Gunmen loyal to Syria’s Bashar al-Assad killed 16 security personnel on Thursday, a war monitor said, in attacks it described as the “most violent” since the longtime president’s ouster.
The fighting took place in the Mediterranean coastal province of Latakia, the heartland of the ousted president’s Alawite minority who were considered bastions of support during his rule.
The death toll “following attacks and ambushes by gunmen loyal to Assad in the town of Jableh and its surrounding areas increased to 16 members of the security forces”, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that the majority of the dead were from the former rebel bastion of Idlib.
In Gaza, Hamas has rejected Donald Trump’s latest threats against it and the people of Gaza, in which he warned that they were “dead” if remaining Israeli captives held in the devastated enclave were not released.Â
The Palestinian group demanded that Israel abide by the second phase of the ceasefire agreement
Trump on Wednesday issued what he called a “last warning” to Hamas to free the captives, and threatened “hell to pay” if they did not comply.
“Trump’s repeated threats against our people are support for Netanyahu to evade the [ceasefire] agreement and tighten the siege and starvation of our people,” Hamas spokesperson Abd al-Latif al-Qanou wrote on his Telegram channel this morning.
“The best path to free the remaining Israeli prisoners is for the occupation to enter second-phase negotiations and force it to abide by the signed agreement.”
Israel has reneged on the terms of the original ceasefire agreement and is refusing to engage in talks to enter the second stage of the truce. Instead, it wants to extend the current truce for another six weeks and secure the release of more captives without negotiating a permanent end to the war.
On Sunday it imposed a full siege on Gaza, stopping the entry of all humanitarian aid into the territory.
