Donor nations have pledged to give billions of dollars in aid to Syrians as world leaders gathered for a conference to tackle the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with Turkey reporting a new exodus of tens of thousands fleeing air strikes.

Since the House of Commons voted for war on 1 December against ISIS the RAF have mounted only three strike missions, and may have dropped only 19 bombs. The RAF manned missions were against the Omar oilfield which had already been incapacitated by an American attack 6-weeks previously.

An Irish woman is understood to be among the 28 victims killed in an attack at a Tunisian resort, Sepp Blatter has fuelled speculation about his future by insisting he has not resigned as FIFA president, and the US Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex couples have a right to marry anywhere in the country.  Here’s this evening’s irishexaminer.com catch-up.

The parents of murdered American journalist James Foley have released a letter their son wrote during his time in captivity.

Israeli war planes have unleashed airstrikes against Syrian army targets in response to a roadside bombing in the Golan Heights that wounded four soldiers.

It is three years to the day that the war in Syria began. Sophie Magennis argues that Ireland has a role to play in alleviating the growing human cost of the conflict.

US secretary of state John Kerry has arrived in Geneva to test the seriousness of a Russian proposal to secure Syria’s chemical weapons.

Thousands of Israelis are crowding gas-mask distribution facilities, readying for a potential conflict with Syria, Israeli police say.

The Syrian civil war now threatens to split the Middle East along a Sunni-Shi’ite chasm.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of the UN yesterday raised the death toll in Syria’s civil war to more than 100,000, up from nearly 93,000 just over a month ago.

The United Nations warned half of all Syrians will need humanitarian aid by the end of 2013 and launched what it said was the largest emergency appeal in history to cope with the civil war crisis.

Israel has destroyed a Syrian armoured vehicle in retaliation after a mortar shell landed on its territory in the first direct confrontation between the countries since the Syrian uprising broke out.

At least seven people were killed and dozens wounded in gun battles in the Lebanese capital Beirut and coastal Tripoli in further unrest linked to the conflict in neighbouring Syria.

The Bord Gáis Energy Index of wholesale energy prices rose 8% in July, the biggest monthly increase since Feb 2012, as oil prices rose on supply concerns and expectations of additional economic stimulus measures to battle global weaknesses.

Syria said it shot down a Turkish military plane that entered Syrian air space, while Turkey vowed to “determinedly take necessary steps” in response.

The conflict in Syria is now a civil war, according the UN's peacekeeping chief.

United Nations observers smelled the stench of burned corpses and saw body parts scattered around a Syrian farming hamlet that was the site of a massacre in which nearly 80 men, women and children were reported to have been killed.

United Nations monitors were shot at while trying to get to the scene of the latest Syrian massacre, secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said today.

Syrian Opposition activists have said that at least 78 people have been killed in a massacre in Hama province.

I have some concern at what I perceive to be a lack of objectivity in the reporting of the current situation in Syria.

Syria has entered a state of civil war with more than 4,000 people dead and an increasing number of soldiers defecting from the army to fight President Bashar Assad’s regime, the UN’s top human rights official has said.