UNIFIL says incident first of its kind since Israel and Lebanese-armed group Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire last November.
Direct fire from the Israeli military hit the perimeter of United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon’s (UNIFIL) peacekeeping positions in south Lebanon, the mission said.
In a statement on Wednesday, UNIFIL added that the incident on Tuesday was the first of its kind since Israel and Lebanese-armed group Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire last November.
UNIFIL said one of its bases in the village of Kfarchouba in southern Lebanon was hit. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli army.
“In recent days, UNIFIL has also observed other aggressive behaviour by the [Israeli military] towards peacekeepers performing operational activities in accordance with Security Council Resolution 1701,” it said in a post on X, referring to a UN resolution originally adopted in 2006 to end hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.
UNIFIL is concerned by the recent aggressive posture of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) involving UNIFIL personnel and assets near the Blue Line, including yesterday’s incident in which a direct fire hit the perimeter of a UNIFIL position south of the village of Kfar Shouba.
Tuesday’s incident occurred near the Blue Line, a UN-mapped demarcation separating Lebanon from Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, it added.
Any unauthorised crossing of the Blue Line by land or by air from any side constitutes a violation of Security Council Resolution 1701.
UNIFIL cited other alleged incidents it blamed on the Israeli army, including being targeted by lasers while it was performing a patrol with the Lebanese army in the southern border town of Maroun al-Ras on Tuesday.
“UNIFIL protests all such and we continue to remind all actors of their responsibility to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel and property and to respect the inviolability of UN assets and premises at all times,” it added.
Volatile ceasefire
Separately on Wednesday, Israel’s military said it killed a Hezbollah fighter in a strike on southern Lebanon.
“Earlier today [Wednesday], the [Israeli military] struck in the area of Qaaqaaiyet El Jisr in southern Lebanon, eliminating a Hezbollah terrorist who held the position of the commander of the Qabrikha area within the Hezbollah terrorist organisation,” a military statement said.
The November ceasefire ended a conflict in which Israel attacked Lebanon by air and invaded the country, devastating vast swaths of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli attack in September.
The ceasefire terms require that neither Hezbollah nor any other armed group have weapons in areas near the border south of the Litani River, which flows into the Mediterranean some 20km (12 miles) north of the Israeli border.
They require Israel to withdraw troops from the south and the Lebanese army to deploy into the border region.
Although the truce officially ended hostilities, sporadic cross-border attacks have continued. Israel has regularly broken the truce and carried out air raids across southern Lebanon, also hitting neighbourhoods in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah retains strong support.
Israel still occupies five strategic hilltops along the border. While rockets have been fired into Israel from Lebanese territory on two separate occasions, Hezbollah has denied involvement.
Hezbollah’s leader, Naim Qassem, has maintained that the group no longer keeps weapons in the border zone, in accordance with the truce.
Donald Trump isn’t visiting Israel during his Middle East tour because he knows Netanyahu is bluffing and has nothing to offer him, says Israeli political analyst Akiva Eldar. He believes Trump’s snub marks the end of an era in US-Israel relations. #AJOPINION
President Donald Trump’s embrace of Syria’s new leadership, driven by Saudi lobbying, marks a major realignment in regional power dynamics. Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra was in Riyadh, reporting on this historic shift in Middle East geopolitics.
After a signing trade and defence deals with the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, US President Donald Trump told media in Doha that the two had also discussed the Russia-Ukraine war and Iran’s nuclear programme.
The United Nations Mission to Libya (UNSMIL) warns that the situation in the country could ‘spiral out of control’.
The United Nations has called for calm as fighting has resumed in Libya’s capital, Tripoli, a day after authorities declared order had been restored.
The UN Mission to Libya (UNSMIL) warned on Wednesday that the situation in the country could “spiral out of control”.
“UNSMIL reiterates its calls for an immediate, unconditional ceasefire in all areas, allowing safe corridors for the evacuation of civilians trapped in intense conflict zones,” the mission wrote on X.
“Attacking and damaging civilian infrastructure, physically harming civilians, and jeopardising the lives and safety of the population may constitute crimes under international law. Those responsible will be held accountable for their actions,” it added.
Clashes erupted between the Rada militia and the 444 Brigade, loyal to Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah, in key areas of Tripoli, including the port, the AFP news agency reported, quoting a security source.
The official called the ongoing fighting “urban warfare” with intermittent clashes in residential areas and the use of light and medium weapons.
The fighting calmed down later on Wednesday after the government announced a truce, Tripoli residents told the Reuters news agency.
“Regular forces, in coordination with the relevant security authorities, have begun taking the necessary measures to ensure calm, including the deployment of neutral units,” the government’s Ministry of Defence said.
Fighting across Tripoli
Clashes broke out on Monday night after reports that Abdelghani al-Kikli, leader of the Support and Stability Apparatus (SSA), a militia that controls the southern district of Abu Salim, was killed.
According to local authorities, at least six people were killed in Monday’s fighting.
While Tuesday morning was calm, the fighting restarted overnight with major battles in the capital.
For residents, the uncertainty brought by the attacks was “terrorising”, a father of three told Reuters from the Dahra area.
“I had my family in one room to avoid random shelling,” he added.
Al-Dbeibah ordered what he called irregular armed groups to be dismantled, including Rada.
With the seizure of the SSA territory by factions allied with al-Dbeibah, including the 444 and 111 brigades, Rada is the last significant faction not allied with the prime minister.
Since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi, Libya has struggled to recover.
In 2014, the country split between a UN-recognised government in Tripoli, led by al-Dbeibah, and a rival administration in the east dominated by commander Khalifa Haftar and his self-styled Libyan National Army.
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in intense Israeli attacks across Gaza, including attacks on hospitals and refugee camps. UN aid chief Tom Fletcher says Israel is using mass starvation as a weapon by deliberately blocking aid deliveries.
US President Donald Trump has met Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa on the sidelines of the GCC summit in Riyadh. Trump confirmed that he will lift sanctions on Syria to give the country a fresh start after the fall of the Assad government.
Syrians celebrated throughout the night after US President Donald Trump announced he would lift US sanctions on Syria during his visit to Saudi Arabia. Imran Khan breaks down what this means for the Syrian people.
Celebrations broke out across Syria after President Donald Trump said the United States would lift sanctions on the country.
The Syrian foreign ministry on Tuesday welcomed Trump’s announcement, calling it a “pivotal turning point for the Syrian people, as we seek to emerge from a long and painful chapter of war”.
“The removal of those sanctions offers a vital opportunity for Syria to pursue stability, self-sufficiency, and meaningful national reconstruction, led by and for the Syrian people,” it said in a statement.
In a speech given in Riyadh, the US president said he “will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness”.
US sanctions have isolated Syria from the global financial system and imposed a range of economic restrictions on the government over more than a decade of war in the country.
The lingering sanctions have widely been seen as a major obstacle to Syria’s economic recovery and post-war reconstruction.
Syrians met the news with joy and celebration, with dozens of men, women and children gathering in Damascus’s Umayyad Square. They blasted music while others drove by in their cars, waving Syrian flags.
“My joy is great, this decision will definitely affect the entire country positively. Construction will return, the displaced will return and prices will go down,” said Huda Qassar, a 33-year-old English language teacher, celebrating with her compatriots.
In the northern province of Idlib, Bassam al-Ahmed, 39, said he was very happy about the announcement.
“It is the right of the Syrian people, after 14 years of war and 50 years of the Assads’ oppression, to live through stability and safety,” he said.
Mazloum Abdi, also known as Mazloum Kobani, the leader of the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, welcomed the decision, saying he hopes it “will be invested in supporting stability and reconstruction, ensuring a better future for all Syrians”.
Every year on May 15, Palestinians around the world mark the Nakba, or catastrophe, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948.
Having secured the support of the British government for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, on May 14, 1948, as soon as the British Mandate expired, Zionist forces declared the establishment of the State of Israel, triggering the first Arab-Israeli war.
Zionist military forces expelled at least 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and lands and captured 78 percent of historic Palestine. The remaining 22 percent was divided into what are now the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip.
The fighting continued until January 1949 when an armistice agreement between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria was forged. The 1949 Armistice Line is also known as the Green Line and is the generally recognised boundary between Israel and the West Bank. The Green Line is also referred to as the (pre-) 1967 borders, before Israel occupied the rest of Palestine during the 1967 war.
Israel’s military occupation of Palestine remains at the core of this decades-long conflict that continues to shape every part of Palestinians’ lives.
Mapping the Palestinian villages Israel destroyed
Between 1947 and 1949, Zionist military forces attacked major Palestinian cities and destroyed some 530 villages. About 15,000 Palestinians were killed in a series of mass atrocities, including dozens of massacres.
On April 9, 1948, Zionist forces committed one of the most infamous massacres of the war in the village of Deir Yassin on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. More than 110 men, women and children were killed by members of the pre-Israeli state Irgun and Stern Gang Zionist paramilitary organisations.
Some six million registered Palestinian refugees live in at least 58 camps located throughout Palestine and neighbouring countries.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) provides assistance and operates hundreds of schools and health facilities for at least 2.3 million Palestinian refugees in Jordan, 1.5 million refugees in Gaza, 870,000 refugees in the occupied West Bank, 570,000 refugees in Syria and 480,000 refugees in Lebanon.
The largest camps in each are Baqa’a in Jordan, Jabalia in Gaza, Jenin in the occupied West Bank, Yarmouk in Syria, and Ein el-Hilweh in Lebanon.
More than 70 percent of Gaza’s residents are refugees. About 1.5 million refugees live in eight refugee camps around the Gaza Strip.
I had closely followed the genocidal war in Gaza for nine months when an opportunity came around to volunteer as part of a medical mission organised by the United Nations, World Health Organization and the Palestinian American Medical Association.
As a trained nephrologist, a doctor who treats patients with kidney disease, I felt there was a critical need for specialised medical care amid the collapse of the healthcare system in Gaza and the high number of medical specialists who had been killed.
I also felt it was my duty as a Muslim to help the people of Gaza. Islam teaches us that whoever saves one life, it is as if he had saved all of humanity; taking care of others is an act of worship, and standing up against injustice is a moral obligation.
I believe my degrees are not meant to simply hang on the walls of an air-conditioned office or help me drive the nicest car or live in an expensive neighbourhood. They are a testament to the fact that I have taken an oath to dedicate my expertise to the service of humanity, to maintain the utmost respect for human life and to offer my medical knowledge and compassion to those in need.
So on July 16, I departed for Gaza with a few other medics.
We entered the strip through the Karem Abu Salem crossing. We went from observing the prosperity, comfort and wealth of the Israeli side to recoiling at the destruction, devastation and misery of the Palestinian side. We basically saw what apartheid looks like.
On our short trip through southern Gaza to reach our destination in Khan Younis, we saw many buildings bombed, damaged or destroyed. Homes, schools, shops, hospitals, mosques – you name it.
The amount of rubble was sickening. To this day, I can’t unsee the landscapes of destruction I witnessed in Gaza.
We were accommodated in Al-Nasser Hospital because it was too dangerous to stay at any other place. We were welcomed and cared for so much that I felt embarrassed. We were seen as saviours.
I treated patients with kidney problems, worked as a primary care physician and sometimes helped during mass casualty events in the emergency room.
The author with one of his patients at Al Nassar Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip [Courtesy of Talal Khan]
Dialysis requires clean water, sterile supplies, reliable electricity, medications and equipment that must be maintained and replaced – none of which was guaranteed under the Israeli blockade. Each dialysis session was a challenge. Every delay increased the risk of my patients dying. Many of them did die – a fact I struggled to accept, knowing that under normal circumstances, many of them could have been saved and lived normal lives.
I remember the smiling face of one of my patients, Waleed, a young man who suffered from kidney failure caused by early-onset high blood pressure, a condition that, with access to proper treatment, could have been managed appropriately.
Dialysis was Waleed’s lifeline, but he couldn’t get an adequate number of sessions due to the Israeli blockade causing severe shortages of medical supplies. Malnutrition and worsening living conditions only accelerated his decline.
I remember how short of breath he was, his body overloaded with fluid and his blood pressure dangerously high. And yet, every time I saw him, Waleed greeted me with a warm smile, his spirit somehow intact, his mother always by his side. A few months after I left Gaza, Waleed passed away.
Another patient of mine was Hussein, a gentle, kind-hearted, deeply respected man. His children cared for him with love and dignity.
He suffered from severe hypokalaemia and acidosis: His body’s potassium levels were dangerously low, and acid built up to toxic levels. To address his condition, he needed basic medications: potassium supplements and sodium bicarbonate pills.
These were simple, inexpensive, life-saving medicines, and yet, the Israeli blockade did not allow them in. Because he could not find these pills, Hussein was hospitalised multiple times for intravenous potassium supplementation.
Despite his immense suffering, Hussein remained gracious, brave and full of faith. When speaking, he always repeated the phrase Alhamdulillah (praise be to God). He passed away a few weeks ago, I was told.
Waleed and Hussein should be here – smiling, laughing, living happily with their families. Instead, they became casualties of siege and silence. These are two of so many tragic stories I know of and I witnessed. So many beautiful lives that could have been saved were lost.
Despite this grim reality, my colleagues in Gaza continue to do their utmost for their patients.
These are medics who are bruised in every way. They are not only battling the daily struggles of life like all other Palestinians in Gaza but also witnessing daily horrors of headless babies, amputated limbs, fully burned human beings and sometimes the lifeless remains of their own loved ones.
Imagine working with no anaesthesia, limited pain medications, very few antibiotics. Imagine surgeons scrubbing with plain water, children undergoing amputations with no sedation, full-body burns patients’ dressings being changed with no pain relief.
Still these healthcare heroes just keep going.
One of the nurses I worked with, Arafat, made a deep impression on me. He was living in a makeshift shelter with multiple family members. It offered no protection against the elements – the cold winter, the scorching heat or the drenching rain.
He starved – like all other Palestinians in Gaza – losing 15kg (33lb) in nine months. He walked 2km to 3km (1 to 2 miles) every day to work with worn-out sandals, facing the danger of Israeli drones bombing or shooting him in the street.
And yet, the smile never left his face. He took care of more than 280 dialysis patients, treating them with care, attentively listening to their anxious families and uplifting his colleagues with light humour.
I felt so small next to heroes like Arafat. His and his colleagues’ resilience and persistence were unbelievable.
While in Gaza, I had the opportunity to visit Al-Shifa Hospital with a UN delegation. What once was Gaza’s largest and most vital medical centre was reduced to ruins. The hospital that was once a symbol of hope and healing had become a symbol of death and destruction, of the deliberate dismantling of healthcare. It was beyond heartbreaking to see its charred, bombed-out remains.
I stayed in Gaza for 22 days. It was an absolute honour to visit, serve and learn life from the resilient people of Gaza. Their relentless courage and determination will stay with me until I die.
Despite witnessing what I could have never imagined, I did not have the urge to leave. I wanted to stay. Back in the United States, I felt profound guilt that I left behind my colleagues and my patients, that I did not stay, that I did not do enough.
Feeling this constant heartache, I cannot understand the growing number of people who are accustomed to the daily reports of Palestinian deaths and images of torn bodies and starving children.
As human beings and as health workers, we cannot quit on Gaza. We cannot stay silent and passive. We must speak out and act on the devastation of healthcare and attacks on our colleagues in the Gaza Strip.
Already fewer and fewer healthcare workers are being allowed to enter Gaza on medical missions. The current blockade has prevented all medical supplies from going in.
We, as healthcare professionals, must mobilise to demand an immediate lifting of the siege and free access to medical missions. We must not stop volunteering to help the struggling medical teams in Gaza. Such acts of speaking out and volunteering give our colleagues in Gaza the hope and comfort that they have not been abandoned.
Let us not allow Gaza to be just a symbol of destruction. Instead, let it be the example of unbreakable spirit.
Stand, speak and act – so history remembers not just the tragedy but also the triumph of human compassion.
Let us uphold human dignity.
Let us tell Gaza, you are not alone!
Humanity is on your side!
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump says that forging formal relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel would be a “dream”, but he wants the kingdom to do it on its “own time”.
The White House on Tuesday made public a flurry of economic and defence pacts with Saudi Arabia involving hundreds of billions of dollars, but any mention of Israel was conspicuously absent from the announcements.
The so-called “normalisation” drive between Saudi Arabia and Israel dominated his predecessor, Joe Biden’s, approach to the region, but the current US president is shifting focus elsewhere, analysts say.
“The Trump administration has made it clear they are willing to move forward on key agreements with Saudi Arabia without the previous condition of Saudi-Israel normalisation,” said Anna Jacobs, a non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute, a think tank.
“This probably reflects growing frustration in the Trump administration with Israeli military action across the region, especially in Gaza.”
‘Time is not right’
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, fellow for the Middle East at the Baker Institute, also said that Trump has realised that with the ongoing war in Gaza and Israel’s refusal to negotiate the establishment of a Palestinian state, the “time is not right” for a Saudi Arabia-Israeli pact despite Biden’s emphasis on brokering a deal.
“I think the White House has finally acknowledged that a normalisation agreement at this time is not possible,” Coates Ulrichsen told Al Jazeera.
During his first term, Trump managed to broker the Abraham Accords between Israel and several Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates, which established formal relations with the US ally independently of the Palestinian issue.
However, the agreements were unsuccessful in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as evidenced by the outbreak of the war in Gaza in October 2023.
But even before the war started, Israel had been intensifying its military raids against Palestinians and expanding illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, further dimming the prospects of a two-state solution to the conflict.
Despite the agreements’ apparent shortcomings, Biden made adding Saudi Arabia to the Abraham Accords a focal point of his Middle East agenda, and US officials said they worked on securing a deal up until the final days of the administration, even as the war on Gaza was raging.
Biden has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that Hamas launched its October 7 attack against Israel in 2023 to thwart an agreement between the Saudis and Israelis.
Still, a day before he left office, Biden boasted that his Middle East policies created an opportunity for “the future of normalisation and integration of Israel with all its Arab neighbours, including Saudi Arabia”.
‘Off the table’
US officials and media reports said that Biden’s deal, which never materialised, would have brought a security pact between Riyadh and Washington and provided US help for Saudi Arabia to establish a civil nuclear programme in exchange for normalisation with Israel.
A major sticking point in that push has been the widely stated Saudi Arabian support for the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which conditions recognition of Israel on the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has categorically rejected the “land for peace” framework, pushing instead for deals with Arab countries that bypass Palestinians.
“This Israeli government won’t even provide lip service to the idea of a two-state solution, making it pretty impossible for Saudi Arabia to seriously consider moving forward with normalisation,” said Jacobs from the Arab Gulf States Institute.
“The Trump administration seems to have understood that it’s off the table, at least for now.”
In Riyadh, Trump announced an agreement to deepen security cooperation with Saudi Arabia.
The $142bn deal will provide Saudi Arabia with “state-of-the-art warfighting equipment and services” from US firms, the White House said.
It also includes “extensive training and support to build the capacity of the Saudi armed forces, including enhancement of Saudi service academies and military medical services”, it added.
While the weapons and training deals fall short of a NATO-like mutual defence pact, which may have been included as part of an accord with Israel, they take a bite from the US-backed carrots offered to the kingdom for normalisation, experts say.
“The announcements today do further deepen the links between Saudi and US security and defence interests,” Coates Ulrichsen said.
US-Israel rift?
Trump’s visit to the region comes as Israel has promised to not just continue, but expand, its devastating war on Gaza, which has killed more than 52,900 Palestinians, according to health authorities.
Khaled Elgindy, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University, noted that Riyadh has described Israeli atrocities in Gaza as a “genocide”.
“The Saudis are not mincing their words; they are not holding back,” Elgindy told Al Jazeera. “They can’t now move toward normalisation with Israel after accusing Israel of genocide. That would just be ridiculous.”
After his trip to Saudi Arabia, Trump will head to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates as part of the first planned foreign trips of his presidency, since attending Pope Francis’s funeral last month. Israel is not on the itinerary.
For Coates Ulrichsen and others, Trump’s apparent snub of Israel reflects unease in the US-Israeli alliance.
“It may be a signal that the White House sees much more value in deepening commercial and strategic relationships with the Gulf states at the moment, given that Israel remains mired in conflict,” Coates Ulrichsen told Al Jazeera.
Israel excluded
Tensions between the Trump administration and Netanyahu’s government have become more apparent in recent weeks despite the US’s military and diplomatic backing of Israel.
Trump confirmed talks with Iran over its nuclear programme during Netanyahu’s visit to the White House, despite the Israeli leader’s opposition to negotiations with Tehran.
Last week, the US president also declared a ceasefire with the Houthis. The deal did not demand an end to the Yemeni group’s attacks against Israel.
As Trump spoke in Riyadh on Tuesday, the Houthis fired another missile at Israel – part of a campaign they say aims to pressure an end to the war on Gaza.
The Trump administration also worked with mediators in Qatar and Egypt to secure the release of US citizen Edan Alexander, who served in the Israeli military and was captured by Hamas during the October 7 attack on Israel. According to Israeli media reports, Israel was excluded from those talks.
Different visions
Elgindy from Georgetown University said the apparent tensions are more than a “bump in the road”, but their impact on the US-Israeli relationship remains to be seen.
“Trump is making clear in word and deed that US and Israeli interests are not one and the same,” he said. “And that’s very significant because Biden didn’t do that.”
For now, Trump remains committed to US military aid to Israel even as it intensifies its bombardment and starvation campaign in Gaza.
And the US president has pushed on with his crackdown on critics of Israel at home, especially on college campuses.
Still, experts say that by skipping Israel during his Middle East trip and de-prioritising normalisation, Trump is pushing forward in pursuit of his own vision for the region.
On Tuesday, Trump lauded Gulf leaders whom he said are building a Middle East “where people of different nations, religions and creeds are building cities together – not bombing each other out of existence”.
That future seems at odds with what Israel appears to be seeking: asserting hegemony over the region with long-term bombing campaigns, including in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
“A very strong signal is being sent that a stable, prosperous Middle East – represented, in the administration’s views, by the Gulf states – is a much more desirable outcome than maybe the Israeli view of the Middle East at the moment, which is one of seemingly escalating a forever conflict,” said Coates Ulrichsen.
United States President Donald Trump has announced that US sanctions on Syria will be lifted, in a huge boost to the government in Tehran, which took power after the overthrow of longtime leader Bashar al-Assad in December.
“There’s a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilising the country and keeping peace,” Trump said in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the first of a three-day visit to the Middle East, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. “I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness.”
Trump is also expected to meet Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Riyadh on Wednesday, in a further signal to the world that the international isolation of Syria should end.
In Syria, the news has been met with celebrations in the capital, Damascus, and elsewhere. There is hope the move will help turn around the country’s economy after more than a decade of war.
Let’s take a closer look.
What sanctions had been placed on Syria?
The US was just one of many countries that had placed sanctions on Syria during the former al-Assad regime, which governed the country from 1971 to 2024.
The US sanctions were wide-ranging. The US initially designated Syria a “State Sponsor of Terrorism” in 1979, which led to an arms embargo and financial restrictions, including on foreign assistance.
Further sanctions were imposed in 2004, including more arms export restrictions and limits on Syria’s economic interactions with the US.
After the war in Syria began in 2011, and al-Assad’s regime started attacking civilian antigovernment protesters, numerous other wide-ranging sanctions were imposed on Syria and regime-linked individuals. This included a freeze on Syrian government assets held abroad, a ban on US investments in Syria and restrictions on petroleum imports.
The US had also announced a $10m reward for the capture of Syria’s current leader, al-Sharaa, and listed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the organisation he ran before its dissolution with the fall of al-Assad, as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization”.
Why was Syria under sanctions?
The main tranche of sanctions was imposed during the early years of Syria’s war, when the US was supporting the country’s opposition and attempting to isolate the al-Assad regime, pointing to its human rights abuses, including the use of chemical weapons.
The “terrorist” designation placed on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham was a result of its former association with al-Qaeda. This was one of the reasons there has been international wariness to remove sanctions on Syria even after the fall of al-Assad.
Why are they being lifted now?
Al-Sharaa has slowly been gaining international legitimacy for his government since it came to power in December. The US had already removed the reward for his capture, and the Syrian president has been able to travel internationally and meet world leaders, including in Saudi Arabia and France.
The new Syrian government has made a concerted effort to present itself as a moderate force that could be acceptable to the international community, including by distancing itself from designated “terrorist” groups, promising to cooperate with other countries on “counterterrorism” efforts and making statements supporting minority rights. The latter has been particularly important in light of sectarian fighting involving pro-government forces and minority groups after the fall of al-Assad.
The Reuters news agency also reported this week that Syria has attempted to convince the US that it is not a threat but a potential partner, including by saying it was engaged in indirect talks with Israel to deescalate tensions with the US’s Middle eastern ally – despite Israel’s bombing of Syria and occupation of its territory. There had also been talk of US-Syria business deals, even including a Trump Tower in Damascus.
Trump on Tuesday said that his decision to end the sanctions came after discussions with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“Oh, what I do for the crown prince!” he said.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Omar Rahman, a fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, said that US relationships with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE – all countries that had been pushing for an end to sanctions and support for the new Syrian government – had been an integral part of Trump’s decision.
“This wasn’t something that was too difficult for Trump to do,” Rahman said. “He didn’t need to get permission from anybody. He didn’t even need consent from Congress.”
Will investment now pour into Syria?
Because of the central role the US plays in the global financial system, the lifting of sanctions is a signal to the world that it can do business in Syria.
The sanctions had been economically debilitating for Syria, and presented a huge impediment for the new government, which is under pressure to improve living standards in a country where unemployment and poverty levels are high, and electricity blackouts are common.
Whether the US itself invests in Syria remains to be seen, but increased Arab and Turkish investment is likely.
“[The removal of sanctions] takes away a key obstacle in [Syria’s] ability to establish some kind of economic development, economic prosperity,” Rahman told Al Jazeera. “But there are plenty of other obstacles and challenges the country is facing.”
Israel’s ‘template for genocide’ is being used in Sudan, according to international law expert Luigi Daniele, who says the paramilitary RSF is using carefully chosen terminology to whitewash killing civilians.
In the heart of the occupied city of Ramallah, a governor leads her people through a month of grief, defiance and hope.
With rare access to the governor of Ramallah and el-Bireh, this film offers an intimate portrait of life under Israeli occupation in the West Bank. Over one month, Governor Laila Ghannam navigates her city, which is marked by protests, mourning, celebration and resilience.
Amid political tensions, she reveals how Ramallah functions under occupation – how it breathes, resists and supports its most vulnerable. Moving between high-level politics and everyday encounters, Ghannam reflects on the emotional and political landscape of her people, offering a powerful glimpse into the quiet strength and steadfastness of Palestinians.
One Month in Ramallah is a documentary film by Sawsan Qaoud.
As Gaza lies in ruins, who will lead its reconstruction, and what future awaits under siege without a political roadmap?
Gaza is in ruins, more than a million displaced, and there is no clear leadership in sight. If the war ends, who takes charge, and how can rebuilding start under the blockade? This episode dives into Gaza’s power vacuum, crumbling infrastructure, and rising fears of permanent exile. What will it take to secure justice, agency, and return?
Presenter: Stefanie Dekker
Guests: Dr Mohammed Mustafa – Emergency physician Jenan Matari – Palestinian storyteller and producer Nizar Farsakh – Lecturer at The George Washington University
