Japan has summoned China’s ambassador over an incident in which Chinese military aircraft allegedly twice locked fire-control radar onto Japanese fighter jets, as tensions between the two countries surge.
The move by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday was to protest against what it called the dangerous and “extremely regrettable” behaviour of the Chinese J-15 fighter jets over international waters southeast of Okinawa’s main island the previous day.
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It said China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier fighter jets aimed radar beams at Japanese aircraft scrambled to shadow the vessel – claims denied by the Chinese embassy.
Illuminating aircraft with radar signals a potential attack that could force targeted planes to take evasive measures, making it among the most threatening actions a military aircraft can take.
The summoning of Ambassador Wu Jianghao came amid deeply strained relations between Beijing and Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said last month that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan – suggesting that Tokyo would intervene militarily.
The comments by Takaichi, who entered office in October, have enraged Beijing and led to a furious diplomatic dispute.
Beijing has summoned the Japanese ambassador, written to the United Nations, urged citizens to avoid travelling to Japan and renewed a ban on Japanese seafood imports, while cultural events involving Japanese performers and movies have also been hit.
Accusations traded
The incident over the weekend provided a setting for the latest flashpoint in the tensions.
Both countries have traded quarrelsome accusations, with the Chinese Navy saying on Sunday that the scrambled Japanese F-15s had repeatedly approached its training area and endangered flight safety, while Japan’s chief government spokesman Minoru Kihara insisted on Monday that those claims were unfounded.
Japan’s military said about 100 take-offs and landings had been conducted from the aircraft carrier as it sailed east into the Pacific Ocean past the Okinawa Islands over the weekend.
Japan would “respond calmly but firmly and continue to monitor the movements of Chinese forces in the waters around our country”, Kihara said, rejecting China’s claim that Japanese aircraft had obstructed safe flight operations.
For its part, the Chinese embassy denied Tokyo’s claims, saying in a statement that “China solemnly demands that Japan stop smearing and slandering, strictly restrain its frontline actions, and prevent similar incidents from happening again.”
Japan hosts the largest foreign deployment of the United States military, including thousands of US Marines stationed in Okinawa.
A prominent Sudanese doctor’s group has accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of raping at least 19 women as they fled the city of el-Fasher in Darfur.
The Sudan Doctors Network said in a statement on Sunday that it documented the rapes among women who had fled to the town of al-Dabba in the neighbouring Northern State.
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Two of the women were pregnant, the group said.
“The Sudan Doctors Network strongly condemns the gang rape being perpetrated by the RSF against women escaping the horrors of El-Fasher, affirming that it constitutes a direct targeting of women in a blatant violation of all international laws that criminalise the use of women’s bodies as a weapon of oppression,” the group wrote on X.
Sudan Doctors Network: We have documented 19 cases of rape committed by the Rapid Support Forces, including two pregnant women, at Al-Afad Camp in Al-Dabba
The Sudan Doctors Network team at Al-Afad Camp in Al-Dabba has documented the rape of 19 women while they were fleeing from… pic.twitter.com/u5qWp4bdSD
Sudan has been engulfed in civil war since April 2023, when fighting erupted between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary RSF. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 12 million, according to the United Nations. It has also left some 30 million in need of humanitarian aid.
The RSF took the city of el-Fasher, the capital of the state of North Darfur, in October after an 18-month campaign of siege and starvation. The city was the Sudanese army’s last stronghold in the region.
Survivors who fled the city in the subsequent days recounted mass killings, rape, pillaging and other atrocities, prompting an international outcry.
Amnesty International has accused the RSF of “war crimes”, while the UN Human Rights Council has ordered an investigation into the abuses in el-Fasher. Officials who visited Darfur and spoke to survivors described the region as an “absolute horror show” and a “crime scene”.
Widespread sexual assault
Mohammed Elsheikh, a spokesperson for the Sudan Doctors Network, told Al Jazeera on Sunday that he was “100 percent sure” that sexual violence committed by RSF fighters is far more widespread than reported.
“Because most of the communities look at it as a stigma, most of the raped women tend not to disclose this information,” he said.
Elsheikh said the network had also documented 23 cases of rape among women who fled el-Fasher for the nearby town of Tawila.
“Unfortunately, the age of these raped victims varies from 15 years to 23 years old,” he said.
In its statement, the Sudan Doctors Network urged the international community to take urgent action to protect Sudanese women and girls.
It also called for “serious pressure on RSF leaders to immediately stop these assaults, respect international humanitarian law, and secure safe corridors for women and children”.
The latest accusations came amid a growing outcry over another RSF attack on a pre-school in the state of South Kordofan that local officials said killed at least 116 people. Some 46 of the victims were children, according to the officials.
On Sunday, Justice Minister Abdullah Dirife said Khartoum was willing to pursue political talks aimed at ending the conflict, but insisted that any settlement must “ensure there is no presence for ‘terrorist’ militias in both the political and military arenas”.
Speaking to Al Jazeera on the sidelines of the Doha Forum, he said the rebels “need to agree to give their weapons in specific areas and leave all these cities, and the police should take over”.
Dirife also called for putting a stop to the “transfer of weapons and the infiltration of mercenaries into Sudan” and claimed that fighters and arms were entering from regions including South America, Chad and the UAE.
The RSF currently holds all five states of Darfur, while the Sudanese army retains control of most of the remaining 13 states, including Khartoum.
Dirife also accused the RSF of repeatedly breaking past commitments to adhere to regional and global mediation initiatives.
“The last initiative we signed was the Jeddah Declaration. However, this militia didn’t commit to what we agreed on,” he said in Doha.
The Jeddah Declaration – brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia in May 2023 – was meant to protect civilians and lay the groundwork for humanitarian access. Several ceasefires followed, but both sides were accused of violating them, prompting the mediators to suspend talks.
The UN has meanwhile formally declared famine in el-Fasher and Kaduguli in South Kordofan and warned of the risk of a hunger crisis in 20 additional areas across the Greater Darfur and Greater Kordofan regions.
The World Food Programme’s Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told Al Jazeera on Sunday that the agency was providing aid to five million people, including two million in areas that are difficult to reach, but warned that assistance has fallen far short of needs.
Video shows crowds in Gaza celebrating after Palestine qualified for the Arab Cup quarter-finals. Palestinians waved flags, chanted songs and gathered around screens in a rare moment of joy amid the ongoing devastation.
December 8 marks one year since the al-Assad dynasty, which lasted 54 years, was removed from power by a rebel offensive.
The 14-year-long war led to one of the world’s largest migration crises, with some 6.8 million Syrians, about a third of the population, fleeing the country at the war’s peak in 2021, seeking refuge wherever they could find it.
More than half of these refugees, about 3.74 million, settled in neighbouring Turkiye, while 840,000 found refuge in Lebanon and 672,000 in Jordan.
The animation below shows the number of Syrian refugees who fled from 2011 to 2025, highlighting the top 10 countries that hosted them.
Now, as Syria is entering a new chapter, millions of refugees and members of the diaspora are weighing the decision to return home and rebuild their lives.
‘The feeling of belonging’
Khalid al-Shatta, a 41-year-old management administration professional from Damascus, decided to return to Syria after fleeing the country in September 2012.
Al-Shatta, along with his wife and one-year-old son, first fled to Jordan by car before flying to Turkiye, which became their temporary home.
Al-Shatta recalls the anticipation surrounding al-Assad’s fall. On the night it happened, he said, everyone stayed up to watch the news.
“The moment Syria was liberated, we made our decision,” he told Al Jazeera. “My family and I came to the conclusion that we have to return to Syria, and be part of its future,” he explained.
Al-Shatta describes returning to Syria for the first time in 13 years and feeling “like I have never left Syria before, with one difference, the feeling of belonging to this country, to this nation, this land”.
Syrian refugees living in Turkiye wait to enter Syria at the Cilvegozu border crossing gate in Reyhanli on December 12, 2024, following the toppling of Bashar al-Assad [Yasin Akgul/AFP]
How many Syrians have returned from abroad?
Al-Shatta and his family are among the more than 782,000 Syrians documented by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) who have returned to Syria from other countries over the past year.
Of those who have arrived from abroad, 170,000 have returned to Aleppo, 134,000 to Homs and 124,000 to rural Damascus.
(Al Jazeera)
Since returning to Damascus, al-Shatta has opened his own business, focused on power solutions. However, he says many returnees are struggling to find work with suitable salaries.
“Syria is not cheap [to live] compared with the average salaries; there are job opportunities, yet the salaries are challenging,” he says.
He explains how the quality of life varies greatly for Syria’s population, which now stands at 26.9 million. “Some families are living on $150 to $200 per month, while others live on $1,500 to $2,000, and some earn even more,” he explains.
Despite the rise in returns, limited job opportunities and high living costs continue to undermine long-term resettling. Housing remains unaffordable for many, leaving returnees in damaged homes or expensive rental units.
According to the IOM, while 69 percent of Syrians still own their property, 19 percent are renting, 11 percent are being hosted for free, and 1 percent are squatting.
(Al Jazeera)
New EU asylum guidelines
In the days following the fall of al-Assad, several European countries – including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom – announced plans to pause asylum applications from Syrians.
The freeze applied to both new applications and those already in process, leaving many Syrians in limbo about whether they would be accepted, rejected or deported.
As of mid-2025, total asylum applications across the EU+ – European Union countries plus Norway and Switzerland – fell by 23 percent compared with the first half of 2024.
The decline was driven mainly by a steep drop in Syrian applications. Syrians lodged about 25,000 applications in the first half of 2025, a two-thirds decrease from a year earlier.
For the first time in more than a decade, Syrians are no longer the largest nationality group seeking asylum in Europe.
On December 3, the EU issued updated guidance for Syrian asylum applicants, saying opponents of al-Assad and military service evaders “are no longer at risk of persecution”.
Between 2012 and June 2025, EU+ states granted refugee status to approximately 705,000 Syrian applicants, according to the European asylum agency.
Syrians celebrate the first anniversary of the toppling of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Damascus, Syria, early on December 6, 2025 [Ghaith Alsayed/AP]
Returning to ‘destroyed and demolished’ homes
In addition to the 782,000 Syrians returning from abroad, the IOM has documented nearly 1.8 million internally displaced Syrians returning to their towns over the past year.
This brings the total number of Syrian refugees and IDPs who have returned home over the past year to 2.6 million. Of those internally displaced, 471,000 have returned to Aleppo, nearly 460,000 to Idlib, and 314,000 to Hama.
(Al Jazeera)
Talal Nader al-Abdo, 42, from Maaret al-Numan in southern Idlib, was one of the internally displaced Syrians who returned home from a tent where he and his family had been living.
“I was one of the victims of [Bashar al-Assad’s] brutality,” al-Abdo told Al Jazeera.
His family had been internally displaced multiple times, first from Maaret al-Numan, then to Ariha, then to Idlib, and finally to the border camps Kafr Jalis and Harbanoush of northern Syria, where al-Abdo recalls the harsh days they spent in the extreme cold and intense heat.
“When the regime fell, I knew that relief had come, the bombing had ended, and the time was near for us to return to our homes, even though they were destroyed and demolished. We would return and rebuild them,” al-Abdo added.
Throughout the war, al-Abdo, together with his wife, three sons, daughter, and elderly mother, stayed in northwestern Syria “because we had great faith that one day God would grant us relief and we would return home”.
Bullet holes deface a mural depicting toppled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in Adra town on the northeastern outskirts of Damascus, December 25, 2024 [Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP]
Despite many returning home, there are still more than six million Syrians who remain internally displaced, according to the IOM.
The largest share of those are living in rural Damascus (1.99 million), followed by Aleppo (1.33 million) and Idlib (993,000).
The United Nations has launched its 2026 appeal for aid by asking for just half the amount it says it needs, despite humanitarian needs globally being at an all-time high.
The international institution appealed for $23bn on Monday, while acknowledging that, due to a plunge in donor funding, the figure would shut out tens of millions of people in urgent need of help.
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The UN had originally sought $47bn for 2025, but later revised the figure as aid cuts by the new administration in the United States and followed by other major Western donors, including Germany, became clear.
By November, it had received just $12bn – the lowest in a decade – covering just more than a quarter of its stated needs, leading it to prioritise only the most desperate.
The UN said the situation remains desperate amid increased instability and conflict across the globe.
‘Overstretched, underfunded, and under attack’
Aid agencies are also facing security risks in conflict zones in addition to the funding cuts, warned UN aid chief Tom Fletcher.
“We are overstretched, underfunded, and under attack,” he said. “And we drive the ambulance towards the fire. On your behalf. But we are also now being asked to put the fire out. And there is not enough water in the tank. And we’re being shot at.”
Fletcher chided international “apathy” despite the widespread suffering he had seen on the ground in 2025, and said the institution faces “brutal choices”.
The UN’s plan for 2026 identifies 87 million people deemed as priority cases whose lives are on the line.
Yet the institution says about a quarter of a billion need urgent assistance. It said it will aim to help 135 million people at a cost of $33bn – should it have the means.
The biggest single appeal of $4bn is aimed at the occupied Palestinian territory. Most of that sum is tagged for Gaza, devastated by Israel’s genocidal war, which has left nearly all of its 2.3 million inhabitants homeless and dependent on aid.
The second priority is Sudan, followed by Syria.
“(The appeal) is laser-focused on saving lives where the shocks hit hardest: Wars, climate disasters, earthquakes, epidemics, crop failures,” said Fletcher.
The world body estimates that 240 million people in conflict zones, suffering from epidemics, or victims of natural disasters and climate change are in need of emergency aid.
If the UN comes up short on funding again, Fletcher predicts it will widen the campaign to appeal to civil society, the corporate world and the public at large.
UN humanitarian agencies are overwhelmingly reliant on voluntary donations by Western donors, with the US by far the top historical donor.
Former Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf told Al Jazeera that Israel is carrying out what he calls a “scholasticide” in Gaza, arguing that the destruction of schools and the wider education system is deliberate and part of a broader effort to erase Palestinian society.
![Bullet holes deface a mural depicting the toppled Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in Adra town on the northeastern outskirts of Damascus on December 25, 2024. [Sameer Al-Doumy / AFP]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/AFP__20241225__36RF84L__v2__HighRes__SyriaConflict-1765092018.jpg?w=696&ssl=1)
