An American who says he crossed into Syria on foot is now free after seven months in detention.

Travis Timmerman told the Al-Arabiya TV network in an interview on Thursday that he had been treated well. He said he had crossed into Syria from Lebanon on a Christian “pilgrimage.”

Israel has been accused of carrying out a "massacre" of journalists in Gaza in two separate reports from media freedom organizations this week that analyzed the deaths of reporters worldwide this year.

According to calculations from Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published on Thursday, the Israeli army killed 18 journalists as they were working this year —- 16 in Gaza and two in Lebanon -- around a third of the total worldwide of 54.

Israel has lifted restrictions on public gatherings and outdoor activities in areas near the Lebanese border in the northern Golan Heights, two weeks after a ceasefire with Hezbollah.

The army’s Home Front Command said it was changing its public safety guidelines to “full activity” from “partial activity.”

All Russian naval ships that were docked at the Syrian port of Tartus have left and it appears Moscow is now looking for a new base along the coast now that its key ally, Bashar Assad, has been ousted a ruler of Syria, a U.S. official said.

It’s not clear where the ships will go, but Russia may seek a new port on the Mediterranean Sea along the African shoreline, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss U.S. assessments.

The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly has approved resolutions demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and backing the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees that Israel has moved to ban.

The votes Wednesday in the 193-nation world body were 158-9 with 13 abstentions to demand a ceasefire now and 159-9 with 11 abstentions to support the agency known as UNRWA.

Palestinian medical officials say Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 28 people in the Gaza Strip, including seven children and a woman.

One of the strikes overnight and into Thursday flattened a house in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby city of Deir al-Balah, where the casualties were taken.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israeli forces will remain in a Syrian buffer zone until a new force on the other side of the border can guarantee security.

After the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Israeli forces pushed into a buffer zone that had been established after the 1973 Mideast war. The military says it has seized additional strategic points nearby.

By Mireille Rebeiz, Dickinson College

The fall of President Bashar Assad will not only affect the 24 million Syrians who lived – and largely suffered – under his brutal rule. Over the border in Lebanon, the impact will be felt, too.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Jordan on Thursday at the start of a crisis tour following the overthrow of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

Blinken is to meet in Aqaba with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi on Thursday before traveling to Turkey for talks with Turkish officials on Friday. The meetings will focus largely on Syria but also touch on long-elusive hopes for a deal to end the fighting in Gaza that has devastated the Palestinian territory since October 2023.

A monitor of Syria’s war on Wednesday said that Israeli air strikes targeted sites belonging to ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s military in the coastal Latakia and Tartus provinces.

"Israeli warplanes launched air strikes" targeting "military sites" including "the Latakia port" as well as warehouses in neighboring Tartus province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that "Israeli warplanes continue to destroy what remains of Syria’s military arsenal for the fourth consecutive day since the fall of the former regime".