At Least 19 Killed in Car Bomb Explosion in Northern Syria

A teenager plays with a punching machine in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli, that is controlled by the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
A teenager plays with a punching machine in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli, that is controlled by the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
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At Least 19 Killed in Car Bomb Explosion in Northern Syria

A teenager plays with a punching machine in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli, that is controlled by the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
A teenager plays with a punching machine in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli, that is controlled by the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

A car bomb exploded on the outskirts of a northern Syrian city on Monday, killing at least 19 people, all but one of them women, and leaving more than a dozen wounded, hospital workers said.
The car detonated next to a vehicle carrying mostly female agricultural workers on the outskirts of the city of Manbij.
The dead included 18 women and one man, a nurse at the hospital, Mohammad Ahmad, told The Associated Press. Another 15 women were wounded, some of them in critical condition, according to the local Syrian civil defense.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the explosion.
It was the seventh car bomb explosion in Manbij in just over a month, said Munir Mustafa, the deputy director of civil defense.
Manbij in northeastern Aleppo province continues to witness violence even after the downfall of President Bashar Assad in December.
Turkish-backed factions, known as the Syrian National Army, have clashed with the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The factions took the city from the SDF in early December during a lightning insurgency that toppled President Bashar Assad.
A car bombing in Manbij on Saturday killed four civilians and wounded nine, state news agency SANA reported, citing civil defense officials.



UN Agency Says Israel Shuts 4 Schools in East Jerusalem

A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
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UN Agency Says Israel Shuts 4 Schools in East Jerusalem

A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
A boy stands outside the gate of the Kalandia vocational training center (KTC), run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which was raided by Israeli forces earlier at the Qalandiya camp for Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank on February 18, 2025. (AFP)

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees says Israeli forces raided four of its schools in east Jerusalem, ordering their closure.

Israel has severed all ties with the agency, known as UNRWA, and bars it from operating in its territory. It says the agency allowed itself to be infiltrated by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, allegations denied by UN officials.

UNRWA said police entered a training center by force on Tuesday, firing tear gas and sound grenades and ordering its evacuation. It said 350 students and 30 staff were present during the raid on the Qalandiya Training Center.

It said police and city officials ordered the closure of three other schools in east Jerusalem, two of which proceeded with the school day.

Israeli police spokesman Dean Elsdunne said police did not enter the UN buildings and that Jerusalem municipal authorities carried out the closures. He said police were deployed to protect the city workers, using “riot dispersal” means in one case where a crowd threw stones at them outside a UN facility.

Roland Friedrich, UNRWA director for the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem, said the raids were an “unacceptable violation of United Nations privileges and immunities,” and a “denial of the right to education for children and trainees.”