Iranian Rocket Shipment Enters Syria through Iraq

Iraqi militants who are loyal to Iran are seen in Deir Ezzor. (Syrian Observatory for Human Rights)
Iraqi militants who are loyal to Iran are seen in Deir Ezzor. (Syrian Observatory for Human Rights)
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Iranian Rocket Shipment Enters Syria through Iraq

Iraqi militants who are loyal to Iran are seen in Deir Ezzor. (Syrian Observatory for Human Rights)
Iraqi militants who are loyal to Iran are seen in Deir Ezzor. (Syrian Observatory for Human Rights)

A new arms shipment of rockets has been delivered to pro-Iran militias in Syria, said sources in the region west of the Euphrates River.

The shipment consisted of short and medium range rockets. It arrived in the Deir Ezzor countryside from an illegal border crossing with Iraq on Monday morning.

Three military vehicles, belonging to Iranian militias, and a car, belonging to the Fourth Armored Division, accompanied the shipment after it entered Syrian territories.

Sources from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two trucks were unloaded at warehouses belonging to the Afghan Fatemiyoun Division militia in the western Deir Ezzor countryside.

The two other trucks made their way to the eastern countryside of the Raqqa province.

Local sources in Deir Ezzor said the regime’s security agencies were closely monitoring the activity of Iranian militias in the Alboukamal and al-Mayadeen regions. They were closely studying the new local recruits to the groups and locals who are collaborating with them.

Some two weeks ago, Syrian security forces arrested a resident of the town of al-Herri that is located on the Syrian-Iraqi border. He was detained in Damascus on charges of helping carry out attacks against Iranian militias in Alboukamal.

The detainee is among the most prominent collaborators with Iranian militias and is close to the regime. He is known for his smuggling operations across the border and his relations with armed factions that control eastern parts of Syria. He had also cooperated with ISIS before Iranian militias swept in their place.

Iranian militias are deployed in the Deir Ezzor countryside west of the Euphrates. The Kurdish-Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are deployed east of the river. The Iranian militias boast some 15,000 fighters from different nationalities.



Women and Children Scavenge for Food in Gaza, UN Official Says

 Palestinians walk on a destroyed street after Israeli forces withdrew from a part of Nuseirat, following a ground operation amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, November 29, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinians walk on a destroyed street after Israeli forces withdrew from a part of Nuseirat, following a ground operation amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, November 29, 2024. (Reuters)
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Women and Children Scavenge for Food in Gaza, UN Official Says

 Palestinians walk on a destroyed street after Israeli forces withdrew from a part of Nuseirat, following a ground operation amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, November 29, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinians walk on a destroyed street after Israeli forces withdrew from a part of Nuseirat, following a ground operation amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, November 29, 2024. (Reuters)

Large groups of women and children are scavenging for food among mounds of trash in parts of the Gaza Strip, a UN official said on Friday following a visit to the Palestinian enclave.

Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights office for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, expressed concern about the levels of hunger, even in areas of central Gaza where aid agencies have teams on the ground.

"I was particularly alarmed by the prevalence of hunger," Sunghay told a Geneva press briefing via video link from Jordan. "Acquiring basic necessities has become a daily, dreadful struggle for survival."

Sunghay said the UN had been unable to take any aid to northern Gaza, where he said an estimated 70,000 people remain following "repeated impediments or rejections of humanitarian convoys by the Israeli authorities".

Sunghay visited camps for people recently displaced from parts of northern Gaza. They were living in horrendous conditions with severe food shortages and poor sanitation, he said.

"It is so obvious that massive humanitarian aid needs to come in – and it is not. It is so important the Israeli authorities make this happen," he said. He did not specify the last time UN agencies had sent aid to northern Gaza.

US WARNING

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin set out steps last month for Israel to carry out in 30 days to address the situation in Gaza, warning that failure to do so may have consequences on US military aid to Israel.

The State Department said on Nov. 12 that President Joe Biden's administration had concluded that Israel was not currently impeding assistance to Gaza and therefore was not violating US law.

The Israeli army, which began its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip after the group's attack on southern Israeli communities in October 2023, said its operating in northern Gaza since Oct. 5 were trying to prevent militants regrouping and waging attacks from those areas.

Israel's government body that oversees aid, Cogat, says it facilitates the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and accuses UN agencies of not distributing it efficiently.

Looting has also depleted aid supplies within the Gaza Strip, with nearly 100 food aid trucks raided on Nov. 16.

"The women I met had all either lost family members, were separated from their families, had relatives buried under rubble, or were themselves injured or sick," Sunghay said of his stay in the Gaza Strip.

"Breaking down in front of me, they desperately pleaded for a ceasefire."