AFP journalists Christina Assi and Dylan Collins were among six media personnel honoured at the Doha Forum for political dialogue on Saturday for their sacrifices reporting from conflict zones.
Assi and Collins were wounded while reporting in Lebanon over a year ago, and received awards alongside Al Jazeera journalists Wael al-Dahdouh and Carmen Joukhadar, Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza and Afghan radio journalist Sadaf Popalzai.
The Israeli army said Saturday its troops were assisting UN peacekeepers in the Golan Heights in repelling an attack "by armed individuals", while the foreign minister said "armed forces" had entered the UN-patrolled buffer zone.
The UN force, UNDOF, confirmed its personnel observed "unidentified armed individuals in the area of separation, including approximately 20 who went into one of the mission's positions in the northern part of the area of separation", a spokesperson for UN Peacekeeping told AFP.
"The inviolability of UN premises must be respected at all times."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday that Syria must not be allowed to fall into the hands of a "terrorist group" as Islamist-led rebels advance on President Bashar al-Assad's seat of power.
Lavrov spoke after talks in the Gulf state of Qatar with fellow Assad ally Iran and opposition supporter Turkey aimed at preventing Syria from collapsing into chaos after the lightning rebel advances of recent days.
The armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, released a video on Saturday of an Israeli hostage held in the Gaza Strip since the Hamas attack of October 2023.
In the undated, three-and-half-minute video that AFP has not been able to verify, Matan Zangauker says in Hebrew that he has been in captivity for more than 420 days and calls for public pressure on the Israeli government to secure the release of all captives held in Gaza.
Yemen's warring parties and beleaguered people cannot wait indefinitely for a roadmap to peace before the country slips back to war, the UN special envoy told AFP.
Hans Grundberg insisted it was "still possible" to solve the conflict in impoverished Yemen, where Iran-backed Huthi rebels control much of the country.
But any chance of implementing a roadmap has effectively been put on hold by escalating regional crises sparked by the war in Gaza.
More than 13 years since Bashar al-Assad's security forces opened fire on protesters demanding democratic reforms, the Syrian president's grip on power may finally be weakening.
The 59-year-old son and heir of late dictator Hafez al-Assad has faced several setbacks during the long civil war triggered by his brutal crackdown in March 2011, but has so far managed to cling on to power.
Islamist-led rebels declared that they have taken Damascus in a lightning offensive on Sunday, sending President Bashar al-Assad fleeing and ending five decades of Baath rule in Syria.
Residents in the Syrian capital were seen cheering in the streets of Damascus, as the rebel factions heralded the departure of "tyrant" Assad and "declare the city of Damascus free".
The president's reported departure comes less than two weeks since the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group launched its campaign challenging more than five decades of rule by the Assad family.
Qatar's prime minister said on Saturday that momentum had returned to talks aimed at securing a truce and hostage exchange deal in Gaza following Donald Trump's election as US president.
The Gulf emirate, along with the United States and Egypt, had been involved in months of unsuccessful negotiations for a Gaza truce and hostage release.
But in November, Doha announced it had put its mediation on hold, saying it would resume when Hamas and Israel showed "willingness and seriousness".
The mother of Austin Tice, the American journalist abducted in Syria in 2012, told reporters Friday that her son is believed to be alive and is being "treated well," without providing further details.
"We have from a significant source that has already been vetted all over our government, Austin Tice is alive, Austin Tice is treated well," Debra Tice, surrounded by family members, told a news conference in Washington.
"We want to be very careful about what we share. He is being cared for and he is well, we do know that," she added.
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, leader of the Islamist rebel alliance that has captured swathes of Syria in a lightning offensive, is an extremist who has adopted a more moderate posture to try achieve his goals.
At the head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria's branch of Al-Qaeda, Jolani says the goal of his offensive is to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad's rule.
