Monitor: Syrian Regime Captures Strategic Town in Idlib

Rescuers search for survivors after a Syrian regime air strike on Kfar Ruma town in Idlib province on May 30, 2019. via AFP
Rescuers search for survivors after a Syrian regime air strike on Kfar Ruma town in Idlib province on May 30, 2019. via AFP
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Monitor: Syrian Regime Captures Strategic Town in Idlib

Rescuers search for survivors after a Syrian regime air strike on Kfar Ruma town in Idlib province on May 30, 2019. via AFP
Rescuers search for survivors after a Syrian regime air strike on Kfar Ruma town in Idlib province on May 30, 2019. via AFP

Syrian regime forces captured on Sunday a northwestern village from militants after clashes that left more than a dozen killed on both sides, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Syrian troops captured Msheirfeh after clashes with insurgents that left some of them killed or wounded, state news agency SANA reported.

The Britain-based monitor said the village was taken by regime forces in fighting that left six troops and nine insurgents dead.

The Syrian regime launched a four-month offensive earlier this year against the country’s last opposition stronghold in Idlib Province, according to the Associated Press (AP).

The offensive forced hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee their homes.

A fragile ceasefire halted the advance at the end of August, but in recent weeks it has been repeatedly violated.

In eastern Syria, a mine left behind since the days of ISIS in the village of Taybeh killed a child and wounded 17 others in a school field, according to SANA.

The Observatory said the blast in the village in Deir el-Zour Province killed five children and wounded others.

Mines left behind by the extremist group have killed or maimed scores of people over the past months.

ISIS lost the last area it controlled in Syria in March marking the end of its self-declared caliphate, AP reported.



Israeli Forces to Demolish More than 100 Homes in Israeli-Occupied West Bank, Local Governor Says

Palestinians carry their belongings as they cross a damaged street after being ordered to leave their homes during an Israeli operation in the Tulkarem camp for refugees in the northwest of the occupied West Bank on May 2, 2025. (AFP)
Palestinians carry their belongings as they cross a damaged street after being ordered to leave their homes during an Israeli operation in the Tulkarem camp for refugees in the northwest of the occupied West Bank on May 2, 2025. (AFP)
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Israeli Forces to Demolish More than 100 Homes in Israeli-Occupied West Bank, Local Governor Says

Palestinians carry their belongings as they cross a damaged street after being ordered to leave their homes during an Israeli operation in the Tulkarem camp for refugees in the northwest of the occupied West Bank on May 2, 2025. (AFP)
Palestinians carry their belongings as they cross a damaged street after being ordered to leave their homes during an Israeli operation in the Tulkarem camp for refugees in the northwest of the occupied West Bank on May 2, 2025. (AFP)

Israeli forces were preparing on Friday to carry out home demolitions across two northern urban refugee camps in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to the governor of one of the camps and Israeli military documents shared with The Associated Press by the United Nations.

Abdallah Kamil, the governor of Tulkarem, wrote on Facebook on Thursday that the military was preparing to demolish 116 homes across Tulkarem and Nur Shams refugee camps, two main targets of Israel´s raid into the northern West Bank.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Two demolition orders indicated that the buildings would be demolished in 24 hours, according to military documents shared by a UN official on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The news sent residents of the now evacuated Nur Shams and Tulkarem camps scrambling back to collect belongings before the destruction of their homes.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said there were reports of Israeli forces arresting and firing warning shots at Palestinians as they did so.

The Israeli military has been carrying out an operation in the West Bank over the past several months that displaced, at its height, approximately 40,000 Palestinians. It had emptied and largely destroyed several urban refugee camps in the northern West Bank, like Tulkarem and Nur Shams, that housed the descendants of Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes in previous wars. That’s the largest displacement in the West Bank since Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Mideast war.

Israel has said that troops will stay in some camps for a year.