The US military has launched airstrikes against dozens of Islamic State targets in Syria in retaliation for an attack on US personnel.
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The attacks on Friday came after President Donald Trump vowed to retaliate after an attack on US personnel last weekend in Syria by a suspected Islamic State member.
A US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, described the strikes as a large-scale response that included strikes against targets across central Syria.
Two US Army soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed on Saturday in the central Syrian town of Palmyra by an attacker who targeted a convoy of American and Syrian forces before being shot dead, according to the US military. Three other US soldiers were also wounded in the attack.
A US-led coalition has carried out airstrikes and ground operations in Syria targeting Islamic State suspects in recent months, often with the involvement of Syria's security forces.
Meanwhile, a global hunger monitor says There is no longer famine in Gaza after access for humanitarian and commercial food deliveries improved following a fragile October 10 ceasefire in the war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants.
The latest assessment by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification comes four months after it reported that 514,000 people - nearly a quarter of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip - were experiencing famine. The IPC warned on Friday that the situation in the enclave remained critical.
"Under a worst-case scenario, which would include renewed hostilities and a halt in humanitarian and commercial inflows, the entire Gaza Strip (would be) at risk of famine through mid-April 2026. This underscores the severe and ongoing humanitarian crisis," the IPC said in the report.
Israel controls all access to the coastal enclave. COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, in August disputed that there was famine in Gaza. COGAT says 600-800 trucks have entered Gaza daily since the start of the truce in October, and that food made up 70 per cent of all those supplies.
"The report relies on severe gaps in data collection and on sources that do not reflect the full scope of humanitarian assistance. As such, it misleads the international community, fuels disinformation and presents a false depiction of the reality on the ground," the IPC said.
Israel's Foreign Ministry said that far more aid was going into Gaza than what was reflected in the report and that food prices there had dropped sharply since July.
Hamas disputes Israel's aid figures, saying far fewer than 600 trucks a day have made it into Gaza. Aid agencies have repeatedly said far more aid needs to get into the small, crowded territory and have said Israel is blocking needed items from entering, which Israel denies.
The IPC said five famines have been confirmed in the past 15 years: in Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, Sudan in 2024, and most recently in Gaza in August.
For a region to be classified as in famine at least 20 per cent of people must be suffering extreme food shortages, with one in three children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or malnutrition and disease.
Australian Associated Press
