������

������'s live blog on Israel's war in Gaza and developments in the region has now ended, and will resume tomorrow at 0900 GMT.

Thank you for following!

Israeli forces have advanced further into Syria over the past 24 hours, establishing several outposts in villages in the provinces of Quneitra and Daraa amid its invasion of parts of the country.

Reda more here.

Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa said Sunday his administration was working to protect minorities, emphasising the importance of coexistence in the multi-ethnic, multi-confessional country after his Islamist group ousted Bashar al-Assad.

"We are working on protecting sects and minorities from any attacks that occur between them" and from "external" actors trying to exploit the situation "to cause sectarian discord", Sharaa said during a press conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, adding that "Syria is a country for all and we can coexist together".

Syria alone was responsible for overthrowing Bashar al-Assad, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said in Damascus on Sunday after meeting the country's new leaders.

"This victory belongs to you and no one else. Thanks to your sacrifices, Syria has seized a historic opportunity," he said. Turkey has repeatedly dismissed claims it had any hand in the lightning 12-day rebel offensive that ended with Assad's overthrow on December 8.

Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa said Sunday that all weapons in the country would come under state control including those held by Kurdish-led forces, as Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan visited.

Armed "factions will begin to announce their dissolution and enter" the army, Sharaa said during a press conference with Fidan, adding "we will absolutely not allow there to be weapons in the country outside state control, whether from the revolutionary factions or the factions present in the SDF area", referring to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel would act firmly against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, a day after the group fired a missile that injured 16 people in Tel Aviv.

"As we acted with force against the terrorist arms of Iran's axis of evil, so we will act against the Houthis... with force, determination and sophistication," Netanyahu said in a video statement. The Hoiuthis are backed by Tehran.

An Israeli official has told The Times of Israel that Hamas has provided "signs of life" for several hostages still held in the Gaza Strip, amid reports of a ceasefire deal nearing completion.

Israel knows the whereabouts of most of the hostages, the official said, but did not say whether Hamas had provided a list of living hostages.

The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees said more than 556,000 children in war-torn Gaza have received a second dose of the polio vaccine through health centres, mobile medical points and door-to-door efforts.

UNRWA was key in the polio vaccination campaign in .

Through health centres, mobile medical points, and door-to-door efforts, UNRWA and partners have collectively reached over 556,000 children with a second dose of the polio vaccine.

— UNRWA (@UNRWA)

Syria's de facto leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, met with former Vice President of Syria Farouk al-Sharaa, who was removed from the political scene in the last years of ousted President Bashar al-Assad’s rule, and invited him to attend a national dialogue conference, reports said on Sunday.

“Since the first days of Ahmed al-Sharaa’s entry into Damascus, he visited Farouk al-Sharaa at his residence in a suburb of Damascus and extended an invitation to him to attend a national conference that will be held soon,” Marwan al-Sharaa, Farouk’s cousin, told AFP in a telephone interview.

Iran's supreme leader on Sunday said that young Syrians will resist the new government emerging after the overthrow of President Bashar Assad as he again accused the United States and Israel of sowing chaos in the country.

Iran had provided crucial support to Assad throughout Syria's nearly 14-year civil war, which erupted after he launched a violent crackdown on a popular uprising against his family's decades-long rule. Syria had long served as a key conduit for Iranian aid to Lebanon's militant Hezbollah.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in an address on Sunday that the "young Syrian has nothing to lose" and suffers from insecurity following Assad's fall.

"What can he do? He should stand with strong will against those who designed and those who implemented the insecurity," Khamenei said. "God willing, he will overcome them."

Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met with Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus, Turkey's foreign ministry said on Sunday, without providing further details.

Photographs and footage shared by the ministry showed Fidan and al-Sharaa, leader of Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham which led the operation to topple Bashar al-Assad two weeks ago, hug and shake hands.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan had said on Friday that Fidan would be going to Damascus to discuss the new structure in Syria. 

Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa told Lebanese Druze leaders on Sunday that his country would not negatively interfere in Lebanon and would respect its neighbour's sovereignty.

Syria will no longer exert "negative interference in Lebanon at all -- it respects Lebanon's sovereignty, the unity of its territories, the independence of its decisions and its security stability," Sharaa told visiting Druze chiefs Walid and Taymur Jumblatt.

Walid Jumblatt is the first Lebanese figure to meet Sharaa since his Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied rebel factions launched a lightning offensive last month, seizing Damascus on December 8 and ousting longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.

Syria "will stay at equal distance from all" in Lebanon, Sharaa added, acknowledging that Syria has been a "source of fear and anxiety" for the country.

Pope Francis doubled down Sunday on his condemnation of Israel's strikes on the Gaza Strip, denouncing their "cruelty" for the second time in as many days despite Israel accusing him of "double standards".

"And with pain I think of Gaza, of so much cruelty, of the children being machine-gunned, of the bombings of schools and hospitals. What cruelty," the pope said after his weekly Angelus prayer.

It comes a day after the 88-year-old Argentine lamented an Israeli airstrike that killed seven children from one family on Friday, according to Gaza's rescue agency.

"Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war," the pope told members of the government of the Holy See.

His remarks on Saturday prompted a sharp response from Israel.

An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman described Francis's intervention as "particularly disappointing as they are disconnected from the true and factual context of Israel's fight against jihadist terrorism -- a multi-front war that was forced upon it starting on October 7."

"Enough with the double standards and the singling out of the Jewish state and its people," he added.

A Gaza official is reportedly among those killed in an Israeli drone strike targeting  vehicle in Gaza City, Al Jazeera is reporting.

Four people were killed in the attack - two young men as well as two older adults, including the legislative council member, following the attack on al-Jalaa Street in Gaza City.

At lest 45,259 Palestinians have been killed and 107,627 wounded in Israel's military offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, the Gaza health ministry reported on Sunday.

Pope Francis on Saturday slammed the bombing of children in Gaza as "cruelty", sparking a sharp response from Israel which accused him of "double standards".

The pontiff made his remarks a day after the rescue agency in Gaza said an Israeli air strike had killed seven children from one family.

"Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war," he said. "I want to say it because it touches my heart."

Read more here.

Four Palestinians were killed by an Israeli military drone strike on a vehicle in Gaza City earlier on Sunday, according to Palestinian media reports and Al Jazeera.

4 شهداء وعدد من الجرحى جراء استهداف الاحتلال مركبة في شارع الجلاء بمدنية غزة.

— Ultra Palestine - الترا فلسطين (@palestineultra)

Israeli forces raided the town of Tammoun, in the northern West Bank governorate of Tubas, on Sunday according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Israeli undercover units reportedly conducted raids on two homes. 

Israeli strikes kill at least five Palestinians in Jabalia, northern Gaza, including children.