All posts tagged: Middle East

Expected, yet stressful. How Iranians reacted to Israel’s attack | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Expected, yet stressful. How Iranians reacted to Israel’s attack | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Tehran, Iran – Thousands of Iranians in Tehran were jolted awake by the sound of explosions in the early hours of Saturday as Israel attacked. “I heard about 10 booms in relatively quick succession,” said Ali, a 32-year-old who lives in western Tehran, where the first booms were heard after 2am (22:30 GMT on Friday). Iranians got on social media to report hearing explosions all over the city and some surrounding areas. By the time the second round of attacks hit a few hours later, videos were circulating online showing air defences being activated to counter incoming threats. “Not that it was unexpected, but it was stressful anyway. We were up till morning with family checking the news, and we were talking with colleagues in our Telegram channels and looking for details,” said Ali, who asked his surname to be withheld. Echoes of war In Tehran and elsewhere across the country, life mostly continued as normal on Saturday, the first day of the working week in Iran. Traffic was normal in different areas of the …

Advocates question US ‘threat’ to Israel over Gaza aid: What to know | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Advocates question US ‘threat’ to Israel over Gaza aid: What to know | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Senior United States officials have warned Israel that if it does not take “urgent and sustained actions” to allow more humanitarian assistance into the Gaza Strip, the US government may be forced to curtail its support for the top ally. The warning, put forward in a letter signed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin that was made public this week, came as Israel’s year-long war on Gaza has fuelled starvation and disease across the coastal Palestinian enclave. “The amount of assistance entering Gaza in September was the lowest of any month during the past year,” the US officials said in the letter, giving Israel 30 days to act on a series of demands to “reverse the downward humanitarian trajectory”. Almost immediately, lawyers, human rights advocates and other experts questioned the US administration’s apparent threat of cutting off American military assistance to Israel. “Once again, the Biden administration is doing bureaucratic gymnastics to avoid enforcing US law and ending arms transfers to Israel,” Annie Shiel, US advocacy director at the Center …

White House warned of risk of Israeli war crimes days after Oct 7: Report | Israel-Palestine conflict News

White House warned of risk of Israeli war crimes days after Oct 7: Report | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Senior Pentagon and Department of State officials warned US President Joe Biden’s administration of potential Israeli war crimes days after the start of the October 7, 2023, war on Gaza, an investigation by the Reuters news agency finds. Reuters reported on Friday that after reviewing three sets of email exchanges between senior US administration officials, dated between October 11 and 14, officials had sounded the alarm that a rising death toll in Gaza could violate international law and affect US ties to the Arab world. “The messages also show internal pressure in the Biden administration to shift its messaging from showing solidarity with Israel to including sympathy for Palestinians and the need to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza,” the investigation found. In an email sent on October 11 – five days after Hamas’s attack on Israel and the start of the offensive in Gaza – the US State Department’s top public diplomacy official, Bill Russo, told senior officials that the US was “losing credibility among Arabic-speaking audiences” by not addressing the unfolding humanitarian crisis …

Israel strikes Beirut suburb, Nasrallah’s fate unclear after Friday’s massive attack

Israel strikes Beirut suburb, Nasrallah’s fate unclear after Friday’s massive attack

Residents check the damaged in the aftermath of overnight Israeli bombardment in Beirut’s southern suburbs, on September 28, 2024. Anwar Amro | Afp | Getty Images Israel launched airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs and other areas of Lebanon on Saturday, a day after carrying out a massive attack on Hezbollah’s headquarters that appeared to be aimed at killing its leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. The fate of Nasrallah, leader of the Iran-backed group for 32 years, remains unclear, with Hezbollah yet to issue any statement on his status. Reuters journalists heard more than 20 airstrikes in Beirut before dawn on Saturday and more after sunrise. Smoke could be seen rising over the city’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs, known as the Dahiyeh. Thousands of people have fled the area since Friday’s attack, congregating in squares, parks and sidewalks in downtown Beirut and seaside areas. “They want to destroy Dahiyeh, they want to destroy all of us,” said Sari, a man in his 30s who gave only his first name, referring to the suburb he had fled after an …

Exploding pagers, psychological warfare: Israel’s attack on Hezbollah | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Exploding pagers, psychological warfare: Israel’s attack on Hezbollah | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Beirut, Lebanon – At least nine people were killed and some 3,000 injured, including the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, when thousands of pagers exploded – nearly simultaneously – in Lebanon. The attack on Tuesday, which purportedly targeted members of the Hezbollah group, caused havoc in civilian areas and overwhelmed hospitals. A resident of the Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp told Al Jazeera traffic was heavy as bloodied people arrived at the nearby Al Rassoul al-Azam Hospital. Lebanese hospitals called on all available medics to report for duty as injured people poured through their doors in need of treatment, many covered in blood and in visible pain. Iranian media said Iran’s Ambassador to Lebanon Mojtaba Amani was injured by an exploding pager. Iran’s mission in Beirut later posted on X, formerly Twitter, saying Amani’s treatment was “progressing well”, adding the reports of his “physical condition and vision are false”. Attacks were also reported in neighbouring Syria. An officer inspects a car in which a pager exploded in Beirut on September 17, 2024 [Hussein Malla/AP Photo] Hezbollah pledges ‘fair …

Iraq: Child Marriage Returns? | Dunya Mikhail

Iraq: Child Marriage Returns? | Dunya Mikhail

Ten years ago, I started interviewing women and girls who had escaped ISIS captivity. From 2014 to 2017, that terrorist organization swept through northern Iraq, tore girls and women from their families, took them to the Caliphate, and forcibly married all those who were nine or older. Under the group’s perverse laws, all this was deemed legal—including subjecting a minor to sexual assault. In fact, the ISIS fighters insisted they were performing God’s will.  The Iraqi government is at war with the Islamic State. Yet members of Iraq’s parliament are now pushing a law that parallels ISIS’s practices. The proposed legislation, an amendment to the 1959 Personal Status Law (PSL), would effectively legalize child marriage, endorsing the same brutal patriarchy under which the captives I spoke to had suffered. It would betray their courage and be a profound step backward for the rights and dignity of Iraqi girls. When the leftist nationalist leader Abdul-Karim Qasim passed the PSL, it was considered among the most progressive civic codes in the Arab world. The law was designed …

Three Israelis killed in West Bank shooting amid deadly Jenin raids | Occupied West Bank News

Three Israelis killed in West Bank shooting amid deadly Jenin raids | Occupied West Bank News

Three police officers were killed at a checkpoint shooting near Tarqumiyah, south of Hebron. Three Israeli security personnel have been killed in a shooting at a checkpoint in Hebron, as Israel brought reinforcements in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin as part of its ongoing deadly raids. The shooting on Sunday took place as the Israeli army continued its deadly assault on Jenin for a fifth consecutive day killing at least 24 Palestinians. Israel has killed more than 500 people as it intensified operations in the West Bank since it launched war on Gaza on October 7. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the past 11 months. The police confirmed three police officers were killed near the Tarqumiyah checkpoint, south of Hebron. Earlier today, the Israeli national emergency service Magen David Adom said two people, a man and a woman in their 30s, were declared deceased at the scene while a third man in his 50s was transferred to a hospital. A little-known armed group calling itself the Khalil al-Rahman …

What are the prospects for talks to end Israel’s war on Gaza? | Israel-Palestine conflict News

What are the prospects for talks to end Israel’s war on Gaza? | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Discussions brokered by the US, Qatar and Egypt to resume in Cairo. As Israel continues its relentless war on Gaza, Palestinians are pinning their hopes on talks that have paused in Doha but are set to resume in Cairo next week. Israel and Hamas are studying proposals from mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States. But what are the chances of a ceasefire this time? Presenter: Hashem Ahelbarra Guests: Alon Pinkas – Former Israeli ambassador and previous government adviser Rami Khouri – Distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut Niall Stanage – White House columnist for the publication, The Hill Source link