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Israeli Airstrike Kills Two People in Damascus, Says Syrian TV

Workers and people stand near a damaged building after, according to Syrian state media reports, several Israeli missiles hit a residential building in the Kafr Sousa district, Damascus, Syria February 21, 2024. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
Workers and people stand near a damaged building after, according to Syrian state media reports, several Israeli missiles hit a residential building in the Kafr Sousa district, Damascus, Syria February 21, 2024. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
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Israeli Airstrike Kills Two People in Damascus, Says Syrian TV

Workers and people stand near a damaged building after, according to Syrian state media reports, several Israeli missiles hit a residential building in the Kafr Sousa district, Damascus, Syria February 21, 2024. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
Workers and people stand near a damaged building after, according to Syrian state media reports, several Israeli missiles hit a residential building in the Kafr Sousa district, Damascus, Syria February 21, 2024. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi

An Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in the Kafr Sousa district in Syria's capital Damascus on Wednesday, killing two people, Syrian state media and a security source said.

A military source cited by Syrian state TV said the strike at about 9:40 a.m. (0640 GMT) wounded a number of other people, identifying the dead as civilians.

Images published by Syrian state media showed the charred side of a multi-storey building. The security source said the "attack did not achieve its aims".

The neighborhood hosts residential buildings, schools and Iranian cultural centers, and lies near a large, heavily-guarded complex used by security agencies. The district was struck in an Israeli attack in February 2023 that killed Iranian military experts.

Witnesses heard several back-to-back explosions. The blasts scared children at a nearby school and ambulances rushed to the area, the witnesses told Reuters.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Iran's semi-official Student News Network said no Iranian citizens were killed in the strike.

On Wednesday afternoon, a Reuters witness heard another large blast in the capital that shook the windows of homes. Local Syrian outlet Sham FM said several explosions were heard in the capital without specifying the cause.

Iran has been a major backer of President Bashar al-Assad during Syria's nearly 12-year-old conflict. Its support for Damascus and the Lebanese group Hezbollah has drawn regular Israeli air strikes meant to curb Tehran's extraterritorial military power.

Those strikes have ramped up in line with flaring regional tensions since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, with more than half a dozen Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers killed in suspected Israeli strikes on Syria since December.

As a result, the Guards have scaled back deployment of their senior officers in Syria and have planned to rely more on allied Shiite militia to preserve their sway there, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters earlier this month.

Iran, a backer of Hamas, has sought to stay out of the conflict itself even as it supports groups that have entered the fray from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria - the so-called "Axis of Resistance" that is hostile to Israeli and US interests. 

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Arab World

Israel Threatens ‘Increasing Price’ for Lebanon as UN Urges Ceasefire

Israeli soldiers work on the belts for their tanks at a staging area in the Upper Galilee in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon on March 13, 2026. (AFP)
Israeli soldiers work on the belts for their tanks at a staging area in the Upper Galilee in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon on March 13, 2026. (AFP)
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Israel Threatens ‘Increasing Price’ for Lebanon as UN Urges Ceasefire

Israeli soldiers work on the belts for their tanks at a staging area in the Upper Galilee in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon on March 13, 2026. (AFP)
Israeli soldiers work on the belts for their tanks at a staging area in the Upper Galilee in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon on March 13, 2026. (AFP)

The Israeli defense minister vowed on Friday that Lebanon would pay an "increasing price" in damage to infrastructure in the war with Hezbollah, while the UN urged Israel and Hezbollah to agree to a ceasefire.

Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war last week when the Tehran-backed militant group attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes.

Israel on Friday destroyed a bridge over the Litani River between the towns of Zrariyeh and Tayr Falsay, according to state media. The river bisects southern Lebanon, from east to west.

In a statement, the Israeli army described the bridge as a "key crossing" for Hezbollah "from northern to southern Lebanon, to build up its power and prepare for combat".

The attack was the first on Lebanese public infrastructure to be acknowledged by Israel since the start of the Middle East war.

"This is just the beginning and the Lebanese government and the state of Lebanon will pay an increasing price in damage to Lebanese national infrastructure used by Hezbollah terrorists," the Israeli defense minister said on Friday.

He said Lebanon would suffer "loss of territory -- until it fulfills its central commitment of disarming Hezbollah".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he told the Lebanese government that "you are playing with fire if you continue allowing Hezbollah to operate, in violation of your commitment to disarm it".

Warning leaflets are dropped by the Israeli military over Beirut, Lebanon, 13 March 2026. (EPA)

- 'Stop the war' -

UN chief Antonio Guterres called on Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah to "stop the war" at the start of a visit to Beirut on Friday, as Israel expanded its strikes across the country.

"My strong appeal to those parties, to Hezbollah and to Israel, is for a ceasefire to stop the war," Guterres said.

Guterres launched a $325 million humanitarian appeal to support Lebanon as it responds to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people by the war.

Israeli strikes continued on Friday, including an attack that killed eight people in the south Lebanese village of Mieh w Mieh near the port city of Sidon, according to the health ministry.

In the nearby village of Irkey, Mohammad Taqi buried his four daughters, aged six to 13, who were killed in an Israeli strike on Thursday along with five relatives.

"The Israeli enemy says every day that it is targeting infrastructure," he told AFP at the funeral, his head wrapped in a white bandage and his face covered in wounds.

"Is this the infrastructure? Have you seen it?" he asked, gesturing to his daughters' bodies.

"I've lost four daughters. I don't have any others. Zainab, Zahra, Malika and Yasmina," he said, adding that he had also lost his parents, brother, nephew and brother-in-law in the same strike.

This handout picture released by the Lebanese Government Press Office on March 13, 2026, shows Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam (R) receiving United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres at the government palace in Beirut. (Lebanese Government Press Office / AFP)

- Propaganda leaflets -

Hezbollah also launched attacks against Israeli forces on Friday, as part of what it said was a Quds Day operation.

Quds Day is an annual demonstration in support of the Palestinian cause in Iran, on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.

Overnight Thursday into Friday, the Israeli army carried out new air raids, targeting an apartment near Bourj Hammoud in Beirut's northern suburbs, an area that had remained untouched by the war.

An AFP photographer saw an upper floor of the building with its facade shattered and walls blackened by the strike.

In the eastern town of Bar Elias, an air strike targeted a local official from the Jamaa Islamiya group, killing his two sons, state media said.

Israel's army also renewed its evacuation warnings, including for Beirut's southern suburbs.

On Thursday, it had issued a similar order to residents across a large area about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the Litani River.

The order enlarges the zone in southern Lebanon in which residents have been told to leave to cover more than 40 kilometers from the Lebanon-Israel border.

Israeli planes dropped propaganda leaflets over Beirut on Friday, causing loud booms.

One of the leaflets, addressed to the Lebanese people, said: "You must disarm Hezbollah, Iran's shield" and "Lebanon is your decision, not someone else's".

Arab World

Israeli Evacuation Orders Affect 14% of Lebanon, NGO Says

Emergency personnel at the scene after an Israeli airstrike had targeted a neighborhood in the town of Mieh Mieh near Sidon, southern Lebanon, 13 March 2026. (EPA)
Emergency personnel at the scene after an Israeli airstrike had targeted a neighborhood in the town of Mieh Mieh near Sidon, southern Lebanon, 13 March 2026. (EPA)
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Israeli Evacuation Orders Affect 14% of Lebanon, NGO Says

Emergency personnel at the scene after an Israeli airstrike had targeted a neighborhood in the town of Mieh Mieh near Sidon, southern Lebanon, 13 March 2026. (EPA)
Emergency personnel at the scene after an Israeli airstrike had targeted a neighborhood in the town of Mieh Mieh near Sidon, southern Lebanon, 13 March 2026. (EPA)

Over an eighth of Lebanon's territory is under Israeli orders for people to leave their homes, an aid group said on Friday, while the United Nations peacekeeping mission said Israeli ground troops were making incursions and erecting roadblocks.

Israel has been carrying out daily strikes on Lebanon since March 2 when the Iran-backed group Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader in Tehran on the first ‌day of ‌the US-Israeli war with Iran.

Almost 700 people ‌in ⁠Lebanon have died ⁠in Israeli attacks and over 800,000 have been displaced. Israel's military says it has targeted Hezbollah militants and Iranian forces.

The Norwegian Refugee Council said Israel's evacuation orders for southern Lebanon and parts of Beirut now covered about 1,470 square kilometers or about 14% of the country.

"Israel’s mass evacuation orders have expanded to broad geographic directives, often ⁠demanding immediate movement, creating panic and fear across communities ‌that strikes are imminent – even when ‌they are not," said Maureen Philippon, NRC Country Director in Lebanon.

UN human rights ‌chief Volker Turk has said the blanket Israeli evacuation orders ‌raise serious international law concerns.

NRC's office in Tyre, south Lebanon, was badly damaged, it said, with no injuries. The Israeli military has carried out several strikes on Tyre since March 2, including a Tuesday strike on what ‌it described as a Hezbollah command center in the area.

The International Organization for Migration's Mathieu Luciano told a ⁠Geneva press ⁠briefing that around 600 shelters had been set up across the country, with many of them almost full. Hospitals are increasingly overstretched due to surging trauma cases, a World Health Organization official added.

The UN Interim Force in Lebanon told the same briefing its operations had been limited by the ongoing hostilities which injured two soldiers a week ago. Still, its troops had observed Israeli troop incursions, saying they had travelled up to 7 kilometers inside Lebanon and erected roadblocks restricting access.

“We are deeply concerned that the situation will deteriorate further," UNIFIL spokesperson Kandice Ardiel said by video link from Lebanon.

Arab World

4 US Service Members Killed in Plane Crash Over Iraq

(FILES) A US Air Force Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker aerial-refuelling aircraft flies over Tel Aviv on March 4, 2026. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP)
(FILES) A US Air Force Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker aerial-refuelling aircraft flies over Tel Aviv on March 4, 2026. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP)
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4 US Service Members Killed in Plane Crash Over Iraq

(FILES) A US Air Force Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker aerial-refuelling aircraft flies over Tel Aviv on March 4, 2026. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP)
(FILES) A US Air Force Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker aerial-refuelling aircraft flies over Tel Aviv on March 4, 2026. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP)

Four of the six crew members aboard a US military aircraft that crashed in western Iraq are confirmed to have been killed, the US military said on Friday, ⁠as rescue efforts ⁠continued for the remaining two.

A US military refueling aircraft crashed in western ⁠Iraq on Thursday, in an incident the military said involved another aircraft but was not the result of hostile or friendly fire.

"The circumstances of the incident are ⁠under ⁠investigation. However, the loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire," a statement from US Central Command said.

The plane was taking part in the operation against Iran.

Both President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have warned that the Iran war would likely claim more American lives before it ends.