The Yarmouk refugee camp outside Damascus was considered the capital of the Palestinian diaspora before the war in Syria reduced it to row after row of blasted out buildings where there were once falafel stands, pharmacies and mosques.

Taken over by a series of militant groups then bombarded by government planes, the camp has been all but abandoned since 2018. The buildings that were not destroyed by bombs were demolished by the government or stripped by thieves. Those who wanted to return to rebuild their homes were stymied by Kafkaesque bureaucratic and security requirements.

The leader of the Islamist-led rebels who seized power in Damascus criticized Israel on Saturday for its incursion into southern Syria this week but said his country is too exhausted for a conflict with Israel.

Ahmad al-Sharaa in his first public comments on Israel in the week since Assad's fall said “the pretexts that Israel uses have ended" for its airstrikes inside Syria in recent days.

Arab, Western and Turkish diplomats agreed in talks in Jordan Saturday on the need for an "inclusive" government in Syria following the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

Blinken told reporters that the talks would issue a joint statement in which "we agreed that the transition process should be Syrian-led and Syrian-owned and produce an inclusive and representative government".

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has wrapped up perhaps his last Middle East as America's top diplomat, with the aim of preventing Syria from spiraling out of control after the sudden ouster of President Bashar Assad.

Blinken was one of several senior U.S. officials traveling across the region in the Biden administration's final weeks amid deep uncertainty in Washington and abroad over how Donald Trump will approach the Mideast when he takes office on Jan. 20, 2025.

A Syria war monitor said Israel launched strikes early Saturday targeting military sites in Damascus and its countryside, in the latest such raids since rebels brought down Bashar al-Assad almost a week ago.

"Israeli strikes destroyed a scientific institute" and other related military facilities in Barzeh, in northern Damascus, and targeted a "military airport" in the capital's countryside, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

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 U.S. military has transported out of Syria an American who had disappeared seven months ago into former President Bashar Assad's notorious prison system and was among the thousands released this week by rebels, U.S. officials said Friday.

Travis Timmerman, 29, was flown to Jordan on a U.S. military helicopter, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing operation.

After insurgents toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad this month, many senior officials and members of his dreaded intelligence and security services appear to have melted away. Activists say some of them have managed to flee the country while others went to hide in their hometowns.

For more than five decades, the Assad family has ruled Syria with an iron grip, locking up those who dared question their power in the country's notorious prisons, where rights groups say inmates were regularly tortured or killed.

Veteran documentarian Alex Gibney, who in a decades-long career has tackled many a thorny issue, wasn't planning a film about Israel — until one day last year, when a stunning leak fell into his hands.

The leak turned out to be more like a deluge.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday in Baghdad that Washington was committed to Iraq's security and would help prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group following Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad's overthrow.

Blinken, speaking after talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, said he reaffirmed "our commitment to working with Iraq on security and always working for Iraq's sovereignty, to make sure that that is strengthened and preserved".