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LONDON: Jordan sent another 50 trucks of humanitarian aid to Gaza on Sunday after resuming the dispatch of relief convoys last week, following months of an Israeli blockade that hindered assistance from reaching the Palestinian coastal enclave.

The Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization said the trucks carried essential aid, food and clean water to vulnerable families in northern Gaza. The initiative was in collaboration with the World Food Programme and the Jordanian Armed Forces.

It is part of the humanitarian aid bridge Amman launched since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza in October 2023 to support Palestinians. The JHC said that aid distribution will occur through locally coordinated methods to ensure it reaches those in need.

A separate shipment of 3,000 blood units is set to be delivered to the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza to support the healthcare sector. This initiative follows a nationwide blood donation campaign organized in collaboration with the Jordanian Medical Association and the Ministry of Health, the charity said.

Since late 2023, Jordan has delivered 7,815 aid trucks and 53 cargo planes through the Egyptian port of Arish, along with 102 helicopter sorties via the humanitarian air bridge, to support Palestinians in Gaza.

Jordan was among the first countries to conduct airlift missions in the early days of the war, delivering relief to Gaza. More than 58,000 Palestinians have reportedly been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, which have been described as genocide by human rights groups and several heads of state.

DAMASCUS: Syria’s civil defense agency on Sunday said wildfires in the country’s west, which have burned vast tracts of forest and farmland and forced evacuations, had been brought under control after 10 days.

In a statement on Facebook, the agency said that “with the spread of the fires halted and the fire hotspots brought under control on all fronts” on Saturday, teams on the ground were working to cool down the affected areas while monitoring any signs of reignition.

The blazes in the coastal province of Latakia broke out amid an intense heatwave across the region.

The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said they destroyed about 100 square kilometers of forest and farmland.

As the fires raged, Syrian emergency workers faced tough conditions including high temperatures, strong winds, rugged mountainous terrain and the danger of explosive war remnants.

This all comes in a country worn down by years of conflict and economic crisis.

In a post on X, the Syrian minister for emergencies and disaster management, Raed Al-Saleh, said that with help from Turkish, Jordanian, Lebanese, Qatari and Iraqi teams, firefighters had “managed to halt the spread of the fire on all fronts, which is the most important step toward containing the wildfires.”

The “situation is the best it has been in the past 10 days,” Saleh said late Saturday.

“There are still threats due to wind activity, but we are working to prevent any renewed expansion of the fires,” the minister added.

The civil defense agency said rescue teams were carrying out “operations to open pathways and firebreaks within the forests... in order to reduce the chances of fire spreading in case of reignition.”

Authorities have not reported any casualties, but several towns in Latakia province have been evacuated as a precaution.

Nearly seven months after the ousting of longtime ruler Bashar Assad, Syria is still reeling from more than a decade of civil war that ravaged the country’s economy, infrastructure and public services.

With man-made climate change increasing the likelihood and intensity of droughts and wildfires worldwide, Syria has also been battered by heatwaves and low rainfall.

In June, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said that Syria had “not seen such bad climate conditions in 60 years.”