UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen warned the UN Security Council yesterday that the effects of the Gaza conflict are already spilling over into Syria. He said that, on top of violence from the Syrian conflict, the Syrian people now face “a terrifying prospect of a potential wider escalation” following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the ongoing retaliatory military action, according to an Associated Press report on the meeting. “Spillover into Syria is not just a risk; it has already begun,” he said.
Pedersen pointed to airstrikes attributed to Israel hitting Syria’s airports in Aleppo and Damascus several times, and retaliation by the United States against what it said were multiple attacks on its forces “by groups that it claims are backed by Iran, including on Syrian territory.” With the region “at its most dangerous and tense, fuel is being added to a tinderbox that was already beginning to ignite” in Syria, which he said was undergoing a surge in violence even before Oct. 7.
