In Syria, tens of thousands of people have gathered at the Great Mosque of Damascus and other cities for the first Friday prayers since longtime authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad was toppled by opposition fighters.

The World Food Programme is appealing to donors to help it scale up relief operations for some 2.8 million displaced and food-insecure people across Syria. That includes more than 1.1 million people uprooted by fighting since late November.

Israel’s defense minister has told his troops to prepare to spend the winter holding the demilitarized zone that separates Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Earlier today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured the summit of Mount Haramun in the U.N.-designated buffer zone. Netanyahu said this week the Golan Heights would “forever be an inseparable part of the State of Israel.”

On Thursday, the U.N. called for an urgent deescalation of airstrikes on Syria by Israeli forces, and their withdrawal from the U.N. buffer zone.

Stéphane Dujarric: “The secretary-general is deeply concerned by the recent and extensive violations of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The secretary-general is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria, stressing the need, the urgent need, to deescalate violence on all fronts throughout the country.”

In Ankara, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Turkey’s foreign minister and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Blinken said the U.S. and Turkey would work to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group in Syria. Meanwhile, Erdoğan told Blinken Turkey reserves the right to strike the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, which Turkey considers a terrorist organization. After headlines, we’ll go to Damascus for the latest on Syria.

In Gaza, an Israeli airstrike on Thursday ripped through a post office sheltering displaced Palestinian families in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least 33 Palestinians, with 84 others wounded or missing. Elsewhere, separate Israeli strikes killed at least 13 people in Rafah and Khan Younis. Palestinian medics said those killed were part of a force protecting humanitarian aid trucks.

This comes as a new study finds 96% of children in Gaza feel that their death is imminent, and nearly half said they wished to die. Four out of five children surveyed suffer from nightmares, and nearly three-quarters show signs of aggression. The study was conducted by the charity War Child Alliance, which said in a statement, “Alongside the leveling of hospitals, schools and homes, a trail of psychological destruction has caused wounds unseen but no less destructive on children who hold no responsibility for this war.”

Reporters Without Borders warns Palestine remained the most dangerous country in the world for journalists this year. Since October of 2023, Israeli attacks have killed more than 145 media workers, which the group condemned as an “unprecedented bloodbath.” Palestinian press freedom groups have put the number even higher, at nearly 200 journalists killed by Israel.

Russia has launched a massive missile and drone attack targeting Ukraine’s energy grid, sending Kyiv residents underground to seek shelter in the city’s metros. This is a mother and daughter who were displaced from Kherson due to the war.

Antonina Havrylyuk: “Of course I would rather be going to work and have my child go to school now. But as you can see yourself, an air raid alert was issued, and we had to go to the shelter to hide from the missiles. … It is very difficult, of course. Every night there is an air alarm. My child is always scared.”

On Thursday, Moscow reissued its threat to retaliate against a Ukrainian attack on a southwestern Russian city, which it says involved U.S.-made ATACMS ballistic missiles. Meanwhile, the U.S. says Russia could soon launch another strike using an intermediate-range hypersonic missile that was deployed for the first time last month.

In South Korea, a second motion to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol was submitted to the parliament today over Yoon’s declaration of martial law on December 3. Yoon was forced to reverse the order just six hours later amid widespread outrage and protest. An earlier impeachment motion failed to remove Yoon after much of his ruling People Power Party boycotted the vote. Street protests demanding Yoon’s removal are continuing.

French President Emmanuel Macron has appointed centrist ally François Bayrou as prime minister following the collapse of the previous government in a no-confidence vote. In choosing Bayrou, Macron once again eschewed widespread calls for him to select a progressive prime minister, after a leftist coalition won the largest share of votes in July’s snap parliamentary elections.

In The Hague, the International Court of Justice has heard more testimony and arguments this week on how the unfolding climate catastrophe is creating an existential crisis for low-lying Pacific island nations. Those countries are demanding wealthy, polluting nations be held legally responsible for addressing the crisis they created. This is Laingane Italeli Talia, the attorney-general of Tuvalu, which could soon become the first country to be wiped from the map due to sea level rise.

Laingane Italeli Talia: “Tuvalu may soon become uninhabitable. In these circumstances, there can be no question that our fundamental right to self-determination is being violated. And in these proceedings, there is unsurprisingly considerable consensus across participants that climate change is impeding the right to self-determination.”

Today is the last day of hearings at the World Court, which is expected to publish its final advisory opinion on the matter in the new year.

In Washington, D.C., police arrested 13 people on Thursday as they nonviolently blockaded the headquarters of the Department of Energy, demanding the Biden administration cancel authorizations for new liquefied natural gas export terminals. Activists say greenhouse gas emissions from the proposed exports would be equivalent to 1,000 coal-fired power plants.

Protester: “I’m a mom and a teacher, and I feel like I owe it to my daughter and my students. I’ve got to be able to sleep at night to go to work and teach them. And I can’t sleep at night if I don’t do everything in my power to stop what’s currently happening.”

A new investigation by The Marshall Project finds hospitals across the U.S. are dispensing medications to patients in labor, only to report them to child welfare authorities when they or their newborns test positive for those very same substances on drug tests. Federal law requires hospitals to report positive drug tests to ensure babies who need it can receive treatment for withdrawal. But amid the increased criminalization of reproductive healthcare, health experts say hospitals need to put into place more patient safeguards around drug testing. Hospital reports based on the misleading drug tests have led to investigations and even the removal of children from their parents.

Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York, is fighting his extradition from Pennsylvania, where he was arrested by authorities Monday. Mangione’s lawyer says they are waiting for more evidence related to the charges against Mangione in New York.

Meanwhile, the NYPD warned healthcare executives earlier this week after a “hitlist” of CEOs was posted online. “Wanted” posters popped up across New York this week featuring photos of health insurance CEOs, as the case has galvanized public condemnation of the health insurance industry.

A woman in Florida was arrested and charged this week for “threatening to conduct a mass shooting or an act of terrorism” after she ended a call to her insurance company Blue Cross Blue Shield with the words “delay, deny, depose.” Those three words were found written on bullet casings at the scene of Brian Thompson’s shooting. “Delay, deny and defend” are known as the “3 Ds” of the health insurance industry.

Here in New York, immigrant justice activists rallied outside City Hall to protest Mayor Eric Adams’s meeting with Trump’s incoming border czar Tom Homan, who has vowed to enact Trump’s plans for mass deportations. This is Jennifer Hernandez of Make the Road NY.

Jennifer Hernandez: “The mayor should refuse to collaborate with the federal government in the separation of families and make that clear to Tom Homan.”

Mayor Adams has said he will cooperate with federal immigration authorities, threatening New York’s current status as a sanctuary city.

A Palestinian American man who was convicted and imprisoned in 2008 for his work with the charity Holy Land Foundation has been released from federal prison. Mufid Abdulqader, one of the so-called Holy Land 5, was released to a halfway house Thursday. Abdulqader and his four co-defendants — Ghassan Elashi, Shukri Abu Baker, Mohammad El-Mezain and Abdulrahman Odeh — received sentences of up to 65 years under the Bush administration, accused of working for a terrorist organization.

The Holy Land Foundation raised millions of dollars for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, making it a target for pro-Israel groups in the U.S. Their case was widely denounced as political persecution during the height of the so-called war on terror and shuttered what was once the largest Muslim charity in the U.S. Shukri Abu Baker and Ghassan Elashi remain behind bars.

Police arrested at least eight protesters at the campus of New York University Thursday as they nonviolently blockaded the university’s library to demand NYU divest from companies that profit from Israel’s war and occupation of Palestine. Among those arrested were two faculty members: history professor Rebecca Karl and American studies professor Andrew Ross. They’re among six professors and dozens of students who’ve been declared “persona non grata” by campus security officials and barred from entering NYU buildings.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has signed a bill to prevent book bans as Republican lawmakers in many other states are working to ban a record number of books from school library shelves — most of them dealing with gender identity, sexual orientation and racial justice. At a signing ceremony this week, Governor Murphy was introduced by Martha Hickson, a retired high school librarian from Annandale, New Jersey, who endured verbal abuse from some parents who objected to LGBTQ-themed books in the school library.

Martha Hickson: “According to School Library Journal, nearly half of school librarians reported they had quietly removed books themselves to avoid being the target of a challenge. And those are just the librarians who admitted it. I suspect the number is actually much higher. And I know teachers who will no longer include controversial topics or titles in their classrooms for fear of being targeted, too. When this self-censorship happens, it’s the students who suffer. They lose the voices and stories that explore the real world beyond their own front door. Our own fear censors the material so book banners don’t have to.”