POLITICS

Israel says it carried out ground raid into Syria, seizing a Syrian citizen connected to Iran

Nov 3, 2024, 1:07 AM | Updated: 6:34 pm

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military said Sunday it has carried out a ground raid into Syria, seizing a Syrian citizen involved in Iranian networks. It was the first time in the current war that Israel announced its troops operated in Syrian territory.

Israel has carried out airstrikes in Syria multiple times over the past year, targeting members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and officials from Iran, the close ally of both Hezbollah and Syria. But it has not previously made public any ground forays into Syria.

The Israeli military said the seizure was part of a special operation “that took place in recent months,” though it did not say exactly when it occurred. Syria did not immediately confirm the announcement, but a pro-government Syrian radio station, Sham FM, reported Sunday that Israeli force carried out a “kidnapping operation” over the summer targeting a man in the south of the country.

The disclosure of the raid comes as Israel has waged an escalated campaign of bombardment in Lebanon for the past six weeks, as well as a ground invasion along the countries’ shared border, vowing to cripple Hezbollah, On Saturday, an Israeli military official said naval forces carried out a raid in a northern Lebanese town, seizing a man they called a senior Hezbollah operative.

The army identified the man it seized as Ali Soleiman al-Assi, saying he lives in the southern Syrian region of Saida. It said the man had been under military surveillance for many months and was involved in Iranian initiatives targeting areas of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights near the border with Syria.

Body camera footage of the raid released by the army showed soldiers seizing a man in a white tank top inside a building. The man was brought to Israel for interrogation, the military said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the border with Lebanon on Sunday, saying his focus was trying to keep Hezbollah from rearming itself through the “oxygen lifeline” of Iranian weapons transferred to Lebanon via Syria. Israel says its campaign in Lebanon aims to push Hezbollah away from the border and put an end to more than a year of fire by the group into northern Israel.

Israel’s strikes in Lebanon have killed more than 2,500 people over the past year. In Israel, 69 people have been killed by Hezbollah projectiles.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces continued an offensive in the northern Gaza Strip, where the military has said it is battling Hamas fighters who regrouped there.

Shell fire hit Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, injuring patients, including children, the hospital’s director, Hossam Abu Safiya said in a statement to the media. He said the shells hit the hospital’s nursery, dormitory and water tanks, just after a delegation from the World Health Organization ended a visit.

Kamal Adwan and two other nearby hospitals have been hit by Israel several times amid the fighting. Earlier this month, Israeli troops stormed Kamal Adwan, detaining a large number of people, including much of the staff, Abu Safiya said at the time of the raid. The military said those detained included members of Hamas, without providing evidence, and said weapons were found in the facility.

“Attacks on civilians, including humanitarian workers, and what remains of Gaza’s civilian facilities and infrastructure must stop. The entire Palestinian population in North Gaza, especially children, is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine, and the ongoing bombardments,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement Saturday.

In southern Gaza, an Israeli strike hit a group of people gathered outside in an eastern district of Khan Younis, killing at least eight Palestinians, including four children and a woman, the territory’s Health Ministry’s emergency services said. The city’s Nasser Hospital, which received most of the bodies, confirmed the figures.

Palestinian officials said an Israeli drone strike on Saturday hit a clinic in northern Gaza where children were being vaccinated for polio, wounding six people including four children. The Israeli military denied responsibility.

Dr. Munir al-Boursh, director general of the Gaza Health Ministry, told The Associated Press that a quadcopter struck the Sheikh Radwan clinic in Gaza City early Saturday afternoon, just a few minutes after a United Nations delegation left the facility.

The WHO and the U.N. children’s agency, known as UNICEF, which are jointly carrying out the polio vaccination campaign, expressed concern over the reported strike. Rosalia Bollen, a spokesperson for UNICEF said the strike occurred when a “humanitarian pause” agreed to by Israel to allow vaccinations was in effect.

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said that “contrary to the claims, an initial review determined that the (Israeli military) did not strike in the area at the specified time.”

It was not possible to resolve the conflicting accounts. Israeli forces have repeatedly raided hospitals in Gaza over the course of the war, saying Hamas uses them for militant purposes, allegations denied by Palestinian health officials. Hamas fighters are also operating in the north, battling Israeli forces.

Northern Gaza has been encircled by Israeli forces and largely isolated for the past year. Israel has been carrying out another offensive there in recent weeks that has killed hundreds of people and displaced tens of thousands.

A scaled-down campaign to administer a second dose of the polio vaccine began Saturday in parts of northern Gaza. It had been postponed from Oct. 23 due to lack of access, Israeli bombings and mass evacuation orders, and the lack of assurances for humanitarian pauses, a U.N. statement said.

Administration of the first dose was carried out in September across the Gaza Strip, including the north.

At least 100,000 people have been forced to evacuate from areas of north Gaza toward Gaza City in the past few weeks, but around 15,000 children under the age of 10 remain in northern towns, including Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, which are inaccessible, according to the U.N.

The final phase of the polio vaccination campaign had aimed to reach an estimated 119,000 children in the north with a second dose of the oral polio vaccine, the agencies said, but “achieving this target is now unlikely due to access constraints.”

They say 90% of children in every community must be vaccinated to prevent the spread of the disease.

The campaign was launched after the first polio case was reported in Gaza in 25 years — a 10-month-old boy, now paralyzed in the leg. The World Health Organization said the presence of a paralysis case indicates there could be hundreds more who have been infected but aren’t showing symptoms.

The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Israel’s offensive has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, who do not say how many were combatants but say more than half were women and children.

___

Magdy reported from Cairo.

___

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Politics

An opposition fighter steps on a broken bust of the late Syrian President Hafez Assad in Damascus, ...

Associated Press

Big questions confronting the Biden administration and Trump’s team after Assad’s collapse in Syria

WASHINGTON (AP) — The sudden collapse of the Syrian government under Bashar Assad is forcing the Biden administration and the incoming Trump team to confront intensifying questions about the possibility of greater conflicts across the Middle East. President-elect Donald Trump said Sunday that Assad had fled his country, which his family had ruled for decades, […]

3 hours ago

FILE - The "House on Fire" ruins in Mule Canyon, which is part of Bears Ears National Monument, nea...

Associated Press

Biden adds to the nation’s list of national monuments during his term. There’s an appetite for more

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt did in 1906 what Congress was unwilling to do through legislation: He used his new authority under the Antiquities Act to designate Devils Tower in Wyoming as the first national monument. Then came Antiquities Act protections for the Petrified Forest in Arizona, Chaco Canyon and the Gila […]

7 hours ago

Associated Press

Trump calls for ‘immediate’ cease-fire in Ukraine and says a US withdrawal from NATO is possible

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump on Sunday called for an immediate cease-fire in Russia’s war with Ukraine and the president-elect renewed warnings that he was open to pulling the United States out of NATO. Trump made his cease-fire proposal after a weekend meeting in Paris with French and Ukrainian leaders, claiming in a social media […]

9 hours ago

FILE - Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump smiles at an election night wa...

Associated Press

Trump’s return may be a boon for Netanyahu, but challenges abound in a changed Middle East

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Shortly after Donald Trump’s win in last month’s U.S. election, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rushed to congratulate the president-elect: “History’s greatest comeback!” he gushed. If Trump’s staunchly pro-Israel first term and his nominations for top administration positions are any indication, Netanyahu’s glee is justified. But much has transpired since […]

16 hours ago

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to be defense secretary, listens to reporters ...

Associated Press

Sen. Joni Ernst wants to hear from Hegseth on sex assault in the military and women in combat

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) — Republican Sen. Joni Ernst made her most expansive comments yet on Pete Hegseth, telling a largely GOP audience at a California security conference Saturday that she needs to hear more from President-elect Donald Trump’s embattled defense secretary pick on key issues before she decides whether to support him. ”I am […]

19 hours ago

Associated Press

Former West Virginia Attorney General Darrell McGraw dies at 88

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Darrell V. McGraw Jr., a former longtime West Virginia attorney general and state Supreme Court justice who fought back against the state’s drug overdose crisis, died Saturday. He was 88. Jared Hunt, a spokesman for the state Supreme Court, said in an email that McGraw died of a heart attack. The […]

20 hours ago

Israel says it carried out ground raid into Syria, seizing a Syrian citizen connected to Iran