{"id":678293,"date":"2026-07-07T10:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T10:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/678293\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T10:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T10:13:08","slug":"explosions-injure-18-in-damascus-during-macrons-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/678293\/","title":{"rendered":"Explosions injure 18 in Damascus during Macron&#8217;s visit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A number of people have been injured after explosive devices went off in central Damascus,  reportedly near the hotel where French President Emmanuel Macron had been staying.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A security source told the BBC the blasts were caused by two devices. Syrian media said 18 people, including four police officers, were injured. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Macron is in the capital for talks with his Syrian counterpart Ahmed al-Sharaa at the presidential palace. His officials said he was safe and did not hear the explosions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After travelling to Syria, Macron is set to head to Turkey for the Nato summit. The visit &#8220;continues as planned&#8221;, according to the Elysee Palace.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">After reports of explosions in the city, videos and images on social media showed plumes of smoke and flames rising from a vehicle near a hotel in the Syrian capital.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">As those reports came in, Syrian state television said that al-Sharaa had welcomed Macron to the presidential palace.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">BBC Verify has been analysing video footage of the blasts, which shows the explosions happened approximately 125m from the Four Seasons hotel, on the pavement of Shoukry al-Quowatly, a major thoroughfare running through the capital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A number of people have been injured after explosive devices went off in central Damascus, reportedly near the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-678293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}