In churches across long-stifled Syria, Christians marked the first Sunday services since the collapse of Bashar Assad 's government in an air of transformation. Some were in tears. Others clasped their hands in prayer.

"They are promising us that government will be formed soon and, God willing, things will become better because we got rid of the tyrant," said one worshiper, Jihad Raffoul, as the small Christian population hoped that new messages of inclusion would ring true.

A rebel force deployed to a village in southeastern Damascus to stop looters who swarmed a residential complex and set some apartments on fire.

The raid by the rebel force comes a week after the fighters marched on the Syrian capital in their lightening offensive that forced Syrian President Bashar Assad to flee, ending five decades of his family rule.

The Israeli government has approved a plan to increase the population of the annexed Golan Heights, while insisting it had no intention of confronting Syria after seizing a U.N.-monitored buffer zone.

As Islamist-led rebel forces swept Syrian president Bashar al-Assad out of power last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ordered troops to seize the demilitarized zone between the two countries' forces on the Golan Heights.

Personal photos of ousted Syrian President Bashar Assad have surfaced from his abandoned residences, sparking ridicule among Syrians who until days ago were persecuted for criticizing his carefully crafted public image.

The intimate and candid photos, reportedly discovered in albums from Assad's mansions in the hills of Damascus and Aleppo, offer a stark contrast to the polished, glamorous image that Assad and his father projected as they led Syria for half a century.

In central Gaza's Nuseirat urban refugee camp, mourners gathered Monday for the funeral of a Palestinian journalist working for Al-Jazeera who was killed the day before in a strike on a point for Gaza’s civil defense agency. They carried him through the street from the hospital, his blue bulletproof vest resting atop his body.

Al-Jazeera said Ahmad Baker al-Louh, 39, had been covering rescue operations of a family wounded in an earlier bombing when he was killed.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, reported early Monday that Israeli airstrikes pounded missile warehouses and other former Syrian army sites along Syria’s coast in the “most violent strikes in the Syrian coast region since the beginning of the (Israeli) strikes in 2012.”

The Israeli military declined to comment on the strikes.

The Dutch city of Deventer transformed Saturday into a pocket of 19th-century England, with 950 people in costumes bringing characters from Charles Dickens' books to life.

Oliver Twist, Ebenezer Scrooge and Miss Havisham were among the characters at hand, mingling with chimney sweepers, livestock and Christmas carol singers in Deventer's historic center. Onlookers bowed when Queen Victoria passed through.

Real Madrid was held at Rayo Vallecano to 3-3 in a thrilling derby on Saturday, missing a chance to overtake Barcelona at the top of La Liga.

Rayo set a fast pace and stunned the powerhouse with two headed goals from Unai López and Abdul Mumin to lead 2-0 by the 36th minute.

Germany's foreign minister is warning anyone involved in atrocities for the ousted Syrian government against seeking refuge in her country, saying they would face "the full force of the law."

Germany has been a major destination for Syrian refugees over the past decade, and several hundred thousand Syrian nationals live there. In rulings since 2021, former Syrian secret police officers already have been convicted in Germany for overseeing or facilitating the abuse of detainees.

South Korea's opposition leader offered Sunday to work with the government to ease the political tumult as officials sought to reassure allies and markets, a day after the opposition-controlled parliament voted to impeach conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol over a short-lived attempt to impose martial law.

Liberal Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung, whose party holds a majority in the National Assembly, urged the Constitutional Court to rule swiftly on Yoon's impeachment and proposed a special council for policy cooperation between the government and parliament.