Current Final

Category: FOREIGN

  • Pakistani man among those killed in Sydney attack: community groups

    Pakistani man among those killed in Sydney attack: community groups

    A 30-year-old Pakistani man was named on Sunday as the security guard killed in a weekend knife attack in a Sydney shopping mall, according to two local community groups.

    The Australian Pakistani National Association and Ahmadiyya Muslim Community said Faraz Tahir was killed by a knife-wielding man who also killed five women.

    On Sunday evening, members of the Muslim community held a silent vigil for the man, who is said to have moved to Australia last year.

    “He quickly became an integral part of our community,” a statement said.

    The Australian Pakistani National Association encouraged the community to “stand together in solidarity, offering support and prayers to those grieving and affected by this heartbreaking loss”.

    As the attack unfolded on Saturday, online social media accounts falsely reported that the attack was linked to ideological or religious groups or events in the Middle East.

    Police have named the assailant as 40-year-old itinerant man Joel Cauchi who was previously diagnosed with a mental health issue.

  • Iran launches drone attacks on Israel in response to attack on consulate in Syria

    Iran launches drone attacks on Israel in response to attack on consulate in Syria

    Iran has launched more than 200 drones and missiles on Israel in an unprecedented attack late on Saturday “in response” to a deadly airstrike on its Damascus consular annexe earlier this month.

    Iran’s allies also carried out coordinated attacks on Israeli positions as sirens sounded in many places and blasts were heard in the skies above Jerusalem early on Sunday.

    Iran had vowed to strike back in retaliation for a deadly April 1 air strike on its Damascus consular annexe while America had warned repeatedly in recent days that the retaliation was imminent.

    Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) launched “extensive” drone and missile strikes — as part of what they called the Operation ‘True Promise’ against “certain targets” inside Israel.

    “Iran launched UAVs from its territory towards the territory of the state of Israel,” military spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a televised statement.

    Videos emerged as people in Jerusalem sought cover and flooded the roads. “As you can see it’s empty, everybody is running home,” said Eliyahu Barakat, a 49-year-old grocery shop owner in Jerusalem’s Mamilla neighbourhood.


    US President Joe Biden expressed “ironclad” support for Israel after an urgent meeting with his top security officials on the current attack against Israel.

    Hundreds of Iranians gathered in Tehran’s Palestine Square, waving Iranian and Palestinian flags to celebrate the unprecedented military action against Israel.

    On the other hand, Israeli military official said, “So far, we’ve intercepted the vast majority of incoming missiles,” Hagari said.
    The army said it had scrambled dozens of fighter jets to intercept “all aerial threats”.


    Iran’s allies in the region joined the attack with Yemen’s Houthi rebels also launching drones at Israel, according to security agency Ambrey, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement announcing rocket fire at Israeli positions in the annexed Golan Heights.


    The official Irna news agency said the attack had dealt “heavy blows” to an air base in the Negev desert, but the Israeli army said there had only been minor damage.

    US help for Israel neutralizing all the attacks

    The Iranian mission to the United Nations warned Washington to keep out of Iran’s conflict with Israel. “It is a conflict between Iran and the rogue Israeli regime, from which the US MUST STAY AWAY!” it said.


    Despite Tehran’s warning not to get involved, US forces took part in shooting down drones aimed at Israel.


    Biden said in a later statement that the United States had “helped Israel take down nearly all of the incoming drones and missiles”, but appeared to guide the key US ally away from retaliating against Tehran by saying Israel had now shown its strength.


    The US president said he had called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reaffirm Washington’s “ironclad” support for Israel, after recent tense relations over Israel’s offensive in Gaza.


    “I told him that Israel demonstrated a remarkable capacity to defend against and defeat even unprecedented attacks — sending a clear message to its foes that they cannot effectively threaten the security of Israel,” he said.


    He said he had ordered US military aircraft and ballistic missile defence destroyers to the Middle East in recent days, as the likely threat following a presumed Israeli strike on Iranians in Damascus became clear.


    Matter of a ‘truce’ in Gaza

    The Gaza crisis began October 7 and has claimed lives of more than 33 thousand in Gaza.


    In the main central city of Deir al-Balah, fire burned in the rubble of a destroyed mosque. Israel’s military “demanded that the whole area be evacuated” before it was “wiped out in minutes”, said Abdullah Baraka, a witness.


    In nearby Nuseirat refugee camp, Abd Thabet said residents had been warned to evacuate on Friday evening ahead of a large explosion that caused “massive destruction”.


    Hamas said it had submitted its response to a Gaza truce plan presented by US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators at talks in Cairo this week.


    The Palestinian group said it was sticking to its previous demands, insisting on “a permanent ceasefire” and the “withdrawal of the occupation army from the entire Gaza Strip”.


    During the October attack, Hamas seized about 250 hostages, 129 of whom Israel says remain in Gaza, including 34 the army says are dead.


    The Israeli prime minister’s office accused Hamas of sabotaging efforts for an exchange of hostages for prisoners. “Hamas to this day has refused any deal and any compromise proposal,” it said.

  • Five Palestinians sue Germany over weapons for Israel

    Five Palestinians sue Germany over weapons for Israel

    Five Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip have filed a legal complaint in Berlin against the German government over its delivery of weapons to Israel, an NGO representing them said Friday.

    The complaint seeks to “revoke the export licences issued by the German government for arms deliveries to Israel”, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) said in a statement.

    A spokeswoman for the administrative court in Berlin confirmed it received the complaint late Thursday. The five plaintiffs live in different parts of the Gaza Strip, including Rafah, the official added.

    The Palestinians are “challenging the authorisation already granted for the delivery of anti-tank weapons” and seeking to stop deliveries that have not yet been authorised, the spokeswoman said.

    The complaint is directed against the economy ministry, which now has two weeks to respond.

    The five Palestinians have all had family members killed in Israeli missile attacks since Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, according to the ECCHR.

    The plaintiffs say Berlin is failing to fulfil its obligations under international law, including the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention.

    “Germany cannot remain true to its values if it exports weapons to a war in which serious violations of international humanitarian law are evident,” said Wolfgang Kaleck, general secretary of the ECCHR.

    Germany is the second biggest arms exporter to Israel after the US, accounting for 30 percent of imports between 2019 and 2023, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

    Berlin is facing a case in the International Court of Justice in which Nicaragua says it is in breach of the UN Genocide Convention, set up after the Holocaust.

    On Tuesday, Berlin’s representatives insisted that Germany supplied arms only “on the basis of detailed scrutiny… that far exceeds the requirements of international law”.

    Israeli genocide in Gaza Strip has killed more than 33,000 people since October 7, according to the Gaza health ministry.

  • Five dead in Sydney shopping centre attack: police

    Five dead in Sydney shopping centre attack: police

    Five people were killed and several others injured — including a small child — when a knife-wielding attacker rampaged through a busy Sydney shopping centre on Saturday, Australian police said.

    Multiple people were stabbed by the unidentified assailant, who was shot dead by a policewoman at the scene.

    The incident occurred at the sprawling Westfield Bondi Junction mall complex, which was packed with Saturday afternoon shoppers.

    “I’m advised that there are five victims who are now deceased as a result of the actions of this offender,” said New South Wales police assistant commissioner Anthony Cooke.

    The motive was not immediately clear, but Cooke said “terrorism” could not be ruled out at this stage.

    “I do not know at this stage who he is. You would understand this is quite raw. Inquiries are very new and we are continuing to make attempts to identify the offender in this matter,” said Cooke.

    A New South Wales Ambulance spokesperson told AFP that eight patients were taken to various hospitals across Sydney, including a young child who was taken to the city’s Children’s Hospital.

    “They all have traumatic injuries,” the official said.

    Security camera footage broadcast by local media showed a man wearing an Australian rugby league jersey running around the shopping centre with a large knife and injured people lying lifeless on the floor.

    Eyewitnesses described a scene of panic, with shoppers scrambling to safety and police trying to secure the area.

    Several people took shelter in shops as they tried to protect themselves and their families.

    Pranjul Bokaria had just finished up work and was doing some shopping when the stabbing occurred.

    She ended up running to a nearby shop and taking shelter in a break room.

    “It was scary, there are some people who were emotionally vulnerable and crying,” she told AFP.

    She escaped using an emergency exit with other shoppers and staff, which took them to a back street.

    She described a scene of “chaos”, with people running, and police swarming the area.

    “I am alive and grateful,” she said.

    Reece Colmenares was on her way to the gym when she saw “people running and screaming” past her.

    She told AFP the people were saying someone had been stabbed so she ran into a nearby hardware shop with 10 to 12 other people

    “They took us down [to a room] and closed the shop,” she said.

    “It’s scary, there are little children and elderly and people in wheelchairs everywhere.”

    As night fell, dozens of police and ambulances were still outside the shopping complex, with stretchers ready to take people to nearby hospitals.

    The sound of police sirens and helicopters filled the air.

    The mall has been locked down and police have urged people to avoid the area.

    Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese echoed Australians’ sadness and shock at the attack.

    “Tragically, multiple casualties have been reported and the first thoughts of all Australians are with those affected and their loved ones,” he wrote on social media platform X.

    Such attacks are virtually unheard of in Australia, which has relatively low rates of violent crime.

  • How humanitarian aid reaches war-torn Gaza

    How humanitarian aid reaches war-torn Gaza

    Most aid bound for war-ravaged Gaza arrives overland from neighbouring Egypt but Israel and UN agencies clash on how much actually makes it inside the Palestinian territory.

    The volume of aid entering Gaza by road each day through the Rafah crossing from Egypt is insufficient, aid workers say, blaming rigorous Israeli inspections at least in part.

    With no truce in sight to pause the Israel-Hamas war, here is a look at how aid currently reaches Gaza and what alternatives are being weighed to alleviate the crisis in the besieged Palestinian territory.

    First stop: Egypt

    Most Gaza-bound goods arrive by sea in the Egyptian ports of Port Said or El-Arish.

    El-Arish is closer to Gaza but also smaller, and was quickly overwhelmed by the volume of shipments arriving, aid groups say.

    Israeli authorities, who have blockaded Gaza since Hamas took sole control of the Palestinian territory in 2007, require that all aid entering Gaza be inspected by them.

    The main inspection area for goods is Kerem Shalom in southern Israel, not far from the Rafah crossing.

    Another inspection area exists in Nitzana, on the Israeli-Egyptian border about 40 kilometres (25 miles) to the southeast.

    Long wait for trucks

    Before reaching the inspection areas, many aid trucks wait for days at the Egyptian side of the Rafah checkpoint.

    Once inspected, goods that are cleared to enter by Israel are unloaded from the mostly Egyptian trucks in the zone between Egypt and Gaza.

    The supplies are then loaded onto separate vehicles, driven by Gazans working for aid groups, for distribution inside the Palestinian territory.

    Cumbersome screenings are a major reason shortages are so glaring, aid workers say.

    Israel blames a lack of sufficient capacity on the Palestinian side to distribute the aid once it gets in.

    In recent days, Israel took issue with UN figures on the number of trucks entering Gaza, accusing UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA of counting only trucks it had processed, not those processed by Israel.

    Heading north

    For months, aid groups and foreign governments including top ally the United States have urged Israel to reopen border crossings into the north of Gaza, where the humanitarian crisis is most severe.

    Israel announced that six World Food Programme (WFP) aid trucks entered the north directly from its territory in early March, in what it described as a “pilot project”.

    The trial was not extended, however, and aid convoys bound for northern Gaza must travel the length of the territory negotiating battlegrounds, Israeli bombardments and mobs of desperate civilians.

    In March, the WFP said one of its convoys had been blocked by Israeli forces inside Gaza before it could reach the north.

    After turning back, the agency said the convoy was looted by a “crowd of desperate people”.

    According to Israeli authorities, 28 trucks reached northern Gaza on Wednesday.

    They were among 298 trucks that Israel said entered Gaza on Wednesday, still far below the number aid groups say is needed to sustain the territory’s 2.4 million people.

    Under pressure from the international community, Israel announced on April 5 that it would open a new crossing directly into northern Gaza, without specifying its exact location or when it would open.

    By air and by sea

    In a bid to get round the logjam, several Arab and European governments, later joined by Washington, began carrying out aid airdrops over Gaza, particularly the north.

    But the airdrops have proved controversial, with multiple deaths among civilians on the ground who were crushed by aid crates when parachutes failed to open, or drowned trying to reach others accidentally dropped in the sea.

    There has also been an attempt to establish a maritime aid corridor from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus but it has largely fizzled out after seven aid workers were killed by Israeli fire on April 1 as they unloaded food from the second flotilla to make the crossing.

    Even though the Cypriot government insists it has not given up on the aid corridor, no further crossings are currently planned after the US and Spanish charities behind the first two suspended their operations in the region.

    UN agencies have in any case said repeatedly that road convoys are the only practical way of meeting Gaza’s needs.

  • Chinese factory shreds wedding photos for fuel

    Chinese factory shreds wedding photos for fuel

    At a dusty warehouse in northern China, Liu Wei feeds photos of beaming bridal couples into an industrial shredder — turning stories of heartbreak into a source of electricity.

    Wedding photos are big business in China, where parks, temples and historic sites often teem with newlyweds posing for elaborate shots capturing their supposedly unbreakable bond.

    But in a country where millions of divorces take place each year, many marital snaps end up shoved into the attic or tossed into the trash.

    Liu’s company offers an alternative: bereft ex-lovers can have their memories destroyed and recycled into fuel.

    “From our daily business exchanges, we found the destruction of personal belongings is a blank space nationwide,” the 42-year-old told AFP at his factory, 120 kilometres (75 miles) from Beijing.

    “People with less experience in the market probably wouldn’t have spotted this opportunity,” he added.

    Despite cultural taboos around destroying images of living people, Liu’s facility receives an average of five to 10 orders per day from across China.

    They include large wall photos and smaller decorative shots and albums, mostly cast from plastic, acrylic and glass.

    Workers heave the images onto a forklift truck and scatter them onto the warehouse floor for sorting.

    They then obscure every face with dark spray paint to protect client privacy and smash unshreddable glasswork with a sledgehammer.

    “These people are all trying to find closure,” said Liu. “They mainly want to unpick the knots in their hearts.”

    Complex motivations

    Sullied and broken, the pictures give glimpses of broken families in happier times.

    In one, a woman in a white bridal dress reclines on a bed of flowers, while another shows a lovestruck couple gazing into each other’s eyes.

    A sporty pair in matching kits pose with a football, while nearby, a smitten man presses his face tenderly to his pregnant wife’s belly.

    Brandishing his phone, Liu films the defaced photos and sends clips to customers for final confirmation.

    He estimates he has served about 1,100 clients — mostly under the age of 45, and around two-thirds women — since launching the service a year ago.

    They typically speak little about their separations, and several declined interview requests from AFP.

    Liu says the motivations for destroying wedding photos are often complex.

    “Few of them do this out of malice,” he told AFP.

    “It might be that this item brings on certain thoughts or feelings… or be a hurdle hard to overcome.”

    Some clients attend the destructions in person to give a sense of ceremony to a closing chapter in their lives, said Liu.

    Others keep their photos for years and only dispose of them when they remarry or finally come to terms with a former spouse’s death.

    Given the irreversible nature of the process, Liu says he gives clients a final chance to salvage their items in case they live to regret their decision.

    After getting the green light, he films his staff gently pushing the photos into the shredder’s gnashing teeth.

    The debris is taken to a nearby biofuel plant where it is processed with other household waste to generate electricity.

    ‘Respect others’ choices’

    Divorce rates soared in socially conservative China after marriage laws were relaxed in 2003.

    They have fallen dramatically since the government enacted a law in 2021 mandating a month-long “cooling-off” period before couples untie the knot.

    China registered 2.9 million divorces in 2022, down from over 4.3 million two years earlier.

    The number of marriages rose last year for the first time in nearly a decade, giving Beijing some relief as it seeks to reverse a steep fall in births.

    After annihilating the visual evidence of hundreds of unions, Liu says he has become numb to the emotions they stir up.

    “The deepest feeling I have in my heart towards my clients… is that you must respect others’ choices,” he said.

    “You must never persuade people one way or another,” he added. “It does no good.”

  • Report links H&M, Zara to environmental destruction in Brazil

    Report links H&M, Zara to environmental destruction in Brazil

    Fast fashion giants H&M and Zara have used cotton from farms linked to massive deforestation, land-grabbing, corruption and violence in Brazil, a report by the environmental group Earthsight said Thursday.

    Based on satellite images, court rulings, shipment records and an undercover investigation, the report, titled “Fashion Crimes,” found the companies sourced “tainted cotton” farmed in the fragile Cerrado savanna by two of Brazil’s biggest agribusiness firms, SLC Agricola and the Horita Group.

    Despite abuses linked to its production, the cotton had been labeled as ethical by leading certification scheme Better Cotton, exposing “deep flaws” in the oversight program, said the British environmental group.

    The Cerrado, the most biodiverse savanna on Earth, has been disappearing at an accelerating rate as Brazil’s massive agribusiness industry has increasingly turned to the region in recent decades.

    Earthsight traced at least 816,000 tonnes of cotton exported from 2014 to 2023 to farms run by SLC and Horita, which “have a long record of court injunctions, corruption rulings and millions of dollars in fines related to clearances of around 100,000 hectares of Cerrado wilderness,” it said.

    The cotton in question was farmed in the northeastern state of Bahia and shipped to eight Asian clothing manufacturers whose clients include Sweden-based H&M and Spain-based Zara, the report said.

    Brazil, the world’s top exporter of beef and soybeans, has also emerged as a major cotton producer in recent years, now second only to the United States.

    But that has contributed to environmental destruction in the Cerrado, where “a ruinous mix of corruption, greed, violence and impunity has led to the blatant theft of public lands and dispossession of local communities,” Earthsight said.

    Better Cotton said in a statement it had conducted an independent audit of the “highly concerning issues raised” in the report, and that it would provide a summary of the findings.

    Zara parent company Inditex and H&M said they took the allegations seriously, and urged Better Cotton to release the auditors’ findings.

    The Brazilian Cotton Producers’ Association (ABRAPA) said it had worked with the growers in question to provide records and evidence countering the report’s allegations.

    “Unfortunately, these were largely disregarded,” it said in a statement.

    “ABRAPA unequivocally condemns any practices that undermine environmental conservation, violate human rights or harm local communities.”

  • Israel on alert after Iranian threat as genocide in Gaza grinds on

    Israel on alert after Iranian threat as genocide in Gaza grinds on

    Palestinian Territories – Israel was on alert Thursday after Iran threatened reprisals over a strike in Syria this month that killed two Iranian generals, and as genocide in Gaza continues.

    Days after Israel strengthened its air defences and paused leave for combat units, the United States also warned of the risk of an attack by Iran or its allied groups at a time Middle East tensions have soared.

    Iran is “threatening to launch a significant attack on Israel,” US President Joe Biden said Wednesday, pledging “ironclad” support for its top regional ally despite diplomatic tensions over Israel’s military conduct in Gaza.

    Israel was widely blamed for an April 1 attack that destroyed Iran’s consulate building in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards, including two generals.

    Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Wednesday that Israel “must be punished and will be punished”, days after one of his advisers said Israeli embassies are “no longer safe”.

    Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz swiftly replied on social media site X that “if Iran attacks from its territory, Israel will respond and attack Iran”.

    Biden said he had told Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu that “our commitment to Israel’s security against these threats from Iran and its proxies is ironclad”.

    US Central Command chief Michael Kurilla was in Israel on Thursday to discuss the situation with Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, the Pentagon said.

    “We warned Iran,” Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told a briefing without elaborating.

    During a visit to an airbase in central Israel, Netanyahu spoke of “challenging times” on multiple fronts.

    “We are in the middle of the war in Gaza which continues in full force… but we are also preparing for scenarios of challenges from other arenas,” he said in comments released by his office.

    Moscow called on both Iran and Israel to exercise restraint.

    German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock urged “maximum restraint”, and Lufthansa said it had extended a temporary suspension of Iran flights until Saturday.

    Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said he had received phone calls Thursday from Baerbock as well as her British and Australian counterparts.

    In a post on X, he said he had told them that “when the Zionist regime breaches the immunity of diplomatic persons and places” and the UN Security Council fails to condemn it, “legitimate defence… is a necessity”.

    Israel and the United States have long faced off against Iran and its so-called “Axis of Resistance” allies based in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

    ‘Panic among children’

    Regional tensions have been stoked following October 7 attack in Israel left.

    Israeli genocide in Gaza has killed at least 33,545 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

    Hamas said 20 people were killed in Israeli bombardments on Thursday. It said two schools and two mosques were among the buildings hit and an imam was among the dead.

    In the Nuseirat area, which took the brunt of the bombing, Imad Abu Shawish, 39, said “the situation is dire and still getting worse. Bombardment hasn’t stopped and is still happening now.”

    Much of Gaza has been reduced to a bomb-cratered wasteland, with yet more bodies feared under the rubble.

    An Israeli siege has deprived Gaza’s 2.4 million people of most food, water, fuel and medicines, the dire shortages only alleviated by sporadic aid deliveries.

    Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz said Wednesday “Hamas is defeated” militarily but pledged to keep fighting “what remains of it” in the years to come.

    An Israeli air strike on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’s Qatar-based leader Ismail Haniyeh.

    Haniyeh insisted their deaths would not influence Hamas’s position in ongoing talks in Cairo for a truce and hostage release deal.

    Those talks, which started Sunday, have brought no breakthrough on a plan presented by US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators, which Hamas said it was studying.

    The framework plan would halt fighting for six weeks and see the exchange of about 40 hostages for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, as well as more aid deliveries.

    Biden said that “it’s now up to Hamas, they need to move on the proposal that’s been made”.

    Israel accused Hamas Thursday of “walking away” from what government spokesman David Mencer called “a very reasonable offer on the table”.

    Hamas official Bassem Naim said only a ceasefire could provide “enough time and safety” to locate Israeli hostages held across the territory and ascertain their fate because they are held by different groups.

    ‘Destabilising Middle East’

    Washington has ramped up pressure on Netanyahu to agree to a truce, increase aid flows and abandon plans to send troops into Gaza’s far-southern city of Rafah where about 1.5 million civilians are sheltering.

    Rafah is the last Gazan city yet to face a ground incursion.

    Gallant promised Israel would “flood Gaza with aid”, using an Israeli crossing point, streamlined checks and two new routes organised with Jordan.

    He said they expected to reach 500 aid trucks a day, the pre-war average.

    However, a UN Security Council statement Thursday said “more should be done to bring the required relief given the scale of needs in Gaza”.

    Israel has faced a chorus of international criticism over its handling of the war.

    Spain is among several Western nations, including Ireland and Australia, to have suggested they would recognise a Palestinian state as a starting point for wider peace talks.

    Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez warned that Israel’s “disproportionate response” in Gaza risked “destabilising the Middle East and, as a consequence, the entire world”.

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    © Agence France-Presse

  • Iran’s Khamenei renews threat of counterattack against Israel

    Iran’s Khamenei renews threat of counterattack against Israel

    Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei again warned Israel Wednesday that it “will be punished” for a Damascus air strike that killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.

    “The evil regime made a mistake in this regard. It must be punished and will be punished,” Khamenei said in a televised speech after Eid al-Adha prayers in Tehran.

    Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz swiftly riposted with a Persian-language statement on social media site X.

    “If Iran attacks from its territory, Israel will respond and attack Iran,” he said.

    Khamenei said the April 1 strike, which levelled the five-storey Iranian consulate building in the Syrian capital, had run roughshod over international agreements providing for the inviolability of diplomatic premises.

    “The consulate and embassy offices in any country are the territory of that country,” he said. “When they attacked our consulate, it means they attacked our territory.”

    Khamenei has led Iranian officials in a succession of promises to avenge the strike, which was widely blamed on arch foe Israel.

    One of his senior advisers, Yahya Rahim Safavi, warned on Sunday that Israeli embassies were “no longer safe”.

    Israel said last week it was strengthening its defences and pausing leave for combat units following Iran’s retaliation threats.

    Iran does not recognise Israel, and the two countries have fought a shadow war for years.

    Iran charges that Israel was behind a wave of sabotage attacks and assassinations targeting its nuclear programme.

  • Gazans mark ‘saddest’ Eid with little to celebrate or eat

    Gazans mark ‘saddest’ Eid with little to celebrate or eat

    Gazans did their best to celebrate the end of Ramadan in the driving rain on Wednesday, as the genocide ravaged on with 14 killed, including children, in a strike on their home, the health ministry said.

    The Israeli military said it struck several targets on the first day of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, with a jet hitting a rocket launch site and troops killing a “terrorist cell” in close quarters fighting.

    An AFP photographer witnessed the aftermath of the the bombing of the home in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. Family members clutched the bodies of dead children at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir el-Balah.

    There was no immediate comment from the Israeli army.

    Israel said 468 aid trucks — a record since the October 7 — were allowed into Gaza on the eve of the holiday which marks the end of the Muslim fasting month and is traditionally celebrated with family gatherings.

    But with the United Nations warning the besieged territory is on the verge of famine, there was little to feast on for the 2.4 million residents of Gaza, up to 1.5 million of whom are crammed into camps around the far-southern city of Rafah.

    The faithful gathered at dawn outside the city’s flattened Al-Farooq Mosque, where worshipper Khairi Abu Singer complained that Israel’s relentless bombardment had even “deprived Palestinians from praying inside their mosques”.

    Father-of-four Ahmed Qishta, 33, told AFP there was little to celebrate at what should be a joyous time.

    “We prepared sweets and biscuits from the aid we got from the UN and now we are giving it to the children. We try to be happy but it is difficult.”

    He said they went to pray at the graves of family members killed in the war before going to the Ibn Taymiyyah mosque for Eid prayers.

    There has never been “such an Eid — all sadness, fear, destruction and a grinding war”, he said.

    Abir Sakik, 40, who fled her home in Gaza City with her family and is now living in a tent in Rafah, said she had no “ingredients for the cakes and sweets” she would usually make.

    Instead she made cakes from crushed dates. “We want to rejoice despite all the blood, death and shelling,” she told AFP.

    ‘Enough of war’

    Sakik said that despite it being a religious holiday, the Israeli military “committed a massacre and killed women and children” in the camp.

    “We are tired and weary — enough, enough of war and destruction,” she said, adding that Gazans were desperate for a truce.

    “We try to bring joy to the children. Before all this, there was a great atmosphere at Eid with the children’s toys, the Eid cakes, the food, the chocolates in every house — everything was sweet and beautiful.

    “But they destroyed all of Gaza,” she said.

    Nihaya Atallah, 49, from Jabalia camp in northern Gaza, also celebrated the festival in a tent in Rafah. “Our spirits are broken, our homes destroyed,” she told AFP.

    “There’s no Eid, no joy, only war and loss.”

    Rafah resident Moaz Abu Moussa said that “despite the pain and massacres, we will show our happiness in these difficult circumstances”.

    “We don’t care about the war, we will live Eid like other Muslims and show our happiness to the displaced people and families of martyrs and detainees.”

    Meanwhile in Jerusalem tens of thousands of worshippers poured into the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, Islam’s third holiest site, for morning prayers.

    “It’s the saddest Eid ever,” said nurse Rawan Abd, 32, from Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem. “At the mosque you could see the sadness on people’s faces.”

    In the occupied West Bank, the atmosphere was even more sombre, with many Palestinians in the flashpoint northern city of Jenin visiting its cemetery to pray for those who have been killed since the Israeli genocide in Gaza began.

    Israeli offensive has killed at least 33,482 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry.

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    © Agence France-Presse