Lindner calls on refugees from Syria to return. Syria warns Iran. All developments in the news blog.
6:34 a.m.: After the fall of Syria’s ruler Bashar al-Assad, FDP chairman Christian Lindner is pushing for the refugees who came from there to Germany to return. “For the people who came to us from Syria because of the civil war, returning home must be the rule,” said the former Federal Finance Minister to the German Press Agency in Berlin. “Anyone who wants to stay can apply for permanent residence according to our immigration law.”
Staying in Germany must be tied to clear criteria and should not become automatic. “What is central is whether one earns a living through work, whether there have been criminal offenses and whether there is a clear identification with our free-democratic basic order,” said Lindner. “As a receiving society, we have the right to decide. We cannot afford immigration into our social system.”
According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, around 975,000 Syrians currently live in Germany. Most have come since 2015 as a result of the Syrian civil war. More than 300,000 of them have a subsidiary protection title. So they were not admitted because of individual persecution, but because of the civil war in their homeland.
3:18 a.m.: For the fifth time in a week, millions of Israelis were forced to shelter in place when a rocket attack from Yemen took place on Wednesday morning. According to the Israeli military, the attack was carried out by Houthi militias, who had fired rockets into Israel several times in recent days.
Warning sirens sounded in Israel’s central and southern regions, including the Judean Plain. “Sirens were sounded in several areas in central Israel after a projectile was fired from Yemen. The details are currently being reviewed,” the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) said in an initial statement. The missile was apparently shot down by the Israeli air defense system.
According to a spokesman for the Israeli emergency service MDA, there have been no reports of direct casualties from the attack. However, several people were treated for stress symptoms or injuries sustained while running to shelters.
2:05 a.m.: Israel’s air force says it has attacked a terrorist from the Islamist Hamas in a humanitarian protection zone in the Gaza Strip. As the Israeli military announced that night, the man was active in the area of the city of Khan Yunis in the south of the sealed-off coastal strip. Before the “precise attack”, numerous measures were taken to reduce the danger to civilians, the Israeli military said on Telegram. The army did not provide any information about possible victims. Their information could not be independently verified.
0.01 a.m.: Newly appointed Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani warns Iran against interfering in Syria’s affairs. “Iran must respect the will of the Syrian people and the sovereignty and security of the country. We warn them against creating chaos in Syria and hold them responsible for the consequences of the recent statements,” al-Shibani wrote on the short message service X on Tuesday He did not specify what statements were made. The warning follows a speech by Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday in which he called on Syrian youth to “stand with firm resolve against those who orchestrated and brought about this insecurity.”
