Syria’s Sharaa Says New Authorities Can't Satisfy Everyone

Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa delivers a speech in Damascus on March 29, 2025. (Photo by OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa delivers a speech in Damascus on March 29, 2025. (Photo by OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
TT
20

Syria’s Sharaa Says New Authorities Can't Satisfy Everyone

Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa delivers a speech in Damascus on March 29, 2025. (Photo by OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa delivers a speech in Damascus on March 29, 2025. (Photo by OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)

Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa said Monday a new transitional government would aim for consensus in rebuilding the war-torn country but acknowledged it would be unable to satisfy everyone.

The transitional 23-member cabinet -- without a prime minister -- was announced Saturday, more than three months after Sharaa's Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) led an offensive that toppled longtime president Bashar al-Assad.

The autonomous Kurdish-led administration in northeast Syria has rejected the government's legitimacy, saying it "does not reflect the country's diversity".

Sharaa said the new government's goal was rebuilding the country but warned that "will not be able to satisfy everyone".

"Any steps we take will not reach consensus -- this is normal -- but we must reach a consensus" as much as possible, he told a gathering at the presidential palace broadcast on Syrian television after prayers for the Eid al-Fitr Muslim holiday.

Authorities are seeking to reunite and rebuild the country and its institutions after nearly 14 years of civil war.

Sharaa said the ministers were chosen for their competence and expertise, "without particular ideological or political orientations".



Israeli Fire Kills at Least 44 People in Gaza, Hits Police Station

A Palestinian man throws water on a fire, as he inspects the damage at a school sheltering displaced people, following an Israeli strike, in Gaza City, April 23, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
A Palestinian man throws water on a fire, as he inspects the damage at a school sheltering displaced people, following an Israeli strike, in Gaza City, April 23, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
TT
20

Israeli Fire Kills at Least 44 People in Gaza, Hits Police Station

A Palestinian man throws water on a fire, as he inspects the damage at a school sheltering displaced people, following an Israeli strike, in Gaza City, April 23, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
A Palestinian man throws water on a fire, as he inspects the damage at a school sheltering displaced people, following an Israeli strike, in Gaza City, April 23, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

An Israeli airstrike hit a police station in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least 10 people, local health authorities said, and Israel's military said it had struck a command center of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad groups.
Medics said two Israeli missiles hit the police station, located near a market, which led to the wounding of dozens of people in addition to the 10 deaths. The identities of those killed were not immediately clear.
The Israeli military said in a statement apparently referring to the same incident, that it attacked a command and control center operated by Hamas and the allied Islamic Jihad groups in Jabalia, which militants used to plan and execute attacks against Israeli forces.
It accused Palestinian militant groups of exploiting civilians and civil properties for military purposes, an allegation Hamas and other factions deny.
Local health authorities said Israeli strikes have killed at least 34 other people in separate airstrikes across the enclave, bringing Thursday's death toll to 44, Reuters reported.
The Gaza Health Ministry said the Durra Children's Hospital in Gaza City had become non-operational, a day after an Israeli strike hit the upper part of the building, damaging the intensive care unit and destroying the facility's solar power panel system.
No one was killed. There was no Israeli comment on the incident.
Gaza's health system has been devastated by Israel's 18-month-old military campaign, launched in response to the October 7 attack by Hamas in 2023, putting many of the territory's hospitals out of action, killing medics, and reducing crucial supplies.
Since a January ceasefire collapsed on March 18, Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,900 Palestinians, many of them civilians, according to the Gaza health authorities, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced as Israel seized what it calls a buffer zone of Gaza's land.