Syrian Opposition Captures Key City of Hama

An anti-government fighter fires a rocket against regime forces, in the northern outskirts of Syria's west-central city of Hama on December 4, 2024. (Photo by Bakr AL KASSEM / AFP)
An anti-government fighter fires a rocket against regime forces, in the northern outskirts of Syria's west-central city of Hama on December 4, 2024. (Photo by Bakr AL KASSEM / AFP)
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Syrian Opposition Captures Key City of Hama

An anti-government fighter fires a rocket against regime forces, in the northern outskirts of Syria's west-central city of Hama on December 4, 2024. (Photo by Bakr AL KASSEM / AFP)
An anti-government fighter fires a rocket against regime forces, in the northern outskirts of Syria's west-central city of Hama on December 4, 2024. (Photo by Bakr AL KASSEM / AFP)

Syrian opposition factions announced capturing the key city of Hama on Thursday, bringing the insurgents a major victory after a lightning advance across northern Syria and dealing a new blow to President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies.
The Syrian army said it was redeploying outside the city "to preserve civilians lives and prevent urban combat" after what it called intense clashes.
Opposition factions said they were preparing to keep marching south towards Homs, Syria's great crossroads city that links the capital Damascus to the north and coast.
"Your time has come," said an opposition operations room in an online post, calling on city residents to rise up in revolution.
Al Jazeera television broadcast what it said were images of opposition militants inside Hama, some of them greeting civilians near a roundabout while others drove in military vehicles and on mopeds.
The opposition took the main northern city of Aleppo last week and have since pushed south from their enclave in northwest Syria. Fighting has raged around villages outside Hama for two days. 
The fall of Hama, which was in government hands throughout the civil war triggered by a 2011 rebellion against Assad, will send shockwaves through Damascus and fears of a continued rebel march south.
Assad relied heavily on Russian and Iranian backing throughout the most intense years of the conflict, helping him to claw back most territory and the biggest cities before front lines froze in 2020.

The opposition insurgents have been battling to try to enter Hama since Tuesday and there was heavy fighting overnight with the Syrian army and allied Iran-backed militia groups supported by a Russian bombardment, both sides said.

Hama is also critical to the control of two major towns with big minority religious communities, Muhrada which is home to many Christians and Salamiya where there are many Ismaili Muslims.
The most powerful opposition faction is the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former al Qaeda affiliate in Syria. Its leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani has pledged to protect Syria's religious minorities but many remain fearful of the insurgents.
On Wednesday Golani visited Aleppo's historic citadel, a symbolic moment for the opposition who were driven out of the city in 2016 after months of siege and intense fighting, their biggest defeat of the war. Aleppo was Syria's biggest city before the war.
HTS and the other groups are trying to consolidate their rule in Aleppo, bringing it under the administration of the so-called Salvation Government they established in their northwestern enclave.
Aleppo residents have said there are shortages of bread and fuel, and that telecoms services have also been cut.
 



Israeli Soldier Sentenced to 7 Months in Jail for Abusing Palestinian Detainees

An Israeli soldier walks across an agricultural field at the entrance of the Tulkarem refugee camp in Tulkarem on February 5, 2025, as the army conducts a raid in the occupied West Bank city. (Photo by Zain JAAFAR / AFP)
An Israeli soldier walks across an agricultural field at the entrance of the Tulkarem refugee camp in Tulkarem on February 5, 2025, as the army conducts a raid in the occupied West Bank city. (Photo by Zain JAAFAR / AFP)
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Israeli Soldier Sentenced to 7 Months in Jail for Abusing Palestinian Detainees

An Israeli soldier walks across an agricultural field at the entrance of the Tulkarem refugee camp in Tulkarem on February 5, 2025, as the army conducts a raid in the occupied West Bank city. (Photo by Zain JAAFAR / AFP)
An Israeli soldier walks across an agricultural field at the entrance of the Tulkarem refugee camp in Tulkarem on February 5, 2025, as the army conducts a raid in the occupied West Bank city. (Photo by Zain JAAFAR / AFP)

An Israeli soldier who was found to have struck Palestinian detainees while they were restrained and blindfolded has been sentenced to seven months in jail by an Israeli military court.
The Israeli military on Thursday announced the court had accepted a plea agreement with the soldier, a reservist who it said admitted to having "severely abused" Palestinian detainees at the Sde Teiman military detention centre near the border with the Gaza Strip.
"The defendant was convicted of several incidents in which he struck detainees with his fists and his weapon while they were bound and blindfolded," the military said. It did not name the soldier or detail the charges he was convicted of, Reuters reported.
The military statement did not identify where the Palestinian detainees were from, why they had been detained or whether they had since been charged or convicted of crimes or released from detention.
In addition to seven months imprisonment, the court handed the soldier a suspended sentence and demoted him to the rank of private. The military said the soldier had served as a security guard at the detention center but did not say what rank he had held. Israeli media reported the soldier's jail sentence included time that he had already spent in detention.
The military court found that other masked soldiers had participated in the abuse but that their identities had not been determined, the military said, without saying how many.
The convicted soldier had beaten the detainees in front of other soldiers, some of whom had told him to stop, the military said, adding that a recording of the abuse had been found on the mobile phone of the convicted soldier.
The military has been investigating allegations that soldiers had abused Palestinians from Gaza held in military detention since the start of the war in October 2023. The military on Thursday did not say whether investigations were still ongoing or if any other soldiers had been charged.
In July last year, right-wing Israeli protesters broke into Sde Teiman detention facility and another Israeli military compound after investigators arrived to question soldiers about suspected abuse.