Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s staunchest allies, Russia and Iran, pledged unconditional support to his government on Monday, sending warplanes and voicing diplomatic support as his forces attempted to repel a startling rebel advance in his country’s northwest.

Russian and Syrian fighter jets were striking targets across territory seized by rebels in northwestern Syria on Monday, according to Syrian state media and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Observatory, a Britain-based war monitor, said the strikes had killed both civilians and fighters.

Yet the rebels appeared to continue their advance through Aleppo, once Syria’s largest city, and the surrounding areas, battling pro-Assad forces to capture more territory in Hama province, in western Syria.

Russian and Iranian officials stood by Mr. al-Assad in a flurry of statements, phone calls and public appearances on Monday, suggesting that they would continue to prop him up with military and diplomatic aid, as they have done since the Syrian civil war first threatened his autocratic rule in 2011.

But it remains to be seen if they can back that rhetoric up by halting the rebel advance, especially since neither have committed to sending ground troops to shore up Mr. al-Assad. Just the fact that the rebels were able to seize a large expanse of government-held territory in a few days showed weaknesses in the partnership that had helped Mr. al-Assad survive years of conflict.

In a call between Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, and President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran, the two leaders expressed “unconditional support” for Syria’s government, calling the rebel offensive a “large-scale aggression by terrorist groups and gangs,” according to a statement from the Kremlin’s press office.

Russia’s indiscriminate bombing of hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure as well as rebel targets in Syria helped turned the tide of the war in Mr. al-Assad’s favor nearly a decade ago. But Moscow has been preoccupied with its invasion of Ukraine.

Iran and the militia it backs in Lebanon, Hezbollah, both supplied fighters to bolster Syria’s military. But they have taken a series of body blows from Israel during the regionwide conflict of the last year. Hezbollah’s leadership is decimated and its forces battered after its most recent war with Israel, which ended with a cease-fire last week.

Still, Mr. al-Assad’s backers appeared to be mobilizing to help. Several thousand fighters from such groups had already been stationed along the Iraq-Syria border, according to a senior Iraqi security official who declined to be named to discuss a sensitive matter, and according to members of three armed factions. All three groups said there were more forces ready to come to Mr. al-Assad’s defense if the rebel offensive advanced further.

Russia, which has warplanes stationed at a base in Syria, continued pounding territory captured by the rebels with airstrikes.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said Syrian and Russian planes had struck targets across the provinces of Aleppo, Idlib and Hama. It said at least 13 civilians had been killed in one strike near the city of Idlib, including eight children, and dozens of others injured; in another, Russian warplanes killed four civilians, including two civilians, in Aleppo, it said.

U.N.-backed humanitarian groups have been forced to largely suspend their operations in the parts of Syria affected by the fighting, according to U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

The renewed conflict was complicating matters for another group opposed to Mr. al-Assad: Kurdish fighters who had held parts of Aleppo province and who rebel officials said on Monday were evacuating the area by bus.

Viewed by Turkey as a historical enemy, and too weak to take on the Syrian rebels leading the advance, analysts said, the Kurdish fighters had little choice but to take the rebel leadership’s offer of safe passage to northeastern Syria, where the United States has partnered with their commanders in the fight against the Islamic State for much of the last decade.

The Observatory said one of the strikes on Monday had hit a camp for displaced people in northern Idlib. The White Helmets, a Syrian civil defense group that said it had responded to the strike, said it had recovered the bodies of five children and two women and taken 12 more for medical treatment.

The rebels responded with at least one drone strike, including one on a group of military officials in northern Hama, according to rebel officials. A rebel spokesman who gave his name as Ali al-Rifai said that one of those targeted was Maj. Gen. Suhail al-Hassan, a special forces commander who became notorious among the Syrian opposition for his role in overseeing the bombing of civilian areas. It was unclear if General al-Hassan, who is subject to U.S. sanctions, survived.

The New York Times could not independently verify the information from either side.

Videos and photos posted by the group and by a local media activist, which were verified by The New York Times, showed torn-up tents and families’ belongings lying in broken heaps among olive trees at what they said was the site of the strike on the camp for the displaced.

The activist, Anas Maraawi, says in his video that the camp housed Syrians displaced from their homes who had lived in the field for years. Two families’ tents were hit while they were having breakfast, he says, while a third tent that was struck had served as a kitchen.

Another local activist, Mustafa Hashem, shared videos with The Times that he said he had filmed at the hospital where the victims were taken. In one clip, a woman has fallen to her knees, apparently in grief, while a few others try to help her up.

“This is a 4-year-old child — where are the terrorists that they say they are bombing?” a man says in another clip, standing among body bags laid out on a blood-streaked floor. “They are all children.”

A child’s head can be seen protruding from one short bag. Another man zips it up.

Russia and Iran, along with Syria’s government, have long painted the rebels as terrorists, and their public statements on Monday were little different.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, visited Damascus on Sunday to convey support for Mr. al-Assad in the fight against “the dangers posed by terrorists,” a spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry said on Monday, according to Tasnim, a semiofficial Iranian news agency.

Mr. Araghchi then went to Ankara, Turkey’s capital, where he said in a Monday news conference with his Turkish counterpart that Iran would “provide any support deemed necessary to eliminate the infidels,” IRNA, a state news agency, reported.

The group leading the current offensive is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which was linked to the Islamic State and Al Qaeda until breaking with both years ago. The group has tried to portray itself as more moderate in recent years, but is still considered a terrorist group by the United States.

Wariness of the group’s extremism leaves governments that once supported moderate rebels against Mr. al-Assad in a tricky spot, unable to endorse either side. The United States, Britain, France and Germany released a joint statement calling for civilians to be protected and for a political solution to the conflict.

Turkey, which analysts say tacitly cooperates with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and openly backs other rebel groups across its border in northern Syria, has more leverage in the conflict, and has often brokered cease-fires in parts of Syria along with Russia and Iran. Its foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, called on Mr. al-Assad on Monday to negotiate with the opposition.

“The latest developments show once again that Damascus should reconcile with its own people and the legitimate opposition,” he said in Monday’s news conference with Mr. Araghchi, adding that Iran, Russia and Turkey would meet again to try to broker peace.

A negotiated political transition is also what the moderate opposition in exile has long pushed for, and the rebels’ startling gains appeared to reinvigorate those demands.

Though he does not speak for the rebels battling in Syria, an exiled opposition leader, Hadi al-Bahra, told a news conference broadcast from his base in Istanbul that the offensive was supported by a population weary of crimes committed by Mr. al-Assad and his foreign backers.

Like the United States and its Western allies, Mr. al-Bahra demanded the implementation of the stalled 2015 United Nations Security Council resolution 2254, which lays out a road map for Syria’s political transition, starting with a cease-fire. It is, he said, “the only sustainable political solution in Syria.”

Reporting was contributed by Farnaz Fassihi, Alissa J. Rubin, Aryn Baker, Edward Wong, Jacob Roubai, Leily Nikounazar, Muhammad Haj Kadour, Nader Ibrahim, Rania Khaled, Safak Timur and Valerie Hopkins.

Thousands of Georgians demonstrated in front of their country’s parliament for the fifth night in a row on Monday, widening a political crisis that has set the country’s pro-Russian government against those who want closer ties with the West.

At the center of the clash is the announcement last week by the governing Georgian Dream party that the country would put talks on European Union membership on hold until 2028.

The president, Salome Zourabichvili, who favors ascension to the E.U., has encouraged the thousands who have taken to the streets nightly to protest the delay.

“We want our European destiny to be returned to us,” she told France’s Inter Radio on Monday. The protests, which began last Thursday in Tbilisi, the capital, have spread to cities across the country, in a sign of the widening anger with the government.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze doubled down on Monday, telling reporters that there would be “no negotiations” with the opposition forces protesting and boycotting the country’s parliament.

“I remind everyone that there will be no revolution in Georgia,” he said, alleging that the protests had been “funded from abroad.”

Mr. Kobakhidze had said last week that Georgia was not abandoning its long-term goal of joining the European Union, but was pausing to reconsider the terms of accession. Among other things, he mentioned calls by the E.U. to repeal recent laws that ban what is described as L.G.B.T.Q. propaganda, according to Imedi, a pro-government TV network in Georgia.

Ms. Zourabichvili is often at odds with the Georgian Dream Party, which has been in power since 2012 and is able to set the legislative agenda.

Opposition to the government’s decision is widening to also include schools. There were reports on Monday published on the social messaging site Telegram of students protesting in Tbilisi after the authorities called on parents not to allow minors to take part.

Telegram channels shared videos of students from various schools gathering in the capital, as well as the cities of Batumi, Rustavi, and Akhaltsikhe.

Law enforcement bodies have arrested dozens of protesters, including the opposition leader Zurab Japaridze, a coalition of three opposition parties, Coalition for Change, said on X. Authorities said more than 220 people had been detained during the first four nights of protest, and that 21 police had been injured.

The local branch of Transparency International, a human rights watchdog, said that many of those detained during the protests on Monday had been hurt. “Some detainees are currently being held in medical facilities, suffering from extensive bruises and facial injuries, including fractured noses and jaws,” a news release on the group’s website said.

It also said the authorities had also used “unprecedented repressive measures against the peaceful demonstrators,” made unlawful arrests and deliberately targeted journalists. Reporters Without Borders, an advocacy group, said Monday that more than 25 journalists had been detained covering the protests.

What’s at stake?

Georgia has long been torn between great powers, a vexing problem for the small country on the Black Sea that was once part of the Soviet Union. Almost 80 percent of Georgians favor E.U. membership, according to a poll released last year by the National Democratic Institute, a nongovernmental organization based in Washington, D.C., that is funded by the U.S. and other Western governments.

But others worry that neighboring Russia would punish Tbilisi for closer ties to Brussels and Washington. They point to Moscow’s annexation of Crimea away from Ukraine in 2014 after Ukrainians signaled they wanted a closer alignment with Europe.

Tbilisi’s ties with Moscow were strained following a 2008 war with Russia that lasted five days but left deep scars in Georgia. Still, there are some Georgians, especially in more rural communities in the former industrial heartland, nostalgic for the Soviet past.

The current political turmoil began following elections in October. The elections commission declared that the Georgian Dream party had won 54 percent of the vote, handing the party a fourth mandate to form the government. Ms. Zourabichvili sided with a bloc of opposition parties that ended with 61 of the parliament’s 150 seats, but denounced the election process as illegitimate and vowed to boycott the legislative body.

What led to the protests?

Progressives in Georgia were already furious over a law passed this summer branding media outlets and civil society organizations that receive funding from Western organizations as being under “foreign influence.” The law, which spurred its own set of demonstrations, is similar to a 2012 Russian law on “foreign agents” that has been used to suppress anti-government views there and stigmatize those who share them.

The disputed elections in October added to the disenchantment. On Thursday, members of the European Parliament voted by a margin of 444-72 in favor of a nonbinding resolution condemning the elections, which they said “do not serve as a reliable representation of the will of the Georgian people.” The body called for the results to be invalidated and for the vote to be rerun under international supervision.

It was several hours later that Mr. Kobakhidze announced Tbilisi was suspending its negotiations with the E.U. for four years, despite an article in Georgia’s constitution that sets integration into the 27-member bloc as a national priority.

On Monday, he maintained that joining the bloc “by 2030” continued to be a “top priority” for the country. “I want to convince everyone that European integration is not postponed but will be pursued with maximum efforts,” Mr. Kobakhidze said at Monday’s news conference.

It was a claim rejected by the protesters.

Response from the West

The European Union issued a statement on Sunday lamenting Mr. Kobakhidze’s intention to pull Georgia away from the E.U.

“We note that this announcement marks a shift from the policies of all previous Georgian governments and the European aspirations of the vast majority of the Georgian people, as enshrined in the Constitution of Georgia,” the statement said.

The E.U. said the process of accession had already been “de facto” halted in June because of European concerns over the “foreign influence” law. More than $126 million in E.U. funds earmarked to support economic development and accession to the bloc were canceled in October ahead of the elections because of “democratic backsliding,” the E.U. delegation to Georgia said at the time.

Ms. Zourabichvili, the president, called for even stronger support from the European Union.

“I think the European Union needs to bang its fist on the table, because that’s what the people are waiting for, and they’d be extremely disappointed, given that today they’re demonstrating more strongly for Europe than anywhere else,” she said Monday in the France Inter radio interview.

The United States also responded, announcing on Saturday that it was downgrading ties by suspending Washington’s “strategic partnership” with Georgia.

And the leaders of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia imposed travel bans on a number of high-ranking Georgian Dream members on Monday including the founder, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili.

What has Russia said?

Moscow has sought to portray the Western response to Georgia’s election as foreign meddling. “Everything that is happening in Georgia is its internal business,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov told reporters on Monday. “We have not interfered and do not mean to interfere in these processes.”

He said that Moscow had observed “an attempt to destabilize the situation,” implying that the West was trying to foment a political crisis. He compared the events in Georgia to Ukraine’s 2004 so-called Orange Revolution and the 2013 Maidan Revolution, when mass protests led to the ousters of pro-Russian governments in Kyiv, saying he saw a “direct parallel.”

The events are being watched closely in Ukraine, where people see the protests as part of the same struggle they have waged against Russian influence. People who participated in the Maidan Revolution have offered advice on social networks about how to erect barriers against riot police and published messages of support.

Ségolène Le Stradic contributed reporting from Paris and Jenny Gross from Berlin.

President-elect Donald J. Trump on Monday demanded that the hostages taken in the Hamas-led attack on Israel be released from Gaza before his inauguration in January, or there will be “hell to pay” in the Middle East for those responsible.

Writing on Truth Social, and without naming any militant group, Mr. Trump said in his post: “If the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East, and for those in charge who perpetrated these atrocities against Humanity. Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”

About 250 hostages were captured in the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct, 7, 2023, and about 100 of them remain in Gaza, with about a third believed to be dead, according to the Israeli authorities. The Biden administration has been working since last year with Israel and international mediators, including Qatar and Egypt, on a cease-fire deal that would include release of the hostages.

It was not clear what tactic Mr. Trump might take that has not already been taken already by Israel, which has killed many of Hamas’s leaders and thousands of its fighters, while leveling much of Gaza.

Mr. Trump said in his post on Monday, “It’s all talk and no action” when it comes to the hostages, and his statement suggesting that he could use the power of his office to punish those who took the captives is the first sign of how aggressively Mr. Trump might handle Middle East policy when he resumes office.

There was one brief pause in the fighting, more than a year ago, that led to the release of about 105 hostages. And efforts to broker a cease-fire deal appeared to stall last month after mediators met in Egypt.

Some hostages have also been rescued in Israeli military operations. But there have been protests and widespread frustration in Israel over the lack of a deal to secure their freedom, with critics of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel saying that he has failed to prioritize their release over his political survival.

This is not the first time that Mr. Trump has addressed the conflict in Gaza and the fate of the remaining hostages. He has told Mr. Netanyahu that he wants the war in the enclave to end before he returns to the White House. And at the Republican National Convention in July, he said that he wanted the hostages returned and that captors “will be paying a very big price.”

His latest warning came after Hamas released a propaganda video showing the American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander, 20, pleading with Mr. Trump to secure his release.

A new law gives some sex workers in Belgium more protection from exploitation and violence and more social benefits than any other similar legislation in the world, rights researchers and advocates say.

Belgium decriminalized sex work in 2022, a first for Europe. Under this new labor law, which passed in May and took effect on Sunday, sex workers can choose to sign a formal employment contract — although they do not have to do so.

“It is the most comprehensive labor law related to sex work that we have seen globally,” Erin Kilbride, a researcher at Human Rights Watch who focuses on women’s rights and L.G.B.T.Q. rights, said.

A labor contract will give sex workers of all genders, as it does other employees, broader access to the country’s robust social security system, including paid maternity leave and sick leave, unemployment aid and the ability to make pension contributions.

The new law also focuses explicitly on protecting people who sell sex on the job by requiring ongoing and specific consent: Sex workers who sign contracts can refuse clients, refuse to do certain acts and interrupt acts — without facing negative consequences from their employer.

They will also have workplace safety regulations, like emergency buttons in rooms where they see clients. They also gain broader protections against unlawful termination or forms of exploitation by an employer. And the law bars anyone who has been convicted of rape, homicide, trafficking and other violent offenses from employing sex workers.

“The law responds directly to what sexual exploitation often looks like in practice,” Ms. Kilbride said, adding, “The list of rights and freedoms it affords sex workers are refreshingly practical and long overdue.”

Ms. Kilbride described Belgian law as more expansive and more worker-centric than those in other countries where sex work is also legal.

Still, many of the most vulnerable sex workers are not eligible for contracts, perhaps because they do not have legal residency status. They will not be able to access all of the protections available to contracted workers under the law.

And not all organizations agree with decriminalization. Isala, a Belgian organization that supports sex workers, although not their profession, condemned the law, which it described as the legalization of pimping. Isala said it normalizes sex work itself, which it calls prostitution and argues is exploitative.

“When Isala’s volunteers meet women on the streets, the most recurrent sentences they hear are: ‘I want a normal job, a normal life’ or ‘I would not do this if I had the choice,’” Isala said in a statement, adding that the law “is entirely disconnected from the lived realities of most people involved in prostitution.”

Members of the Belgian government acknowledged that sex workers are often vulnerable or are forced into the job.

“Whilst we recognize that not all sex workers perform their activities out of their own free will, we argue that it is much more difficult to get into contact and inform sex workers about their rights when they hide their activities,” Sandrine Daoud, a spokeswoman for the Belgian health minister, wrote in an email.

By allowing legal sex work and giving workers protection, she wrote, “we hope to enable all sex workers who want to leave the sector to do so.”

For many sex workers, the law — which builds on the decriminalization — is an opening to a safer way to work and more access to the formal economy. Several Belgian advocacy groups, including UTSOPI, a Belgian sex work union, pushed for and helped to design the law.

Daan Bauwens, a leader of UTSOPI, estimated that there are between 8,000 and 26,000 sex workers in the country, though he said there was no official count.

He said that before the law passed, some had to work into their 70s because they did not have a pension, and others worked through their pregnancies because their employers forced them to or they had no paid maternity leave. Others, he said, have had to pay for housing with garbage bags of cash because they could not obtain proof of income. (Sex workers have long struggled to open bank accounts.)

Now, Mr. Bauwens said, more protections are available to people who work in what some call the oldest profession in the world. People are always going to buy and sell sex, he said, so sex workers should at least get sick days and pensions, like any legal employee in Belgium.

“Sex work is not a glamorous business,” he said, which is precisely why they need access to stronger labor rights. “We are not saying it is a job as any other,” he said, “but we say that sex workers deserve protection — as any other worker.”