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Head of Syrian Opposition Warns Israel about Airstrikes but Doesn’t Seek Conflict

Ahmad al-Sharaa speaks at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus Sunday Dec. 8, 2024. (AP)
Ahmad al-Sharaa speaks at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus Sunday Dec. 8, 2024. (AP)
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Head of Syrian Opposition Warns Israel about Airstrikes but Doesn’t Seek Conflict

Ahmad al-Sharaa speaks at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus Sunday Dec. 8, 2024. (AP)
Ahmad al-Sharaa speaks at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus Sunday Dec. 8, 2024. (AP)

The head of the Syrian opposition group that led the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad's government said they are not about to enter a conflict with Israel.

But Ahmad al-Sharaa in his first public comments on Israel in the week since Assad's fall said “the pretexts that Israel uses have ended” for its airstrikes inside Syria in recent days.

Al-Sharaa said “the Israelis have crossed the rules of engagement” in his interview with Syrian TV on Saturday. About 400 Israeli airstrikes in the past days have destroyed much of the Syrian army's assets.

Al-Sharaa leads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS.

The excerpts released from his interview did not address contact with the United States, which on Saturday said had been in direct communication with HTS, which it designated a foreign terrorist organization years ago.

The HTS leader did say the new authorities in Damascus are in contact with Western embassies, and that authorities have a plan to start reconstruction and development in Syria. He did not give details.

He added that the authorities have given Russia — a key backer of Assad — an opportunity to reconsider relations with the Syrian people, and that authorities are not hostile to the people of Iran, another Assad backer.

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Oxfam: Only 12 Trucks Delivered Food, Water in North Gaza Governorate since October

Israel's government has faced accusations that it systematically hinders aid reaching Gaza. Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP/File
Israel's government has faced accusations that it systematically hinders aid reaching Gaza. Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP/File
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Oxfam: Only 12 Trucks Delivered Food, Water in North Gaza Governorate since October

Israel's government has faced accusations that it systematically hinders aid reaching Gaza. Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP/File
Israel's government has faced accusations that it systematically hinders aid reaching Gaza. Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP/File

Just 12 trucks distributed food and water in northern Gaza in two-and-a-half months, aid group Oxfam said on Sunday, raising the alarm over the worsening humanitarian situation in the besieged territory.
"Of the meager 34 trucks of food and water given permission to enter the North Gaza Governorate over the last 2.5 months, deliberate delays and systematic obstructions by the Israeli military meant that just twelve managed to distribute aid to starving Palestinian civilians," Oxfam said in a statement, in a count that included deliveries through Saturday.
"For three of these, once the food and water had been delivered to the school where people were sheltering, it was then cleared and shelled within hours," Oxfam added.
Israel, which has tightly controlled aid entering the Hamas-ruled territory since the outbreak of the war, often blames what it says is the inability of relief organizations to handle and distribute large quantities of aid, AFP said.
In a report focused on water, New York-based Human Rights Watch on Thursday detailed what it called deliberate efforts by Israeli authorities "of a systematic nature" to deprive Gazans of water, which had "likely caused thousands of deaths... and will likely continue to cause deaths."
They were the latest in a series of accusations leveled against Israel -- and denied by the country -- during its 14-month war against Palestinian Hamas group.
The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that claimed the lives of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
'Access blocked'
Since then, Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 45,000 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
Oxfam said that it and other international aid groups have been "continually prevented from delivering life-saving aid" in northern Gaza since October 6 this year, when Israel intensified its bombardment of the territory.
"Thousands of people are estimated to still be cut off, but with humanitarian access blocked it's impossible to know exact numbers," Oxfam said.
"At the beginning of December, humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza were receiving calls from vulnerable people trapped in homes and shelters that had completely run out of food and water."
Oxfam highlighted one instance of an aid delivery in November being disrupted by Israeli authorities.
"A convoy of 11 trucks last month was initially held up at the holding point by the Israeli military at Jabalia, where some food was taken by starving civilians," it said.
"After the green light to proceed to the destination was received, the trucks were then stopped further on at a military checkpoint. Soldiers forced the drivers to offload the aid in a militarized zone, which desperate civilians had no access to."
The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution on Thursday asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to assess Israel's obligations to assist Palestinians.