1️⃣0️⃣1️⃣ HOSTAGES 🎗️Day 430🎗️/

• Prime Minister Netanyahu held two meetings in Jerusalem with different forums representing the families of abductees in Gaza on Sunday evening. Fall of the Assad regime in Syria could lead to the advancement of a deal to bring the remaining captives home. https://lnk.sk/bqwg 
• Hamas has provided Israel with a list of hostages and their medical conditions, indicating a potential agreement to release four American citizens. https://lnk.sk/fon5 

SYRIA 🇸🇾 /

• The Syrian government fell early Sunday in a stunning end to the 50-year rule of the Assad family after a sudden rebel offensive sprinted across government-held territory and entered the capital in 10 days. https://lnk.sk/llw8 
• The Jerusalem Post: Assad was a brutal dictator. Will Syria’s new leaders be any better? Decades of brutal rule by Assad have left Syria fragmented ethnically, religiously, and politically. https://lnk.sk/sioz 
• Abu Mohammad al-Julani. Syria’s de facto ruler is s former member of al-Qaeda, the jihadist leader now presents a moderate image. Analysts and Western governments continue to designate his organization, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, as a terrorist organization. https://lnk.sk/wcmw 
• Defense Minister Israel Katz instructed the IDF to complete the consolidation of control over the Syrian buffer zone and create a security zone in the area, Israeli media reported on Monday. https://lnk.sk/obz7
• Israel took proactive measures to ensure the safety of Israel’s border in the Golan Heights on Sunday as Syrian rebels took over Damascus https://lnk.sk/erkz 
• Israel will step up airstrikes on Syrian stores of advanced weaponry, Israeli officials said on Monday, and keep a ‚limited‘ troop presence on the ground, hoping to head off any threat that could emerge in the fallout of former president Bashar al-Assad‚s overthrow. https://lnk.sk/zwcn 
• The presence of Israeli forces in Syrian territory is a “limited, temporary” step meant to ensure Israel’s security during the confusion after the fall of Syrian President al-Assad, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Monday. https://lnk.sk/nm19
• Egypt condemns Israel’s „further occupation of Syrian lands“ and views the IDF’s movement into a buffer zone as an attempt to enforce a new reality on the ground, it said in a foreign ministry statement on Monday. https://lnk.sk/jxfp
• Eugene Kontorovich: NATO member has for years maintained a 8835 sq. km buffer zone, with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, in three different sections of N. Syria for years, without international condemnation. On the Golan, we are talking around 230 sq. km, unpopulated. https://x.com/EVKontorovich/status/1865774109897957844
• Hundreds of Syrian refugees gather at two border crossings in southern Turkey, eagerly anticipating their return home, following the fall of President Bashar al-Assad. https://lnk.sk/abbj  
• Syrian Christians are facing a new wave of uncertainty and fear as Aleppo has fallen into the hands of Muslim rebels. The seizure of the city by Islamist factions left an uncertain future for approximately 25,000 Christians, including Catholics, in Syria, as reported by Le Figaro. https://lnk.sk/vdvx
• Turkey-backed Syrian opposition groups took control of the northern Syrian town of Manbij from US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces (SDF), a Turkish security source said on Monday, a day after rebels declared Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster. https://lnk.sk/ycg9 
• Representatives of the Syrian Kurds have recently appealed to Israeli officials via various communications channels seeking assistance and protection. https://lnk.sk/ijwq 

GAZA, JUDEA & SAMARIA (so-called West Bank) / 

• Palestinian terror group Hamas congratulated the Syrian people on Monday after toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. https://lnk.sk/msa9 

VATICAN🇻🇦/  

• Pope Francis inaugurates nativity scene in Vatican showing baby Jesus on keffiyeh.  

Sources: AP, Jerusalem Post, Figaro, Times of Israel and the sources cited directly in some reports

©️ ICEJ Slovakia; peter.svec@icej.sk