Syria's Ahmed Al Sharaa wants peace with Israel amid Gaza bombardment

DAMASCUS: Syria’s new President Ahmed al-Sharaa has expressed interest in normalizing relations with Israel, according to U.S. Congressman Cory Mills, who spoke to Bloomberg on Thursday following a meeting with Sharaa in Syria last week.

Mills revealed that discussions with Sharaa covered the conditions for lifting U.S.-imposed economic sanctions on Syria and the potential for a peace agreement with Israel.

Sharaa indicated that Syria would be open to joining the Abraham Accords—normalization agreements brokered by former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration between Israel and countries including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco—“under the right conditions.”

It is worth mentioning here that more than 60 people have been reported killed in Gaza since early on Thursday and casualties continue to mount as Israel carries out early morning attacks on the Palestinian territory.

The Palestinian Civil Defence and medics said 12 people from the same family in north Gaza’s Jabalia were among those killed in the Israeli attacks.

The Health Ministry in Gaza reports that 1,978 people have now been killed and 5,207 injured since Israel broke its ceasefire with Hamas on March 18, 2025.

Also read: Israel kills almost 2,000 in Gaza since breaking ceasefire in March

At least 51,355 Palestinians have been confirmed killed and 117,248 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since it began 18 months ago.

The Gaza Government Media Office updated its death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed dead.

Since a January ceasefire collapsed on March 18, Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,900 Palestinians, many of them civilians, according to the Gaza health authorities, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced as Israel seized what it calls a buffer zone of Gaza’s land.

Efforts by Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have so far failed to reconcile disputes between the two warring parties, Israel and Hamas.

The attack on Israel by Hamas in October 2023 killed 1,200 people, and 251 hostages were taken to Gaza. Since then, more than 51,300 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, according to health officials.