Damascus: Thousands of Syrians gathered in Damascus’ main square and a historic mosque for the first Muslim Friday prayers since former President Bashar Assad was overthrown, a major symbolic moment for the country’s dramatic change of power. The rebels are now working to establish security and start a political transition after seizing the capital on Sunday.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Friday, pressing ahead with efforts to unify Middle East nations in support of a peaceful political transition in Syria. It’s part of Blinken’s 12th trip to the Mideast since the Israel-Hamas war erupted last year in Gaza but his first after Assad was ousted.

The U.S. is also making a renewed push for an ceasefire in Gaza, where the war has plunged more than 2 million Palestinians into a severe humanitarian crisis.

Israel’s war against Hamas has killed over 44,800 Palestinians in Gaza, more than half of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The October 2023 Hamas attack that sparked the war killed some 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and around 250 others were taken hostage. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Interim government demands Israel to stop attacks

 Syria’s interim government is calling on the U.N. Security Council to take action to compel Israel to immediately stop its attacks on Syrian territory and withdraw from areas it has penetrated in the north in violation of a 1974 Disengagement Agreement.

In identical letters to the council and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres obtained Friday by The Associated Press, Syria’s U.N. Ambassador Koussay Aldahhak said he was acting “on instructions from my government” in making the demands. It appeared to be the first letter to the U.N. from Syria’s new interim government.

The letters are dated Dec. 9, days after rebels ousted president Bashar Assad and ended his family’s more than 50-year authoritarian rule of Syria.

“At a time when the Syrian Arab Republic is witnessing a new phase in its history in which its people aspire to establish a state of freedom, equality and the rule of law and to achieve their hopes for prosperity and stability, the Israeli occupation army has penetrated additional areas of Syrian territory in Mount Hermon and Quneitra Governorate,” ambassador Aldahhak wrote.

Israel still controls the Golan Heights that it captured from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war. The Disengagement Agreement ending the 1973 war between Israel and Syria established a demilitarized buffer zone between the two countries, monitored by a U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNDOF.

In a letter to the Security Council circulated Friday which was also written on Dec. 9, Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said his country had taken “limited and temporary measures,” deploying troops temporarily in the separation area “to prevent armed groups from threatening Israeli territory.”

Turkey vows to eliminate US backed Syrian Kurdish militia 

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Friday that eliminating a U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish militia is his country’s “strategic goal,” and called on members of the group to leave Syria or lay down arms.

In an interview with Turkey’s NTV television, Fidan also suggested that Syria’s new rulers — the rebels who swept into Damascus and who are backed by Ankara — would not recognize the militia, known as the People’s Protection Units, or YPG.

The group is allied with the United States in the fight against the Islamic State group but Turkey views it as a terrorist organization and a security threat.

“The non-Syrian YPG members must leave the country as soon as possible. The entire command level of the YPG must also leave the country,” Fidan said. “After that, those who remain must put down their weapons and continue with their lives.”

Fidan said that as the Syrian insurgents advanced toward Damascus and Syria's Bashar Assad was toppled, Turkey in talks that were underway in Qatar at the time asked Iran and Russia not to intervene militarily.

“At some point they (Russians and Iranians) made phone calls. That evening, Assad left,” Fidan said. |AP