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Monitor Says Israel Hits Air Defense Bases in Syria 

Israeli missiles struck two air defense bases in southern Syria overnight, a war monitor said Tuesday. (Reuters file)
Israeli missiles struck two air defense bases in southern Syria overnight, a war monitor said Tuesday. (Reuters file)
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Monitor Says Israel Hits Air Defense Bases in Syria 

Israeli missiles struck two air defense bases in southern Syria overnight, a war monitor said Tuesday. (Reuters file)
Israeli missiles struck two air defense bases in southern Syria overnight, a war monitor said Tuesday. (Reuters file)

Israeli missiles struck two air defense bases in southern Syria overnight, a war monitor said Tuesday, as tensions surge on Israel's northern border after a deadly rocket strike on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights related to the opposition, reported no casualties in the overnight strikes in Daraa province, which abuts the armistice line separating Syrian and Israeli forces on the Golan.

Syria's state-run media did not report any strikes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed a "severe" response to Saturday's strike, which killed 12 youths in Majdal Shams, a Druze Arab town in the Golan.

Israel has accused Hezbollah of an attack on a football field in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Hezbollah has, however, denied any responsibility for the attack.

"The State of Israel will not, and cannot, let this pass. Our response will come and it will be severe," he said on a visit to the town of Majdal Shams on Monday.

He was greeted by protests during the visit, which came after mourners gathered in the town to bury the last victim, 11-year-old Guevara Ibrahim.

Lebanese caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said a flurry of diplomatic activity has sought to contain the anticipated Israeli response.

"Israel will escalate in a limited way and Hezbollah will respond in a limited way... These are the assurances we've received," Bou Habib said in an interview with Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed.

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Arab World

UN Warns Global Aid at Risk as Middle East War Spreads

A Sudanese refugee girl from al-Fashir rests next to a burnt tree in the middle of the Tine transit camp, amid the conflict between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army, in eastern Chad, November 23, 2025. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh/File Photo
A Sudanese refugee girl from al-Fashir rests next to a burnt tree in the middle of the Tine transit camp, amid the conflict between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army, in eastern Chad, November 23, 2025. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh/File Photo
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UN Warns Global Aid at Risk as Middle East War Spreads

A Sudanese refugee girl from al-Fashir rests next to a burnt tree in the middle of the Tine transit camp, amid the conflict between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army, in eastern Chad, November 23, 2025. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh/File Photo
A Sudanese refugee girl from al-Fashir rests next to a burnt tree in the middle of the Tine transit camp, amid the conflict between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese army, in eastern Chad, November 23, 2025. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh/File Photo

The United Nations aid chief warned on Wednesday that the conflict in the Middle East is straining humanitarian operations worldwide, disrupting supply chains and slowing the delivery of life-saving assistance to numerous crisis zones.

“We are in a moment of grave peril for the Middle East and, actually I believe, for the wider world,” Tom Fletcher, the UN aid chief, told Reuters.

The US-Israeli war with Iran, which has expanded to Lebanon and dragged in Gulf countries, has convulsed global markets and disrupted supply chains, with airspace closures and the halt of shipping through the critical Strait of Hormuz.

Fletcher said aid supplies to Gaza and sub-Saharan Africa are being affected by the conflict, as humanitarian relief that needs to travel through the Strait of Hormuz or through airspace in the Gulf has been largely blocked or constrained.

Conflict-ridden Somalia, which is facing a major drought, and Sudan are among a number of countries facing dire humanitarian crises.

"These (constraints) will damage our humanitarian supply chains, reduce the humanitarian supplies we can get to people who need them, but they'll also drive up energy costs and food costs across the region," Fletcher said.

"This really is a perfect storm of factors right now, and I'm seriously worried," he stated.

There is particular concern for aid supplies to sub-Saharan Africa, Flether said, which are being impacted by restricted movement through the Strait of Hormuz, with alternative routes slapped with rising freight costs.

Higher oil prices are making the UN's aid deliveries by air more expensive, at a time when UN agencies and NGOs budgets are already facing major donor cuts, Fletcher explained.

"We've just about put some money together to keep more of our UN humanitarian flights in the air, but they've suddenly, almost overnight, become much more expensive," Fletcher said.

Arab World

States Backing UN Peacekeepers in Lebanon Voice 'Deep Alarm' at Hostilities

Members of the UNIFIL peacekeeping force enter a bus at the site of an Israeli strike at the northern entrance of the southern city of Sidon, on November 7, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (Photo by Mahmoud ZAYAT / AFP)
Members of the UNIFIL peacekeeping force enter a bus at the site of an Israeli strike at the northern entrance of the southern city of Sidon, on November 7, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (Photo by Mahmoud ZAYAT / AFP)
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States Backing UN Peacekeepers in Lebanon Voice 'Deep Alarm' at Hostilities

Members of the UNIFIL peacekeeping force enter a bus at the site of an Israeli strike at the northern entrance of the southern city of Sidon, on November 7, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (Photo by Mahmoud ZAYAT / AFP)
Members of the UNIFIL peacekeeping force enter a bus at the site of an Israeli strike at the northern entrance of the southern city of Sidon, on November 7, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (Photo by Mahmoud ZAYAT / AFP)

Around 30 countries, including those with United Nations peacekeepers in Lebanon, voiced concern Wednesday over renewed fighting after Israel launched strikes in retaliation for attacks by Hezbollah.

"We troop contributing countries to the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, joined by several other member states, express our deep alarm at the escalation of hostilities in Lebanon," Jerome Bonnafont, the French ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters in New York, Reuters reported.

"Faced with war, Lebanon must be supported. Its sovereignty and territorial integrity must be preserved. We express our full solidarity with Lebanon and the Lebanese people," he added in the joint statement.

Bonnafont said the countries he represented, including France, Britain, Germany, India and Korea, "condemn in the strongest terms" Hezbollah's attacks.

He spoke as the Security Council was to meet at the UN headquarters to discuss the uptick in fighting in Lebanon, which has left 570 people dead, according to the country's health ministry.

Israel's UN envoy Danny Danon said Wednesday that Israeli forces will continue to operate in Lebanon "as long (as) there will be a threat against us."

"Israel does not want to be operating, but Israel will not accept rockets fired at our people, and we will do whatever is necessary to stop them," Danon told reporters.

Arab World

Shrapnel from Bombing Kills Woman in Iraq

Members of Kataeb Hezbollah attend the funeral in Baghdad of comrades killed in a strike on the Syrian border (file photo – Reuters)
Members of Kataeb Hezbollah attend the funeral in Baghdad of comrades killed in a strike on the Syrian border (file photo – Reuters)
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Shrapnel from Bombing Kills Woman in Iraq

Members of Kataeb Hezbollah attend the funeral in Baghdad of comrades killed in a strike on the Syrian border (file photo – Reuters)
Members of Kataeb Hezbollah attend the funeral in Baghdad of comrades killed in a strike on the Syrian border (file photo – Reuters)

Shrapnel killed a woman following a strike on an arms depot belonging to an Iran-backed armed group in Iraq, health and security officials told AFP.

A security source said "a bombing targeted an arms depot at a military base", which mainly hosts the powerful Asaib Ahl al-Haq group, near the town of Al-Suwaira, southeast of Baghdad.

He added that "a woman was martyred when shrapnel from a rocket fell near her after the strike" in the town in Wasit province.

A local health official confirmed her death and said another person was seriously wounded.

The military base belongs to the Hashed al-Shaabi, or the Popular Mobilization Forces, a former paramilitary coalition now integrated into Iraq's regular army.

It also encompasses brigades from Iran-backed groups, including the US-blacklisted Asaib Ahl al-Haq.

Since the start of the Middle East war, bases belonging to the Hashed al-Shaabi have been hit several times by strikes blamed on the US and Israel.

At least 20 fighters have been killed so far, according to an AFP tally based on figures from the armed groups.