That concludes our live coverage of events for the day. Thanks for joining us, we'll be back again tomorrow morning with more news updates and analysis. Goodnight!
Syria
The explosion in the coastal Syrian city of Latakia reported earlier, which killed three people, was the result of an unexploded ordnance, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights.
U.S. and the region
Nationwide protests are planned in the U.S. this weekend after Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student activist, was arrested by immigration authorities, as part of a crack down by the Trump administration against pro-Palestine student protests that swept across campuses last summer.
According to an NBC news report, demonstrations calling for his release will be held in cities including New York City, Boston, Phoenix, Charlotte, Oklahoma City, Miami and Indianapolis today and tomorrow.
Yesterday, U.S. immigration agents arrested a second student protester and the Trump administration set a deadline for Columbia University, one of the most prestigious campuses in the U.S., to cede control of one of its academic departments.
In a news release on Friday, the Department of Homeland Security accused Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian student at Columbia, of overstaying her F-1 student visa.
Romy Abu-Fadel reports for L'Orient Today from Washington. 👈
People gather around the bodies of the victims of Israeli air strikes on a team of journalists and charity workers in northern Gaza, March 16, 2025. (Credit: Mahmoud Issa/Reuters)
Syria
⚡ At least three people have been killed in a “violent explosion” in the Syrian coastal city of Latakia, where violent massacres of civilians took place last week following a coordinated attack by forces loyal to deposed dictator Bashar al-Assad against Syria's new security forces.
According to Syria's state-run Sana news agency, “The explosion in the al-Rimal neighborhood in the city of Latakia has so far left three dead and twelve wounded,” adding that "Civil protection teams and residents were still searching for other wounded and missing."
Gaza
The Health Ministry in Gaza has just released its latest report on the number of people killed and wounded by Israel’s war on the territory since Oct. 7, 2023.
In a statement, the ministry announced that in the last 48 hours, a total of 19 people have been killed and 26 wounded arrived in hospitals for treatment. This brings the confirmed number of people killed in Israeli attacks since Oct. 7 to at least 48,543, with 111,981 others wounded.
Thousands more victims are thought to still be buried under the rubble. Considering this, the Government Media Office in Gaza has put the death toll at more than 61,000.
South Lebanon
The Israeli army has claimed responsibility for the strike against a car in southern Lebanon's Marjayoun district that killed at least one person earlier this afternoon, according to a statement released by its Arabic-language spokesperson. The Israeli army "raided a Hezbollah terrorist who was engaged in terrorist activities in the Kafr Kila area in southern Lebanon," the statement reads.
A cease-fire has been in place between Israel and Hezbollah for over three-and-a-half months now, but a side-agreement signed by the U.S. and Israel outlines an understanding between the two by which Israel is permitted to attack Lebanon should it perceive "threats" to its security.
Gaza
Hamas issued a statement calling the deadly Israeli attacks on Beit Lahia a “horrific massacre” and “a continuation” of Israeli “war crimes against our people and a dangerous escalation that reflects its insistence on continuing its aggression and disregard for all international laws and conventions,” Al Jazeera reports.
“This criminal escalation, accompanied by deliberate killings and barbaric shelling across the Gaza Strip, reaffirms the occupation’s intention to undermine the cease-fire agreement and its deliberate sabotage of any opportunity to complete the implementation of the agreement and exchange prisoners, in blatant defiance of the mediators and the international community,” Hamas said.
The Palestinian group called on the mediators to pressure Netanyahu to move ahead with implementing the agreed upon cease-fire and prisoner exchange.
For context...
Photojournalists often use drones to capture bird's-eye-view photos and footage for news reports. This is not the first time the Israeli army has killed journalists who were seen using standard equipment.
In January 2024, four journalists were returning from the scene of an Israeli strike on a building, where they had used a drone to capture the aftermath, the Washington Post reported.
The Israeli army bombed their car, killing two and injuring the others. The drone — a consumer model available at Best Buy — was used by Israel as justification for their killing, saying it had "identified and struck a terrorist who operated an aircraft that posed a threat to [Israeli] troops.”
Gaza
Gaza's Civil Defense has confirmed that Israeli air strikes against northern Gaza's Beit Lahia killed nine people today, including several journalists. This is the highest number of casualties in a single day since the cease-fire began on Jan. 19.
In a statement cited by AFP, the organization's spokesperson, Mahmoud Bassal, confirmed that nine dead were transferred to hospital, including several journalists and employees of the Al-Khair charity. The Israeli army claimed responsibility for two strikes against "two terrorists operating a drone" in the town, and then another strike against a vehicle carrying "other terrorists who had come to retrieve" the gear.
Fares Awad, head of emergency services in northern Gaza, identified one of the dead as Mahmoud Islim, a local reporter who was operating a drone.
Occupied West Bank
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has documented at least 69 air raids in the occupied West Bank since Oct. 7, 2023, which have killing 261 people, including at least 41 children, Al Jazeera reports.
The organization's report, which included numerous testimonies from Palestinians, said there had been a marked increase in violence, with Israel now frequently bombing refugee camps and cities in the northern occupied West Bank.
By way of comparison, in the previous 18 years combined, Israeli air raids killed 14 people in the occupied West Bank. The report also said that some of the last year-and-a-half's attacks have involved fighter jets, in the first such use since the second Intifada.
South Lebanon
The Lebanese Ministry of Health announced that the Israeli strike on a car in Burj al-Muluk killed one person. Our correspondent previously reported, citing witnesses at the scene, that the drone strike had killed two people, both passengers in the car.
South Lebanon
⚡ At least two people have been killed by an Israeli drone strike on a Rapid car as it was driving on the road to Burj al-Muluk in southern Lebanon's Marjayoun district, our correspondent in the region reports. Eyewitnesses say that the car was hit directly and caught fire. One of the car's passengers was thrown from the vehicle by the force of the strike, while the other was burned inside the vehicle, witnesses report.
Gaza
Five people were killed by the Israeli army in an airstrike on northern Gaza's Beit Lahiya earlier this morning, Times of Israel reports, citing Palestinian media.
According to Al Jazeera, three people, including a journalist, were killed and several wounded in an Israeli drone attack on a gathering of citizens at the Attar junction in Beit Lahiya.
Earlier today, the Israeli army released a statement saying it had attacked three people “operating near [Israeli army] soldiers in the area of Netzarim” and claimed they were “attempting to plant explosive devices on the ground."
The killings come as the cease-fire deal reached between Hamas and Israel nears the two-month mark.
Gaza cease-fire
Some confusion surrounds the Hamas-U.S. hostage release deal. While Hamas has publicly agreed to releasing a dual U.S.-Israeli hostage and the bodies of four others, the White House has accused the group of "claiming flexibility" while making "unachievable demands."
“Unfortunately, Hamas has reacted by publicly declaring itself flexible while privately issuing demands that are totally unachievable without a permanent ceasefire," American special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, said in a statement.
According to an Axios report, Hamas' statement agreeing to the deal also didn't refer in anyway to the terms of the latest "bridging" proposal presented by Witkoff on Wednesday. Witkoff reportedly rejected Hamas' statement and made clear it doesn't conform with his proposal.
The statement also said Hamas knows Trump's deadline to release the hostages and threatened it will pay a "severe price" if that deadline is missed. Israeli and U.S. negotiators left Doha on Friday after five days of talks that didn't lead to a breakthrough, Israeli and U.S. officials told Axios.
Lebanon
According to the new outlet al-Akhbar, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is expected in Beirut next week. Abbas' Palestinian Authority (PA) has been floated as the future leadership for Gaza after the war, with a proposal from Arab countries that places a committee of technocrats in charge of managing reconstruction, reporting to a reformed PA.
Israel
Israeli captives’ families declared they would not allow Netanyahu to “derail the agreement with Hamas or turn Gaza’s tunnels into graves” for their relatives, Haaretz reports.
In a statement released earlier today, they called for demonstrations in front of the Israeli Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv. “In the place where Netanyahu threatens to launch a new war, violating agreements and sacrificing the hostages, we will continue to send a clear message tonight: we will not allow you to turn Gaza’s tunnels into graves for our children,” they stated.
Pressure has been mounting on Netanyahu's government since the latest round of hostage exchanges came to a close with the Israeli prime minister's refusal to open negotiations for the second phase of the truce, which would see the release of all remaining hostages and facilitate a permanent end to hostilities. Israel estimates that 59 captives are still held in Gaza, with at least 22 of them alive.
Gaza
The Rafah Municipality in southern Gaza said fuel supplies to water wells have been halted as a result of the Israeli blockade, ongoing now for two weeks, Middle East Eye reports.
"We are facing an uncontainable humanitarian disaster due to the cessation of water wells in the city," the municipality said.
Yesterday, foreign ministers from G7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S.) called for Israel to lift its ban on all supplies from entering Gaza and resume "unhindered" humanitarian aid.
Gaza cease-fire
A senior Hamas official said his group will only release American-Israeli captive Edan Alexander and the bodies of four other captives if Israel agrees to the existing ceasefire agreement, the Associated Press reports.
The official said Hamas demands that negotiations for the second phase of the cease-fire must begin the day after the release and that Israel must end its blockade on Gaza, ongoing now for two weeks, in which Israel has forbidden any supplies delivered from anywhere from entering the Strip.
In a separate statement, Hamas said it had “responded positively” to a “mediators' proposal” and signified “its agreement to the release of Israeli soldier Edan Alexander, in addition to [the return of] the bodies of four other” Israeli-American hostages, taken during the Oct. 7 attack.
According to a Palestinian source close to the negotiations, cited by AFP, a new 50-day truce period is meant to begin on the day the hostages are returned, during which negotiations will take place on a permanent cease-fire and the release of the remaining captives.
Syria
On Thursday, interim Syrian president Ahmad al-Sharaa signed a provisional constitutional declaration, inspired by the country's 1950 constitution, to govern a five-year transitional period.
The constitutional preamble includes provisions enshrining freedom of expression and opinion, as well as women's rights. It criminalizes "the glorification of the former regime and its symbols" and abolishes emergency laws and anti-terrorist court rulings. The document calls for the establishment of a transitional justice commission to work on delivering justice to victims of the Assad dictatorship.
These presumably positive elements fail to conceal the pitfalls and blind spots of this declaration, starting with the speed at which it was drafted. Similar to the opaque and rushed process that led to the National Dialogue Conference at the end of February, the selection criteria for the drafting commission lacked transparency. One major concern is that it includes only a few constitutional experts.
👉 Read Soulayma Mardam Bey's deep dive into the document that for some, marks significant progress, for others, a disaster and for others still, remains too vague to draw conclusions.
Syria
Syrians are commemorating the 14th anniversary of the popular uprising today in public demonstrations in Damascus and other cities for the first time since president Bashar al-Assad and his family's 50 years of oppression was toppled.
A demonstration will be held in Umayyad Square in the capital Damascus, the first after years of violence and civil war under Assad during which the square was the sole preserve of the toppled president's supporters. Activists also called on people to gather in Homs, Idlib and Hama at demonstrations raising the slogan "Syria is victorious."
Good morning and welcome to today's live coverage of regional events, notably the tenuous cease-fires in Lebanon and in Gaza, the recommencing of negotiations between Israel and Hamas for phase two of the truce, between Israel and Lebanon regarding border demarcation and between Syria's diverse groups regarding the country's future.
🔴 Catch up on yesterday's live blog here. 👈
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