Israel is celebrating the fall of Assad because it breaks the noose that Iran had been patiently tightening around Israel’s borders in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Tehran’s pincer is now broken and rendered useless. From the point of view of Israel’s wider conflict with the Islamic Republic, the collapse of Assad’s regime is a strategic victory.

The Syrian regime’s collapse came more quickly than the rebels had dreamed — the circumstances were both serendipitous and part of a larger global realignment.

Israel ordered the closure and evacuation on Sunday of one of the last hospitals still partly functioning in a besieged area on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, forcing medics to search for a way to bring hundreds of patients and staff to safety.

Hospital staff say evacuation impossible due to lack of ambulances Patients include babies in the neonatal unit Israeli military said on Friday it sent supplies to the hospital Latin patriarch allowed into Gaza after being refused entry CAIRO,