ISIS Attacks Syrian Regime Forces in Tabaqa 

People protest in Qamishli in November against Turkish attacks on Syria. (EPA) 
People protest in Qamishli in November against Turkish attacks on Syria. (EPA) 
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ISIS Attacks Syrian Regime Forces in Tabaqa 

People protest in Qamishli in November against Turkish attacks on Syria. (EPA) 
People protest in Qamishli in November against Turkish attacks on Syria. (EPA) 

A member of the Syrian regime forces was killed and at least four others wounded in an ISIS attack in the Juaydeen area in al-Tabaqa in western Raqqa. 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ISIS took advantage of the foggy conditions to launch a new attack against government forces. 

On January 5, the rights monitor said members of the National Defense Force were wounded in a landmine explosion near the al-Rasafa region in the southwestern Raqqa desert. One of the injured had to have his leg amputated. 

The explosion happened as the forces were combing the Syrian desert Badia. The area has been witnessing a spike in ISIS attacks. 

Meanwhile, the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced on Friday the arrest of over a hundred “terrorists” in an eight-day operation against ISIS. 

Operation Al-Jazeera Thunderbolt was launched last week in wake of a failed ISIS attack to liberate members held in a Raqqa jail. 

Kurdish fighters are seeking to consolidate their role as a partner to western countries in their campaign against ISIS while Türkiye continues to threaten to launch a new operation against Kurdish regions in northern Syria, reported AFP. 

In a statement, the SDF said it arrested 154 wanted suspects during raids and combing operations. It revealed that 102 of the detainees were ISIS members and 27 were suspected of having provided logistic support to the group. 

The SDF combed 55 villages and farms in eastern regions by the border with Iraq. 

The operation was carried out in cooperation with the US-led anti-ISIS international coalition, which did not immediately confirm it. 

The SDF said the operation aborted attacks against the predominantly Kurdish cities of Hasaka and Qamishli cities that were planned for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. 



Israeli Soldiers Open Fire inside a West Bank Hospital While Searching for Fighters’ Bodies

 Israeli troops enter the complex of the Turkish hospital, where they searched for the bodies of those killed in an airstrike, Israel said was targeting fighters, in the West Bank city of Tubas, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024. (AP)
Israeli troops enter the complex of the Turkish hospital, where they searched for the bodies of those killed in an airstrike, Israel said was targeting fighters, in the West Bank city of Tubas, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024. (AP)
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Israeli Soldiers Open Fire inside a West Bank Hospital While Searching for Fighters’ Bodies

 Israeli troops enter the complex of the Turkish hospital, where they searched for the bodies of those killed in an airstrike, Israel said was targeting fighters, in the West Bank city of Tubas, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024. (AP)
Israeli troops enter the complex of the Turkish hospital, where they searched for the bodies of those killed in an airstrike, Israel said was targeting fighters, in the West Bank city of Tubas, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024. (AP)

Israeli soldiers opened fire inside a hospital in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday during a raid to seize the bodies of alleged fighters targeted in earlier airstrikes, a Palestinian doctor working at the hospital told The Associated Press.

Soldiers entered the Turkish Hospital complex in Tubas after the bodies of two Palestinians killed and one wounded in airstrikes in the northern West Bank on Tuesday were brought there, said Dr. Mahmoud Ghanam, who works in the hospital’s emergency department. The troops briefly handcuffed and arrested Ghanam and another doctor.

“The army entered in a brutal way, and they were shooting inside the emergency department,” said Ghanam. “They handcuffed us and took me and my colleague.”

The military confirmed that its troops were operating around the hospital searching for those targeted in the airstrikes, which they said had hit a militant cell near the Palestinian town of Al-Aqaba in the Jordan Valley. It denied that troops had entered the hospital building or fired gunshots inside.

The soldiers left after learning that the wounded man had been transferred to another hospital, Ghanam said. The soldiers wanted to take the bodies of the two men killed in the strike, but the hospital’s manager refused to hand over the bodies, Ghanam said.

Israeli raids on hospitals in the West Bank are rare but have grown more common since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. In Gaza, Israeli troops have systematically besieged, raided and damaged many hospitals.

About 800 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza ignited the war there. Israel has carried out near-daily military raids in the West Bank that it says are aimed at preventing attacks on Israelis — attacks which have also been on the rise.

Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek all three territories for an independent state.