Rebels control Syria's Aleppo city, Israeli army kills dozens in Gaza

A monitor of Syria's war said that rebels now control a majority of Aleppo, Syria's second largest city, reporting Russian air strikes on parts of it for the first time since 2016.

The rebels, opposed to President Bashar al-Assad's government, have pressed a lightning offensive against forces of the Iranian and Russian-backed Syrian government since Wednesday, the same day a fragile ceasefire took effect in neighboring Lebanon between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah group, a Damascus ally, after two months of all-out war.

"Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions... took control of most of the city and government centres and prisons", said the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

HTS, formed out of a group with former ties to al-Qaeda, controls swathes of the Idlib region, in Syria's northwest, as well as parts of neighboring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces.

Russian warplanes raid Aleppo

Overnight, Russian "warplanes launched raids on areas of Aleppo city for the first time since 2016," added the UK-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.

It raised the death toll in days of clashes to 311 - 183 from HTS and allied Turkish-backed factions, 100 soldiers and pro-government forces, as well as 28 civilians.

State media reported that four civilians were killed when HTS shelled a student residence in Aleppo, a city of around two million people that was Syria's pre-war manufacturing hub.

The Observatory said that "the governor of Aleppo and the police and security branch commanders withdrew from the city center."

The overnight air strikes coincided with "the arrival of large (rebel) military reinforcements" to the area, the Observatory added, after reporting the armed fighters and their allies had taken more than 50 towns and villages in the north.

Syrian army's temporary troop withdrawal

Army reinforcements have arrived in Aleppo, a Syrian security official told journalists, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Syria's military announced a "temporary troop withdrawal" in Aleppo in order to prepare a counteroffensive against what it called terrorists.

The military added that dozens of soldiers had been killed or injured in fierce battles with insurgents in Aleppo and Idlib over the past few days.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said that rebel fighters swiftly captured swathes of Aleppo without meeting significant resistance, adding "there has been no fighting, not a single shot was fired, as regime forces withdrew."

The rebels and their allies made other advances in the north, including seizure of the strategically located town of Saraqib, on the road to Aleppo about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest, the Observatory said.

The Russian military said it was bombing "extremist" forces, as Türkiye demanded a halt to bombardment on the Idlib region.

Since 2020, the Idlib area has been subject to a Türkiye and Russia-brokered truce which had largely been holding despite repeated violations. 

Israel's 'intelligence-based strike'

Meanwhile, Israeli forces have conducted an "intelligence-based strike" on military infrastructure sites next to border crossings between Syria and Lebanon, the military said on its Telegram channel.

The military said the crossings were "used by Hezbollah to smuggle weapons from Syria into Lebanon." It said it will continue to "remove any threat" to Israel.

An Israeli strike on a car in south Lebanon wounded three people, including a seven-year old child, the Lebanese health ministry said. The strike took place in Majdal Zoun village.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The Israeli military said that Lebanese residents were prohibited from moving south to several villages and called on them not to return to around 62 villages in the area.

Israeli army kills dozens in Gaza

As efforts to revive Gaza ceasefire talks received a boost with officials from the Palestinian group Hamas headed to Cairo for a new round of talks, at least 23 people have been killed by the Israeli military across the Gaza Strip since dawn. 

These included 17 in Gaza City, one in Jabalia and five, including three World Central Kitchen aid workers, in Khan Younis, according to Al Jazeera media network.

Medics said they had recovered 19 bodies of Palestinians killed in northern areas of Nuseirat, one of the enclave's eight long-standing refugee camps.

Late on Friday, an Israeli air strike killed at least 10 Palestinians in a house in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, medics said.

The Palestinian civil emergency service, Hamas and the Palestinian official news agency WAFA put the number of Palestinians killed in two Israeli strikes in Beit Lahiya in the past 24 hours at 70. There was no immediate confirmation of the figure by the local health ministry.

The Israeli army said forces operating in Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and Jabalia since October 5 aimed to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping and waging attacks from those areas. 

Residents said the army was depopulating the towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun as well as the Jabalia refugee camp.

Others were killed in the northern and southern areas of the Gaza Strip, medics added. There was no fresh statement by the Israeli military, but it said on Thursday its forces were continuing to "strike terror targets as part of the operational activity in the Gaza Strip."

Israeli drone targets Gaza hospital

Israeli tanks had entered northern and western areas of Nuseirat refugee camp on Thursday. They withdrew from northern areas on Friday but remained active in western parts of the camp. The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said teams were unable to respond to distress calls from residents trapped in their homes.

Dozens of Palestinians returned on Friday to areas where the army had retreated to check on damage to their homes.

Medics said an Israeli drone had killed Ahmed Al-Kahlout, head of the Intensive Care Unit at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, where the army has been operating since early October.

The Israeli military said it was unaware of a strike occurring in this location or timeframe.

Efforts for ceasefire in Gaza 

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and accused Israel of "using the weapon of starvation against the people (in northern Gaza) to displace them from their land and homes."

Late on Friday, two Hamas officials told reporters a Hamas delegation would arrive in Cairo on Saturday for talks with Egyptian officials. The visit comes days after the U.S. said it would begin new efforts with Qatar, Egypt, and Türkiye to revive Gaza ceasefire talks.

"A Hamas delegation will go to Cairo for several meetings with Egyptian officials to discuss ideas for a ceasefire and a prisoner accord in the Gaza Strip," the group's said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.

The announcement came two days after a ceasefire went into effect between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, a Hamas ally.

Months of efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza have yielded scant progress, and negotiations are now on hold.

Gaza's health ministry reports that at least 44,382 people have been killed and another 105,142 people have been wounded, in more than 13 months of war on the besieged enclave.

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