AMSTERDAM, March 17 (Reuters) - The Netherlands is investigating whether Iran was involved in the attack on a Rotterdam synagogue on Friday, Justice Minister David van Weel has said, adding that the suspects apprehended for the attack had most likely been recruited.

"The possibility that Iran is involved in this attack is... being explicitly investigated", Van Weel told parliament on Tuesday, though he did not cite a conclusive link between Iran and the attack ahead of the investigation's conclusions.

The four youths arrested on suspicion of detonating an explosive device outside a Rotterdam synagogue were probably "recruited", the Dutch justice minister said Tuesday, with investigators probing possible links to Iran.

The attack on the synagogue in the early hours of Friday was followed by similar explosions outside a Jewish school and an office building in Amsterdam.

The blasts caused minimal damage to the buildings and no one was hurt.

"Until now, everything points to the fact that the young men in Rotterdam were recruited," David van Weel told parliament.

WASHINGTON, March 17 (Reuters) - The head of the National Counterterrorism Center resigned on Tuesday, becoming the first and most senior member of U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to resign over the war in Iran, saying Tehran posed no imminent threat to the United States.

"I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful lobby," Joseph Kent wrote in a letter to Trump posted on X.

For the first time since war began in Gaza, Raeda Abu Diya has bought special clothes for her daughter for the upcoming Eid al-Fitr holiday, marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Bu while a fragile ceasefire now holds in the Israel-Hamas war, Palestinians in Gaza fear the Iran war will make the world forget their suffering, and lead to prolonged shortages of crucial aid.

A senior US counterterrorism official resigned on Tuesday to protest the US-Israeli war against Iran and said the Islamic Republic posed no imminent threat to the United States.

"I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran," Joseph Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said in his resignation letter to President Donald Trump.

Youssef Assaf was in a Lebanese Red Cross ambulance when it was targeted by an Israeli strike near Tyre, in southern Lebanon. The 35-year-old paramedic died of his wounds two days later.

"I was called around 10:30 pm and told that he was wounded and in the hospital," his wife, Jeanne d'Arc Boutros, told AFP from northern Lebanon, where she had fled to a relative's home.

"I knew my husband is strong and can endure. I didn't react at all -- I just kept praying and repeating in my heart that nothing bad would happen to him," the 32-year-old schoolteacher said.

DUBAI, March 17 (Reuters) - Iran arrested 10 foreigners among dozens rounded up on suspicion of collaborating with Israel and the U.S., Iranian media said on Tuesday, as officials warned people to stay at home during a festival that they said could be exploited by "the enemy".

Iran's police chief Ahmadreza Radan said on Sunday that at least 500 people had been arrested since the start of the war pitting Tehran against Israel and Washington, accusing the detainees of sharing information with adversaries.

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO, March 17 (Reuters) - An Israeli airstrike killed at least three people including a child in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, local health authorities said, the latest violence jeopardising the ceasefire which has been under strain during the Israeli-U.S. war against Iran.

Medics said the airstrike targeted a vehicle in the western area of Khan Younis, south of the enclave, killing three people, including a child, and wounding 12 other people. There was no immediate Israeli comment.

By Feras Dalatey

DAMASCUS, March 17 (Reuters) - Syrian authorities have banned alcohol from restaurants and bars in Damascus, one of the clearest moves yet by the Islamist-led government towards enforcing conservative ways since Ahmed al-Sharaa toppled Bashar al-Assad 15 months ago.

The decree, issued by the Damascus governorate on Monday evening, requires that nightclub and bar licences be converted into café licences and restricts the sale of alcohol to sealed bottles for takeaway and only in predominantly Christian areas.

No explosions, few police checks and well-stocked shops: in the relaxed Caspian Sea resorts where many Tehran residents have fled, the ongoing war seems far away.

"It seems as though people barely realise that there's a war happening," said an Iranian woman in her thirties, who decamped there from the capital.

"Or they are not paying much attention to it," added the woman, who agreed to be interviewed by AFP on condition of anonymity.