Dozens have been killed after Assad loyalists ambushed government forces in Syria’s port city of Latakia during a raid. One analyst said it was a coordinated attack designed to put Syria on the path to civil war.
Gaza City – For many in Gaza, US President Donald Trump’s recent threats feel like nothing more than a justification for further violence and collective punishment against them.
Late on Wednesday, Trump had threatened the people of Gaza, saying they would all be “dead” if captives continued to be held there.
As Gaza continues to grapple with the devastating aftermath of war – mass displacement, widespread destruction, and dire humanitarian conditions – people are exhausted and sceptical about international efforts to resolve the war.
Al Jazeera spoke to Palestinians in northern Gaza about Trump’s threats.
Yasser al-Sharafa, 59, said he ignores these threats because, like many in Gaza, he has “nothing left to lose”.
Now, he runs a makeshift stand selling candy and snacks to children.
Before, he said: “I used to be a well-known clothing merchant. I had a large shop, a six-storey building, a car, and stock warehouses in Tel al-Hawa in Gaza City. All those years of hard work vanished, destroyed in the war.
” Everywhere you look is destruction, ruin, and misery. Is there anything left for us to grieve?
“Trump or whoever, it makes no difference”.
Displaced southwards during the war, al-Sharafa and his family returned to the north after the ceasefire began, only to find a devastated area where life is barely possible.
“Even if we hand over the captives, nothing will change. The war might return at any moment under a new pretext they come up with. We’ve lost trust in the entire world”.
![Jamila Mahmoud, 62, rejects to Trump’s threats, considering them phycological warfare [Abdelhakim Abu Riash, Al Jazeera]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/05fbf92ec6f2ebabd8ea20abd10a6204-1741354247.jpeg?w=696&ssl=1)
Jamila Mahmoud, 62, did not hear Trump’s exact words, but some of her family members discussed it on Thursday morning.
“As you see, we’re completely cut off from everything. No internet, no electricity, no means of communication”, she said.
Mahmoud believes Trump’s threats are part of a psychological war aimed at forcing people out of Gaza.
“Every time, there’s a new scenario – sometimes, it’s talk of forced displacement, sometimes, it’s Israel taking over Gaza, and today, it’s threats to all of Gaza’s residents over the captives”.
“Has Gaza suddenly become the root of all the world’s problems”? she asked.
Mahmoud insists that no matter what happens, she will never give up her right to live in Gaza, her homeland.
“I will remain on my land, even if it’s just the rubble of my home, no matter what”, she affirmed.
![Ayman Abu Dayyeh, 60, wants Hamas to hand over the captives and end the war]Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/8e00cc193a0e346e979181c088994772-1741354256.jpeg?w=696&ssl=1)
Ayman Abu Dayyeh, walking home with a few food items for his family, told Al Jazeera he just wants “Hamas to prioritise the public interest right now – to accept a deal, negotiate, and hand over the captives so this endless nightmare can finally end”.
“This is the only reasonable option … our position is weak, and no one’s standing by us”, the 60-year-old added.
But he does doubt that handing over the captives will not end the war for Trump and Israel, although it may make a future war less devastating.
“I believe the American people will reject these threats. They won’t accept their country leading another genocidal war”, Abu Dayyeh said.
“We’ve lost 50, 000 people. Two of my sons were killed in this war – in October and December 2023 – two young men in their prime. I lost my home, too. We’ve had enough loss and suffering”, he added.
“The Arab states are silent, and the Europeans are silent. How can we continue fighting without any supporters? We’ll be the only victims”.
Wael Abu Ahmed, 75, from Sheikh Radwan in northern Gaza City, said he was surprised by Trump’s threats.
“What do we have left in Gaza? We’ve witnessed horrors in this war – haven’t they done enough”? he asked, sitting on a roadside curb.
“Trump’s statements carry no weight or value. I think he’s just making threats to pressure Hamas. The only thing left for them to do is wipe us out entirely”, he added.
Ahmed, a retired bureaucrat and father of five, now lives with his children and grandchildren in a single apartment after their house was repeatedly targeted during Israel’s war.
He had refused to evacuate to the south and remained in northern Gaza with his family until the ceasefire.
“I’ve lived more years than I have left. I stayed in my home and said: ‘ I will die here no matter what. ‘
A United Nations helicopter attempting to evacuate South Sudanese soldiers has come under fire near the town of Nasir, the UN mission (UNMISS) there said, resulting in the death of one crew member and several troops.
The attack came on Friday as the helicopter was trying to airlift soldiers following heavy clashes in Nasir between South Sudanese forces and the White Army militia, a group which President Salva Kiir’s government has linked to forces loyal to his rival and First Vice President Riek Machar.
“The attack … is utterly abhorrent and may constitute a war crime under international law”, said Nicholas Haysom, the head of UNMISS. “We also regret the killing of those that we were attempting to extract, particularly when assurances of safe passage had been received. UNMISS urges an investigation to determine those responsible and hold them accountable”.
The president’s office said Kiir would address the nation on Friday afternoon.
The White Army, whose members are mostly from the Nuer ethnic group, fought alongside Machar’s forces in the 2013-2018 civil war that pitted them against predominantly ethnic Dinka troops loyal to Kiir.
Machar’s spokesperson this week said security forces had arrested the petroleum minister, the peacebuilding minister, the deputy head of the army and other senior military officials allied with Machar, raising fears for the country’s fragile peace process.
Marc Lamont Hill talks with economist Richard Wolff about Trump’s economic policies and global relations.
United States President Donald Trump is pushing to slash public spending and implement tariffs on countries including China, Canada and Mexico, straining diplomatic relations. He, together with billionaire Elon Musk, is also gutting the federal government and purging its workforce.
What impact will these measures have on US citizens? And how will they affect the country’s global standing?
“To the People of Gaza: A beautiful Future awaits, but not if you hold Hostages. If you do, you are DEAD! Make a SMART decision. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY LATER”!
These were not the words of some far-right provocateur lurking in a dark corner of the internet. They were not shouted by an unhinged warlord seeking vengeance. No, these were the words of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, the most powerful man in the world. A man who with a signature, a speech or a single phrase can shape the fate of entire nations. And yet, with all this power, all this influence, his words to the people of Gaza were not of peace, not of diplomacy, not of relief – but of death.
I read them and I feel sick.
Because I know exactly who he is speaking to. He is speaking to my family. To my parents, who lost relatives and their home. To my siblings, who no longer have a place to return to. To the starving children in Gaza, who have done nothing but be born to a people the world has deemed unworthy of existence. To the grieving mothers who have buried their children. To the fathers who can do nothing but watch their babies die in their arms. To the people who have lost everything and yet are still expected to endure more.
Trump speaks of a “beautiful future” for the people of Gaza. But there is no future left where homes are gone, where whole families have been erased, where children have been massacred.
I read these words and I ask: What kind of a world do we live in?
A world where the leader of the so-called “free world” can issue a blanket death sentence to an entire population – two million people, most of whom are displaced, starving and barely clinging to life. A world where a man who commands the most powerful military can sit in his office, insulated from the screams, the blood, the unbearable stench of death, and declare that if the people of Gaza do not comply with his demand – if they do not somehow magically find and free hostages they have no control over – then they are simply “dead”. A world where genocide survivors are given an ultimatum of mass death by a man who claims to stand for peace.
This is not just absurd. It is evil.
Trump’s words are criminal. They are a direct endorsement of genocide. The people of Gaza are not responsible for what is happening. They are not holding hostages. They are the hostages – trapped by an Israeli war machine that has stolen everything from them. Hostages to a brutal siege that has starved them, bombed them, displaced them, left them with nowhere to go.
And now, they have become hostages to the most powerful man on Earth, who threatens them with more suffering, more death, unless they meet a demand they are incapable of fulfilling.
Most cynically, Trump knows his words will not be met with any meaningful pushback. Who in the American political establishment will hold him accountable for threatening genocide? The Democratic Party, which enabled Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza? Congress, which overwhelmingly supports sending US military aid to Israel with no conditions? The mainstream media, which have systematically erased Palestinian suffering? There is no political cost for Trump to make such statements. If anything, they bolster his position.
This is the world we live in. A world where Palestinian lives are so disposable that the president of the United States can threaten mass death without fear of any consequences.
I write this because I refuse to let this be just another outrageous Trump statement that people laugh off, that the media turns into a spectacle, that the world forgets. I write this because Gaza is not a talking point. It is not a headline. It is my home. My family. My history. My heart. My everything.
And I refuse to accept that the president of the United States can issue death threats to my people with impunity.
The people of Gaza do not control their own fate. They have never had that luxury. Their fate has always been dictated by the bombs that fall on them, by the siege that starves them, by the governments that abandon them. And now, their fate is being dictated by a man in Washington, DC, who sees no issue with threatening the annihilation of an entire population.
So I ask again: What kind of world do we live in?
And how long will we allow it to remain this way?
Security forces in Syria are battling gunmen loyal to deposed President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s coastal region for a second day, with dozens of people reported killed in the fighting.
Syrian authorities said remnants of the removed al-Assad regime launched a deadly and well-planned attack on their forces in Latakia on Thursday.
Latakia’s police chief told Al Jazeera that the city was secured on Friday afternoon, and a siege on military and security sites had been lifted. Meanwhile clashes continued elsewhere.
Authorities have not issued a death toll, but war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday that more than 70 people had been killed in the fighting. Among the dead were security forces, gunmen and a few civilians, it said.
Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify the death toll.
Government forces sent major reinforcements overnight to the cities of Latakia and Tartous as well as nearby towns and villages that are the heartland of the minority Alawite sect and a base of support for al-Assad, to try to get the situation under control, state media reported.
A curfew was also imposed in Latakia and Tartous until Saturday.
The violence has shaken interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s efforts to consolidate control as his administration struggles to get United States sanctions lifted and grapples with wider security challenges, notably in the southwest where Israel has said it will prevent Damascus deploying forces.
Reporting from Damascus, Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar said security forces have gained “full control” of Latakia and have been able to “break” into Tartous and are positioning themselves in the city centre.
“In Banias, which is another town in the outskirts of Tartous, still the fighting is continuing between government forces and the rebel forces”, he said, although security forces were able to secure other surrounding areas.
Serdar said that intense fighting is taking place in some areas, but the siege has been lifted in others.
Neighbour Turkiye on Friday warned against “provocations” in Latakia province, saying they threatened peace.
“Such provocations must not be allowed to become a threat to the peace of Syria and our region”, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Oncu Keceli wrote on X.
Meanwhile, Alawite activists say their community has been subjected to violence and attacks since al-Assad fell, particularly in rural Homs and Latakia.
While al-Sharaa has pledged to run Syria in an inclusive way, no meetings have been declared between him and senior Alawite figures, in contrast to members of other minority groups such as the Kurds, Christians and Druze.
A statement by a group of Alawite leaders, the Alawite Islamic Council, laid blame for the violence on the government, saying “military convoys had been sent into the coast with the pretext of ‘ regime remnants ‘ to terrorise and kill Syrians”. It called for the coastal region to be put under UN protection.