Clashes Expected to Return to De-Escalation Zones in Idlib

FILE PHOTO: A man watches as smoke rises after what activists said was an airstrike on Atimah, Idlib province March 8, 2015. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A man watches as smoke rises after what activists said was an airstrike on Atimah, Idlib province March 8, 2015. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah/File Photo
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Clashes Expected to Return to De-Escalation Zones in Idlib

FILE PHOTO: A man watches as smoke rises after what activists said was an airstrike on Atimah, Idlib province March 8, 2015. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A man watches as smoke rises after what activists said was an airstrike on Atimah, Idlib province March 8, 2015. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah/File Photo

Recent military developments in southern Idlib suggest that clashes will renew between Syria’s regime forces backed by Iranian proxy militias and Syrian opposition factions.

This comes as the Syrian regime continues to send reinforcements to the area.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on regime forces dispatching new military reinforcements to their positions in Idlib’s rural areas. Buses carrying soldiers had arrived to Jabal al-Zawiya area in southern Idlib after they were relocated from the Hama countryside.

The spokesperson of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) military wing, Abu Khaled al-Shami, in an interview with the HTS-linked news agency, has expected that the Syrian regime forces, supported by Russia, would begin military action at Jabal al-Zawiya soon.

He added that the HTS is watching Jabal al-Zawiya, amid the mobilization of the regime forces and Russia on the outskirts of Jabal al-Arbaeen, Saraqib and the Kabana fronts in the northern countryside of Lattakia.

Activists in Idlib said they documented over 50 ceasefire violations last week committed by regime forces and Iranian militias. These violations, according to the activists, targeted inhabited neighborhoods and included rocket shelling of areas in southern Idlib.

The shelling, according to activists, has resulted in the displacement of over 1,000 families who were forced to flee to near-border camps and safer areas in northern Idlib.



Major Media Say Their Journalists in Gaza Are ‘Increasingly Unable to Feed Themselves’ 

People make their way along al-Rashid street in western Jabalia on July 23, 2025, after receiving humanitarian aid from an aid distribution point in the northern Gaza Strip. (AFP)
People make their way along al-Rashid street in western Jabalia on July 23, 2025, after receiving humanitarian aid from an aid distribution point in the northern Gaza Strip. (AFP)
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Major Media Say Their Journalists in Gaza Are ‘Increasingly Unable to Feed Themselves’ 

People make their way along al-Rashid street in western Jabalia on July 23, 2025, after receiving humanitarian aid from an aid distribution point in the northern Gaza Strip. (AFP)
People make their way along al-Rashid street in western Jabalia on July 23, 2025, after receiving humanitarian aid from an aid distribution point in the northern Gaza Strip. (AFP)

Four leading news organizations said Thursday their journalists in Gaza are facing the threat of starvation as the Israel-Hamas war grinds on.

“We are desperately concerned for our journalists in Gaza, who are increasingly unable to feed themselves and their families,” said a joint statement by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Reuters and the BBC.

“For many months, these independent journalists have been the world’s eyes and ears on the ground in Gaza. They are now facing the same dire circumstances as those they are covering.”

The statement called on Israel to allow journalists in and out of Gaza and allow adequate food supplies into the territory.

Israel has barred international media from entering Gaza independently throughout the 21-month war.