On Thursday, 242 people were killed in Syria in their civil war, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

This is the largest number of people killed in Syria in a single day since the beginning of 2015.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that 5772 people have been killed in Syria’s civil war in the month of October.

Of those 1064 have been civilians, 251 of them children under the age of 18, and 112 of them women.

1552 Syrian fighters from rebels and Islamic battalions and YPG.

3 dissident soldiers.

1342 Non-Syrian fighters from the IS, Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Mohajrin wa al-Ansar army, and Jund al-Aqsa.

876 soldiers from regime forces.

770 NDF, peoples committees and regime spies.

28 Hezbollah.

128 Non-Syrian fighters allied to regime forces, including Shiaa fighters.

9 unknown people.

There are no reports that US Secretary of State John Kerry is planning to visit Syria in the near future with a peace plan.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that the final death toll for Friday October 17, 2014 in Syria’s civil war was approximately 226 people.

The dead: 36 civilians, 20 rebels, 18 Non-Syrian Islamic fighters, 33 NDF, 37 Regular forces, 14 unknown rebels, 54 ISIS, 3 YPG, 6 non-Syrian fighters allied to regime forces.

By province : Aleppo (4 rebels, 1 civilian), Reef Dimashq (6 rebels, 11 civilians), Damascus (2 civilians), Idlib (1 rebel, 6 civilians), Hama (4 rebels), Der-Ezzor (2 civilians), Dar’a (5 civilians, 1 rebel), Homs (1 civilian), Hasakah (3 civilians).

There’s no Israeli/Jewish connection to the fighting, despite attempts by some to create a linkage.

Three Syrian children wounded Saturday night in a lethal mortar shell attack in a courtyard where they were playing were brought to the Rebecca Sieff (Ziv) Hospital in Safed (Tsfat) for medical treatment.

A 7-year-old boy was in serious condition with chest wounds and a broken hand; a 10-year-old boy was also in serious condition with shrapnel wounds all over his body, including his head; and an 8-year-old girl with a leg wound was listed in moderate condition. The mortar shell that wounded the three children left the rest of their playmates dead.

Sieff Hospital reported Saturday that the children were being treated in the emergency room and will be operated on following exams and x-rays.

A total of 376 Syrians wounded as a result of their country’s civil war have received treatment at the Israeli hospital.

Perhaps Syrian lives are not as precious to the U.S. and its allies as those of Gaza Arabs. Or, maybe it’s just that the U.S. and its allies feel they don’t have to conduct themselves by the same standards they demand of others (read: Israel).

But late Sunday night, numerous Syrian civilians and a few militants were killed, and some wounded, as U.S.-led “precision” air strikes struck grain silos and other targets in territory controlled by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terror organization. No one said a word about it.

Aside from the fact that more civilians than militants were killed, the fact is that Syrians are in desperate need of food — and the U.S.-led forces have just deprived them of even more of it, with another harsh winter barely waiting in the wings.

According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, it is believed the aircraft “may have mistaken the mills and grain storage areas in the northern Syrian town of Minbej for an ISIS base.”

But that’s pretty hard to swallow, given the accuracy of satellite imagery these days. It’s certainly not an excuse the United Nations Human Rights Commission would have accepted from the Israel Defense Forces had it been offered about an attack on a Gaza target.

Which is why the IDF so carefully documented every single attack it carried out during this past summer’s counter terror Operation Protective Edge, launched to silence the incessant rocket fire from Gaza aimed at southern Israeli communities on a daily basis.

As a matter of fact, according to Observatory head Rami Abdulrahman, the strikes in Minbej appeared only to have killed civilians, Lebanon’s Daily Star reported Monday.

In eastern Syria, U.S.-led Allied forces also bombed a gas plant controlled by ISIS, outside Deir al-Zor. Several militants were wounded in the strike on the Kuniko gas plant, which feeds a power station in Homs, according to the Observatory. But the price for wounding a few militants was high: Several provinces were robbed of electricity and power for the generators that keep their oil fields going.

Of course, the news is not all bad – nothing ever is. The U.S.-led forces also hit areas of Hasaka city in the northeast, and struck the outskirts of Raqqa in the north. Raqqa is the “capital” of the ISIS territory.

But it’s important to weigh the cost against the gain.

The IDF worked hard to minimize civilian casualties ahead of every attack – making phone calls to homes in each targeted area, sending text messages to cell phones in Arabic, and dropping leaflets from aircraft into the targeted neighborhoods days in advance, warning residents to leave for their own safety.

Funny but this writer did not see any sign of such precautions being taken on behalf of civilian safety by the U.S. or its allies in the Syrian targeted areas. Or in Iraq, for that matter.

So where’s the outrage from the UNHRC? Why don’t we hear screams of empathy from the High Commissioner, Navi Pillay, declaring she will initiate an investigation into the aggressive actions of the U.S. and its allies?

I’ll tell you a little secret. You know why there’s no outrage about any of this and why everyone instead was raising Cain about Israel’s self-defense moves in Gaza?

Because the U.S. and its allies are paying Navi Pillay’s salary, and because all of them – especially together — are much bigger and wealthier than the tiny state of Israel. (Not to mention the rampant anti-Semitism that exists in the world body — and for that matter, among some in the Obama administration as well. Shhhhh….)

If the U.S. were to pull out of the United Nations, or withdraw its funding for any reason, how long could that entity continue to function?

Right. Not long at all.

Would it matter at all if Israel walked away?

I suspect much of the UN would probably throw a party – at least until they realized they would have to find their own intelligence information to deal with the threat of terror in their nations and governments. Then they might come running. But you never know.

Sometimes might does indeed outweigh right, at least when backed by the dollar.

More wounded Syrians were brought Tuesday morning to be treated at Nahariya’s Western Galilee Medical Center.

Three victims of the Syrian civil war were added to the ranks of the hundreds who have received medical care in Israel in more than three years.

The patients were brought to the center in fair condition, suffering in varying degrees from injuries to the chest and limbs.

Western Galilee Medical Center has treated – and admitted – hundreds of patients injured as a result of the Syrian conflict.

So far at least 363 Syrians have been treated in Nahariya alone. More have been admitted at Ziv Medical Center in Tzfat.

United Nations Disengagement Observation Force troops have left the Syrian side of the northern border with Israel, due to the deteriorating security situation.

The forces headed for the more secure Israeli side of the border, according to a tweet posted by The Israel Link and other sources on Monday at midday.

Early Monday morning, a rocket fired from the Syrian side of the Quneitra border crossing between Syria and Israel landed in northern Israel. The rocket exploded in an open area at about 6 am; no physical injuries were reported. IDF officials said the launch was believed to have been a misdirected “stray” from the intense fighting between rebel factions and troops waging civil war on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad.

Last week 45 UN peacekeepers from Fiji were freed in the Golan Heights by their Jabhat al Nusra (Al Nusra Front) terrorist captors. All were in good condition, officials said. The troops were abducted by the Al Qaeda affiliate in the buffer zone between Syria and Israel.

They were handed over to the UNDOF troops in the Golan Heights, which has monitored the buffer zone there since 1974, when Syria reached a cease-fire agreement with Israel following the Yom Kippur War.

Fighting between government forces and rebels of various factions in the three-year civil war has been spilling over into the zone off and on for months, as it did last week and today.