middle-east
In Iran, snap checkpoints and university purges mark the first anniversary of Mahsa Amini protests
Snap checkpoints. Internet disruptions. University purges.
Iran's theocracy is trying hard to both ignore the upcoming anniversary of nationwide protests over the country's mandatory headscarf law and tamp down on any possibility of more unrest.
Yet the Sept. 16 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini still reverberates across Iran. Some women are choosing to go without the headscarf, or hijab, despite an increasing crackdown by authorities.
Graffiti, likely against Iran's government, is rapidly painted over in black by Tehran's municipal workers. University professors have been fired over their apparent support for demonstrators.
International pressure remains high on Iran, even as the administration tries to deescalate tensions with other nations in the region and the West after years of confrontation.
Iran executes 3 men over violence during last year’s anti-government protests
"The weaponization of 'public morals' to deny women and girls their freedom of expression is deeply disempowering and will entrench and expand gender discrimination and marginalization," independent United Nations experts warned earlier this month.
The demonstrations over Amini's death that erupted after her arrest a year ago by the country's morality police, allegedly over the hijab, represented one of the largest challenges to Iran's theocracy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. A security force crackdown that followed saw over 500 people killed and more than 22,000 people detained.
Iran's government, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have blamed the West for fomenting the unrest, without offering evidence to support the allegation. However, the protests found fuel in the widespread economic pain that Iran's 80 million people have faced since the collapse of Iran's nuclear deal with world powers after then-President Donald Trump in 2018 unilaterally pulled America from the accord.
As more women forgo the hijab, Iran’s government pushes back
As Western sanctions came back, Iran currency — the rial — cratered, decimating people's lifesavings. Prices of food and other essentials skyrocketed as inflation gripped the nation, in part due to worldwide pressures following the coronavirus pandemic and the launch of Russia's war on Ukraine. Unemployment officially stands at 8% overall, though one out of every five young Iranians is out of work.
Videos of the demonstrations last year showed many young people taking part in the protests, leading authorities to apparently focus more closely on Iran's universities in recent weeks. There's historic precedence for the concerns: In 1999, student-led protests swept Tehran and at least three people were killed while 1,200 were detained as demonstrations rapidly spread to other cities.
Though university campuses have largely remained one of the few safe places for students to demonstrate, even campuses have felt the latest crackdown. Over the past year, the Union Council of Iranian Students has said that hundreds of students faced disciplinary panels at their universities over the protests.
Protests hit multiple Iran cities for first time in weeks
During the same period, at least 110 university professors and lecturers have been fired or temporarily suspended, according to a report by the reformist newspaper Etemad. The firings have been primarily focused at schools in Tehran, including Tehran Azad University, Tehran University and Tehran Medical University.
Etemad said those who were dismissed fell into two groups: teachers concerned by the election of hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi and those who supported the protests that followed Amini's death.
But there were firings at other schools as well.
Iran acknowledges ‘tens of thousands’ detained in protests
At Tehran's Sharif University of Technology, outspoken artificial intelligence and bioinformatics professor Ali Sharifi Zarchi, who backed his students taking part in the protests and later faced interrogation by Iranian security forces, was among those laid off.
A petition urging the university to overturn his firing was signed by 15,000 people.
"Putting pressure on professors and students is a black stain on the proud history of #Tehran_University and it must be stopped," Zarchi wrote online before his dismissal.
University teachers who were dismissed also included Hossein Alaei, a former commander in the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and vice defense minister, and Reza Salehi Amiri, a former culture minister. Alaei had once, a decade ago, compared Khamenei to Iran's former shah, while Amiri was a former official in the administration of the relatively moderate President Hassan Rouhani.
Rouhani, whose government reached the nuclear deal with world powers in 2015, has criticized the university firings.
"Destroying the prestige of the universities and their professors ... is a loss for the students, science and the country," Rouhani said, according to a report by the online news site Jamaran.
The head of Tehran University, Mohammad Moghimi, had tried to defend the dismissals, describing professors as facing "ethics problems." Some hard-liners also have tried to insist the firings weren't political, though the hard-line newspaper Kayhan directly linked the dismissals to the demonstrations.
"It is not logical to allow someone to propagate against the system under the direction of foreigners," the newspaper wrote.
Those on the streets of Tehran say the governments' move will likely make the situation worse.
"They want to insert their own people in the university in hope of stopping the protest, but we students will show our objections in a way that they cannot imagine," said Shima, a 21-year-old university student. "They failed to prevent last year's protests since nobody can predict earthquakes."
Authorities "are fighting against windmills using wooden swords," added Farnaz, a 27-year-old university student. Both women gave just their first name for fear of reprisals.
The government has been trying to stay publicly quiet about the anniversary. Raisi never said Amini's name during a recent news conference with journalists — who also only tangentially referred to the demonstrations. State-run and semiofficial media in Iran as well have avoided mentioning the anniversary, which typically signals pressure from the government.
But privately, activists report a rise in the number of people being questioned and detained by security forces, including an uncle of Amini.
Saleh Nikbakht, a lawyer for Amini's family, faces a court case accusing him of spreading "propaganda" over his interviews with foreign media.
More police officers have been noticed on Tehran's streets in recent days, including snap checkpoints for those riding on motorcycles in the country's capital. Internet access has been noticeably disrupted over recent days, according to the advocacy group NetBlocks.
And abroad, Iranian state media reported that someone set tires ablaze in front of the Iranian Embassy in Paris over the weekend. Demonstrations marking the anniversary on Saturday are planned in multiple cities abroad.
Israel's PM pitches fiber optic cable idea to link Asia and the Middle East to Europe
Israel’s prime minister on Sunday floated the idea of building infrastructure projects such as a fiber optic cable linking countries in Asia and the Arabian Peninsula with Europe through Israel and Cyprus.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he’s “quite confident” such an infrastructure “corridor” linking Asia to Europe through Israel and Cyprus is feasible.
He said such projects could happen if Israel normalizes relations with other countries in the region. The 2020 U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, and the Biden administration is trying to establish official ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
READ: Russia attacks a Ukrainian port before key grain deal talks between Putin and Turkey's president
“An example and the most obvious one is a fiber optic connection. That’s the shortest route. It’s the safest route. It’s the most economic route,” Netanyahu said after talks with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides.
The Israeli leader’s pitch is itself an extension of proposed energy links with Cyprus and Greece as part of growing collaboration on energy in the wake of discoveries of significant natural gas deposits in the economic zones of both Israel and Cyprus.
Netanyahu repeated that he and Christodoulides are looking to follow through on plans for a 2,000-megawatt undersea electricity cable known as the EurAsia Interconnector connecting Israel with Cyprus and Greece that aims to act as an energy supply back-up for both Israel and Cyprus.
READ: 18 dead in Iraq after bus carrying Shiite pilgrims to Karbala overturns
“You want to be connected to other sources of power that can allow a more optimal use of power or give you power when there is a failure in your own country,” Netanyahu said. “That is something that we’re discussing seriously and we hope to achieve.”
Another energy link involves a Cypriot proposal to build a pipeline that would convey offshore natural gas from both Israel and Cyprus to the east Mediterranean island nation where it would be fuel for electricity generators or potentially be liquefied for export by ship.
Christodoulides said given Europe’s need for energy diversification in light of Russia’s war in Ukraine, Cyprus and Israel are looking to developing “a reliable energy corridor” linking the East Mediterranean basin to Europe through projects including gas pipelines and liquefied natural gas (LNG) processing plants.
Netanyahu said his government fully backs a European decision to create a regional fire fighting hub in Cyprus from which aircraft and other technology could be dispatched to help put out fires in neighboring countries.
“The climate isn’t going to get cooler. It’s going to get hotter. And with, you know, with the heating up of our region and the globe, firefighting becomes a really important thing. We can I think we can do it better together,” the Israeli leader said.
READ: Iranian FM says ties with Saudi Arabia "moving in right direction"
Talks between Christodoulides and Netanyahu precede a trilateral meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Monday.
Since 2016 such meetings between the leaders of the three countries have become a staple of what they said are burgeoning ties that Netanyahu described as “a deep friendship, both personal, but also between our nations” that is “real” and “long overdue.”
Russia attacks a Ukrainian port before key grain deal talks between Putin and Turkey's president
Two people were hospitalized following a 3½-hour Russian drone barrage on a port in Ukraine’s Odesa region on Sunday, officials said.
The attack on the Reni seaport comes a day before Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to meet with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss the resumption of food shipments from Ukraine under a Black Sea grain agreement that Moscow broke off from in July.
Russian forces fired 25 Iranian-made Shahed drones along the Danube River in the early hours of Sunday, 22 of which were shot down by air defenses, the Ukrainian air force said on Telegram.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, described the assault as part of a Russian drive “to provoke a food crisis and hunger in the world.”
Read: Putin, Erdogan set to meet amid efforts to repair Ukraine grain deal
Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement that the attack was aimed at fuel storage facilities used to supply military equipment.
Putin and Erdogan’s long-awaited meeting is due to take place in Sochi on Russia’s southwest coast on Monday.
Turkish officials have confirmed that the pair will discuss renewing the Black Sea grain initiative, which the Kremlin pulled out of six weeks ago.
The deal — brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July 2022 — had allowed nearly 33 million metric tons (36 million tons) of grain and other commodities to leave three Ukrainian ports safely despite Russia’s war.
Read: Drones target 6 regions in biggest attack on Russia since troops sent to Ukraine, officials say
However, Russia broke away from the agreement after claiming that a parallel deal promising to remove obstacles to Russian exports of food and fertilizer hadn’t been honored.
Moscow complained that restrictions on shipping and insurance hampered its agricultural trade, even though it has shipped record amounts of wheat since last year.
The Sochi summit follows talks between the Russian and Turkish foreign ministers on Thursday, during which Russia handed over a list of actions that the West would have to take in order for Ukraine’s Black Sea exports to resume.
Erdogan has indicated sympathy with Putin’s position. In July, he said Putin had “certain expectations from Western countries” over the Black Sea deal and that it was “crucial for these countries to take action in this regard.”
Elsewhere in Ukraine, two people were killed and two others were wounded during Russian shelling Sunday on the village of Vuhledar in the Donetsk area.
Read: N. Korea's Kim calls for readiness to smash US-led invasion plot, as US trains with South and Japan
Artillery fire hit eight settlements across the region, Ukraine’s National Police wrote on Telegram.
Ukrainian prosecutors also announced Sunday that they had opened a war crimes investigation into the death of a police officer killed by Russian shelling on the town of Seredyna-Buda on Saturday afternoon.
Two other police officers and one civilian were wounded during the attack, which hit Ukraine’s north-eastern Sumy region.
Rival Eritrean groups clash in Israel, leaving dozens hurt in worst confrontation in recent memory
Hundreds of Eritrean government supporters and opponents clashed with each other and with Israeli police Saturday, leaving dozens injured in one of the most violent street confrontations among African asylum seekers and migrants in Tel Aviv in recent memory.
Among those hurt were 30 police officers and three protesters hit by police fire.
Eritreans from both sides faced off with construction lumber, pieces of metal, rocks and at least one axe, tearing through a neighborhood of south Tel Aviv where many asylum seekers live. Protesters smashed shop windows and police cars, and blood spatter was seen on sidewalks. One government supporter was lying in a puddle of blood in a children’s playground.
Israeli police in riot gear shot tear gas, stun grenades and live rounds while officers on horseback tried to control the protesters, who broke through barricades and hurled chunks rocks at the police. Police said officers resorted to live fire when they felt their lives were in danger.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would convene a meeting Sunday to discuss steps against those who participated in the clashes, including deportations. A statement by his office referred to them as “illegal infiltrators.”
The clashes came as Eritrean government supporters marked the 30th anniversary of the current ruler's rise to power. The event was held near the Eritrean embassy in south Tel Aviv. Eritrea has one of the world's worst human rights records. Asylum seekers in Israel and elsewhere say they fear death if they were to return.
Police said Eritrean government supporters and opponents had received permission for separate events Saturday, and had promised to stay away from each other.
At some point, the promises were broken, said Chaim Bublil, a Tel Aviv police commander.
Read: Key Beirut road reopens after rival groups clash overnight
“A decision was made by the government opponents to break through the barriers, to clash with the police, to throw stones, to hit police officers,” Bublil told reporters at the scene.
He said the police had arrested 39 people and confiscated tasers, knives and clubs.
The Magen David Adom rescue service said at least 114 people were hurt, including eight who were in serious condition. The others had moderate or mild injuries. Of those hurt, 30 were police officers, said Bublil.
A spokesperson for Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital said it was treating 11 patients for gunshot wounds. Police said three protesters were wounded by police fire.
By late Saturday afternoon, the clashes had stopped. Police were still rounding up protesters, putting them on buses.
Many of the anti-government protesters wore sky blue shirts designed after Eritrea's 1952 flag, a symbol of opposition to the government of the east African country, while government supporters wore purple shirts with a map of Eritrea.
Eritreans make up the majority of the more than 30,000 African asylum seekers in Israel. They say they fled danger and persecution from a country known as the “North Korea of Africa” with forced lifetime military conscription in slavery-like conditions. Eritrea's government has denounced anti-government protesters as “ asylum scum ” who have marched against similar events in Europe and North America.
Read: Suspected Palestinian shooting attack at West Bank car wash kills 2 Israelis
President Isaias Afwerki, 77, has led Eritrea since 1993, taking power after the country won independence from Ethiopia after a long guerrilla war. There have been no elections and there’s no free media. Exit visas are required for Eritreans to leave the country. Many young people are forced into military service with no end date, human rights groups and United Nations experts say.
In Israel, they face an uncertain future as the state has attempted to deport them. But despite the struggle to stay, in often squalid conditions, many say they enjoy some freedoms they never would have at home — like the right to protest.
Eritrean asylum seekers are often “hunted and harassed” by the Eritrean government and its supporters inside Israel, said Sigal Rozen, from the Tel Aviv-based human rights organization Hotline for Refugees and Migrants.
Read more: Israeli military fire killed Palestinian teen in occupied West Bank, Palestinian health officials say
Events like the one held in Tel Aviv on Saturday are controversial because they raise money for the heavily sanctioned government and are used to pressure Eritreans far from home, said Elizabeth Chyrum, director of the London-based Human Rights Concern — Eritrea.
18 dead in Iraq after bus carrying Shiite pilgrims to Karbala overturns
A bus carrying pilgrims to the Iraqi city of Karbala overturned north of Baghdad on Saturday, killing 18 people, medical officials said.
Millions of believers converge on the city each year for the Shiite pilgrimage of Arbaeen, regarded as the largest annual public gathering in the world. Pilgrims come from various parts of Iraq as well as from Iran and the Gulf countries, with many making their way to Karbala on foot.
Two Iraqi medical officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to the media said that the bus overturned near the town of Balad, about 55 miles (90 kilometers) north of Baghdad.
Read: 6 Turkish soldiers killed in attacks by Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq, Ankara says
The victims were 15 men and three women. Among them were 10 Iranians, two Iraqis — the bus driver and his son — and six people of unknown nationality, the officials said.
Arbaeen marks the anniversary of the 40th day of mourning following the seventh-century death of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Hussein at the hands of the Muslim Umayyad forces in the Battle of Karbala, during the tumultuous first century of Islam’s history.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani was personally observing the entry of Iranian pilgrims to Iraq via the Shalamcheh border crossing on Saturday, where he and Iranian Vice President Mohammad Mokhber also laid the foundation stone for a railway project that will provide rail transportation between the two countries.
Read more: 8 killed in attack by gunmen on an Iraqi village: Official
A CIA-backed 1953 coup in Iran haunts the country with people still trying to make sense of it
Seventy years after a CIA-orchestrated coup toppled Iran's prime minister, its legacy remains both contentious and complicated for the Islamic Republic as tensions stay high with the United States.
While highlighted as a symbol of Western imperialism by Iran's theocracy, the coup unseating Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh — over America's fears about a possible tilt toward the Soviet Union and the loss of Iranian crude oil — appeared backed at the time by the country's leading Shiite clergy.
But nowadays, hard-line Iranian state television airs repeated segments describing the coup as showing how America can't be trusted, while authorities bar the public from visiting Mossadegh's grave in a village outside of Tehran.
Such conflicts are common in Iran, where "Death to America" can still be heard at Friday prayers in Tehran while many on its streets say they'd welcome a better relationship with the U.S. But as memories of the coup further fade away along with those alive during it, controlling which allegory Iranians see in it has grown more important for both the country's government and its people.
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"Maybe the U.S. did this out of fear of the emerging power of the Soviet Union, but it was like wishing for an earthquake to get rid of a bad neighbor," said Rana, a 24-year-old painter who like some others who spoke to The Associated Press gave only her first name for fear of reprisals. For Iranians, "the rancor has never melted."
The August 1953 coup stemmed from U.S. fears over the Soviet Union increasingly wanting a piece of Iran as Communists agitated within the country. The ground had been laid partially by the British, who wanted to wrest back access to the Iranian oil industry, which had been nationalized earlier by Mossadegh.
Though looking initially like it failed, the coup toppled Mossadegh and cemented the power of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. It also lit the fuse for the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which saw the fatally ill shah flee Iran and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini usher in the theocracy that still governs the country.
Today, several who spoke to the AP about the coup and possible relations with the U.S. put it in the context of Iran's ailing economy, which has been battered by years of sanctions after the collapse of its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Lower tensions with the U.S. "will bring more money for my business," said Hossein, 47, who runs a canteen for cab drivers in southern Tehran. "Now taxi drivers spend less compared to the past years and it is because of these bad relations, sanctions."
"I know about this bitter history but it should come to end sometime soon," added Majid Shamsi, who works as a parcel carrier in central Tehran. "Young people in Iran seek a better life and it cannot come as a result of enmity with" the U.S.
Even during increasingly common protests by teachers, farmers and others in Iran, some of the regular chants include: "Our enemy is here; they lied to us (that the enemy) is the U.S."
"Iran today should accept a deal with the U.S. like what it did to release dual nationals," added teacher Reza Seifi, 26. "I need it for my better future, for a better future for all."
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But like with the exchanges with the U.S., there are limits to how far Iran's government will go in remembering Mossadegh.
Last weekend, State television's English-language Press TV aired a segment with a journalist standing on Mossadegh Street in northern Tehran. However, over the last 20 years, police have restricted access to those wanting to visit his grave in his ancestral home in the village of Ahmadabad, some 90 kilometers (55 miles) northwest of Tehran. In the village, tall walls and a locked gate keep those wanting to pay their respects out, while officers question those who look like they don't live there.
Some found other ways to mark the 70th anniversary of the coup.
"I could not go to his grave to pay tribute but I have visited the graves of his supporters and allies like Hossein Fatemi," said Ebrahim Nazeri, 32, as he, his wife and two children stood at the graveside of Fatemi, Mossadegh's foreign minister who was executed after the coup. "He was a hero like Mossadegh."
Another visitor to Fatemi's grave, teacher Ehsan Rahmani simply said that "the U.S. planted hatred in the hearts of Iranians" through the coup.
For Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the 1953 coup represents what he views as the continued threat from the U.S., whether that be from economic sanctions or the nationwide protests that have gripped Iran after the death last year of Mahsa Amini.
On Thursday, Khamenei told members of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard that Washington had planned to overthrow the country's theocracy through a coup like in 1953 through its military. Iran carried out mass executions and purges of its regular military after the revolution.
Also read : Iranian FM says ties with Saudi Arabia "moving in right direction"
"The enemies tried to undermine and paralyze the revolution by creating continuous crises," Khamenei said, according to a transcript on his official website. "They then plotted to put an end to the revolution with a measure similar to the coup that took place on August 19, (1953). However, the (Guard) thwarted it. This is the reason why the enemies have so much hatred and animosity towards the" Guard.
The Guard's chief, Gen. Hossein Salami, in reply, vowed to "expel" American forces from the region. His remarks came amid a major American military buildup in the Persian Gulf, with the possibility of U.S. troops boarding and guarding commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of all oil shipments pass.
However, some remain hopeful Iran could reach a détente with the U.S., as it recently did with Saudi Arabia.
"I dream that the supreme leader allows talks and better relations with the U.S.," said Mohsen, 29, a furniture shop salesman in northern Tehran. "He allowed the restoration of ties with Saudi Arabia. He can allow the same for the U.S."
17-year-old Palestinian killed during Israeli military raid in northern West Bank
Israeli security forces stormed into a town the northern West Bank on Tuesday, leading to fighting that killed a 17-year-old Palestinian, according to Palestinian health officials, the latest violence to grip the occupied territory.
The Israeli military conducted an arrest raid before dawn in the town of Zababdeh south of Jenin, local medics said. The Palestinian Health Ministry reported that 17-year-old Othman Abu Kharj was fatally shot in the head. The raid came as Israeli security forces were still searching for the Palestinian gunman that carried out a shooting in the northern Palestinian city of Hawara that killed an Israeli father and son on Saturday.
Read: Suspected Palestinian shooting attack at West Bank car wash kills 2 Israelis
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the raid in Zababdeh.
In the southern West Bank, the Israeli army captured two Palestinians who were suspected in a shooting the day before that killed an Israeli woman and seriously wounded a man. The Israeli military said the two suspects confessed during interrogation to involvement in the attack near the Palestinian city of Hebron. Israeli security forces said they also confiscated the rifle used to shoot at the car on Monday. A car without a license plate that was allegedly used to carry out the attack was found burned north of Hebron, said mayor of the town of Halhoul.
Read: Israeli military kills 3 alleged Palestinian gunmen in volatile West Bank
Palestinian media identified the two suspects arrested near Hebron as Saqer and Muhamad al-Shantir.
Nearly 180 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the start of this year, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were militants. But stone throwing youths protesting the incursions and those not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
Some 30 people have been killed by Palestinian attacks against Israelis during that time.
Read: Israeli forces kill 2 wanted Palestinians in shootout in the occupied West Bank
Israel says the raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks. Palestinians say the raids undermine their security forces, inspire more militancy and entrench Israeli control over lands they seek for a hoped-for future state. Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
Rights group says Saudi Arabian border guards fired on and killed hundreds of Ethiopian migrants
Border guards in Saudi Arabia have fired machine guns and launched mortars at Ethiopians trying to cross into the kingdom from Yemen, likely killing hundreds of the unarmed migrants in recent years, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Monday.
The rights group cited eyewitness reports of attacks by troops and images that showed dead bodies and burial sites on migrant routes, saying the death toll could even be “possibly thousands.”
The United Nations has already questioned Saudi Arabia about its troops opening fire on the migrants in an escalating pattern of attacks along its southern border with war-torn Yemen.
A Saudi government official, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly, called the Human Rights Watch report “unfounded and not based on reliable sources,” without offering evidence to support the assertion. Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who allegedly make tens of thousands of dollars a week smuggling migrants over the border, did not respond to requests for comment.
Some 750,000 Ethiopians live in Saudi Arabia, with as many as 450,000 likely having entered the kingdom without authorization, according to 2022 statistics from the International Organization for Migration. The two-year civil war in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region displaced tens of thousands of people.
Saudi Arabia, struggling with youth unemployment, has been sending thousands back to Ethiopia in concert with Addis Abba.
Human Rights Watch said it spoke to 38 Ethiopian migrants and four relatives of people who attempted to cross the border between March 2022 and June 2023 who said they saw Saudi guards shoot at migrants or launch explosives at groups.
The report said the group also analyzed over 350 videos and photographs posted to social media or gathered from other sources filmed between May 12, 2021, and July 18, 2023. It also examined several hundred square kilometers (miles) of satellite imagery captured between February 2022 and July 2023.
“These show dead and wounded migrants on the trails, in camps and in medical facilities, how burial sites near the migrant camps grew in size, the expanding Saudi Arabian border security infrastructure, and the routes currently used by the migrants to attempt border crossings,” the report said.
Read: Saudi Arabia deposits $2 billion in Pakistan's central bank as a boost ahead of a key IMF meeting
An April 27 satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by The Associated Press showed the same tent structures identified by the rights group near al-Raqw, Yemen, on the Saudi border. Two sets of fence lines could be seen just across the border into Saudi Arabia.
The site Human Rights Watch identified as the migrant camp at Al-Thabit also could be seen in satellite images, which corresponded to the group’s narrative that the camp largely had been dismantled in early April.
Both areas are in northwestern Yemen, the stronghold of the country’s Houthi rebels. The U.N. has said that the Houthi-controlled immigration office “collaborates with traffickers to systematically direct migrants” to Saudi Arabia, bringing in $50,000 a week.
The Houthis have held Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, since September 2014. A Saudi-led coalition has battled the Houthis since March 2015, without dislodging them from the capital. Fighting has largely halted between the Saudi-led forces and the Houthis as Riyadh seeks a way to end the war. However, throughout the war years, the Houthis claimed multiple incursions across the Saudi border in this mountainous region.
Read: ‘Surongo’ to hit theatres in Saudi Arabia
Migrants from Ethiopia have found themselves detained, abused and even killed in Saudi Arabia and Yemen during the war. But in recent months, there has been growing concern from the U.N. human rights body about Saudi forces attacking migrants coming in from Yemen.
An Oct. 3, 2022, letter to the kingdom from the U.N. said its investigators “received concerning allegations of cross-border artillery shelling and small arms fire allegedly by Saudi security forces causing the deaths of up to 430 and injuring 650 migrants.”
“If migrants are captured, they are reportedly oftentimes subjected to torture by being lined up and shot through the side of the leg to see how far the bullet will go or asked if they prefer to be shot in the hand or the leg,” the letter from the U.N. reads. “Survivors of such attacks reported having to ‘play dead’ for a period of time in order to escape.”
A letter sent by Saudi Arabia’s mission to the U.N. in Geneva in March said that it “categorically refutes” allegations that the kingdom carries out any “systematic” killings on the border. However, it also said the U.N. provided “limited information” so it could not “confirm or substantiate the allegations.”
Read more: US, Saudi Arabia call for warring sides in Sudan to extend ‘imperfect’ cease-fire
Suspected Palestinian shooting attack at West Bank car wash kills 2 Israelis
Two Israelis were killed in a suspected Palestinian shooting attack on a car wash in a volatile stretch of the occupied West Bank on Saturday, the latest outburst of violence to rock the region.
The Israeli military said it was searching for suspects and setting up roadblocks near the town of Hawara, a flashpoint area in the northern West Bank, which has seen repeated shooting attacks as well as a rampage by Jewish West Bank settlers who torched Palestinian property.
The shooting attack came after Palestinian official media said a 19-year-old Palestinian died of his wounds following an Israeli military raid into the West Bank on Wednesday.
The deaths are part of a relentless spiral of violence that has fueled the worst fighting between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank in nearly two decades. Nearly 180 Palestinians have been killed since the start of this year and some 29 people have been killed by Palestinian attacks against Israelis during that time, according to a tally by The Associated Press.
Israeli paramedics said that when they arrived at the scene at the car wash in Hawara, two Israeli males, aged 60 and 29, were found unconscious with gunshot wounds.
Videos circulating online showed Israeli soldiers walking across a large pool of blood at the car wash to help move two bodies on stretchers to awaiting ambulances.
An Associated Press reporter saw Israeli military checkpoints set up on the roads leading into Hawara, with soldiers checking car trunks and passengers.
Several Israelis have been killed in Hawara in the current round of fighting and the death of two brothers, residents of a nearby settlement, set off a rampage by settlers through the town in February. They torched dozens of cars and homes in some of the worst settler violence in decades.
Similar settler mob violence has taken place elsewhere in the West Bank since. Israeli rights groups say settler violence has worsened and that radical settlers have become emboldened because their cause has supporters in important government positions.
The violence in the area has prompted promises of a harsh response from members of Israel's far-right government and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a firebrand settler supporter, called for Israel to “erase” Hawara, a remark he later walked back, saying he meant that Israel should operate surgically within it against Palestinian militants.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is composed of ultranationalist members who have demanded a harder line against the rising tide of Palestinian violence. Saturday's attack is likely to intensify those demands.
Palestinian militant groups praised the shooting attack, with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine posting statements online congratulating the perpetrators. Hamas spokesman Abdel Latif Al-Qanou called the attack a “heroic shooting operation.”
But the groups stopped short of claiming responsibility for the attack.
In the death of the Palestinian on Saturday, according to Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, Mohammad Abu Asab, 19, was shot in the head on Wednesday during an Israeli army incursion into the Balata refugee camp near the northern West Bank city of Nablus. It cited medical officials.
The Israeli military said in its statement Wednesday that a commando unit raided Balata seeking to destroy an underground weapons factory when a gunfight erupted.
Wafa reported that during the fighting, Abu Asab was shot in the head and then taken to the Rafidia hospital in Nablus where he later died from his wounds. Palestinian health officials did not immediately confirm the death.
It was not immediately clear if Abu Asab was affiliated with a militant group and he wasn't immediately claimed as a member by any group.
Israel has been staging near-nightly raids since last spring in response to a spate of deadly Palestinian attacks.
Israeli says most of the Palestinians killed were militants. But stone throwing youths protesting the incursions and those not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
Israel says the raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks. The Palestinians see the violence as a natural response to 56 years of occupation, including stepped-up settlement construction by Israel’s government and increased violence by Jewish settlers.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. Some 700,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, while Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. The Palestinians seek those territories for their hoped-for independent state.
Iranian FM says ties with Saudi Arabia "moving in right direction"
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said here on Thursday the relations between his country and Saudi Arabia are moving in the right direction and both sides will advance cooperation in various fields.
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Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks in a joint press conference with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud after their meeting in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
The Iranian top diplomat, who is on his first official visit to Saudi Arabia since the two countries agreed to restore diplomatic relations in a China-brokered deal in March, said his meeting with the Saudi minister was "fruitful."
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Iran is committed to implementing the agreements reached between the two countries in the security and economic fields, and will set up a technical and executive committee to promote their implementation, he said.
Amir-Abdollahian confirmed that the Iranian president will visit Saudi Arabia soon.
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He also voiced his support for Saudi Arabia to host the World Expo 2030.
While stressing the importance of cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the Saudi minister said the restoration of diplomatic relations with Iran is the key to maintaining regional security.
He said Saudi Arabia will maintain communication and coordination with Iran and promote new progress in bilateral relations on the basis of mutual respect.
The Saudi official also welcomed the Iranian president's planned visit to Saudi Arabia.