(JTA) — Even as tensions between Israel and Syria ramped up in recent days, a small group of Syrian Jews recently celebrated a milestone that once seemed unthinkable: a return visit to their home country.

A senior Turkish official says groups affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, in Syria and Iraq should dissolve themselves.

The commander of the Kurdish-led forces that control northeastern Syria said that a call by the leader of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey for the PKK to dissolve did not apply to the group he leads.

In 2023, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) spent $42 billion (Sh5.4 trillion) to support programmes - ranging from malaria and HIV prevention, to fighting starvation and providing shelters for people displaced by war - across 157 countries.

Israel confirmed it is conducting strikes in southern Syria, as the new Syrian government calls for the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Syrian territory.

Tayyip Erdogan's long-held goal of ending Turkey's conflict with Kurdish militants is a step closer after their jailed chief's peace call, giving the president a potential political boost at home and a chance to resolve key regional security concerns.

Idlib offers a glimpse of what Syria’s new leaders can create—though it came at a price.

Comics had already been trying to foster stand-up in Syria before Bashar al-Assad’s fall. Now, they are telling jokes in a liberated country, while warily eyeing the new government.

The attacks in southern Syria are part of a new policy aimed at protecting what Israel calls its “security zone” in the region. Syria’s new government has condemned that policy.

Syria’s new rulers have kicked off a long-awaited national dialogue conference as an “exceptional and rare historical opportunity” to rebuild the country after nearly 14 years of cvil war and the fall of former President Bashar Assad.