Syria civil war live updates: Insurgents storm Aleppo, raising prospect of wider Mideast conflict

The ongoing Israeli offensive in Gaza has killed at least 44,382 Palestinians and injured 105,142, the enclave’s health ministry says. 

Ambulance and rescue crews have been unable to retrieve a number additional bodies still under collapsed building and on roads, the ministry added.

The Israeli military said it killed an Oct. 7 attacker in a vehicle strike in Gaza and is investigating claims that the individual was a World Central Kitchen employee.

World Central Kitchen, a U.S.-based nonprofit group, has not yet commented on the incident. 

In April, seven of the disaster relief charity’s workers were killed in an Israeli airstrike. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later said the Israeli military had “unintentionally hit innocent people.”

The organization founded by celebrity chef José Andrés temporarily paused its operations in the region after the incident.

At least 277 people, including 24 civilians, have been killed since Syrian rebels launched their shock offensive last week, The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said today.

The war monitoring group, which relies on a network of on-the-ground information sources, said five children and three women were among the civilians killed by bombardment and airstrikes.

Rebel fighters wielding guns were captured on video walking through Basel Square west of Aleppo’s city center and trying to take down a Syrian flag.

The video, posted on social media yesterday and verified by NBC News, shows plumes of dark smoke in the sky as a number of militants converge by a statue of the late Bassel al-Assad, the brother of President Bashar al-Assad.

The cameraman says “bring it down, down” as another fighter tries to remove Syria’s national flag from a pole.

Maj. Gen. Jasper Jeffers has arrived in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, to help implement and monitor “the cessation of hostilities,” according to U.S. Central Command. 

In a statement released yesterday, Central Command said the ceasefire process will be chaired by the United States and consist of the Lebanese Armed Forces, the Israel Defense Forces, the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon, and France.

Jeffers will serve as co-chair alongside senior advisor to President Joe Biden, Amos Hochstein, the statement added.

Doctors Without Borders says it is having to turn away patients in Gaza due to “shortages of critical supplies” as the humanitarian crisis in the enclave deepens.

“Restrictions and obstacles to the entry of aid by the Israeli authorities continue to severely hamper our ability to provide care,” Caroline Seguin, MSF’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, said yesterday, adding that the looting of aid trucks inside Gaza was also obstructing relief efforts.

According to the United Nations, October 2024 marked the worst month for humanitarian aid entering Gaza since the conflict began.

Israel says it has increased the amount of aid into Gaza, and accuses aid agencies of failing to adequately distribute it.

Syria’s Civil Defense says it rescued four children and one woman from the same family who were trapped under the rubble following an airstrike on Inab, a village 25 miles north of Aleppo. 

It said the airstrikes “by the Assad regime and Russia” targeted the home after early this morning.

“Our teams inspected the bombing sites without receiving any reports of casualties in the two towns,” Syria’s civil defense posted on X.

They are volunteer first responders known as the White Helmets that operate in opposition-held areas.

Cars burned during battles with government forces shortly after jihadists entered central Aleppo early today. Jihadists and their Turkish-backed allies breached Syria’s second city of Aleppo yesterday as they pressed a lightning offensive against forces of the Iranian- and Russian-backed government.

The governor of Aleppo, police and security branches have withdrawn from the center of Aleppo and escaped south-east to the Al-Safirah area, The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said today.

Their alleged withdrawal comes amid reports from the monitoring group that the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham militant group now control the “majority of the city.”

Video verified by NBC News shows Syrian rebels near the Aleppo citadel in the center of the city.

A man speaking to the camera says “Welcome, guys. We are the first arrivals; we are the first conquerors.”

The 13-year civil war in Syria has roared back into prominence with a surprise rebel offensive on Aleppo, one of Syria’s largest cities and an ancient business hub. The push is among the rebels’ strongest in years in a war whose destabilizing effects have rippled far beyond the country’s borders.

It was the first opposition attack on Aleppo since 2016, when a brutal air campaign by Russian warplanes helped Syrian President Bashar Assad retake the northwestern city. Intervention by Russia, Iran and Iranian-allied Hezbollah and other groups has allowed Assad to remain in power, within the 70% of Syria under his control.

The surge in fighting has raised the prospect of another violent front reopening in the Middle East, at a time when U.S.-backed Israel is fighting Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, both Iranian-allied groups.

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Islamist rebels have taken control of “the majority” of Syria’s second-largest city Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, a prominent war-monitoring group.

The fighting between forces loyal to President Bashar Al Assad and militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham was a significant escalation in regional tensions.

The breach marked the first time opposition forces besieged the city since 2016, when they were driven out of Aleppo’s eastern neighborhoods during a military operation in which Syrian troops were supported by Russia and Iran.

Four years ago, a ceasefire brought an end to the most intense violence, but the new push from rebels has upended a period of relative calm.