middle-east
Israeli-Palestinian fighting continues, despite Egyptian cease-fire announcement
Palestinian militants fired hundreds of rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel on Wednesday, while Israel pressed ahead with a series of airstrikes that have killed 21 Palestinians, including three senior militants and at least 10 civilians.
As the fighting continued, a state-run Egyptian TV station announced that Egypt had brokered a cease-fire. But shortly after the announcement, more rockets were fired toward Israel, including a new salvo at the seaside metropolis of Tel Aviv, while Israel struck more targets in Gaza. The continued fighting raised questions about if or when a truce would take effect.
In a prime-time TV address, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Israel had dealt a harsh blow to the militants. But he cautioned: "This round is not over."
"We say to the terrorists and those who send them. We see you everywhere. You can't hide, and we choose the place and time to strike you," he said, adding that Israel would also decide when calm is restored.
Throughout the day, rocket fire set off air-raid sirens throughout southern and central Israel, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) away. Residents had been bracing for an attack since Israel launched its first airstrikes early Tuesday.
It was the heaviest fighting between the sides in months, pushing the region closer toward a full-blown war. But in signs that both sides were trying to show restraint, Israel avoided attacks on the ruling Hamas militant group, targeting only the smaller and more militant Islamic Jihad faction. Hamas, meanwhile, appeared to remain on the sidelines.
Israel and Hamas have fought four wars since the Islamic militant group took control of Gaza in 2007.
Late Wednesday, Egypt's Extra News television channel, which has close ties to Egyptian security agencies, said it had brokered a cease-fire. Egyptian intelligence frequently mediates between Israel and Palestinian militants.
Israeli government officials confirmed that Egypt was trying to faciliate a cease-fire. Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss behind-the-scenes diplomacy, they said Israel would evaluate the situation based on actions on the ground, not declarations.
There was no immediate comment from Islamic Jihad, the militant group involved in the latest fighting.
As rockets streaked through the sky, Israeli TV stations showed air defense systems intercepting rockets above the skies of Tel Aviv. In the nearby suburb of Ramat Gan, people lay face-down on the ground as they took cover.
The Israeli military said that for the first time, an air-defense system known as David's Sling intercepted a rocket. The system, developed with the U.S., is meant to intercept medium-range threats and is part of a multi-layered air defense that also includes the better-known Iron Dome anti-rocket system. Israeli media said a previous attempt to use the system several years ago had failed.
In a move that could further raise tensions, Israeli police said they would permit a Jewish ultranationalist parade to take place next week. The parade, meant to celebrate Israel's capture of east Jerusalem and its Jewish holy sites, marches through the heart of the Old City's Muslim Quarter and often leads to friction with local Palestinians.
As air raid sirens continued to wail, Israeli officials said over 400 rockets had been fired. Most, they said, were intercepted or fell in open areas, but Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said about one-quarter had misfired and fallen inside Gaza. Israeli rescuers said three people were hurt running for shelter, and three homes in southern Israel were struck.
The army said that schools would remain closed and restrictions on large gatherings would remain in place in southern Israel until at least Friday. Residents were instructed to stay near bomb shelters.
Eden Avramov, a 26-year-old resident of the southern Israeli town of Sderot, described the 24 hours since Israel launched airstrikes on Gaza as terrifying. "We are all traumatized from this routine — the waiting, the booms, the alarms."
Israeli aircraft hit targets in Gaza for the second straight day, killing at least five Palestinians. The Israeli military said its warplanes targeted 40 rocket launchers, arms warehouses and other targets across the enclave. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said four of the dead were militants.
A 10-year-old Palestinian girl named Layan Mdoukh was killed in a blast at her home in Gaza City in unclear circumstances on Wednesday.
The initial Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday that set off the exchange of fire killed three senior Islamic Jihad militants and at least 10 civilians — most of them women and children. The Israeli military has said its attacks were focused on Islamic Jihad militant infrastructure in the coastal enclave.
Israel says the airstrikes are a response to a barrage of rocket fire launched last week by Islamic Jihad in response to the death of one of its members from a hunger strike while in Israeli custody.
Israel says it is trying to avoid conflict with Hamas, the more powerful militant group that rules Gaza, and limit the fighting to Islamic Jihad.
"Our actions are meant to prevent further escalation," said Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military's chief spokesman. "Israel is not interested in war."
In a statement, an umbrella organization of Palestinian factions in Gaza, including Hamas, said the campaign against Israel — which it dubbed "Avenging the Free" — involved firing hundreds of rockets in retaliation for Israel's killing of the three Islamic Jihad commanders as well as several civilians.
"The resistance is ready for all options," the factions said. "If (Israel) persists in its aggression and arrogance, dark days await it."
Still, it remained unclear whether Hamas had joined the fray. If the ruling militant group enters the fighting, the risk of a full-blown conflict would increase.
Israel has come under international criticism for the high civilian toll Tuesday, which included wives of two of the militant commanders, some of their children and a dentist who lived in one of the targeted buildings along with his wife and son.
In past conflicts, rights groups have accused Israel of committing war crimes due to high civilian deaths. Israel says it does its utmost to avoid civilian casualties and holds militant groups responsible because they operate in heavily populated residential areas.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the military said that Palestinian gunmen opened fire at troops in the Palestinian town of Qabatiya in the northern West Bank during an army raid. Troops returned fire, killing the two men, and confiscated their firearms, it said.
Islamic Jihad later claimed the two men as its members.
Israel has been conducting near-daily military raids in the occupied West Bank for over a year to detain suspected Palestinian militants, including many from Islamic Jihad.
At least 107 Palestinians, around half of them militants, have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, according to an Associated Press tally. At least 20 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks targeting Israelis.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek all three territories for a future independent state.
Israel: Rocket attack underway from Gaza on southern Israel
Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday fired several barrages of rocket fire into southern Israel, in their first response to a series of Israeli airstrikes that have killed a total of 16 Palestinians, including three senior militants and at least 10 civilians.
The rocket fire set off air-raid sirens throughout southern Israel, where residents had been bracing for an attack since Israel carried out its first airstrikes early Tueday. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
Earlier Wednesday, Israeli aircraft struck targets in Gaza a second straight day on Wednesday, killing at least one Palestinian and pushing the region closer toward a new round of heavy fighting.
Tuesday's strikes killed three senior Islamic Jihad militants and at least 10 civilians — most of them women and children. Palestinian militants have pledged to retaliate while Israel says it is prepared for a further escalation of hostilities.
The Israeli military said Tuesday it was bombing Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant infrastructure in the coastal enclave.
The army said one airstrike targeted militants traveling to a rocket launcher site in the southern Gaza Strip.
Medics said the attack killed one man and seriously wounded another. Palestinian officials could not confirm whether the men were militants. It also remains unclear whether two Palestinians killed in a separate airstrike late Tuesday were militants or civilians.
The Israeli military had instructed residents of southern Israel to remain near bomb shelters, and schools were still closed for a second day as a precaution against rocket attacks.
Israel says the airstrikes are a response to a barrage of rocket fire launched last week by Islamic Jihad in response to the death of one of its members from a hunger strike while in Israeli custody.
Israel says it is trying to avoid conflict with Hamas, the more powerful militant group that rules Gaza, and confine the fighting to Islamic Jihad.
But Hamas has expressed solidarity with its smaller counterpart, and the two groups often coordinate with one another.
If the violence continues, the risk of a full-blown war could increase. Israel and Hamas have fought four wars since the Islamic group, which opposes Israel's existence, took control of Gaza in 2007.
Earlier on Wednesday, the military said that Palestinian gunmen opened fire at troops in the Palestinian town of Qabatiya in the northern West Bank during an army raid. Troops returned fire, killing the two men, and confiscated their firearms, it said.
The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the slain men as Ahmed Assaf, 19, and Rani Qatanat, 24. The Islamic Jihad militant group later claimed the two men as its members.
Israel has been conducting near-daily military raids in the occupied West Bank for over a year to detain suspected Palestinian militants, including many from Islamic Jihad. The northern West Bank city of Jenin and its environs have been the frequent target of such raids as it has emerged as a hub of Palestinian militant activity.
Israel says the raids in the West Bank are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks.
At least 107 Palestinians, around half of them militants, have been killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank since the start of 2023, according to an Associated Press tally. At least 20 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks targeting Israelis.
Israel captured the West Bank. east Jerusalem and Gaza in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future state.
As more women forgo the hijab, Iran’s government pushes back
Billboards across Iran's capital proclaim that women should wear their mandatory headscarves to honor their mothers. But perhaps for the first time since the chaotic days following Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, more women — both young and old — choose not to do so.
Such open defiance comes after months of protests over the September death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police, for wearing her hijab too loosely. While the demonstrations appear to have cooled, the choice by some women not to cover their hair in public poses a new challenge to the country’s theocracy. The women's pushback also lays bare schisms in Iran that had been veiled for decades.
Authorities have made legal threats and closed down some businesses serving women not wearing the hijab. Police and volunteers issue verbal warnings in subways, airports and other public places. Text messages have targeted drivers who had women without head covering in their vehicles.
However, analysts in Iran warn that the government could reignite dissent if it pushes too hard. The protests erupted at a difficult time for the Islamic Republic, currently struggling with economic woes brought on by its standoff with the West over its rapidly advancing nuclear program.
Some women said they've had enough — no matter the consequence. They say they are fighting for more freedom in Iran and a better future for their daughters.
Some suggested the growing numbers of women joining their ranks might make it harder for the authorities to push back.
“Do they want to close down all businesses?" said Shervin, a 23-year-old student whose short, choppy hair swayed in the wind on a recent day in Tehran. "If I go to a police station, will they shut it down too?”
Still, they worry about risk. The women interviewed only provided their first names, for fear of repercussions.
Vida, 29, said a decision by her and two of her friends to no longer cover their hair in public is about more than headscarves.
“This is a message for the government, leave us alone,” she said.
Iran and neighboring Taliban-controlled Afghanistan are the only countries where the hijab remains mandatory for women. Before protests erupted in September, it was rare to see women without headscarves, though some occasionally let their hijab fall to their shoulders. Today, it's routine in some areas of Tehran to see women without headscarves.
For observant Muslim women, the head covering is a sign of piety before God and modesty in front of men outside their families. In Iran, the hijab — and the all-encompassing black chador worn by some — has long been a political symbol as well.
Iran's ruler Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1936 banned the hijab as part of his efforts to mirror the West. The ban ended five years later when his son, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, took over. Still, many middle and upper-class Iranian women chose not to wear the hijab.
By the 1979 Islamic Revolution, some of the women who helped overthrow the shah embraced the chador, a cloak that covers the body from head to toe, except for the face. Images of armed women encompassed in black cloth became a familiar sight for Americans during the U.S. Embassy takeover and hostage crisis later that year. But other women protested a decision by Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordering the hijab to be worn in public. In 1983, it became the law, enforced with penalties including fines and two months in prison.
Forty years later, women in central and northern Tehran can be seen daily without headscarves. While at first Iran's government avoided a direct confrontation over the issue, it has increasingly flexed the powers of the state in recent weeks in an attempt to curb the practice .
In early April, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared that “removing hijab is not Islamically or politically permissible.”
Khamenei claimed women refusing to wear the hijab are being manipulated. “They are unaware of who is behind this policy of removing and fighting hijab,” Khamenei said. “The enemy’s spies and the enemy’s spy agencies are pursuing this matter. If they know about this, they will definitely not take part in this.”
Hard-line media began publishing details of “immoral” situations in shopping malls, showing women without the hijab. On April 25, authorities closed the 23-story Opal shopping mall in northern Tehran for several days after women with their hair showing were seen spending time together with men in a bowling alley.
“It is a collective punishment," said Nodding Kasra, a 32-year-old salesman at a clothing shop in the mall. "They closed a mall with hundreds of workers over some customers' hair?”
Police have shut down over 2,000 businesses across the country over admitting women not wearing the hijab, including shops, restaurants and even pharmacies, according to the reformist newspaper Shargh.
“This is a lose-lose game for businesses. If they warn (women) about not wearing the hijab as per the authorities' orders, people will boycott them,” said Mohsen Jalalpour, a former deputy head of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce. “If they refuse to comply, the government will close them down.”
Bijan Ashtari, who writes on Iranian politics, warned that business owners who had remained silent during the Mahsa Amini-inspired protests could now rise up.
Meanwhile, government offices no longer provide services to women not covering their hair, after some had in recent months. The head of the country's track and field federation, Hashem Siami, resigned this weekend after some participants in an all-women half-marathon in the city of Shiraz competed without the hijab.
There are signs the crackdown could escalate.
Some clerics have urged deploying soldiers, as well as the all-volunteer Basij force of Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, to enforce the hijab law. The Guard on Monday reportedly seized an Iranian fishing boat for carrying women not wearing the hijab near Hormuz Island, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency.
Police also say that surveillance cameras with "artificial intelligence" will find women not wearing their head covering. A slick video shared by Iranian media suggested that surveillance footage would be matched against ID photographs, though it's unclear if such a system is currently operational .
“The fight over the hijab will remain center stage unless the government reaches an understanding with world powers over the nuclear deal and sanctions relief,” said Tehran-based political analyst Ahmad Zeidabadi.
But diplomacy has been stalled and anti-government protests could widen, he said. The hijab "will be the main issue and the fight will not be about scarves only.”
Sorayya, 33, said she is already fighting for a broader goal by going without the headscarf.
“I don’t want my daughter to be under the same ideologic pressures that I and my generation lived through,” she said, while dropping off her 7-year-old daughter at a primary school in central Tehran. “This is for a better future for my daughter.”
Israel says it carried out airstrikes on Islamic Jihad group targets in Gaza
Israeli aircraft conducted strikes early Tuesday on Islamic Jihad targets in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military said, and the group said three senior commanders were killed in the attacks.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said a number of people were killed and injured in the airstrikes. It did not elaborate. The Israeli military said the aerial bombings were directed at the residences of three senior commanders of the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad group.
Witnesses said an explosion hit the top floor of an apartment building in Gaza City and a house in the southern city of Rafah. Airstrikes continued in the early hours, targeting militant training sites.
The Israeli army said the aerial bombings, codenamed “Operation Shield and Arrow," targeted Khalil Bahtini, the Islamic Jihad commander for northern Gaza Strip; Tareq Izzeldeen, the group's intermediary between its Gaza and West Bank members; and Jehad Ghanam, the secretary of the Islamic Jihad's military council. It added the three were responsible for recent rocket fire toward Israel.
Islamic Jihad, which is smaller than the dominant, ruling Hamas movement, confirmed that the three were among the dead.
The airstrikes come as tension boils between Israel and militants in the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by the militant Hamas group. The tension is linked to increasing violence in the occupied West Bank, where Israel has been conducting near daily raids for the past months to detain Palestinians suspected in planning or carrying out attacks on Israelis.
In anticipation of Palestinian rocket attacks in response to the airstrikes, the Israeli military issued instructions advising residents of communities within 25 miles (40 kilometers) of Gaza to stay close to designated bomb shelters.
Last week, Gaza militants fired several salvos of rockets toward southern Israel, and Israeli military responded with airstrikes following the death of a hunger-striking senior member of the Islamic Jihad in Israeli custody. The exchange of fire ended with a fragile ceasefire mediated by Egypt, the United Nations, and Qatar.
The airstrikes are similar to ones in 2022 in which Israel bombed places housing commanders of Islamic Jihad group, setting off a three-day blitz that saw the group loosing its two top commanders and other dozens of militants.
Israel says the raids in the West Bank are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks. The Palestinians see the attacks as further entrenchment of Israel’s 56-year, open-ended occupation of lands they seek for a future independent state.
So far, 105 Palestinians, about half of them are militants or alleged attackers, were killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank and east Jerusalem since the start of 2023, according to an Associated Press tally.
Iran hangs 2 in rare blasphemy case as executions surge
Iran hanged two men Monday convicted of blasphemy, authorities said, carrying out rare death sentences for the crime as executions surge across the Islamic Republic following months of unrest.
Iran remains one of the world's top executioners, having put to death at least 203 prisoners since the start of this year alone, according to the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights. But carrying out executions for blasphemy remains rare, as previous cases saw the sentences reduced by authorities.
The two men executed, Yousef Mehrad and Sadrollah Fazeli Zare, died at Arak Prison in central Iran. They had been arrested in May 2020, accused of being involved in a channel on the Telegram message app called “Critique of Superstition and Religion,” according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Both men faced months of solitary confinement and could not contact their families, the commission said.
The Mizan news agency of Iran's judiciary confirmed the executions, describing the two men as having insulted Islam's Prophet Muhammad and promoted atheism. Mizan also accused them of burning a Quran, Islam's holy book, though it wasn't clear whether the men allegedly did that or such imagery was shared in the Telegram channel.
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, who leads Iran Human Rights, decried the executions as exposing the “medieval nature” of Iran's theocracy.
“The international community must show with its reaction that executions for expressing an opinion is intolerable,” he said in a statement. “The refusal of the international community to react decisively is a green light for the Iranian government and all their like-minded people around the world.”
It wasn't immediately clear when Iran carried out its last execution for blasphemy. Other countries in the Middle East, like Saudi Arabia, also allow for death sentences to be imposed for blasphemy.
The streak of executions, including members of ethnic minority groups in Iran, comes as monthslong protests over the September death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the country's morality police have cooled. Already, at least four people charged over alleged crimes from the demonstrations have been put to death. The protests, which reportedly saw over 500 people killed and 19,000 others arrested, marked one of the biggest challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In 2022, Iran executed at least 582 people, up from 333 people in 2021, according to Iran Human Rights. Amnesty International's most-recent report on executions put Iran as the world's second-largest executioner, behind only China, where thousands are believed to be put to death a year.
While some executions are publicized, others are not in Iran.
Human Rights Activists in Iran, another group monitoring the Islamic Republic, warned last week about the “alarming surge” in executions. Many have been for drug-related offenses, but there also have been executions of a British-Iranian accused of spying and another of a Swedish-Iranian convicted of masterminding a 2018 attack on a military parade that killed at least 25.
A German-Iranian who lives in California, Jamshid Sharmahd, also faces a looming execution as tensions remain high between Tehran and the West over its accelerating nuclear program.
“Iranian authorities have an absolute obligation to uphold international human rights standards and instead, there is ongoing impunity for grave violations of the right to life — and more,” said Skylar Thompson, the head of global advocacy and accountability at the group.
Arab League poised to vote on restoring Syria membership
Foreign ministers from Arab League member states in Cairo were poised to vote Sunday on restoring Syria’s membership to the organization after it was suspended over a decade ago.
The meeting in the Egyptian capital took place ahead of the Arab League Summit in Saudi Arabia on May 19, where many have expected to see a partial or full return of Syria following a rapid rapprochement with regional governments since February.
It also took place days after regional top diplomats met in Jordan to discuss a roadmap to return Syria to the Arab fold as the conflict continues to deescalate.
Syria’s membership in the Arab League was suspended 12 years ago early in the uprising-turned-conflict, which has killed nearly a half million people since March 2011 and displaced half of the country’s pre-war population of 23 million.
The body usually attempts to make decisions by consensus, but decisions otherwise could pass with a simple majority vote.
There is still no clear consensus among Arab countries about Syria’s return to the Arab League. Notably, Qatar, a key backer of opposition groups, is not onboard with normalization, and did not attend the Cairo meeting.
The Arab League has not issued a statement indicating the conditions for Syria’s return. However, experts have said that Saudi Arabia and the region have likely prioritized issues related to gridlocked United Nations-brokered political talks with opposition groups, illicit drug smuggling and refugees.
As President Bashar Assad regained control of most of the country with the help of key allies Russia and Iran, some of the Syria's neighbors that hosted large refugee populations took steps towards reestablishing diplomatic ties with Damascus. Meanwhile, Gulf monarchies the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain reestablished ties.
The Feb. 6 earthquake that rocked Turkey and Syria was a catalyst for further normalization across the Arab world, as well as regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran reestablishing ties in Beijing, which had backed opposing sides in the conflict.
Though once backing opposition groups to overthrow Assad, Saudi Arabia and Syria took steps towards restoring embassies and flights between the two countries, in what experts say was a major prelude towards reinstating Syria into the Arab League.
Jordan last week hosted regional talks that included envoys from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, and Syria. They agreed on a framework, dubbed the “Jordanian initiative,” that would slowly bring Damascus back into the Arab fold. Amman’s top diplomat said the meeting was the “beginning of an Arab-led political path” for a solution to the crisis.
The conflict in Sudan is also on the agenda, as Arab governments try to stabilize a shaky ceasefire in the ongoing fighting that has killed hundreds of people over the past few weeks.
Iran hangs Iranian-Swedish man over 2018 attack killing 25
Iran executed an Iranian-Swedish dual national Saturday accused of masterminding a 2018 attack on a military parade that killed at least 25 people, one of several enemies of Tehran seized abroad in recent years amid tensions with the West.
Farajollah Cha’ab, also known as Habib Asyoud, had been a leader of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz, an Arab separatist movement that has conducted oil pipeline bombings and other attacks in Iran's oil-rich Khuzestan province. That group had claimed the 2018 attack in its immediate aftermath.
Cha'ab's execution comes as a Swedish court last year sentenced an Iranian to life in prison over his part in the 1988 mass executions in Iran at the end of its war with Iraq. Tehran, which has used prisoners as bargaining chips in negotiations with the West, reacted angrily to that sentence. Meanwhile, tensions also remain high between Iran and the West over its rapidly advancing nuclear program as well — and at least one more prisoner with Western ties faces a possible execution.
The Iranian judiciary's Mizan news agency confirmed Cha'ab's execution by hanging in a lengthy statement. It identified him as the leader of the militant group and alleged without providing evidence that he had ties to Swedish, Israelis and U.S. intelligence services. It accused his group of killing or wounding 450 people over the years, including multiple attacks on government offices and other sites.
It also included state television interviews with Cha'ab, a feature of many Iranian trials that activists long have described as coerced confessions.
It also for the first time clearly identified Iranian intelligence officers as being behind Cha'ab's abduction, saying that its “unknown soldiers” captured him in Turkey in November 2019. Iran has used similar ruses to capture its enemies abroad, including the exiled journalist Ruhollah Zam who was executed in 2020.
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom condemned Cha'ab's execution.
“The death penalty is an inhumane and irrevocable punishment, and Sweden, together with the rest of the (European Union), condemns its use under all circumstances,” he said in a statement.
The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights separately condemned the execution, referring to Cha'ab's closed-door trial as “grossly unfair.”
“This is an example of the Islamic Republic’s state terrorism," said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the group's director. “We expect that the EU and Swedish government show adequate reaction to the murder of their citizen. Killing a hostage must not be tolerated.”
Tensions already had escalated between Iran and Sweden over the life imprisonment of Hamid Noury, an Iranian convicted of committing grave war crimes and murder during the final phase of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. The end of the war saw mass executions of an estimated 5,000 Iranian prisoners, including those from an exiled opposition group and others.
The 2018 attack in Iran targeted a military parade in Ahvaz in Khuzestan, the chaos captured live on state television. Militants disguised as soldiers opened fire, killing at least 25 people and wounding over 60 others in the deadliest attack to strike Iran in years. A spokesman for the separatist group claimed the assault shortly after in a televised interview. The Islamic State group also claimed the attack, though it offered factually incorrect details about the assault.
In recent months, Iran has carried out other executions after the months of unrest over the September death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini following her arrest by the country's morality police. In January, Iran executed a former high-ranking defense ministry official and dual Iranian-British national accused of spying.
Also facing a possible execution is an Iranian-German national who lived in California, a man Iran describes as planning a 2008 attack on a mosque that killed 14 people and wounded over 200 others, as well as other assaults through the little-known Kingdom Assembly of Iran and its Tondar militant wing. His family long has said he was captured by Iranian intelligence in Dubai.
Iran is one of the world’s top executioners.
Israeli army kills 2 Palestinians in West Bank raid
Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians during a military raid in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. A local armed group said the pair were militants.
The deadly raid in the Nur Shams refugee camp near the city of Tulkarem was the latest in Israeli-Palestinian violence that has surged since last year.
The ministry and Tulkarem's branch of Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group with connections to President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, identified the pair as Samer El Shafei and Hamza Kharyoush, both aged 22 years.
The Israeli military said the two gunmen were suspected of carrying out a shooting attack at a nearby Israeli settlement earlier this week. An Israeli civilian was injured and vehicles were damaged during the shooting at the Avnei Hefetz Jewish settlement.
Videos circulated on social media purportedly showed the lifeless bodies of the two gunmen lying on a tin roof as what appear to be Israeli security forces searched them. At one point, one of the members of the Israeli forces tried to flip one body as he partially took off the dead man's jeans.
Palestinian media, citing witnesses, said soldiers left after ensuring the two were dead.
The deaths raised to 104 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank and east Jerusalem since the start of the year.
Israel has been staging near-nightly arrest raids into West Bank villages, towns and cities for more than a year in an operation prompted by a wave of Palestinian attacks against Israelis last year. Israel says the raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks. The Palestinians see the attacks as further entrenchment of Israel’s 56-year, open-ended occupation of lands they seek for a future independent state.
Some 250 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the raids were launched. Israel says most have been militants, but stone-throwing youth and people not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
During that same time, nearly 50 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis.
Iran executes leader of deadly 2018 parade attack: Report
Iran hanged a man who was allegedly behind an attack that killed dozens of people at a military parade in the southern province of Khuzestan in 2018, state media reported on Saturday.
The execution was carried out in Tehran after a top court upheld a death sentence for Farajollah Cha’ab in March, Iran's state TV reported.
He was “the main person in the terrorist attack” at the parade in September 2018, authorities said, and was arrested by Iranian agents in 2020 after he left Sweden for Turkey. He is alleged to be the leader of a separatist group.
Cha’ab, who holds Iranian and Swedish citizenship, disappeared under mysterious circumstances in Turkey in November 2020.
In September 2018, militants disguised as soldiers opened fire on an annual military parade in Ahvaz, the capital of oil-rich Khuzestan. At least 25 people were killed and 70 wounded, including a 4-year-old boy.
Iran then claimed that Saudi Arabia and Israeli intelligence services supported what it says was an attack by the separatist group.
Israeli forces kill 3 Palestinians behind deaths of British-Israelis
Israeli troops on Thursday killed three Palestinian wanted in connection with a shooting attack that killed a British-Israeli woman and two of her daughters, the Israeli military said, the latest bloodshed in a relentless wave of violence.
In a rare daytime incursion launched as residents were starting their day, the military said forces entered the heart of the flashpoint city of Nablus and raided an apartment where the men were located. Troops and the suspects exchanged fire and the three men were killed.
The military said the men were behind an attack last month on a car near a Jewish West Bank settlement that killed Lucy Dee, the British-Israeli mother and two of her daughters, Maya and Rina. Leo Dee, the woman's widower, told The Associated Press he was “comforted” by the news of their death.
In a statement after the raid, Hamas group said the three men, identified as Hassan Qatnani, Moaz al-Masri and Ibrahim Jabr, were its members and the group claimed responsibility for the April attack.
In a separate incident Thursday near the West Bank town of Hawara, a 26-year-old Palestinian woman who lightly wounded a 20-year-old Israeli in a stabbing attack was killed by Israeli fire.
In Nablus, Israeli shells ripped through the roof of the gunmen’s safe house in the heart of Nablus' Old City, leaving nothing but twisted metal, cement blocks and torn mattresses still stained with blood scattered over the rubble. A couple of hours after the army withdrew, young men collected scores of ejected bullet shell casings from the narrow alleys.
Nablus, the West Bank's commercial capital and second-largest city, has been the scene of repeated Israeli raids over the past year, but few have been conducted during the day because of the increased risk of friction with local residents. Residents have been caught up in previous fighting.
Manal Abu Safiyeh, 57, said she woke up at 7 a.m. to the sounds of the Israeli army vehicles rumbling through the city. Although it wasn’t new to her after a year of intense violence in the Old City, the gunfire sounded closer than she’d ever heard it before. An explosion suddenly blew up her neighbor’s house, she said, killing three people. She said she didn’t know much about her neighbors other than that Ibrahim Jabr had cancer.
A man who identified himself only as Kareem for fear of reprisals said that he spotted older men and a woman in a long overgarment worn by Muslim women who he had never seen before walking through the limestone alleys and knew instantly they were Israeli special forces. He ran to his house and sheltered there until he heard the gunfire stop.
“So many men from the city have been killed,” he said. “We are used to these raids. That’s the story of life in Nablus.”
After the military pulled out, dozens of masked men paraded through the city while shooting into the air, waving Palestinian flags as onlookers honked in support. A sea of mourners at the men's funeral chanted “God is great.”
The violence in Nablus comes at a particularly sensitive time in the region, days after a prominent Palestinian prisoner who was staging a lengthy hunger strike over his detention died in Israeli custody. His death set off a volley of rockets in Gaza and Israeli airstrikes in the coastal enclave that killed one man.
The deadly attack last month on the Israeli car shocked Israelis because in an instant it reduced the Dee family from seven members to four. Hundreds of people packed the funerals and the family's father, Leo, has been a recurring figure in Israeli media, saying he bears no hatred toward the killers of his family and calling for national unity amid a deep societal rift.
“We’re grateful to God that this was done in a way that protected the lives of the soldiers and caused minimal if no civilian casualties, as far as we know. And of course, that’s very important to us that innocent Palestinians were not injured in this operation,” Leo Dee told The Associated Press from his home in the Jewish West Bank settlement of Efrat.
Israeli officials said the raid showed attackers would be hunted down eventually.
“Our message to those who harm us, and those who want to harm us, is that whether it takes a day, a week or a month – you can be certain that we will settle accounts with you,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
Israel has been staging near-nightly arrest raids into West Bank villages, towns and cities for more than a year in an operation prompted by a wave of Palestinian attacks against Israelis last year.
Israel says the raids are meant to dismantle networks and thwart future attacks. The Palestinians see the attacks as further entrenchment of Israel's 56-year, open-ended occupation of lands they seek for a future independent state. Israel captured those territories — the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip — in the 1967 Mideast war.
Some 250 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the raids were launched, but stone-throwing youth and people not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
The raids have been met by a surge in Palestinian attacks. Since last spring, nearly 50 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis.