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Aid Group Issues Urgent Appeal for Quake-Hit Syria

Local NGOs set up tents to provide shelter and food for people who lost their homes in a devastating earthquake in the town of Harem near the Turkish border, Idlib province, Syria, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023. (AP)
Local NGOs set up tents to provide shelter and food for people who lost their homes in a devastating earthquake in the town of Harem near the Turkish border, Idlib province, Syria, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023. (AP)
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Aid Group Issues Urgent Appeal for Quake-Hit Syria

Local NGOs set up tents to provide shelter and food for people who lost their homes in a devastating earthquake in the town of Harem near the Turkish border, Idlib province, Syria, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023. (AP)
Local NGOs set up tents to provide shelter and food for people who lost their homes in a devastating earthquake in the town of Harem near the Turkish border, Idlib province, Syria, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023. (AP)

The group Doctors Without Borders called Sunday for the "urgent scaling up" of earthquake aid to northwest Syria as it delivered a convoy laden with emergency assistance.

Aid has been slow to reach Syria's rebel-held areas since the February 6 quake killed a combined total of more than 43,000 people across Türkiye and Syria.

"An urgent increase in the volume of supplies is needed to match the scale of the humanitarian crisis," said the French aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

It charged that supplies "currently fail to even match pre-earthquake volumes".

"Aid is trickling in in negligible amounts for the moment," said Hakim Khaldi, MSF's head of mission in Syria. "We emptied our emergency stocks in three days."

"According to UN data, five days after the earthquake, only 10 trucks had entered" opposition-held areas of Syria through the Bab al-Hawa crossing from Türkiye, MSF said.

It added that "in the 10 days following the earthquake, the number of trucks that crossed the border into northwest Syria was lower than the average weekly number for 2022".

A convoy of 14 trucks laden with 1,269 tents and winter kits sent by MSF had arrived in Syria through the Al-Hammam crossing in the Afrin area on Sunday.

"The delivery was arranged outside of the United Nations cross-border humanitarian mechanism," the group said.

Activists and emergency teams in Syria's northwest have decried a slow UN response to the quake in opposition-held areas, contrasting it with the planeloads of aid that have been delivered to government-controlled airports.

Before the quake struck, almost all of the crucial humanitarian aid for the more than four million people living in opposition-controlled areas was being delivered through just one crossing, Bab al-Hawa.

The UN announced on Monday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had agreed to open two more border crossings from Türkiye to northwest Syria to allow in aid.

Since the quake, the UN has sent more than 170 aid trucks to northwest Syria.

The conflict in Syria started in 2011 with the Damascus regime’s brutal repression of peaceful protests and escalated to pull in foreign powers and global extremists.

Nearly half a million people have been killed, and the conflict has forced around half of the country's pre-war population from their homes.

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Arab World

Foreign Press Group Slams Israeli Police for Breaking Journalist’s Wrist

Israeli security forces disperse Muslim worshippers who were performing the nightly Taraweeh prayers during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan outside the old city walls of Jerusalem on March 17, 2026, while the al-Aqsa Mosque compound remains closed. (AFP)
Israeli security forces disperse Muslim worshippers who were performing the nightly Taraweeh prayers during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan outside the old city walls of Jerusalem on March 17, 2026, while the al-Aqsa Mosque compound remains closed. (AFP)
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Foreign Press Group Slams Israeli Police for Breaking Journalist’s Wrist

Israeli security forces disperse Muslim worshippers who were performing the nightly Taraweeh prayers during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan outside the old city walls of Jerusalem on March 17, 2026, while the al-Aqsa Mosque compound remains closed. (AFP)
Israeli security forces disperse Muslim worshippers who were performing the nightly Taraweeh prayers during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan outside the old city walls of Jerusalem on March 17, 2026, while the al-Aqsa Mosque compound remains closed. (AFP)

An international media association on Wednesday criticized an "unprovoked assault" by Israeli police on journalists in Jerusalem, which it said left a CNN producer with a fractured wrist.

The Foreign Press Association (FPA) said police officers on Tuesday night "unnecessarily and aggressively repelled a group of journalists who were doing their jobs, documenting individuals who were praying outside the walls of the Old City".

It said police detained several journalists, damaging photographic equipment and confiscating memory cards.

"During the assault, one Israeli officer fractured the wrist of a CNN producer," the FPA said in a statement.

"None of this is acceptable," added the association, which represents hundreds of journalists in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

An AFP photographer at the scene said a small group of journalists had been documenting Muslims trying to perform the evening Taraweeh prayers outside the Old City walls, when a group of police suddenly arrived and "violently attacked the worshippers and journalists covering the event."

A foreign journalist told AFP that police "beat the CNN producer and some other journalists with batons," adding that "at least one Palestinian was detained".

AFP has asked Israeli police for comment on the incident.

Israeli authorities have closed holy sites in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem's Old City for security reasons since the outbreak of the Middle East war on February 28.

The FPA called on the police to "immediately take action against the officers involved in this unprovoked assault and to act in the future to safeguard press freedoms, rather than trample upon them."

In an X post, the Union of Journalists in Israel said it was "appalled" by the police conduct and urged the police commissioner to "immediately suspend the officers involved".

Arab World

Three Iraqi Fighters Killed in Strike Near Syria Border

Members of the Iraqi border forces patrol along a concrete wall on the Iraqi-Syrian border, in the town of al-Baghuz in the Al-Qaim district of western Iraq, on January 21, 2026. (AFP)
Members of the Iraqi border forces patrol along a concrete wall on the Iraqi-Syrian border, in the town of al-Baghuz in the Al-Qaim district of western Iraq, on January 21, 2026. (AFP)
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Three Iraqi Fighters Killed in Strike Near Syria Border

Members of the Iraqi border forces patrol along a concrete wall on the Iraqi-Syrian border, in the town of al-Baghuz in the Al-Qaim district of western Iraq, on January 21, 2026. (AFP)
Members of the Iraqi border forces patrol along a concrete wall on the Iraqi-Syrian border, in the town of al-Baghuz in the Al-Qaim district of western Iraq, on January 21, 2026. (AFP)

A strike near Iraq's western border with Syria killed three fighters from former coalition Hashed al-Shaabi on Wednesday, the alliance said.

The fighters from the alliance -- also known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), now part of Iraq's regular armed forces -- were hit in an US or Israeli strike that targeted their main command centre in Anbar province, AFP reported.

Since the start of the Middle East war, Baghdad has repeatedly denounced attacks on the Hashed al-Shaabi, which also includes brigades belonging to Iran-backed groups.

Arab World

Israel Says Hit Hezbollah-controlled Gas Stations in Lebanon

Smoke and explosion following an Israeli air defense interception over Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel, on the border with Lebanon, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Smoke and explosion following an Israeli air defense interception over Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel, on the border with Lebanon, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
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Israel Says Hit Hezbollah-controlled Gas Stations in Lebanon

Smoke and explosion following an Israeli air defense interception over Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel, on the border with Lebanon, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Smoke and explosion following an Israeli air defense interception over Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel, on the border with Lebanon, Monday, March 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Israel's military said Wednesday it had struck gas stations in south Lebanon belonging to a company owned by the Iranian-backed armed group Hezbollah.

"Overnight, the 'Israeli army' struck Al-Amana Fuel Company gas stations in southern Lebanon", the military said.

A map shared with the statement showed the locations of five gas stations the military said it struck, all in Lebanon's south, including two near the country's Mediterranean coast.

The statement added that the Al-Amana fuel company is controlled by Hezbollah "and constitutes fundamental economic infrastructure that supports Hezbollah's military capabilities".

It said Hezbollah receives "millions of dollars of profits" from the company via another Hezbollah-owned association to fund its military activities.

Since the war with Iran broke out, Israel has also bombed Al-Qard al-Hassan, a financial firm with links to Hezbollah.