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
4 Italian UN peacekeepers injured by rocket attack in Lebanon
- Israeli forces continue to pound targets in southern Lebanon and suburbs of Beirut
- Paramedics and health facilities among those attacked; women and infants among dead as searches for victims buried in rubble continue
BEIRUT: At least five medical workers were reported dead on Friday as Israeli forces continued to pound targets in southern Lebanon and the outskirts of Beirut.
The attacks intensified after US envoy Amos Hochstein left Tel Aviv on Thursday evening and returned to Washington after discussions with Israeli authorities. This followed his talks with Lebanese officials on Tuesday and Wednesday about a proposed diplomatic solution to the conflict in Lebanon between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, which marked its 52nd day on Friday. Hochstein did not disclose the outcome of the discussions.
On Friday, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon’s Italian unit reported that four of its soldiers were injured when two rockets struck their headquarters in the western sector, in Shamaa. Tasked with monitoring the Blue Line that separates Lebanon from Israel, UNIFIL’s 10,000 peacekeepers have repeatedly come under fire during the conflict.
Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, expressed her “deep indignation and concern” over “new attacks suffered by the Italian headquarters of UNIFIL in southern Lebanon.” She said “these attacks are unacceptable” and called on “the parties on the ground to guarantee, at all times, the safety of UNIFIL soldiers and to collaborate to identify those responsible quickly.”
UNIFIL said “two 122 mm rockets struck the Sector West headquarters” in Shamaa, about 5 kilometers from the Israeli border. The area has been a battleground for about a week. The injuries to the peacekeepers were not life-threatening and they were receiving treatment at the base’s hospital.
“UNIFIL strongly urges combating parties to avoid fighting next to its positions,” the force added.
Hezbollah said its fighters targeted Israeli troops in Shamaa with a salvo of rockets to prevent them from occupying the area. Israeli forces had advanced into the area over the previous two days and attempted further incursions toward the coastal town of Bayada, between Naqoura and Tyre.
Italy’s defense minister, Guido Crosetto, said he had contacted his Lebanese counterpart “reiterating that the Italian contingent of UNIFIL remains in southern Lebanon to offer a window of opportunity for peace, and cannot become hostage to attacks by militias.”
Also on Friday, the Israeli army carried out airstrikes on Beirut’s suburbs, targeting buildings in Ain Al-Remmaneh, a predominantly Christian area adjacent to Chiyah.
Israeli forces also continued their attempts to advance into southern towns. A force entered Deir Mimas, beyond the border town of Kfarkela, where it ordered eight families still residing there to remain in their homes.
Deir Mimas is in the Marjayoun district of Nabatiyeh Governorate, about 90 kilometers from Beirut. Its mayor, George Nakad, confirmed “the incursion” and said soldiers had entered it from Kfarkela, through olive fields.
Photos circulating on social media appeared to show Israeli tanks crossing the Litani road at the Qlayaa-Deir Mimas-Burj Al-Molouk triangle, supported by aerial cover and airstrikes on southern regions.
Elsewhere, Hezbollah said it targeted an Israeli Merkava tank with a guided missile south of the town of Khiam, which the Israeli army entered on Thursday. The tank was destroyed and its crew killed or injured, it added.
Israel on Friday intensified its reconnaissance flights over Lebanese regions exposed to airstrikes. Before 7 a.m., Israeli evacuation warnings circulated on social media ahead of strikes on parts of Hadath, Haret Hreik and Kafaat in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
About 30 minutes later, airstrikes hit residential buildings, one of which was located near the Lebanese University campus. Thick black smoke blanketed the area and the smell of gunpowder and other substances spread through neighborhoods, with reports of breathing problems and eye irritation.
Less than four hours later, Israeli forces issued a warning to residents of the Chiyah and Ain Al-Remaneh areas, and then targeted two residential buildings that also housed a medical laboratory, a gym, hair salons, beauty clinics, and clothes and fishing-tackle shops. One building was destroyed, the other cut in half.
The Israeli warnings sparked mass hysteria and displacement of the local population in Ain Al-Remaneh. Residents of Chiyah joined the exodus. Clashes were reported among the crowds after some blamed Hezbollah for the conflict. Six Israeli raids on the areas had taken place as of noon on Friday. The previous day, parts of the southern suburbs were hit intermittently by more than 10 Israeli air attacks.
In southern Lebanon, meanwhile, Israeli forces once again targeted ambulances belonging to Hezbollah’s Islamic Health Organization, which they said were were being used to “transport militants or weapons.” An attack on one of the organization’s ambulances at Deir Qanun junction, Ras Al-Ain, killed the paramedics inside.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health said Israel forces were targeting paramedics and medical facilities in the south in violation of international laws and norms and humanitarian laws.
Israel also targeted villages in the deep south, including Ghaziyeh and areas in the vicinity of Sidon, with heavy attacks that reportedly resulted in casualties and great destruction.
Meanwhile, search operations continued to find bodies under the rubble of houses and other buildings damaged or destroyed by Israeli attacks. Raids on southern villages, including Kafr Rumman, have resulted in seven confirmed deaths and one injury.
Four bodies were found under the rubble in Arabsalim. In Bekaa, several members of one family, including women and children, were killed by Israeli attacks on the village of Flawiye on Thursday. One person was reported missing. Eleven people from several families, including infants, were killed in attacks on Nabha.
Attacks on targets in northern Bekaa reached a peak on Thursday night, with 18 raids that killed 17 people in Baalbek, Maqneh, Younine, Beit Mchik, Brital and Hosh Al-Rafika.
Lebanese residents in areas stretching from Beirut to the Bekaa Valley and northern regions were alarmed on Friday morning by suspicious calls urging them to evacuate their homes. The calls sparked panic for a second consecutive day among people in several areas, including hotel guests in Beirut's Raouche district, residents of villages in Zgharta, and people in the village of Bebnine in Akkar, in the far north of the country
Others who received calls included residents of Beirut and its northern and eastern suburbs, including Furn El-Chebbak, Dekwaneh, Mar Roukoz, Burj Abi Haidar, Basta, Ras El-Nabeh, Bchamoun, Choueifat, and as far as Jbeil.
Hezbollah on Friday reaffirmed its ability to maintain its attacking threat and said it had targeted several locations in northern Israel. They included the settlement of Kiryat Shmona, the Haifa technical base about 35 kilometers from the border, and an Israeli early-warning and intelligence center linked to the 210th Golan Division on the summit of Mount Hermon in the occupied Syrian Golan. The Dovev barracks and a gathering of Israeli forces in the Manara settlement were also attacked.
Across Lebanon on Friday, national flags were raised at official institutions to mark the 81st anniversary of the country’s independence. In hundreds of shelters, children from displaced families sang the Lebanese national anthem, and some young people symbolically hoisted flags over the rubble in areas ravaged by recent attacks.
The speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri, described this year’s anniversary of independence as “a somber occasion, yet a reminder of the daily challenge to persevere, to uphold national unity, and to protect every inch of our homeland — south, north, east and sea — without surrender or despair.”
UN warns some who fled to Syria risking lives to return to Lebanon
- Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, the UN refugee agency’s representative in Syria, said: “These are very, very small numbers, but for us, even small numbers are worrying signals“
- The UNHCR estimates that around 560,000 people have fled into Syria from neighboring Lebanon since late September
GENEVA: The UN voiced concern Friday that conditions were so dire in Syria that some Lebanese residents who had fled there seeking refuge from the Israel-Hezbollah war were opting to return to Lebanon.
There are “Lebanese families who are beginning to take the very difficult and potentially life-threatening decision to return to Lebanon,” said Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, the United Nations refugee agency’s representative in Syria.
“These are very, very small numbers, but for us, even small numbers are worrying signals,” he told reporters in Geneva via video link from the Syrian-Lebanese border.
The UNHCR estimates that around 560,000 people have fled into Syria from neighboring Lebanon since late September, when months of cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah over the war in Gaza escalated into all-out war.
Lebanese authorities put the number even higher, at more than 610,000.
Vargas Llosa said that around 65 percent of those crossing into Syria — itself torn apart by 13 years of civil war — were Syrian nationals who had sought refuge in Lebanon from that conflict.
He pointed out that from 2017 up to September 23 this year, around 400,000 Syrians had returned to their country from Lebanon.
“We have had more or less the same number... in a period of seven to eight weeks,” he said, adding that some 150,000 Lebanese had also arrived in Syria during that period.
He hailed the “exemplary” and “extraordinary display of generosity” shown toward those arriving by communities across Syria, “whose infrastructure is destroyed, whose economy is destroyed.”
But he warned that given Syria’s own “catastrophic economic situation... it is unclear for how long this generosity will last.”
Worrying signs were already emerging, he said, pointing to the admittedly small numbers of people who were opting to return to Lebanon despite the risks.
UNHCR said that “on average up to 50 Lebanese individuals per day” were crossing back into Lebanon.
They were leaving because they thought “the conditions in Syria are appalling, and that they may be better off in Lebanon, in spite of the bombings,” Vargas Llosa said.
Back in Lebanon, they might have better support systems, easier access to services and even the ability to generate a little income, he said.
He warned that “unless there is a real injection of international support... this number of Lebanese choosing to return home to these extraordinarily difficult circumstances may grow in the coming weeks and months.”
“This would be extremely worrying.”
There were even some Syrian returnees who were opting to once again cross back into Lebanon, “primarily because of the extraordinarily dire economic conditions here in Syria,” Vargas Llosa said.
In the meantime, he said that there had recently been “an important decrease in the pace of arrivals” into Syria, from a peak of 10,000-15,000 per day to an average now of about 2,000.
Vargas Llosa charged that this was likely linked to Israel’s repeated bombings of border crossings.
“Syrians and Lebanese are very scared of using these escape routes,” he said, appealing to the Israeli military to “immediately stop these unacceptable attacks.”
Israeli strikes batter Lebanon, killing five medics
- Israel has pushed on with its intense military campaign against Hezbollah, tempering hopes that efforts by a US envoy could lead to an imminent ceasefire
- Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at Israeli troops east of Khiyam at least four times on Friday
BEIRUT: Israeli strikes battered southern Lebanon and the outskirts of the capital Beirut on Friday, killing at least five medics, as ground troops clashed with Hezbollah fighters in the south.
Israel has pushed on with its intense military campaign against the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah, tempering hopes that efforts by a US envoy could lead to an imminent ceasefire.
US mediator Amos Hochstein said earlier this week in Beirut that a truce was “within our grasp.” He traveled on to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz before returning to Washington, according to the news outlet Axios.
His trip aimed to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah along Lebanon’s southern border, which escalated dramatically when Israel ramped up its strikes in late September and sent ground troops into Lebanon on Oct. 1.
Israeli troops have fought Hezbollah in a strip of towns all along the border and this week pushed deeper to the edges of Khiyam, a town some six km (four miles) from the border. Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at Israeli troops east of Khiyam at least four times on Friday.
Lebanese security sources told Reuters that Israeli troops had also advanced in a string of villages to the west as well. They said Israel was most likely trying to isolate Khiyam ahead of a major attack on the town.
Israeli strikes on two other villages in southern Lebanon killed a total of five medics from a rescue force affiliated with Hezbollah, the Lebanese health ministry said.
The more than 3,500 people killed by Israeli strikes over the last year include more than 200 medics, the health ministry said.
Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from Israel’s north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which began firing across the border in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
Israel also mounted more strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, a once densely populated stronghold of Hezbollah.
It issued evacuation orders on the social media platform X for several buildings in the area on Friday. Reuters footage showed one of the strikes appearing to pierce the center of a multi-story building, sending the whole structure toppling in a massive cloud of smoke.
UN reports heavy clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah in south Lebanon
- “We are aware of heavy shelling in the vicinity of our bases,” UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti said
- Asked if the peacekeepers and staff at the headquarters are safe, Tenenti said: “Yes for the moment”
BEIRUT: Israeli troops fought fierce battles with Hezbollah fighters on Friday in different areas in south Lebanon, including a coastal town that is home to the headquarters of UN peacekeepers.
A spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL told The Associated Press that they are monitoring “heavy clashes” in the coastal town of Naqoura and the village of Chamaa to the northeast.
UNIFIL’s headquarters are located in Naqoura in Lebanon’s southern edge close to the border with Israel.
“We are aware of heavy shelling in the vicinity of our bases,” UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti said. Asked if the peacekeepers and staff at the headquarters are safe, Tenenti said: “Yes for the moment.”
Several UNIFIL posts have been hit since Israel began its ground invasion of Lebanon on Oct. 1, leaving a number of peacekeepers wounded.
The fighting came a day after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister and a Hamas military leader, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity over their 13-month war in Gaza and the October 2023 attack on Israel respectively.
The warrant marked the first time that a sitting leader of a major Western ally has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by a global court of justice.
Israel’s war has caused heavy destruction across Gaza, decimated parts of the territory and driven almost the entire population of 2.3 million people from their homes, leaving most dependent on aid to survive.
Israel launched its war in Gaza after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel has also launched airstrikes against Lebanon after the Hezbollah militant group began firing rockets, drones and missiles into Israel the day after Hamas’ attack last October. A full-blown war erupted in September after nearly a year of lower-level conflict.
Gaza ministry: hospitals to cut or stop services ‘within 48 hours’ over fuel shortages
- All hospitals in Gaza would have to stop or reduce services “within 48 hours“
GAZA: The Hamas government’s health ministry warned Friday all hospitals in Gaza would have to stop or reduce services “within 48 hours” for lack of fuel, blaming Israel for blocking its entry.
“We raise an urgent warning as all hospitals in Gaza Strip will stop working or reduce their services within 48 hours due to the occupation’s (Israel’s) obstruction of fuel entry,” Marwan Al-Hams, director of Gaza’s field hospitals, said during a press conference.
