Activists say Syrian government forces target rebel-held areas in Wadi Barada northwest of the capital.

The Syrian regime has repeatedly used barrel bombs on civilian areas [YouTube]

by Al Jazeera

At least 14 civilians have been killed and several others wounded in a series of barrel-bomb attacks on rebel-held areas near Damascus, activists have told Al Jazeera.

Syrian government air strikes targeted the town of Wadi Barada, northwest of the capital on Monday, injuring dozens of people, including several children, activists said.

According to videos posted on social media by opposition groups, the Syrian regime intensified its assault on the town.

النظام يحشد في #وادي_بردى ويكثف القصف المدفعي عليها #ريف_دمشق #أورينت pic.twitter.com/f7KtdnEaJm

— Orient أورينت (@OrientNews) December 26, 2016

The White Helmets, a team rescuing people from bombed-out houses, said a number of people were trapped under the rubble following the heavy bombardment.

Barrel bombs are typically constructed from large oil drums and filled with explosives, nails and scrap metal.

Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkish side of the Turkey-Syria border, said the Syrian regime was in the third day of an offensive against Jaish al-Islam, which controls Wadi Barada and is one of the most powerful groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

On Friday, the Syrian army and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, launched an operation to retake Wadi Barada, after accusing the rebels of contaminating drinking water at a spring with diesel.

The Wadi Barada valley, a mountainous area near the Lebanese border, has been under siege since 2014 with food, water and electricity all in short supply.

According to a report published earlier this year, more than one million Syrians are believed to be trapped in 46 communities across the country.

The Syrian civil war started as a largely unarmed uprising against Assad in March 2011, but quickly developed into a full-on armed conflict.

Staffan de Mistura, the UN special envoy to Syria, estimated in April that more than 400,000 Syrians had been killed since 2011.

Calculating a precise death toll is impossible, partially owing to the forced disappearances of tens of thousands of Syrians whose fates remain unknown.

Almost 11 million Syrians – half the country’s pre-war population – have been displaced from their homes.

Malta prime minister tweets of ‘potential hijack situation’ involving an internal Libyan flight diverted to Malta.

The Airbus A320 was flying from Sebha in southwest Libya to capital Tripoli [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

A Libyan aircraft with 118 people on board has landed in Malta after being hijacked, officials in Malta and Libya confirmed.

The Airbus A320 was flying from Sebha in southwest Libya to Tripoli for state-owned airline Afriqiyah Airways, Libyan media reports said.

The tiny Mediterranean island of Malta is about 500km north of the Libyan coast.

The island’s prime minister said in a tweet on Friday that had been alerted to the “potential hijack” of the plane.

Informed of potential hijack situation of a #Libya internal flight diverted to #Malta. Security and emergency operations standing by -JM

— Joseph Muscat (@JosephMuscat_JM) December 23, 2016

Officials at Malta’s airport told Associated Press news agency that there appeared to be two hijackers on board.

The Times of Malta newspaper reported, however, that there was one hijacker who was armed with a hand grenade.

The plane was parked on the tarmac at Malta airport and was surrounded by several army vehicles and dozens of security personnel.

Ahmad al-Kharoubi, 19, killed during protest against home demolition by Israeli forces in occupied East Jerusalem.

Palestinian rights groups say Israeli forces operate with impunity in the occupied territories [File: Alaa Badarneh/EPA]

by Patrick Strickland, Al Jazeera

Israeli forces have shot dead a Palestinian teen during clashes that erupted when soldiers arrived to demolish the home of an alleged attacker.

Soldiers opened fire on a crowd and fatally hit Ahmad al-Kharoubi, a 19-year-old Palestinian, during clashes with youth before dawn on Thursday in occupied East Jerusalem’s Kafr Aqab neighbourhood.

Including Kharoubi, the Al-Haq human rights organisation has documented the killing of at least 107 Palestinians by Israeli security forces or settlers.

“Perpetrators include soldiers (regular and so-called border police), settlers, police, settlement guards, settler escorts, private security company personnel, light train guards, undercover units and municipality guards,” Al-Haq’s Tahseen Elayyan told Al Jazeera.

An Israeli army spokesperson said the soldiers were sent to raze the home of Misbah Abu Sbeih, a 39-year-old Palestinian who was killed by Israeli security forces after he carried out a drive-by shooting on a police station in East Jerusalem, leaving an Israeli woman and a police officer dead.

“During the activity, suspects shot and hurled improvised explosive devices at Israeli forces,” the spokesperson told Al Jazeera.

“In response to the threat, forces fired toward the suspect throwing an IED, resulting in his death.”

At least nine Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinian assailants between January and October of this year, according to United Nations statistics.

‘Impunity is continuing’

Al-Haq’s Elayyan argued Israeli soldiers and settlers who kill Palestinians are rarely held accountable.

“Impunity is continuing,” he said, pointing to the case of Israel Shomer, an Israeli soldier who was acquitted after he shot dead 17-year Muhammad al-Kusbeh near a military checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah in 2015.

According to the Israeli rights group Yesh Din’s most recent statistics, only 3.5 percent of legal complaints about Israeli soldiers harming or killing Palestinians led to an indictment in 2014.

“We believe that the Israeli judicial system is not impartial when it comes to the rights of the Palestinians,” Elayyan added.

“This system is part of the occupation enterprise in general. The goal of these so-called investigations is to shield perpetrators.”

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs documented the destruction of at least 986 Palestinian-owned structures between January and October of this year. At least 1,501 people were displaced during that period.

In addition to Syrian and Lebanese land, Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the besieged Gaza Strip since the 1967 Middle East war.

More than half-a-million Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements – considered illegal under international law – throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem.

‘No attention on their actions’

Ibrahim Abrash, a writer and political analyst, said the wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen resulted in the international community paying little attention Israel’s killing of Palestinians and settlement expansions in 2016.

“Israel has it easy now with no attention on their actions,” he told Al Jazeera.

“The Palestinian Authority’s attempts to hold Israel accountable in the International Criminal Court have not produced results,” he explained.

“There’s no Palestinian strategy to face Israel, and they are focused on internal problems within and between Hamas and Fatah,” he said, referring the the two largest Palestinian political parties.

Abrash, who is based in Gaza, said he expects the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States to usher in a new period of relations between Israel and the US.

“The Trump stage will be very hard on Palestinians,” he said, citing president-elect’s decision to appoint right-wing lawyer and pro-settlement figure David Friedman as ambassador to the US.

“All of this says that Washington is not a neutral broker between the two sides in peace talks.”

In September, US President Barack Obama signed an agreement to give Israel $38bn in military aid despite public spats between Obama and right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Between 2009 and 2014, settlements were expanded by at least 23 percent.

Andrey Karlov was speaking at a photo exhibition in the capital when he was gunned down by a Turkish off-duty policeman.

The assailant is seen in this photo at the rear on the left [Burhan Ozbilici/AP]

by Al Jazeera

Turkish authorities detained six people after the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey as Moscow dispatched more than a dozen investigators to join the probe into the killing.

Ambassador Andrey Karlov, 62, died from gunshot wounds after a 22-year-old off-duty Turkish policeman shot him in the back as he gave a speech at an Ankara art gallery on Monday night.

“The group will act in Turkey within the framework of the investigation into the murder,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.

“Eighteen people will work in the group,” said Peskov, adding Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan had agreed to the move in a phone call.

Karlov was several minutes into a speech at an embassy-sponsored photography exhibition when a man who stood directly behind him in a dark suit shot the diplomat in the back from close range multiple times.

Shouting angrily while pacing around the body in front of a shocked crowd, the assailant – identified as Mevlut Mert Altintas – said all those responsible for what has happened in Syria and Aleppo would be held accountable. “We die in Aleppo, you die here,” he screamed.

Police later killed the gunman in a firefight that lasted 15 minutes.

An unprecedented three-way meeting between the foreign ministers of Turkey, Russia, and Iran in Moscow over the Syria crisis began on Tuesday where the Russian foreign minister said “no quarter should be given to terrorists in Syria” after the murder of the envoy.

Earlier Putin declared “we have to know who directed the hand of the killer”.

The state-run Anadolu agency said the attacker’s mother, father, sister and two other relatives were held in the western province of Aydin, while his flatmate in Ankara was also detained.

After the initial shot, the attacker approached Karlov as he lay on the ground and shot him at least one more time at close range, according to an AP photographer at the scene.

He also smashed several of the framed photos on exhibition, but later let the stunned guests out of the venue.

The spectacle of Karlov’s assassination by a member of the Turkish security forces at a photography exhibition meant to highlight Russian culture reinforced the sense of unease over the region’s conflict and complex web of alliances and relationships.

“On behalf of my country and my people I once again extend my condolences to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the friendly Russian people,” said Erdogan.

Putin promised a response to the assassination.

“The crime that has been committed is undoubtedly a provocation aimed at derailing the ties between Russia and Turkey, as well as the peace process in Syria,” said Putin from Moscow. “There is only one possible response to this – the strengthening of the fight against terror, and the bandits will feel it themselves.”

Relations between Russia and Turkey were badly strained by the downing of a Russian warplane at the Syrian border in November 2015, but Turkey’s apology earlier this year helped to overcome the rift.

‘Don’t forget Aleppo’

The assailant highlighted the situation in Aleppo after he shot the ambassador in the back.

“Don’t forget Aleppo, don’t forget Syria,” the attacker said.

“Whoever took part in this cruelty will pay the price, one by one … Only death will take me from here,” the man said while holding a pistol.

He then continued in Arabic, saying: “We are the descendants of those who supported the Prophet Muhammad, for jihad.”

Refugee children walk between tents at a camp near the Turkish border in Bab al-Salama, near Azaz, northern Syria. (AFP/Bulent Kilic)

by Al Bawaba

Turkey announced plans to set up a refugee camp inside Syria to host people evacuated from the city of Aleppo. Plans for a camp do not necessarily translate into Turkey closing down borders to sick and wounded Syrians, they will still be allowed access to Turkish hospitals, officials said on Friday.

Camp will be established in one of two promising sites, around 3.5 km inside Syria, have been identified for a camp with the capacity to host up to 80,000 people, two senior officials told Reuters.

The camp will be jointly set up by the Turkish Red Crescent, disaster agency AFAD and IHH. The IHH official said evacuees had so far largely found shelter with relatives in and around Syria’s Idlib province, southwest of Aleppo, but added that work to identify those with nowhere to go was under way.

Turkey is already sheltering around 2.7 million Syrian refugees. An aid official with Syrian NGO Shafak, working on the Aleppo evacuation, said he expected more people to head for the Turkish border as the villages west of Aleppo were now full.

Some arrived on Friday at a clinic in Syria close to the Turkish border gate of Cilvegozu where they were tended to by Turkish aid workers, video footage obtained by Reuters showed.

“We were bombed by a plane,” said one man, his head and arm bandaged, lying on a bed hugging his young son. “All my family were killed and all I have left is him and a daughter,” he said. He had been told his daughter had been brought to Turkey but did not know her condition or whereabouts.

The evacuation of the last opposition-held areas of Aleppo was suspended on Friday after pro-regime militias demanded that wounded people should also be brought out of two Shi’ite Muslim villages being besieged by rebels.

Turkey says that close to 8,000 people – rebels and civilians – have been evacuated under a ceasefire deal it brokered with Russia.

Tens of thousands of people remain in rebel-held parts of Aleppo as Syrian official cites “obstructions” of deal.

The evacuation plan was meant to transfer tens of thousands to rebel-held Idlib [Omar Sanadiki/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

A ceasefire agreement to evacuate tens of thousands of fighters and civilians from the remaining rebel-held pockets of eastern Aleppo has been suspended.

Speaking to Reuters news agency on Friday, a Syrian government official overseeing the operation said it was suspended due to “obstructions”.

At the time of the deal’s suspension, the government-run SANA news agency reported that more than 8,000 residents of eastern Aleppo, among them fighters, had been evacuated.

State TV reported that rebel groups were attempting to smuggle prisoners and heavy weapons out with them, violating the evacuation deal.

The Turkish state news agency, meanwhile, said pro-government forces first attacked the convoy. Speaking to Reuters, a rebel commander confirmed the claim.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said talks between the Syrian government and opposition forces would take place soon in Kazakhstan, adding that Turkey would not speak directly to Syrian government officials.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier he was working closely with Turkey to try and start a new series of Syrian peace talks aimed at securing a nationwide ceasefire.

As part of an agreement between Turkey and Russia, tens of thousands of rebels and civilians were supposed to be evacuated from eastern Aleppo to rebel-held Idlib, allowing the Syrian government to take full control of the city after years of fighting.

The operation began on Thursday and was expected to take several days.

The agreement also allowed for the evacuation of thousands of civilians from Kefraya and Fua, two Shia-majority towns besieged by rebel forces.

Rebels allegedly shelled the towns on Friday morning around the same time the evacuation from eastern Aleppo was halted.

Al Jazeera’s Imtiaz Tyab, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkish side of the Turkey-Syria border, said there were conflicting reports of who started the fighting.

“According to several sources, an Iranian-backed militia blocked a road that the evacuees would be using to reach the Aleppo countryside. It then started firing,” he said.

“According to the reports, they were protesting against this evacuation deal, which would see the villages of Fua and Kefraya evacuated in a similar way east Aleppo was.”

A Turkish official told Turkish news agency Anadolou that Syrian government forces had arrested at least 800 people before the suspension of the agreement.

‘Thousands still waiting’

Zouhir Al Shimale, a journalist in eastern Aleppo, reported that the evacuation had been moving at a snail’s pace.

“People were outside in the street overnight,” he told Al Jazeera on Friday morning, adding that the temperature had dipped below zero degrees Celsius in the city. “Thousands are still waiting out here.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry has warned that action is needed to prevent a potential massacre.

The withdrawal began a month to the day after Syrian government forces launched a major offensive to retake all of Aleppo, and will hand the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad his biggest victory in more than five years of civil war.

The city, Syria’s second largest city and once a key cultural and economic hub, has been divided between government forces and rebels since 2012.

In a video message to Syrians, Assad said the “liberation” of Aleppo was “history in the making”.

At least 40 vehicles transport 950 civilians out of the eastern part of the war-torn Syrian city.

The ceasefire is expected to last for three days in order to carry out the evacuation [AFP]

by Al Jazeera

The evacuation of the eastern part of the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo has begun with ambulances and buses carrying the wounded and sick leaving the rebel-held territory in the city under a fragile exit deal.

A slow-moving convoy of around two dozen vehicles snaked out of Al-Amiriyah district and crossed into government-held Ramussa en route to rebel-held territory in the west of Aleppo province.

However, Ibrahim Abu Allaith of the Syrian Civil Defence told Al Jazeera that militias loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reportedly killed at least one person and injured four more while firing on the convoy of injured evacuees.

AFP news agency reported that the first batch of convoy was led by vehicles from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, followed by ambulances and then green government buses.

ICRC spokeswoman Ingy Sedky said the first convoy included 13 ambulances and 20 buses carrying civilians. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported a total of 21 buses and 19 ambulanes had left east Aleppo.

“They have crossed the front line and are on their way to rural parts of western Aleppo,” Sedky told AFP.

The evacuation on Thursday was part of a ceasefire expected to last three days and result in the transfer of thousands of civilians and fighters from the embattled territory.

Zouhir Al Shimale, an independent journalist in east Aleppo, said the evacuation was still under way despite the attacks on an ambulance.

“There hasn’t been fighting since the morning,” he told Al Jazeera, explaining that “hundreds of families” have gathered at the departure point for the buses.

“Civilians are given the choice to stay or leave. If they stay, they’ll be under regime control. Most of the people want to go because they are afraid of potential massacres by the regime,” Shimale added.

“In recent days, people are desperate to get to somewhere where we have the supplies – food, medicine, fuel – like we used to have in the days before the siege. Even if they are in refugee camps, but people still want to leave the besieged area.”

As part of the agreement, the Russian defence ministry said that it was preparing for the transfer of rebel fighters by buses and ambulances to Idlib city, located around 65 kilometres from Aleppo.

Deadly fighting broke out on Wednesday after a similar truce deal collapsed.

Under the initial plan, thousands of civilians and rebel fighters were due to evacuate the east of Syria’s second city, scene of some of the worst violence in more than five years of war across the country.

The delay came on Wednesday morning when pro-government Shia militias demanded that civilians in Kafraya and al-Fua – two towns besieged by armed opposition groups – be evacuated, as well.

Thursday’s agreement allowed for the evacuation of wounded civilians from Kafraya and Fua, and ambulances were reportedly en route to the two towns by noon local time (10:00 GMT).

Turkey said it would meet with Russia and Iran in Moscow on December 27 to discuss a political solution to the conflict in Syria.

Syria’s army has pressed a month-long assault that has seen it take more than 90 percent of the former rebel stronghold in east Aleppo.

Turkey has said those leaving would be taken to Idlib province, which is controlled by a powerful rebel alliance that includes Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.

The UN said on Tuesday that it had credible reports of at least 82 civilians, including 11 women and 13 children, being executed in recent days.

And the UN’s Commission of Inquiry for Syria said it had received reports opposition fighters were blocking civilians from fleeing Aleppo and using them as human shields.

Aleppo, a cultural and economic hub second only to Damascus in importance, had been split between a rebel-controlled east and government-held west since 2012.

It was unclear how many civilians remained in rebel territory, after an estimated 130,000 fled to other parts of Aleppo during the government advance since mid-November.

Syria’s conflict has evolved from largely unarmed protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad into a full-scale civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced more than half of the country’s prewar population.

Marwan Kabalan, a Syria analyst and associate political analyst at the Doha Institute, said he expects the Syrian government to focus its attacks on the Damascus suburbs after the fall of Aleppo.

“I think the regime will turn next to targeting the Damascus suburbs,” he told Al Jazeera. “Idlib is becoming a point of exile for fighters … I think it will remain like this till the very end [of the conflict].”

Throughout four years of fighting, Aleppo has seen intense battles that left much of the city in ruins.

AlHakam Shaar, a research fellow at the Budapest-based Aleppo Project, an initiative that tracks the destruction in the historic city, explained that more than 20 percent of Aleppo’s buildings were fully destroyed and another 40 percent partially damaged as far back as early 2014.

“The percentages are far higher now. However, there is no way to accurately measure the extent of destruction without a full on the ground survey,” he told Al Jazeera.

“There will also be a need for planning the rehabilitation of whole systems of infrastructure, from roads to water networks.”