It’s significant that Zoe Lawlor (Letters, Nov 13) doesn’t challenge the points I made regarding corruption in Hamas.

Amnesty International has accused the Syrian government of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity by blockading and starving civilians.

This week the Irish Examiner printed this incredible image of thousands of people queuing for food aid on the war-torn streets of Syria. Serene Assir talks to residents of the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk where fighting off starvation and death has become a daily reality.

The chief of the UN relief agency supporting Palestinian refugees said he is “deeply disturbed and shaken” by the despair and destruction he had seen in a besieged camp in the Syrian capital.

Lebanese forces have fired on Syrian aircraft that violated the country’s airspace, the first time they have done so since Syria’s uprising broke out three years ago, said security officials.

Syria’s Prime Minister has escaped an assassination attempt after a bomb exploded near his convoy in Damascus.

Syrian rebels and regime forces fought their most intense clashes in weeks inside the heavily guarded capital, Damascus, today, activists said.

Fighting between Syrian rebels and an armed group of Palestinians loyal to President Bashar Assad is raging inside a Damascus refugee camp, activists said today.

Syria is “genuinely worried” some countries might equip extremist groups with chemical weapons and then claim they were used by the Syrian government, the country’s UN envoy said in a letter to UN chief Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council.

Iran has lashed out at Turkey for requesting Nato to supply it with Patriot surface-to-air missiles to deploy along the border with Syria, denouncing the step by Ankara as counterproductive.

A bomb blast in a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus killed four people and seriously wounded a member of a faction that has backed Syrian President Bashar Assad in the country’s bitter civil war, activists said today.

Syrian rebels made a new push into Damascus today, clashing heavily with troops in the rebellious suburbs of the capital and firing mortars at a presidential palace and a Palestinian refugee camp, activists said.

Syrian planes pounded a strategic northern city today as troops pushed forward to recapture the area recently taken by rebels.

A Syrian military helicopter has crashed in a rebellious suburb of Damascus, state-run TV says.

Mortars rained down on a crowded marketplace in a Palestinian refugee camp in the Syrian capital, killing 21 people as regime forces and rebels clashed on the southern outskirts of Damascus, activists have said.

A total of 15 people have been killed after mortars struck a Palestinian refugee camp in the Syrian capital Damascus, activists have claimed.

Twin bombings struck intelligence and security buildings in the Syrian capital Damascus today, killing at least 27 people and wounding nearly 100, according to state media.

Iraqi forces today arrested an al Qaida-linked member of a Sunni paramilitary group who was believed to be a mastermind of the assassination of a prominent Sunni politician in Baghdad, officials said.

At least eight people were killed and 25 wounded when a suicide bomber struck a market in northern Iraq today.

Anti-riot police scuffled with demonstrators in Cairo as Muslims marched in Jordan and Lebanon to express outrage over Israeli renovation work near Islam’s third-holiest shine.

A series of explosions rocked Baghdad this morning, killing at least nine people and wounding 26, police said.

Thousands marched through Middle Eastern capitals today to protest an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, their calls often spilling into a broader outcry against America’s policy in the region and its backing of Israel.

At least five people were killed today in attacks in Iraq, while authorities continued to find more mutilated bodies in and around Baghdad – likely victims of the sectarian death squads that roam the capital area.

Bomb attacks targeting Iraqi police patrols in Baghdad left at least 18 people dead and 57 wounded this morning, police said.

At least 19 people, including four soldiers, were killed in a suicide bombing today, as gunmen in military fatigues kidnapped 29 people, the latest victims of the violence and lawlessness sweeping Iraq, police said.

Two people were killed and 18 wounded when a bomb exploded in a square in central Baghdad today.

A parked car bomb exploded in south-west Baghdad today, killing six people and wounding 36, police and hospital officials said.

A drive-by shooting killed a Shiite baker heading to work in Baghdad today, and the bullet-ridden bodies of four Iraqis were found in the capital.

A drive-by shooting killed a Shiite baker in Baghdad today. The bodies of two other Iraqis were found in the capital.

More than 50 Iraqis died today in violence including a car bombing that killed 25 people in the third major attack on a police station in three days.

A car bomb explosion at a major crimes unit in central Baghdad killed at least 15 people and wounded more than 30 today, said police Lieutenant Colonel Falah al-Mohammadawi.

Roadside bombs targeting police patrols exploded in Baghdad and nearby Iskandariyah today, killing at least five people and wounding a dozen others.

GUNMEN wearing Iraqi special forces uniforms yesterday kidnapped a wealthy banker and his son after killing five of their bodyguards.

A railing collapsed today on a bridge packed with Shiite worshippers during a religious procession, sending crowds tumbling into the Tigris River.

Iraqi politicians tried to reach compromises with Sunni Arab leaders today on the country’s draft constitution, one day after synchronised bombings near at a bus station and nearby hospital killed up to 43 people in the capital.

Ten people were killed in a string of separate attacks in and around Baghdad today, including a suicide car bombing at an army checkpoint, police said.

Gunmen killed three policemen and a government worker walking to work in Baghdad, officials said today, one day after four suicide car bombings killed 22 people.

US troops killed 10 insurgents in an ethnically-mixed city north of Baghdad, while 10 Iraqi troops died in two separate attacks north-east of the capital in a surge of violence following a relative lull last week.

A suicide bomber strapped with explosives killed 20 people waiting outside a police recruiting centre for special forces in Iraq’s capital today, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.

A joint US-Iraqi offensive has killed some 50 insurgents so far in battles that raged today around a blistering hot frontier town in the American military’s latest campaign to stop foreign fighters from pouring through neighbouring Syria.

Using car bombs and a man with explosives strapped to his body, insurgents killed more than 60 people in three Iraqi cities today, police said.

Three car bombs exploded in Baghdad today, killing four people and wounding 14, police said.

A car bomb exploded today in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing one person and wounding 10 others, hospital officials said.

Gunmen kidnapped a Lebanese-American businessman – the second US citizen seized this week in Baghdad – and militants released a tape showing the beheading of an Iraqi officer as a warning to those who deal with “the infidel” Americans.