middle-east
Desperate for vaccines amid surge, Iranians flock to Armenia
In Iran, the urgency of getting vaccinated against COVID-19 is growing by the day.
A crush of new cases fueled by the fast-spreading delta variant has threatened to overwhelm Iranian hospitals with breathless patients too numerous to handle. But as deaths mount, and the sense swells that protection for most citizens remains far-off, thousands of desperate Iranians are taking matters into their own hands: They’re flocking to neighboring Armenia.
Read:Drone attacks by Iraqi militias reflect Iran's waning hold
In the ex-Soviet Caucasus nation, where vaccine uptake has remained sluggish amid widespread vaccine hesitancy, authorities have been doling out free doses to foreign visitors — a boon for Iranians afraid for their lives and sick of waiting.
“I just want her to get the jab as soon as possible,” said Ahmad Reza Bagheri, a 23-year-old jeweler at a bus stop in Tehran, gesturing to his diabetic mother who he was joining on the winding 20-hour road trip to Armenia’s capital, Yerevan.
Bagheri’s uncle had already received his first dose in the city and would soon get his second. Such stories have dominated Iranian social media in recent weeks, as hordes of Iranians head to Armenia by bus and plane. Acting Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said last week that foreigners, including residents, have accounted for up to half of about 110,000 people who were vaccinated in the country. Armenia administers AstraZeneca, Russia’s Sputnik V and China’s CoronaVac vaccines.
In Iran, which has the highest COVID-19 death toll in the Middle East, less than 2% of the country’s 84 million people have received both doses, according to the scientific publication Our World in Data.
Read: Iran's sole nuclear power plant undergoes emergency shutdown
Although the sanctions-hit country has imported some Russian and Chinese vaccines, joined the U.N.-supported COVAX program for vaccine sharing and developed three of its own vaccines, doses remain scarce. Authorities have yet to inoculate nonmedical workers and those under age 60, promising that mass vaccinations will start in September.
“I can’t wait such a long time for vaccination,” said Ali Saeedi, a 39-year-old garment trader also waiting to embark on the journey at a Tehran bus station. “Officials have delayed their plans for public vaccination many times. I’m going to Armenia to make it happen.”
Others, like 27-year-old secretary Bahareh Khanai, see the trip as an act of national service, easing the daunting inoculation task facing Iranian authorities.
It remains unclear just how many Iranians have made the trip to get vaccinated, as Armenia also remains a popular summer getaway spot. But each day, dozens of buses, taxis and flights ferry an estimated 500 Iranians across the border. Airlines have added three weekly flights from Iran to Yerevan. The cost of bus tours has doubled as thousands devise plans. Travel agents who watched the pandemic ravage their industry have seen an unprecedented surge in business.
“The number of our customers for the Armenia tour has tripled in recent weeks,” said Ahmad, the manager of a tour agency in Tehran who declined to give his last name for fear of reprisals.
The surge of Iranians has inundated Armenia’s coronavirus testing centers, leaving scores stranded in the buffer zone, Iranian semiofficial ILNA news agency reported, with several fainting from the heat. Roughly 160 kilometers (100 miles) away in Yerevan, hundreds of Iranians lined up to get a vaccine shot, with some sleeping on the streets to secure a place.
Hope sustains them through the long lines under an unforgiving sun. In the streets of the Armenian capital, Iranians cavort to Farsi music outside vaccine centers, clapping as they receive doses, videos show.
“We couldn’t expect that our humanitarian act would become popular and spread so much and that we would have a big flow of foreigners,” Armenian Health Minister Anahit Avanesyan told reporters. “Our citizens are our priority, but I repeat again that the pandemic doesn’t recognize citizenship.”
But even as Armenian authorities encourage vaccination tourism, the sheer number of Iranians flooding vaccination centers has pushed Armenia to tighten the rules.
At first, Iranian vaccine-seekers headed for clinics in the southern border town of Meghri. A local doctor, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media, reported seeing at least 100 Iranians vaccinated there over the past few weeks.
But last week the government decreed that foreign visitors can only receive a jab at five designated AstraZeneca mobile clinics in Yerevan, and, in an apparent bid to boost the country’s tourist sector that took effect Thursday, must spend at least 10 days in Armenia before getting vaccinated.
After the new rule entered force, the crowds of Iranians waiting in the streets of Yerevan to get the shot in Yerevan dispersed but medical workers said that many have booked vaccinations for the following days in compliance with the 10-day minimal stay requirement.
Now, the profile of Iranian visitors is changing, as cross-border bus jaunts become extended vacations, with some flights routed through Qatar. The surge in interest has also pushed up the price, putting the journey out of reach for all but the wealthy.
Ethicists, who said they otherwise wouldn’t take issue with needy foreigners securing excess shots shunned by citizens, say the price hike and new 10-day requirement exacerbates the stark inequalities in the pandemic.
“It increases the money and time required ... and so the inequity of who is going to be able to participate,” said Alison Bateman-House, an assistant professor of medical ethics at New York University.
More broadly, she added, vaccination vacations, like all travel in a time of contagious virus variants, carries “unintended consequences” and increases “the possibility of disease transmission.” A fairer alternative, she noted, would be for Armenia to transfer its surplus doses to the international COVAX initiative.
But for many in Iran, where scores are dying daily in an outbreak that has exhausted the health system and economy, the cost of waiting has grown too high.
Mohammad Seifpour, a 48-year-old Tehran resident, grimly surveyed the crowds of Iranians at the Yerevan vaccine clinic.
“This is just because of the horrible situation we are facing,” he said.
50 killed in in coronavirus hospital fire in Iraq
A fire swept through a coronavirus ward in southern Iraq, killing at least 50 people and injuring dozens more, Iraqi medical officials said late Monday.
The officials said all those who died suffered severe burns during the blaze at al-Hussein Teaching Hospital in the southern city of Nasiryah. At least 50 people were killed and others were in critical condition, they said.
Read: 5 killed in United Hospital fire
The officials said the fire was caused by an electric short circuit, but did not provide more detail. Another health official in Dhi Qar province, where Nasiriyah is located, said the fire erupted when an oxygen cylinder exploded.
The Health Ministry has not provided an official account of the cause of the fire.
The new ward, opened just three months ago, contained 70 beds, said two medical officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
Read: India: 18 die in fire at Covid hospital
Ammar al-Zamili, spokesman for the Dhi Qar health department, told local media there were at least 63 patients inside the ward when the fire began. Maj. Gen. Khalid Bohan, head of Iraq’s civil defense, said in comments to the press that the building was constructed from flammable materials and prone to fire.
It was the second time a large fire has killed coronavirus patients in an Iraqi hospital this year. At least 82 people died at Ibn al-Khateeb hospital in Baghdad in April when an oxygen tank exploded, sparking the blaze.
That incident brought to light widespread negligence and systemic mismanagement in Iraq’s hospitals. Doctors have decried lax safety rules, especially around oxygen cylinders.
Iraq is in the midst of another severe COVID-19 wave. Daily coronavirus rates peaked last week at 9,000 new cases.
12 killed as bus carrying migrants overturns in east Turkey
A minibus carrying migrants overturned and caught fire in eastern Turkey, killing 12 people and injuring 20 others, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported Sunday.
The vehicle tumbled into a ditch while traveling overnight near Yumakli in Van province, which borders Iran.
Television broadcasts showed groaning survivors being treated by the roadside as emergency workers sifted through the burnt-out wreckage.
Also read: Bus runs off road, killing 27 mineworkers in Peru
Migrants, mostly from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, regularly cross the Iranian border into Turkey on foot before being ferried west to cities such as Istanbul and Ankara.
The planned U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has given added impetus to young men trying the mountainous route, according to Metin Corabatir, president of the Ankara-based Center for Asylum and Migration Studies.
Also read:10 killed in India road accident
In June 2020, more than 60 migrants drowned in Lake Van when their boat sank.
Drone attacks by Iraqi militias reflect Iran’s waning hold
Iran’s expeditionary Quds Force commander brought one main directive for Iraqi militia faction leaders long beholden to Tehran, when he gathered with them in Baghdad last month: Maintain calm, until after nuclear talks between Iran and the United States.
But he was met with defiance. One of the six faction leaders spoke up in their meeting: They could not stay quiet while the death of his predecessor Qassim Soleimani and senior Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in a U.S. drone strike went unavenged.
Militia attacks have only been increasing against the U.S. in military bases in both Iraq and Syria. Three missile attacks in the last week alone resulted in minor injuries, stoking fears of escalation.
The details from Esmail Ghaani’s visit, confirmed to The Associated Press by three Shiite political officials and two senior militia officials, demonstrate how Iranian-aligned Iraqi militia groups are asserting a degree of independence, sometimes even flouting orders from Tehran. Iran now relies on Lebanon’s Hezbollah for support in reining them in, and there is potential that Iran’s new president could play a role in doing the same.
Read:US airstrikes target Iran-backed militias in Syria, Iraq
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private meetings.
Iran’s influence, sustained by ideological ties and military support, has frayed because of the U.S. killing of Soleimani and al-Muhandis last year, because of differing interests and because of financial strains in Tehran. With nuclear talks restarting following U.S. President Joe Biden’s inauguration this year, these differences have come to the fore.
“Iran isn’t the way it used to be, with 100% control over the militia commanders,” said one Shiite political leader.
Increasing rocket and drone attacks targeting American troops in Iraq and Syria have alarmed Western and coalition officials. There have been at least eight drone attacks targeting the U.S. presence since Biden took office in January, as well as 17 rocket attacks, according to coalition officials.
The attacks are blamed on the Iranian-backed militias that make up the bulk of Iraq’s state-supported Popular Mobilization Forces. The Biden administration has responded by twice targeting Iraqi militia groups operating inside Syria, including close to the Iraqi border.
“What is taking place now is when Ghaani asks for calm, the brigade leaders agree with him. But as soon as he leaves the meeting, they disregard his recommendations,” said another Shiite political leader.
The loudest of the defiant militia voices has been Qais al-Khazali, leader of the Asaib Ahl al-Haq faction, which also maintains a political party. On June 17, only days after Ghaani’s meetings with the militias, he said in a televised address that they would continue to target the U.S. “occupier” and that they will not take into consideration nuclear talks.
“And that decision is an Iraqi one,” he said.
Read:Iraq Interior Ministry: 82 killed in Baghdad hospital fire
The coalition has formally ended combat operations and reduced troop levels significantly in the last year. Only 2,500 U.S. troops remain in Iraq and discussions are ongoing with NATO to transfer to an advisory mission. Iraq still needs coalition support in surveillance and intelligence gathering and airstrikes against Islamic State group targets.
Some argue the ongoing attacks benefit Iran by maintaining pressure on the U.S.
During talks with Shiite political officials during his visit, Ghani said Iran doesn’t interfere in their political work, but that military matters were different. “These must be approved by the Revolutionary Guard,” one political leader recounted him saying.
Still, Ghaani did not reprimand the militia groups during the meeting. Instead, he told them he understood their concerns.
Iran has struggled to fill in the gap left in the absence of Soleimani and al-Muhandis, who were commanding figures able to push factions into line and resolve disputes among them.
“Ghaani has a different style and capabilities,” said Michael Knights, a fellow at The Washington Institute. He has a looser framework, establishing broad red lines on some matters, while “other things are ’don’t ask, don’t tell,” he said.
Along with asking for less, cash-strapped Iran has been giving less as well. Assistance to the groups has been significantly downgraded since U.S. sanctions began crippling Iran’s economy last year.
Divisions among factions have deepened, with growing competition among militias and Shiite politicians.
Read: A growing challenge for Iraq: Iran-aligned Shiite militias
Ghaani came to meet the militia leaders to mend tensions that were sparked weeks earlier when Iraqi authorities arrested a paramilitary commander, Qassim Musleh, prompting a standoff between PMF fighters and security forces. Ghaani brought a letter from Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, criticizing the PMF for its reaction, saying it weakened their position.
To apply pressure on the factions, Iran has come to rely on Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah in Lebanon, a figure the militias highly respect. Almost weekly, various factional leaders hold face-to-face meetings with him in Lebanon, said Shiite political leaders.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, elected in June, also may be a unifying figure for the militias, which hold him in high esteem, political and militia officials said. When Raisi visited Baghdad in February, he met with PMF commanders and told them, in fluent Arabic, “Our flesh is your flesh, and our blood is your blood.” Ghaani communicates with brigade leaders through an interpreter.
“The resistance will grow in power and will see its best of times due to the election victory of Raisi,” said Abu Alaa al-Walae, commander of Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, in a recent interview.
UAE becomes world’s most vaccinated nation against COVID-19: Bloomberg's Vaccine Tracker
The United Arab Emirates leads the world, with enough vaccinations to cover 72.1 percent of its population and has overtaken Seychelles to become the world's most vaccinated nation, according to Bloomberg's Vaccine Tracker.
The UAE has so far administered 15.5 million doses, enough to cover 72.1 percent of its population based on a two-dose regimen. The UAE tests more people per capita than most nations and has one of the lowest fatality rates in the world.
In a statement, Abdul Rahman bin Mohammad bin Nasser Al Owais, Minister of Health and Prevention, said that this new global achievement adds to the country’s success and record of achievements in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that it is an international recognition of the success of the National Vaccination Campaign, launched by the UAE, which is continuing to achieve its objectives.
Also read: Europe in vaccination race against COVID-19′s delta variant
"The proactive vision of the country’s leadership enabled us to address the challenges posed by COVID-19. Today, the UAE is the world’s most vaccinated country," he added. He also highlighted the efforts of the national health sector, which is keen to provide diverse types of vaccines to all segments of the community, as well as the community's awareness about the importance of being vaccinated.
Al Owais stressed that the National Vaccination Campaign is continuing in all emirates of the country, along with the adherence to relevant precautionary measures, which represent the foundations of the national efforts aimed at achieving recovery and ensuring the return to normalcy.
Medical teams and front-liners are working as one team, upon the directives of the UAE’s leadership, to achieve recovery from the pandemic, he added, affirming that the UAE is a unique global model of combating the COVID-19 pandemic, and has received widespread international appreciation, underscoring the community’s confidence in the procedures adopted by the UAE Government.
Also read: COVAX calls for equal recognition of all approved vaccines
He also noted the importance of the community’s awareness of, and adherence to, precautionary measures to maintain the gains achieved by the country and protect its members.
Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker is the most up-to-date and comprehensive tally of vaccinations around the globe.
Taliban gains drive Afghan government to recruit militias
For two days the fighting was blistering. Rockets and heavy machine gun fire pounded Imam Sahib, a key district on Afghanistan’s northern border with Tajikistan.
When the explosions died down and Syed Akram finally emerged from his home earlier this week, three of his neighbor’s children had been killed, and a tank was burning on a nearby street corner. Several shops and a petrol station were still smoldering. In the streets, the Taliban were in control.
There were maybe 300 of them, he said. That had been plenty to overwhelm the government troops defending the town, who had numbered fewer than 100. Akram saw several bodies of soldiers in the street, but many had fled the district center.
In recent days, the Taliban have made quick gains in Afghanistan’s north, overrunning multiple districts, some of them reportedly with hardly a fight, even as the U.S. and NATO press forward with their final withdrawal from Afghanistan. By all accounts their departure will be complete long before the Sept. 11 deadline set by President Joe Biden when he announced in mid-April an end to America’s “forever war.”
READ: Taliban take key Afghan district, adding to string of gains
The Taliban gains are significant because of the transportation routes they provide the insurgents. But equally significant is that the north is the traditional stronghold of Afghanistan’s minority ethnic groups, who aided the U.S.-led invasion that drove the Taliban from power nearly 20 years ago and have been part of the ruling leadership since.
The traditional stronghold of the Taliban, who are mostly ethnic Pashtuns, has been in the country’s south and east.
With the recent gains, Taliban now control the main border crossing with Tajikistan, a main trade route. They also hold the strategic district of Doshi, critical because the one road linking Kabul to northern Afghanistan runs through it.
As a result, a worried government this week launched what it called National Mobilization, arming local volunteers. Observers say the move only resurrects militias that will be loyal to local commanders or powerful Kabul-allied warlords, who wrecked the Afghan capital during the inter-factional fighting of the 1990s and killed thousands of civilians.
“The fact that the government has put out the call for the militias is a clear admission of the failure of the security forces ... most certainly an act of desperation,” said Bill Roggio, senior fellow at the U.S.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Roggio tracks militant groups and is editor of the foundation’s Long War Journal.
“The Afghan military and police have abandoned numerous outposts, bases, and district centers, and it is difficult to imagine that these hastily organized militias can perform better than organized security forces,” he said.
On Wednesday at Koh Daman on Kabul’s northern edge, dozens of armed villagers in one of the first National Mobilization militias gathered at a rally. “Death to criminals!” and “Death to Taliban!” they shouted, waving automatic rifles. Some had rocket propelled grenade launchers resting casually on their shoulders.
A handful of uniformed Afghan National Police officers watched. “We need them, we have no leadership, we have no help,” said Moman, one of the policemen.
He criticized the Defense and Interior Ministries, saying they were stuffed with overpaid officials while the front-line troops receive little pay.
“I’m the one standing here for 24 hours like this with all this equipment to defend my country,” he said, indicating his weapons and vest jammed with ammunition. “But in the ministries, officials earn thousands” of dollars. He spoke on condition he be identified only by his first name for fear of reprisals.
The other police standing nearby joined in with the criticism, others nodding in agreement. New recruits in the security forces get 12,000 Afghanis a month, about $152, with higher ranks getting the equivalent of about $380.
The U.S. and NATO have committed to paying $4 billion annually until 2024 to support the Afghanistan National Security and Defense Forces. Still, even Washington’s official watchdog auditing spending says Afghan troops are disillusioned and demoralized with corruption rife throughout the government.
As the districts fell, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani swept through his Defense and Interior Ministries, appointing new senior leadership, including reinstating Bismillah Khan as defense minister. Khan was previously removed for corruption, and his militias have been criticized for summary killings. They were also deeply involved in the brutal civil war that led to the Taliban’s takeover in 1996.
READ: US-backed Afghan peace meeting postponed, as Taliban balk
Afghan and international observers fear a similar conflict could erupt once more. During the 1990’s war, multiple warlords battled for power, nearly destroying Kabul and killing at least 50,000 people — mostly civilians — in the process.
Those warlords returned to power after the Taliban’s fall and have gained wealth and strength since. They are jealous of their domains, deeply distrustful of each other, and their loyalties to Ghani are fluid. Ethnic Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum Uzbek, for example, violently ousted the president’s choice for governor of his Uzbek-controlled province of Faryab earlier this year.
A former adviser to the Afghan government, Torek Farhadi, called the national mobilization “a recipe for future generalized violence.”
He noted the government has promised to pay the militias, even as official security forces complain salaries are often delayed for months. He predicted the same corruption would eat away at the funds meant for militias, and as a result “local commanders and warlords will quickly turn against him (Ghani) and we will have fiefdoms and chaos.”
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told The Associated Press on Thursday that the insurgents captured 104 districts since May 1, including at least 29 in recent fighting. That brought the total area of Taliban control to 165 of Afghanistan’s 471 districts nationwide.
There was no way to immediately verify his statements, and some areas often change hands back and forth. Most analysts tracking the front lines say the Taliban control or hold sway in roughly half the country. Their areas of control are mostly in rural areas.
Officials and observers say many across the country have allegiance to neither side and are deeply disillusioned by corruption, which has resulted in ordinary Afghans benefiting little from the trillions of dollars in international assistance pumped into the country the past 20 years.
“There is no stability. There is no peace,” said Abdul Khasani, an employee at a bus station not far from the Koh Daman militia gathering.
“In Afghanistan, under the Taliban people are suffering, and under the government people are suffering,” he said.
Palestinians, settlers clash in tense Jerusalem neighborhood
Palestinians and Jewish settlers hurled stones, chairs and fireworks at each other overnight in a tense Jerusalem neighborhood where settler groups are trying to evict several Palestinian families, officials said Tuesday.
The threatened evictions fueled protests and clashes in the runup to last month’s 11-day Gaza war and pose a test for Israel’s new governing coalition, which includes three pro-settler parties but is hoping to sideline the Palestinian issue to avoid internal divisions.
Israeli police and border officials said they arrested four suspects in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. It was unclear who started the brawl. The officials said someone launched fireworks at police forces and residents’ houses and that “several Molotov cocktails were thrown and stones were thrown.” One woman was reportedly injured when she was hit in the back by a stone, police said.
The Red Crescent emergency service said its crews treated 20 Palestinians, including 16 suffering from pepper spray and tear gas and others wounded by rubber-coated bullets. Two other people were wounded, including an elderly man who was hit in the head, it said.ADVERTISEMENT
The Red Crescent said settlers threw stones at one of its ambulances and Israeli forces sprayed skunk water on a second ambulance belonging to the service.
The eruption of violence is the latest friction in Sheikh Jarrah, where weeks of unrest captured international attention ahead of the 11-day Israel-Hamas war last month. The cease-fire took effect on May 21, but the long-running campaign by Jewish settlers to evict dozens of Palestinian families continues.
And so the cycle of tension endures, in a stark early test for Israel’s new coalition government, which is just over a week old.
At the helm under a rotation agreement is Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the right-wing Yamina party. In two years, he’ll be replaced by Yair Lapid, leader of centrist Yesh Atid. And leading the opposition is Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, ousted from the premiership after holding the post for 12 years.
An intervention by Israel’s attorney general at the height of the unrest has put the most imminent evictions on hold. But rights groups say evictions could still proceed in the coming months as international attention wanes, potentially igniting another round of bloodshed.
The settlers have been waging a decades-long campaign to evict the families from densely populated Palestinian neighborhoods in the so-called Holy Basin just outside the walls of the Old City, in one of the most sensitive parts of east Jerusalem.
Israel captured east Jerusalem, home to holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. Israel views the entire city as its capital, while the Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
The settlers say the homes are built on land that was owned by Jews prior to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. Israeli law allows Jews to reclaim such property, a right denied to Palestinians who lost lands and homes in the same conflict.
Palestinians, settlers clash in tense Jerusalem neighborhood
Palestinians and Jewish settlers hurled stones, chairs and fireworks at each other overnight in a tense Jerusalem neighborhood where settler groups are trying to evict several Palestinian families, officials said Tuesday.
The threatened evictions fueled protests and clashes in the runup to last month’s 11-day Gaza war and pose a test for Israel’s new governing coalition, which includes three pro-settler parties but is hoping to sideline the Palestinian issue to avoid internal divisions.
Read:Israel to send 1M doses to Palestinians in vaccine exchange
Israeli police and border officials said they arrested four suspects in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. It was unclear who started the brawl. One woman was reportedly injured when she was hit in the back by a stone, police said.
The Red Crescent emergency service said its crews treated 20 Palestinians, including 16 suffering from pepper spray and tear gas and others wounded by rubber-coated bullets. Two other people were wounded, including an elderly man who was hit in the head, it said.
The Red Crescent said settlers threw stones at one of its ambulances and Israeli forces sprayed skunk water on a second ambulance belonging to the service.
The eruption of violence is the latest friction in Sheikh Jarrah, where weeks of unrest captured international attention ahead of the 11-day Israel-Hamas war last month. The cease-fire took effect on May 21, but the long-running campaign by Jewish settlers to evict dozens of Palestinian families continues.
Read:Israel strikes Gaza after Hamas fires incendiary balloons
And so the cycle of tension endures, in a stark early test for Israel’s new coalition government, which is just over a week old.
At the helm under a rotation agreement is Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the right-wing Yamina party. In two years, he’ll be replaced by Yair Lapid, leader of centrist Yesh Atid. And leading the opposition is Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, ousted from the premiership after holding the post for 12 years.
An intervention by Israel’s attorney general at the height of the unrest has put the most imminent evictions on hold. But rights groups say evictions could still proceed in the coming months as international attention wanes, potentially igniting another round of bloodshed.
The settlers have been waging a decades-long campaign to evict the families from densely populated Palestinian neighborhoods in the so-called Holy Basin just outside the walls of the Old City, in one of the most sensitive parts of east Jerusalem.
Read:Israel braces for unrest ahead of right-wing Jerusalem march
Israel captured east Jerusalem, home to holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. Israel views the entire city as its capital, while the Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
The settlers say the homes are built on land that was owned by Jews prior to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. Israeli law allows Jews to reclaim such property, a right denied to Palestinians who lost lands and homes in the same conflict.
Iran elects hard-liner Raisi as new president
Iran elected a conservative hard-liner as its new leader in Friday's presidential election, with local media reporting that the three other contenders, including one moderate candidate, conceded their loss on Saturday.
Judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi, who Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei backs, will replace relatively moderate President Hassan Rouhani, who cannot serve a third consecutive term after eight years in office.
Moderate and former Central Bank chief Abdolnasser Hemmati conceded his defeat by Raisi, congratulating him on his landslide victory, while the two other losing candidates did likewise in separate messages, the report said.
Raisi, 60, after meeting with Rouhani later in the day, vowed to do his best to shoulder the heavy responsibilities entrusted by the people, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
"In the new government, we will do our best to untie the knots of the country, especially in the field of people's livelihood problems," Tasnim News Agency quoted him as saying.
Conservative hard-liners will regain power in Tehran for the first time since 2013, raising concerns that tensions between Iran and the international community, including the United States, will rise again over issues such as nuclear development.
State-run Press TV reported that Raisi won by a landslide, citing preliminary results from the Interior Ministry.
Deputy Interior Minister Jamal Orf was quoting as saying that with around 90 percent of the votes counted, Raisi garnered over 17.8 million votes, followed by Mohsen Rezaei who secured 3.3 million.
Out of more than 59 million eligible voters, 28.6 million Iranians participated in the election, local media reported.
Low turnout had been expected due to voter apathy, with candidates who could have rivaled Raisi disqualified before the campaign.
Raisi has promised to fight corruption and poverty. He has indicated that he would continue indirect talks with the United States on reviving a 2015 nuclear deal while making it clear he will call for sanctions against Iran to be lifted.
The Rouhani administration, which has advocated constructive cooperation with the international community, struck the deal with six major powers, agreeing to limit Iran's nuclear activities in return for sanctions relief.
The deal initially had a positive impact on the economy. But in 2018, after then President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the agreement, subsequent U.S. sanctions caused rising prices, a plunging currency and high unemployment in Iran.
Rouhani came under fire, and his support declined.
Moderate Iran candidate concedes win by judiciary chief
The sole moderate in Iran’s presidential election conceded his loss early Saturday to the country’s hard-line judiciary chief. It signaled the protege of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had won a vote he dominated after the disqualification of his strongest competition.
Both moderate and former Central Bank chief Abdolnasser Hemmati and former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohsen Rezaei offered their congratulations to Ebrahim Raisi. Counting, however, continued from Friday’s vote and authorities had yet to offer any official results.
Opinion polling by state-linked organizations, along with analysts, indicated that Raisi — who is under U.S. sanctions for his role in mass executions — was the front-runner in a field of only four candidates. That led to widespread apathy among eligible voters in the Islamic Republic, which long has held up turnout as a sign of support for the theocracy since its 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The quick concessions, while not unusual in Iran’s previous elections, signaled what semiofficial news agencies inside Iran had been hinting at for hours: That the carefully controlled vote had been a blowout win for Raisi amid calls by some for a boycott.
Hemmati offered his congratulations on Instagram to Raisi early Saturday.
READ: Apathy greets Iran presidential vote dominated by hard-liner
“I hope your administration provides causes for pride for the Islamic Republic of Iran, improves the economy and life with comfort and welfare for the great nation of Iran,” he wrote.
On Twitter, Rezaei praised Khamenei and the Iranian people for taking part in the vote.
“God willing, the decisive election of my esteemed brother, Ayatollah Dr. Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi, promises the establishment of a strong and popular government to solve the country’s problems,” Rezaei wrote.
As night fell Friday, turnout appeared far lower than in Iran’s last presidential election in 2017. At one polling place inside a mosque in central Tehran, a Shiite cleric played soccer with a young boy as most of its workers napped in a courtyard. At another, officials watched videos on their mobile phones as state television blared beside them, offering only tight shots of locations around the country — as opposed to the long, snaking lines of past elections.
Balloting came to a close at 2.a.m. Saturday, after the government extended voting to accommodate what it called “crowding” at several polling places nationwide. Paper ballots, stuffed into large plastic boxes, were to be counted by hand through the night, and authorities said they expected to have initial results and turnout figures Saturday morning at the earliest.
“My vote will not change anything in this election, the number of people who are voting for Raisi is huge and Hemmati does not have the necessary skills for this,” said Hediyeh, a 25-year-old woman who gave only her first name while hurrying to a taxi in Haft-e Tir Square after avoiding the polls. “I have no candidate here.”
Iranian state television sought to downplay the turnout, pointing to the Gulf Arab sheikhdoms surrounding it ruled by hereditary leaders and the lower participation in Western democracies. After a day of amplifying officials’ attempts to get out the vote, state TV broadcast scenes of jam-packed voting booths in several provinces overnight, seeking to portray a last-minute rush to the polls.
But since the 1979 revolution overthrew the shah, Iran’s theocracy has cited voter turnout as a sign of its legitimacy, beginning with its first referendum that won 98.2% support that simply asked whether or not people wanted an Islamic Republic.
The disqualifications affected reformists and those backing Rouhani, whose administration both reached the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and saw it disintegrate three years later with then-President Donald Trump’s unilateral withdrawal of America from the accord. Former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also blocked from running, said on social media he’d boycott the vote.
Voter apathy also has been fed by the devastated state of the economy and subdued campaigning amid months of surging coronavirus cases. Poll workers wore gloves and masks, and some wiped down ballot boxes with disinfectants.
If elected, Raisi would be the first serving Iranian president sanctioned by the U.S. government even before entering office over his involvement in the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988, as well as his time as the head of Iran’s internationally criticized judiciary — one of the world’s top executioners.
READ: Iran votes in presidential poll tipped in hard-liner’s favor
It also would put hard-liners firmly in control across the government as negotiations in Vienna continue to try to save a tattered deal meant to limit Iran’s nuclear program at a time when Tehran is enriching uranium at its highest levels ever, though it still remains short of weapons-grade levels. Tensions remain high with both the U.S. and Israel, which is believed to have carried out a series of attacks targeting Iranian nuclear sites as well as assassinating the scientist who created its military atomic program decades earlier.
Whoever wins will likely serve two four-year terms and thus could be at the helm at what could be one of the most crucial moments for the country in decades — the death of the 82-year-old Khamenei. Speculation already has begun that Raisi might be a contender for the position, along with Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba.