LONDON: British and Iranian government officials have refuted reports that the repayment of more than £400 million ($527.4 million) to Iran is connected to negotiations to free jailed Iranian-British aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager at the Thomson Reuters Foundation, has been imprisoned since April 2016, and is serving a five-year jail sentence after being accused of spying and plotting to overthrow the Iranian establishment, charges she denies.
The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on Wednesday that Britain was preparing to transfer the money in a gesture of goodwill to Iran as it works to secure her release.
A government spokesperson said: “This is a longstanding case and relates to contracts signed over 40 years ago with the pre-revolution Iranian regime
“Funding to settle the debt was paid to the High Court by the Treasury and IMS in 2002. Iran’s Ministry of Defense remains subject to EU sanctions.
“It is wrong to link a completely separate debt issue with any other aspect of our bilateral relationship with Iran.”
An Iranian official acknowledged on Thursday that Tehran and Britain are discussing the possible release of the money, which was paid by the previous regime of the shah of Iran for Chieftain tanks, AP reported.
The contract was canceled after the Iranian revolution in 1979, but the money was never returned.
Following a ruling in Iran’s favor by the The Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2001, Britain promised to repay the money but was prevented by sanctions on Iran, which have since been eased following the nuclear deal in 2016.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, has suggested that his wife’s detention is being used as collateral to persuade Britain to pay up.
“It is important that the UK honors its international legal obligations so that Iran can honor its legal obligations.”
“They are separate things but it is good for the atmosphere if they are all solved.”
However, commentators have pointed to recent exchanges between the US and Iran that follow a similar pattern.
In 2016, the US delivered $400 million to Iran on the same day as a prisoner exchange that freed Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian and three other Iranian-Americans.
“Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s imprisonment was just another attempt by IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) officials to extort money from the West,” said Ahmad Majidyar, director of the IranObserved Project at the Middle East Institute.
“The British government is trying its utmost to de-link the two issues, but it is hard to believe that the payment is not directly related to Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s imprisonment.
“From the very outset, it was clear that IRGC authorities were using the British-Iranian charity worker as a bargaining chip to secure the decades-old debt from the British government. Charges filed against her were consistently vague and spurious.”
On Monday, UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson vowed to do “everything we can to get her out of Iran,” and retracted comments made last week suggesting that Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been “training journalists” in the country.
Her family has repeatedly said she was there on holiday with her daughter visiting relatives.
Johnson is due to visit Tehran in the coming weeks to discuss the strengthening of Anglo-Iranian relations, but the issue of Zaghari-Ratcliffe is expected to dominate proceedings.
According to her family, the error has been used by Iranian authorities as proof that Zaghari-Ratcliffe posed a threat to the Iranian regime and could lead to her sentence being significantly increased.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Johnson apologized for the “distress and anguish” his comments caused. “Of course I retract any suggestion that she was there in a professional capacity,” he said.
Ratcliffe has highlighted his wife’s worsening health, and called for the British government to grant her diplomatic protection.
Iran, which does not acknowledge Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s dual nationality and sees her as solely Iranian, has indicated that this move will be ineffectual.
An article in the IRNA state news agency said: “As Zaghari has dual British-Iranian citizenship and Iran doesn’t recognize her British citizenship, the principle is fundamentally impractical.”
Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, said it was “unlikely” her release will be facilitated without the Iranians getting something in return.
“No doubt the British government is looking at a raft of options, including a possible payment and granting diplomatic protection to Zaghari-Ratcliffe, neither of which is ideal,” he told Arab News.
“Conferring diplomatic protection on her would be dubious, and it would also set a very dangerous precedent where other states could try to do the same thing, so I think that would be an unlikely option.
“Paying off the debt also has the danger of looking as though it is rewarding Iran for illegitimate actions.”
Majidyar said: “If Iran gets what it wants, it will release her sooner or later. But while the freedom of the British mother will be a cause for celebration, paying ransom also leaves behind a risky precedent as it encourages the IRGC to continue taking more Western hostages for concessions or ransom.”
£400 million debt to Iran has no links to imprisoned aid worker, UK officials claim
£400 million debt to Iran has no links to imprisoned aid worker, UK officials claim
Israeli military says four soldiers killed in north Gaza
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said on Saturday that four soldiers had died in combat in the north of the Gaza Strip, more than 15 months into its war with Hamas militants.
The deaths brought to 403 the total number of soldiers killed in the Palestinian territory since Israel launched its ground offensive in retaliation for Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.
Displaced Gazan digs shelter against winter weather and war
- Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced by the war that has ravaged the Palestinian territory for over 14 months
- For civilians fleeing the fighting, the lack of safe buildings means many have had to gather in makeshift camps
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Faced with plunging temperatures and heavy rain in war-battered central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, displaced Palestinian father Tayseer Obaid resorted to digging for a modicum of domestic comfort.
In the clay soil of the encampment area that his family has been displaced to by the war, Obaid dug a square hole nearly two meters deep and capped it with a tarpaulin stretched over an improvised wooden A-frame to keep out the rain.
“I had an idea to dig into the ground to expand the space as it was very limited,” Obaid said.
“So I dug 90 centimeters, it was okay and I felt the space get a little bigger,” he said from the shelter while his children played in a small swing he attached to the plank that serves as a beam for the tarpaulin.
In time, Obaid managed to dig 180 centimeters deep (about six feet) and then lined the bottom with mattresses, at which point, he said, “it felt comfortable, sort of.”
With old flour sacks that he filled with sand, he paved the entry to the shelter to keep it from getting muddy, while he carved steps into the side of the pit.
The clay soil is both soft enough to be dug without power tools and strong enough to stand on its own.
The pit provides some protection from Israeli air strikes, but Obaid said he feared the clay soil could collapse should a strike land close enough.
“If an explosion happened around us and the soil collapsed, this shelter would become our grave.”
Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced by the war that has ravaged the Palestinian territory for over 14 months.
The UN’s satellite center (UNOSAT) determined in September 2024 that 66 percent of Gaza’s buildings had been damaged or completely destroyed by the war, in which Israel has made extensive use of air strikes as it fights the militant group Hamas.
For Palestinian civilians fleeing the fighting, the lack of safe buildings means many have had to gather in makeshift camps, mostly in central and southern Gaza.
Shortages caused by the complete blockade of the coastal territory mean that construction materials are scarce, and the displaced must make do with what is at hand.
On top of the hygiene problems created by the lack of proper water and sanitation for the thousands of people crammed into the camps, winter weather has brought its own set of hardships.
On Thursday, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, warned that eight newborns died of hypothermia and 74 children died “amid the brutal conditions of winter” in 2025.
“We enter this New Year carrying the same horrors as the last — there’s been no progress and no solace. Children are now freezing to death,” UNRWA’s spokeswoman Louise Wateridge said.
At least 46,537 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since the war began, according to data provided by the health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged these figures as reliable.
The October 7 attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.
Obaid’s sunken shelter provides some protection from the cold winter nights, but not enough.
For warmth, he dug a chimney-like structure and fireplace in which he burns discarded paper and cardboard.
Though Obaid improved his lot, his situation remains bleak. “If I had a better option, I wouldn’t be living in a hole that looks like a grave,” he says.
Emirati, Lebanese leaders agree to reopen UAE embassy in Beirut
- Sheikh Mohamed congratulated Aoun on his recent election
ABU DHABI: UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and Lebanon’s newly elected President Joseph Aoun agreed on Saturday to reopen the UAE embassy in Beirut, the Emirates News Agency reported.
The two leaders said during a phone call they would take required steps to ensure this would happen.
On Thursday, Sheikh Mohamed congratulated Aoun on his recent election, and reaffirmed the UAE’s commitment to supporting all efforts that ensure Lebanon’s security and stability and realise the aspirations of its people.
Sheikh Mohamed shared “his hope to work together for the mutual benefit and prosperity of both nations and their peoples,” a statement added.
In return, Aoun also affirmed his commitment to strengthening bilateral relations.
Israel’s Netanyahu sends Mossad director to Gaza ceasefire talks in Qatar
- Netanyahu’s office announced the decision Saturday
- It was not immediately clear when David Barnea would travel to Doha
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved sending the director of the Mossad foreign intelligence agency to ceasefire negotiations in Qatar in a sign of progress in talks on the war in Gaza.
Netanyahu’s office announced the decision Saturday. It was not immediately clear when David Barnea would travel to Qatar’s capital, Doha, site of the latest round of indirect talks between Israel and the Hamas militant group. His presence means high-level Israeli officials who would need to sign off on any agreement are now involved.
Just one brief ceasefire has been achieved in 15 months of war, and that occurred in the earliest weeks of fighting. The talks mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar have repeatedly stalled since then.
Netanyahu has insisted on destroying Hamas’ ability to fight in Gaza. Hamas has insisted on a full Israeli troop withdrawal from the largely devastated territory. On Thursday, Gaza’s Health Ministry said over 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war.
Gaza rescuers say eight dead in Israel strike on school building
- Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal confirmed eight people, including two children and two women, were killed by Israeli shelling on the Halwa school
- The Israeli military, in a statement, acknowledged it conducted a strike on the facility
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency said an Israeli air strike on a school-turned-shelter on Saturday killed eight people, including two children, while the Israeli military said it targeted Hamas militants.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal confirmed eight people, including two children and two women, were killed by Israeli shelling on the Halwa school in the northern Gaza city of Jabalia.
Bassal said the strike wounded 30 people, including 19 children, and that the Halwa school housed “thousands of displaced people.”
The Israeli military, in a statement, acknowledged it conducted a strike on the facility.
It said the air force “conducted a precise strike on terrorists in a command-and-control center” that had previously served as the Halwa school in Jabaliya.
It said it targeted the premises because “the school had been used by Hamas terrorists to plan and execute attacks.”
The attack was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on school buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, where fighting has raged for more than 14 months.
A strike on the United Nations-run Al-Jawni school in central Gaza on September 11 drew international outcry after the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said six of its staff were among the 18 reported dead.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas of hiding in school buildings where thousands of Gazans have sought shelter — a charge denied by the Palestinian militant group.
At least 46,537 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since the war began, according to data provided by the health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged these figures as reliable.
The October 7 attack that triggered it resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.
