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Iranian Guards Adviser Killed in Israeli Strike on Damascus

Israeli soldiers operate in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights near the border with Syria, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, December 28, 2023. REUTERS/Gil Eliyahu
Israeli soldiers operate in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights near the border with Syria, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, December 28, 2023. REUTERS/Gil Eliyahu
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Iranian Guards Adviser Killed in Israeli Strike on Damascus

Israeli soldiers operate in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights near the border with Syria, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, December 28, 2023. REUTERS/Gil Eliyahu
Israeli soldiers operate in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights near the border with Syria, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, December 28, 2023. REUTERS/Gil Eliyahu

An Iranian Revolutionary Guards adviser in Damascus was killed on Friday in an Israeli missile strike that targeted a southern district of the Syrian capital, semi-official Iranian news sites reported.
Earlier, Syria's state news agency SANA, citing a Syrian military source, said the country's military had downed a number of Israeli missiles launched from the Golan Heights at southern Damascus.
The Iranian news sites identified the dead man as Saeid Alidadi. They did not give his rank.
Asked about the strikes, Israel's military said it did not comment on reports in foreign media.
Israel has for years carried out attacks on what it has described as Iran-linked targets in Syria, where Tehran's influence has grown since it began supporting President Bashar al-Assad in a civil war that started in 2011.
Since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Palestinian group Hamas from Gaza, Israel has escalated its strikes on Iranian-backed militia targets in Syria and has also struck Syrian army air defenses and some Syrian forces.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards have started scaling back deployment of their senior officers in Syria due to concerns about Tehran being sucked into a wider regional conflict, sources have told Reuters.
The Guards will instead rely more on allied Shi'ite militia to preserve their sway there, the sources said.
Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi told a crowd on Friday that his country would not start a war in the region but would "respond strongly" to anyone who tried to bully it.
Raisi's comments came after days of speculation about how Washington might retaliate after three US soldiers were killed last Saturday in a strike on their base in Jordan by an Iranian-backed group.
CBS News, citing US officials, reported on Thursday that the United States had approved plans for multi-day strikes in Iraq and Syria against multiple targets, including Iranian personnel and facilities in those countries.

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Palestinians Get Food Aid in Central Gaza, Some for the First Time in Months

Donated flour is distributed to Palestinians at a UNRWA center in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024. (AP)
Donated flour is distributed to Palestinians at a UNRWA center in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024. (AP)
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Palestinians Get Food Aid in Central Gaza, Some for the First Time in Months

Donated flour is distributed to Palestinians at a UNRWA center in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024. (AP)
Donated flour is distributed to Palestinians at a UNRWA center in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024. (AP)

Palestinians lined up for bags of flour distributed by the UN in central Gaza on Tuesday morning, some of them for the first time in months amid a drop in food aid entering the territory.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, gave out one 25-kilogram flour bag (55 pounds) to each family of 10 at a warehouse in the Nuseirat refugee camp, as well as further south in the city of Khan Younis.

Jalal al-Shaer, among the dozens receiving flour at the Nuseirat warehouse, said the bag would last his family of 12 for only two or three days.

“The situation for us is very difficult,” said another man in line, Hammad Moawad. “There is no flour, there is no food, prices are high ... We eat bread crumbs.” He said his family hadn’t received a flour allotment in five or six months.

COGAT, the Israeli army body in charge of humanitarian affairs, said it facilitated entry of a shipment of 600 tons of flour on Sunday for the World Food Program. Still, the amount of aid Israel has allowed into Gaza since the beginning of October has been at nearly the lowest levels of the 15-month-old war.

UNRWA’s senior emergency officer Louise Wateridge told The Associated Press that the flour bags being distributed Tuesday were not enough.

“People are getting one bag of flour between an entire family and there is no certainty when they’ll receive the next food,” she said.

Wateridge added that UNRWA has been struggling like other humanitarian agencies to provide much needed supplies across the Gaza Strip. The agency this week announced it was stopping delivering aid entering through the main crossing from Israel, Kerem Shalom, because its convoys were being robbed by gangs. UNRWA has blamed Israel in large part for the spread of lawlessness in Gaza.

The International Criminal Court is seeking to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister over accusations of using “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid into Gaza. Israel rejects the allegations and says it has been working hard to improve entry of aid.