorted the young man into the occupied territories,” with no further information available on his fate.

As the escalation widens and Hezbollah in Lebanon comes under attack, Syrian-Lebanese border crossings have seen heavy movement, with large numbers of Syrians leaving Lebanon and returning to Syria.

Arab World

RSF Drone Strike Causes Blackout in Sudan’s El-Obeid

Sudanese wait to break their fast during the holy month of Ramadan in Khartoum, Sudan, Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026, (AP)
Sudanese wait to break their fast during the holy month of Ramadan in Khartoum, Sudan, Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026, (AP)
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RSF Drone Strike Causes Blackout in Sudan’s El-Obeid

Sudanese wait to break their fast during the holy month of Ramadan in Khartoum, Sudan, Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026, (AP)
Sudanese wait to break their fast during the holy month of Ramadan in Khartoum, Sudan, Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026, (AP)

A paramilitary drone strike on a power plant Tuesday caused a blackout in Sudan's key Kordofan city of El-Obeid, a local official and an eyewitness told AFP.

"A drone belonging to the Rapid Support Forces bombed the city's power station early this morning, causing a fire," an official with the state electricity company said, requesting anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

El-Obeid is the largest city in Sudan's Kordofan region, currently the fiercest battlefield in the war raging between the RSF and the regular army since April 2023.

"I heard an explosion at 2:00 am (0000 GMT) then saw flames coming from the direction of the station," city resident Awad Ali told AFP.

"It's now past 9:00 am and power isn't back."

North Kordofan state capital El-Obeid lies on a key crossroads that connects RSF-controlled Darfur in the west with the army-controlled east, including the capital Khartoum.

For a year, since the army broke a long-running RSF siege, the paramilitary has been trying to encircle the city, including by launching drone strikes and attacking nearby towns.

Recent weeks have seen the army mount a counteroffensive, managing to break the siege on Kordofan's two other major cities: Dilling and Kadugli, where hundreds of thousands faced mass starvation.

Since it began, the war has killed tens of thousands and left around 11 million people displaced, creating the world's largest hunger and displacement crises.

It has also effectively split the country in two, with the army holding the north, center and east while the RSF and its allies control the west and parts of the south.

Arab World

Israel Orders Troops to Seize New Positions in Lebanon

Fires erupt from buildings damaged in an early morning Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs on March 3, 2026. (Photo by AFP)
Fires erupt from buildings damaged in an early morning Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs on March 3, 2026. (Photo by AFP)
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Israel Orders Troops to Seize New Positions in Lebanon

Fires erupt from buildings damaged in an early morning Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs on March 3, 2026. (Photo by AFP)
Fires erupt from buildings damaged in an early morning Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs on March 3, 2026. (Photo by AFP)

Israel on Tuesday ordered the military to take control of more positions in Lebanon, where the army pulled back some of its forces after Hezbollah attacked Israeli bases in support of its backer, Iran. 

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I have authorized Israeli forces to advance and take control of additional strategic positions in Lebanon in order to prevent attacks on Israeli border communities," Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement. 

In response, the Lebanese army has redeployed soldiers from several recently established border positions on Tuesday following the Israeli army's "escalation", a Lebanese military source told AFP. 

The troops "numbering in total eight to nine soldiers at each point, were redeployed to their bases because of the danger to their safety", the Lebanese military said. 

Lebanon was drawn into the regional war on Monday after an initial rocket attack on Israel by Hezbollah, which said it wanted to "avenge" the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei during the US-Israeli strikes. 

Israel promptly responded with large-scale strikes on Lebanon, where the government on Monday declared an immediate ban on Hezbollah's military activities. 

The Israeli military said on Monday it had killed the head of Hezbollah's intelligence services, Hussein Moukalled, in a strike in Beirut. 

On Tuesday, it announced the killing of another senior member it named as Reza Khazai in a strike in Beirut, saying he was responsible for overseeing Hezbollah's weapons build-up on behalf of Iran's elite Quds Force. 

The military did not identify his nationality. 

 

Smoke rises from a destroyed building that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

'All options'

Hezbollah said it targeted on Tuesday three Israeli military bases in response to the Israeli strikes on the group's strongholds. 

Although Israel has maintained that it is not planning a full-scale ground invasion of Lebanon, the military has stated that "all options are on the table" to halt incoming rocket fire from Hezbollah. 

On Tuesday, Katz declared that troops had been ordered to seize additional locations inside Lebanon, though the military described these steps as "tactical measures" rather than a ground invasion. 

Israeli forces had previously entered Lebanon in September 2024 after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges initiated by Hezbollah in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following the outbreak of the war in Gaza. 

Tens of thousands of residents on both sides of the border had been evacuated as fighting between the two intensified. 

The Israeli military has since said it did not plan to evacuate northern communities again, noting that it has reinforced troop deployments along the Lebanese border and strengthened air defences in the area. 

Under a November 2024 truce, only UN peacekeepers and the Lebanese army may bear arms south of the Litani river, which runs around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli border. 

Israel was supposed to withdraw all of its forces from Lebanon under a ceasefire agreed in November 2024 but has kept troops in five border areas it deems strategic, citing Hezbollah's refusal to surrender its own arms. 

Despite the ceasefire, Israel has conducted regular air strikes on Hezbollah positions in Lebanon.