Middle East crisis live: rebel-backed Syrian interim prime minister urges ‘stability and calm’ | Syria

Jason Burke

Jason Burke reports from Deir Istiya

The olive trees cover the dry, rocky slopes around Deir Istiya, spreading deep into the valley to its west, lining the main roads, filling the gardens, and shading its graveyards.

But many farmers in the historical Palestinian town, deep in the occupied West Bank, say that this year they have been unable to harvest much of the vital olive crop, blaming an intensifying campaign of intimidation and violence by people from the half-dozen Israeli settlements and outposts nearby.

Ibrahim Abu Hijleh, 30, a farmer whose small olive grove is 200 metres from Revava, a settlement built in the 1990s, said he was able to reach his olive grove only for a few hours in November when accompanied by Israeli activists and a Palestinian Israeli member of parliament.

“I got about 10% of the harvest and now we need to trim and tend the trees,” he said. “I keep trying to go back but people come from the settlement and tell us to leave and threaten us.”

Last month the UN said Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank that resulted in casualties or property damage had at least tripled during the 2024 olive harvest season compared with each of the preceding three years.

Between 1 October and 25 November, the UN documented 250 settler-related incidents across 88 West Bank communities, with 57 Palestinians injured by settlers and 11 by Israeli forces. More than 2,800 trees –mostly slow-growing olive trees – were burned, sawed-off, or vandalised, and there was significant theft of crops and harvesting tools, it said.

In October, in the most high-profile attack, a 59-year-old woman was killed while harvesting olives in Faqqua, near Jenin, by a soldier who fired about 10 shots at her. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have said they are investigating.

Olives are the largest single agricultural product in the West Bank, and up to a third of the Palestinian population of the West Bank is estimated to work with the trees or their produce, such as oil and soap.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Middle East crisis.

Syria’s new interim leader said it was time for “stability and calm” in the country as he announced he was taking charge of the country as caretaker prime minister with the backing of the former rebels who toppled President Bashar al-Assad three days ago.

In a brief address on state television on Tuesday, Mohammed al-Bashir, a figure little-known across most of Syria who previously ran an administration in a pocket of the north-west controlled by rebels before the lightning offensive that swept into Damascus, said he would lead the interim authority until 1 March.

“Today we held a cabinet meeting that included a team from the salvation government that was working in Idlib and its vicinity, and the government of the ousted regime,” he said.

Behind him were two flags – the green, black and white flag flown by opponents of Assad throughout the civil war, and a white flag with the Islamic oath of faith in black writing, typically flown in Syria by Sunni Islamist fighters.

In the Syrian capital, banks reopened for the first time since Assad’s overthrow, Reuters reported. Shops also opened again, traffic returned to the roads, cleaners were out sweeping the streets and there were fewer armed men about.

“Now it is time for this people to enjoy stability and calm,” Bashir told Al Jazeera.

In other developments:

• Israel says it has carried out more than 480 airstrikes targeting weapons stockpiles and strategic infrastructure in Syria over the past 48 hours. The IDF said the air force conducted the crewed aircraft missile strikes on Syrian military targets including weapons production sites in the cities of Damascus, Homs, Tartus, Latakia and Palmyra. It said 130 strikes were “during ground operations” and aimed at weapons depots, military structures, launchers and firing positions.

• The world “has nothing to fear” from the new Syrian regime, the leader of rebel group Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) has told Sky News in what the network says are his first comments to a western media outlet since his organization toppled Bashar al-Assad on Sunday. Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, attempted to reassure foreign nations in his remarks and promised Syria “will be rebuilt”.

• Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow is “providing sanctuary” for deposed Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, having transported him to Moscow on Sunday “in the most secure way possible”. “He is secured, and it shows that Russia acts as required in such an extraordinary situation,” he told NBC News.

• The insurgent group that overthrew Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria claims to have wrested control of the eastern city of Deir el-Zour after intense battles with the Kurdish-led, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), AP reported. A member of the Islamic group Hayat al-Tahrir Sham (HTS) said in a recorded video that the group would sweep neighbourhoods to secure the city. The nearby city of Boukamal had also fallen to HTS, the person said, adding that Raqqa and Hasakah were subsequent targets.

• The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 218 people were killed in three days of fighting between Turkish-backed forces and the SDF in Manbij, north-east of Damascus. Early on Wednesday, SDF commander Mazloum Abdi said the SDF and the Turkey-backed rebels had reached a ceasefire agreement in Manbij through US mediation.

• Outgoing US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has called for an “inclusive” political process in Syria, saying the US would eventually recognise a new government if it renounces terrorism, destroys chemical weapons stocks and protects the rights of minorities and women. “The Syrian people will decide the future of Syria. All nations should pledge to support an inclusive and transparent process and refrain from external interference,” Blinken said in a statement.

• The UN would consider taking the Syrian rebel group that toppled the regime of Bashar al-Assad off its designated terrorist list if it passes the key test of forming a truly inclusive transitional government, according to a senior official at the world body. Geir Pedersen, UN special envoy for Syria, held out the prospect of removing Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from the organisation’s list of proscribed terrorist groups. But he said the group could not seek to govern Syria in the way that it had governed Idlib, the northern province where it was based and from where it led the military breakout that resulted in the sudden collapse of the Assad regime.