A new year dawns on a Middle East torn by conflict and change

DAMASCUS (AP) — In Damascus, the streets were buzzing with excitement Tuesday as Syrians welcomed in a new year that seemed to many to bring a promise of a brighter future after the unexpected fall of Bashar Assad’s government weeks earlier.

While Syrians in the capital looked forward to a new beginning after the ousting of Assad, the mood was more somber along Beirut’s Mediterranean promenade, where residents shared cautious hopes for the new year, reflecting on a country still reeling from war and ongoing crises.

War-weary Palestinians in Gaza who lost their homes and loved ones in 2024 saw little hope that 2025 would bring an end to their suffering.

The last year was a dramatic one in the Middle East, bringing calamity to some and hope to others. Across the region, it felt foolish to many to attempt to predict what the next year might bring.

In Damascus, Abir Homsi said she is optimistic about a future for her country that would include peace, security and freedom of expression and would bring Syrian communities previously divided by battle lines back together.

“We will return to how we once were, when people loved each other, celebrated together whether it is Ramadan or Christmas or any other holiday — no restricted areas for anyone,” she said.

But for many, the new year and new reality carried with it reminders of the painful years that came before.

Abdulrahman al-Habib, from the eastern Syrian city of Deir el-Zour, had come to Damascus in hopes of finding relatives who disappeared after being arrested under Assad’s rule. He was at the capital’s Marjeh Square, where relatives of the missing have taken to posting photos of their loved ones in search of any clue to their whereabouts.

“We hope that in the new year, our status will be better ... and peace will prevail in the whole Arab world,” he said.

In Lebanon, a tenuous ceasefire brought a halt to fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group a little over a month ago. The country battered by years of economic collapse, political instability and a series of calamities since 2019, continues to grapple with uncertainty, but the truce has brought at least a temporary return to normal life.

Some families flocked to the Mzaar Ski Resort in the mountains northeast of Beirut on Tuesday to enjoy the day in the snow even though the resort had not officially opened.

“What happened and what’s still happening in the region, especially in Lebanon recently, has been very painful,” said Youssef Haddad, who came to ski with his family. “We have great hope that everything will get better.”

On Beirut's seaside corniche, Mohammad Mohammad from the village of Marwahin in southern Lebanon was strolling with his three children.

“I hope peace and love prevail next year, but it feels like more (challenges) await us,” he said.

Mohammad was among the tens of thousands displaced during more than a year of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. Now living in Jadra, a town that was also bombarded during the conflict, he awaits the end of a 60-day period, after which the Israeli army is required to withdraw under the conditions of a French and U.S.-brokered ceasefire.

“Our village was completely destroyed,” Mohammad said. His family would spend a quiet evening at home, he said. This year "was very hard on us. I hope 2025 is better than all the years that passed.”

In Gaza, where the war between Hamas and Israel has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians, brought massive destruction and displaced most of the enclave's population, few saw cause for optimism in the new year.

“The year 2024 was one of the worst years for all Palestinian people. It was a year of hunger, displacement, suffering and poverty,” said Nour Abu Obaid, a displaced woman from northern Gaza.

Obaid, whose 10-year-old child was killed in a strike in the so-called “humanitarian zone” in Muwasi, said she didn’t expect anything good in 2025. “The world is dead,” she said. “We do not expect anything, we expect the worst.”

The war was sparked by the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in which militants killed around 1,200 people and abducted some 250 others.

Ismail Salih, who lost his home and livelihood, expressed hopes for an end to the war in 2025 so that Gaza's people can start rebuilding their lives.

The year that passed “was all war and all destruction," he said. “Our homes are gone, our trees are gone, our livelihood is lost.”

In the coming year, Salih said he hopes that Palestinians can “live like the rest of the people of the world, in security, reassurance and peace.”

Shurafa reported from Muwasi, Gaza and Jo from Beirut. Associated Press writers Sally Abou AlJoud and Abby Sewell in Beirut and Fadi Tawil in Kfardebian, Lebanon, contributed to this report.

Palestinian children carry buckets of water after overnight rainfall at the refugee tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

A man removes water from the fabric roof of a makeshift tent following overnight rainfall at the refugee tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

A man warms himself by a small fire inside a makeshift tent following overnight rainfall at the refugee tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinian children carry buckets of water after overnight rainfall at the refugee tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Manal Lubbad, a 49-year-old mother of eight and a displaced woman from Gaza City, tries to repair her flooded and damaged tent after heavy overnight rainfall at the refugee tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Pigeons fly by as a vendor sells balloons near Al-Hamidiyeh Souq on New Years Eve, in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Shop owners talk while they wait for clients in Al-Hamidiyeh Souq on New Years Eve, in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

People shop for goods near Al-Hamidiyeh Souq on New Years Eve, in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024 (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

A vendor sells new Syrian flags in Al-Hamidiyeh Souq on New Years Eve, in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

A dress with the new Syrian flag is displayed in a shop in Al-Hamidiyeh Souq on New Years Eve, in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

People pose for photos with balloons near Al-Hamidiyeh Souq on New Years Eve, in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024 (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Balloon sellers wait for customers near Al-Hamidiyeh Souq on New Years Eve, in Damascus, Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

An Army soldier who died in an explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck at the Trump hote l in Las Vegas left a note saying it was stunt to serve as “wakeup call” for the country’s ills, investigators said Friday.

Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old Green Beret from Colorado Springs, Colorado, also wrote in the note that he needed to “cleanse my mind” of the lives lost of people he knew and “the burden of the lives I took.”

Livelsberger apparently harbored no ill will toward President-elect Donald Trump, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department officials said.

“Although this incident is more public and more sensational than usual, it ultimately appears to be a tragic case of suicide involving a heavily decorated combat veteran who was struggling with PTSD and other issues,” FBI Special Agent In Charge Spencer Evans said at a news conference.

The explosion caused minor injuries to seven people but virtually no damage to the hotel. Authorities said Friday that Livelsberger acted alone.

“This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wakeup call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives,” Livelsberger wrote in a letter found by authorities who released only excerpts of it.

Investigators identified the Tesla driver — who was burned beyond recognition — as Livelsberger by a tattoo and by comparing DNA from relatives. The cause of death was a self-inflicted gunshot to the head, according to coroners officials.

Pentagon officials have declined to say whether Livelsberger may have been suffering from mental health issues but say they have turned over his medical records to police.

Authorities excerpted the messages from two letters Livelsberger wrote using a cellphone note application, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren said.

The letters covered a range of topics including political grievances, domestic issues and societal issues, Koren said.

Tesla engineers, meanwhile, helped extract data from the Cybertruck for investigators, including Livelsberger’s path between charging stations from Colorado through New Mexico and Arizona and on to Las Vegas, Koren said.

“We still have a large volume of data to go through,” Koren said. “There’s thousands if not millions of videos and photos and documents and web history and all of those things that need to be analyzed.”

The new details came as investigators sought to determine Livelsberger’s motive, including whether he sought to make a political point with the Tesla and the hotel bearing the president-elect’s name.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has recently become a member of Trump’s inner circle. Neither Trump nor Musk was in Las Vegas early Wednesday, the day of the explosion. Both had attended Trump’s New Year’s Eve party at his South Florida estate.

Musk spent an estimated $250 million during the presidential campaign to support Trump, who has named Musk, the world’s richest man, to co-lead a new effort to find ways to cut the government’s size and spending.

Investigators suspect Livelsberger may have been planning a more damaging attack but the steel-sided vehicle absorbed much of the force from the crudely built explosive.

Investigators said previously that Livelsberger shot himself inside the Tesla Cybertruck packed with fireworks just before it exploded outside Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on New Year's Day.

“It’s not lost on us that it’s in front of the Trump building, that it’s a Tesla vehicle, but we don’t have information at this point that definitively tells us or suggests it was because of this particular ideology,” Spencer Evans, the Las Vegas FBI’s special agent in charge, said Thursday.

Asked Friday about whether Livelsberger had been struggling with any mental health issues that may have prompted his suicide, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters that “the department has turned over all medical records to local law enforcement.”

A law enforcement official said investigators learned through interviews that he may have gotten into a fight with his wife about relationship issues shortly before he rented the Tesla in Colorado on Saturday and bought the guns. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.

Among the charred items found inside the truck were a handgun at Livelsberger’s feet, another firearm, fireworks, a passport, a military ID, credit cards, an iPhone and a smartwatch, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Sheriff Kevin McMahill said. Authorities said both guns were purchased legally.

Livelsberger served in the Green Berets, highly trained special forces who work to counter terrorism abroad and train partners. He had served in the Army since 2006, rising through the ranks with a long career of overseas assignments, deploying twice to Afghanistan and serving in Ukraine, Tajikistan, Georgia and Congo, the Army said. He had recently returned from an overseas assignment in Germany and was on approved leave when he died, according to a U.S. official.

He was awarded a total of five Bronze Stars, including one with a valor device for courage under fire, a combat infantry badge and an Army Commendation Medal with valor.

Authorities searched a townhouse in Livelsberger's hometown of Colorado Springs Thursday as part of the investigation. Neighbors said the man who lived there had a wife and a baby.

Cindy Helwig, who lives diagonally across a narrow street separating the homes, said she last saw the man she knew as Matthew about two weeks ago when he asked her if he could borrow a tool he needed to fix an SUV he was working on.

“He was a normal guy,” said Helwig, who said she last saw the wife and baby earlier this week.

The explosion of the truck, packed with firework mortars and camp fuel canisters, came hours after 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter early on New Year’s Day, killing at least 14 people before being shot to death by police. The FBI says they believe Jabbar acted alone and that it is being investigated as a terrorist attack.

Copp, Richer and Long reported from Washington. Contributing were Associated Press journalists Rio Yamat, Ken Ritter and Ty ONeil in Las Vegas; Colleen Slevin in Colorado Springs, Colorado; Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles.

A car drives out of Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Ian Maule)

Investigators search a townhouse in northeastern Colorado Springs, Colo., Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025, as the investigation connected to the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside President-elect Donald Trump's Las Vegas hotel continues. (Parker Seibold /The Gazette via AP)

Investigators search the garbage outside of a townhouse in northeastern Colorado Springs, Colo., Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025, as the investigation connected to the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside President-elect Donald Trump's Las Vegas hotel continues. (Parker Seibold /The Gazette via AP)

This undated photo, provided by the Las Vegas Police Department shows a passport belonging to Matthew Livelsberger, found inside a Tesla Cybertruck involved in an explosion outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. (Las Vegas Police Department via AP)

A Tesla Cybertruck pulls into Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Ian Maule)

This undated photo, provided by the Las Vegas Police Department shows items found inside a Tesla Cybertruck involved in an explosion outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. (Las Vegas Police Department via AP)

This undated photo, provided by the Las Vegas Police Department shows a weapon found inside a Tesla Cybertruck involved in an explosion outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. (Las Vegas Police Department via AP)

This undated photo, provided by the Las Vegas Police Department shows the Tesla Cybertruck involved in an explosion outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. (Las Vegas Police Department via AP)

This undated photo, provided by the Las Vegas Police Department shows an ID belonging to Matthew Livelsberger, found inside a Tesla Cybertruck involved in an explosion outside the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. (Las Vegas Police Department via AP)