‘Save a Child’s Heart’ doctors honored at UN event

Doctors and medics try to resuscitate 14-year-old Palestinian boy Yasser Abu Al-Naja, who died later after he was shot by Israeli forces during a protest at the Israel-Gaza border, at a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday. (REUTERS)
Updated 30 June 2018
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‘Save a Child’s Heart’ doctors honored at UN event

  • The nonprofit, funded mostly by private donors with some contributions from governments, has performed surgery on nearly 5,000 children since it was started about two decades ago
  • At the moment, 44 children are being treated free-of-charge at the Edith Wolfson Medical Center in Holon

NEW YORK: A group of Israeli doctors have bypassed the region’s politics to save thousands of Palestinian children and those from 57 other countries by operating on their diseased hearts.
Earlier this week, the doctors with Save a Child’s Heart, an organization based in Holon just south of Tel Aviv, were honored at the UN, where Israeli positions have often clashed with those held by Arab member nations. But group co-founder Dr. Sion Houri said that when it comes to children’s lives, “our activity is international, non-political and non-religious.”
He and two fellow physicians, Lior Sasson and Akiva Tamir, accepted the UN Population Award Tuesday for saving young lives — especially in war-torn and developing lands.
The nonprofit, funded mostly by private donors with some contributions from governments, has performed surgery on nearly 5,000 children since it was started about two decades ago, including more than 2,000 from the West Bank and Gaza and 300 from Iraq and Syria. The rest came from Africa, South America, Europe, Asia and throughout the Middle East.
At the moment, 44 children are being treated free-of-charge at the Edith Wolfson Medical Center in Holon.
The first patients in the 1990s were from Ethiopia, including a 15-year-old boy who lived in the streets with a life-threatening cardiac ailment. After recovering, he returned home and eventually opened a school for homeless street kids. Among them was a boy whom the school founder recently brought to Israel for his heart surgery.
“Many people might think that I’m naive, but we think treating a child with heart disease is like planting a seed of peace,” said Sasson, the organization’s lead surgeon.
Even though these children have heart conditions that are correctable, “the majority of them will die before the age of 20 as a result of the lack of facilities and doctors,” the surgeon said.
Save a Child’s Heart physicians are now training new teams of medical professionals to work in the West Bank, Ethiopia, Kenya, China, Romania, Moldova, Kenya and Tanzania.


Hundreds of US citizens left Iran in last week, State Dept cable says

Updated 8 sec ago
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Hundreds of US citizens left Iran in last week, State Dept cable says

  • Washington is looking at ways to potentially evacuate its citizens from Israel, but it has almost no way of assisting Americans inside Iran

WASHINGTON: Hundreds of American citizens have departed Iran using land routes over the past week since an aerial war between the Islamic Republic and Israel broke out, according to an internal State Department cable seen by Reuters on Friday.
While many left without problem, “numerous” citizens had faced “delays and harassment” while trying to exit, the cable said. It said, without giving further details, that one unidentified family had reported that two US citizens attempting to leave Iran had been detained.
The internal cable dated June 20 underscores the challenge Washington is facing in trying to protect and assist its citizens in a country with which it has no diplomatic relations and in a war in which the United States may soon get involved.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The cable was first reported by The Washington Post.
President Donald Trump and the White House said on Thursday he will decide in the next two weeks whether the US will get involved in the Israel-Iran war. Trump has kept the world guessing on his plans, veering from proposing a swift diplomatic solution to suggesting Washington might join the fighting on Israel’s side.
The air war began on June 13 when Israel attacked Iran and has alarmed a region that has been on edge since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023.
Israel is the only country in the Middle East widely believed to have nuclear weapons, and said it struck Iran to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, has retaliated with its own strikes on Israel. Iran is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while Israel is not.

POTENTIAL EVACUATION
The US State Department in a travel alert earlier on Friday urged its citizens wishing to depart Iran to use land routes via Azerbaijan, Armenia or Turkiye. Iranian airspace is closed.
The US Embassy in the Turkmenistan capital of Ashgabat has requested entry for over 100 American citizens, but the Turkmenistan government has yet to give its approval, the cable said.
The Islamic Republic treats Iranian-US dual citizens solely as nationals of Iran, the State Department emphasized.
“US nationals are at significant risk of questioning, arrest and detention in Iran,” the alert said.
Washington is looking at ways to potentially evacuate its citizens from Israel, but it has almost no way of assisting Americans inside Iran. The two countries have had no diplomatic ties since the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Thursday said the administration was looking at different ways to get US citizens out.
“We’re working to get military, commercial, charter flights and cruise ships for evac,” he said in an X post, urging US citizens and green card holders to complete an online form.
As of Friday, more than 6,400 US citizens filled out that form for Israel, a separate internal department email seen by Reuters said. The form allows the agency to predict an approximate figure for potential evacuations.
“Approximately 300-500 US citizens per day would potentially require departure assistance,” said the internal email, also dated June 20 and marked “sensitive.”
The State Department does not have official figures but thousands of US citizens are thought to be residing in Iran and hundreds of thousands in Israel.
Israel’s strikes over the last week have killed 639 people in Iran, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Israel says Iranian attacks have killed 24 civilians in Israel.
“The US Department of State received no reports of US citizen casualties in Israel or Iran,” the second email said.

 


A woman tried to call her mom in Iran. A robotic voice answered the phone

This picture shows a general view of Iran's capital Tehran on June 16, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 16 min 49 sec ago
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A woman tried to call her mom in Iran. A robotic voice answered the phone

  • “Calling your mom and expecting to hear her voice and hearing an AI voice is one of the most scary things I’ve ever experienced,” she said. “I can feel it in my body”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: When Ellie, a British-Iranian living in the United Kingdom, tried to call her mother in Tehran, a robotic female voice answered instead.
“Alo? Alo?” the voice said, then asked in English: “Who is calling?” A few seconds passed.
“I can’t heard you,” the voice continued, its English imperfect. “Who you want to speak with? I’m Alyssia. Do you remember me? I think I don’t know who are you.”
Ellie, 44, is one of nine Iranians living abroad — including in the U.K and US — who said they have gotten strange, robotic voices when they attempted to call their loved ones in Iran since Israel launched airstrikes on the country a week ago.
They told their stories to The Associated Press on the condition they remain anonymous or that only their first names or initials be used out of fear of endangering their families.
Five experts with whom the AP shared recordings said it could be low-tech artificial intelligence, a chatbot or a pre-recorded message to which calls from abroad were diverted.
It remains unclear who is behind the operation, though four of the experts believed it was likely to be the Iranian government while the fifth saw Israel as more likely.
The messages are deeply eerie and disconcerting for Iranians in the diaspora struggling to contact their families as Israel’s offensive targeting Iranian nuclear and military sites pounds Tehran and other cities. Iran has retaliated with hundreds of missiles and drones, and the government has imposed a widespread Internet blackout it says is to protect the country.
That has blocked average Iranians from getting information from the outside world, and their relatives from being able to reach them.
“I don’t know why they’re doing this,” said Ellie, whose mother is diabetic, low on insulin and trapped on the outskirts of Tehran. She wants her mother to evacuate the city but cannot communicate that to her.
A request for comment sent to the Iranian mission to the UN was not immediately answered.
Some of the messages are bizarre
Most of the voices speak in English, though at least one spoke Farsi. If the caller tries to talk to it, the voice just continues with its message.
A 30-year-old women living in New York, who heard the same message Ellie did, called it “psychological warfare.”
“Calling your mom and expecting to hear her voice and hearing an AI voice is one of the most scary things I’ve ever experienced,” she said. “I can feel it in my body.”
And the messages can be bizarre. One woman living in the UK desperately called her mom and instead got a voice offering platitudes.
“Thank you for taking the time to listen,” it said, in a recording that she shared with the AP. “Today, I’d like to share some thoughts with you and share a few things that might resonate in our daily lives. Life is full of unexpected surprises, and these surprises can sometimes bring joy while at other times they challenge us.”
Not all Iranians abroad encounter the robotic voice. Some said when they try to call family, the phone just rings and rings.
It’s not clear who is behind this — or what the goal is
Colin Crowell, a former vice president for Twitter’s global policy, said it appeared that Iranian phone companies were diverting the calls to a default message system that does not allow calls to be completed.
Amir Rashidi, an Iranian cybersecurity expert based in the US, agreed and said the recordings appeared to be a government measure to thwart hackers, though there was no hard evidence.
He said that in the first two days of Israel’s campaign, mass voice and text messages were sent to Iranian phones urging the public to gear up for “emergency conditions.” They aimed to spread panic — similar to mass calls that government opponents made into Iran during the war with Iraq in the 1980s.
The voice messages trying to calm people “fit the pattern of the Iranian government and how in the past it handled emergency situations,” said Rashidi, the director of Texas-based Miaan, a group that reports on digital rights in the Middle East.
Mobile phones and landlines ultimately are overseen by Iran’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology. But the country’s intelligence services have long been believed to be monitoring conversations.
“It would be hard for anybody else to hack. Of course, it is possible it is Israeli. But I don’t think they have an incentive to do this,” said Mehdi Yahyanejad, a tech entrepreneur and Internet freedom activist.
Marwa Fatafta, Berlin-based policy and advocacy director for digital rights group Access Now, suggested it could be “a form of psychological warfare by the Israelis.” She said it fits a past pattern by Israel of using extensive direct messaging to Lebanese and Palestinians during campaigns in Gaza and against Hezbollah.
The messages, she said, appear aimed at “tormenting” already anxious Iranians abroad.
When contacted with requests for comment, the Israeli military declined and the prime minister’s office did not respond.
Trying new ways to contact relatives
Ellie is one of a lucky few who found a way to reach relatives since the blackout. She knows someone who lives on the Iran-Turkiye border and has two phones — one with a Turkish SIM card and one with an Iranian SIM.
He calls Ellie’s mother with the Iranian phone — since people inside the country are still able to call one another — and presses it to the Turkish phone, where Ellie’s on the line. The two are able to speak.
“The last time we spoke to her, we told her about the AI voice that is answering all her calls,” said Ellie. “She was shocked. She said her phone hasn’t rung at all.”
Elon Musk said he has activated his satellite Internet provider Starlink in Iran, where a small number of people are believed to have the system, even though it is illegal. Authorities are urging the public to turn in neighbors with the devices as part of an ongoing spy hunt. Others have illegal satellite dishes, granting them access to international news.
The messages are making relatives feel helpless
M., a woman in the UK, has been trying to reach her mother-in-law, who is immobile and lives in Tehran’s northeast, which has been pummeled by Israeli bombardment throughout the week.
When she last spoke to her family in Iran, they were mulling whether she should evacuate from the city. Then the blackout was imposed, and they lost contact. Since then she has heard through a relative that the woman was in the ICU with respiratory problems.
When she calls, she gets the same bizarre message as the woman in the UK, a lengthy mantra.
“Close your eyes and picture yourself in a place that brings you peace and happiness,” it says. “Maybe you are walking through a serene forest, listening to the rustle of leaves and birds chirping. Or you’re by the seashore, hearing the calming sound of waves crashing on the sand.”
The only feeling the message does instill in her, she said, is “helplessness.”

 


Trump says two weeks is ‘maximum’ for Iran decision

Updated 20 June 2025
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Trump says two weeks is ‘maximum’ for Iran decision

  • Trump also played down the possibility of asking Israel to halt its attacks
  • The US president dismissed the chance of success in talks between European powers and Iran

MORRISTOWN, United States: President Donald Trump said Friday that Iran had a “maximum” of two weeks to avoid possible US air strikes, indicating he could take a decision before the fortnight deadline he set a day earlier.

Trump added that Iran “doesn’t want to talk to Europe,” dismissing the chance of success in talks between European powers and Iran in Geneva on resolving the conflict between Israel and Iran.

Trump also played down the possibility of asking Israel to halt its attacks, after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran would not resume talks with the United States until Israel relented.

“I’m giving them a period of time, and I would say two weeks would be the maximum,” Trump told reporters when asked if he could decide to strike Iran before that.

He added that the aim was to “see whether or not people come to their senses.”

Trump had said in a statement on Thursday that he would “make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks” because there was a “substantial chance of negotiations” with Iran.

Those comments had been widely seen as opening a two-week window for negotiations to end the war between Israel and Iran, with the European powers rushing to talks with Tehran.

But his latest remarks indicated that Trump could still make his decision before that if he feels that there has been no progress toward dismantling Iran’s nuclear program.

Trump dismissed the chances of Europe making a difference, saying the talks between Britain, France, Germany and EU diplomats and Tehran’s foreign minister “didn’t help.”

“Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this,” Trump told reporters as he arrived in Morristown, New Jersey.

Asked if he would ask Israel to stop its attacks as Iran had asked, Trump said it was “very hard to make that request right now.”

“If somebody’s winning, it’s a little bit harder to do than if somebody’s losing, but we’re ready, willing and able, and we’ve been speaking to Iran, and we’ll see what happens.”


In Istanbul, top Arab League diplomats discuss Iran-Israel war

Updated 20 June 2025
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In Istanbul, top Arab League diplomats discuss Iran-Israel war

  • The ministers were in Turkiye’s largest city on the eve of weekend gathering of the OIC
  • Some 40 top diplomats are slated to join the weekend gathering

ISTANBUL: Arab League foreign ministers gathered in Istanbul late Friday to discuss the escalating war between Iran and Israel, Turkish state news agency Anadolu said, quoting diplomatic sources.

The ministers were in Turkiye’s largest city on the eve of weekend gathering of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which was also slated to discuss the air war launched a week ago.

Israel began its assault in the early hours of June 13, saying Iran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons, triggering an immediate immediate retaliation from Tehran in the worst-ever confrontation between the two arch-rivals.

Some 40 top diplomats are slated to join the weekend gathering of the OIC which will also have a session dedicated to discussing the Iran-Israel crisis, the Turkish foreign ministry said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who met with his counterparts from Britain, France and Germany in Geneva on Friday, will also attend and address the diplomats, the ministry said.

Earlier on Friday, Araghchi said Tehran was ready to “consider diplomacy” again only if Israel’s “aggression is stopped.”

The Arab League ministers were expected to release a statement following their meeting, Anadolu said.


US to move third aircraft carrier closer to Mideast conflict

Updated 20 June 2025
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US to move third aircraft carrier closer to Mideast conflict

  • Navy official confirms USS Gerald R. Ford will depart for Europe next week
  • USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group already in Middle East, soon to be joined by USS Nimitz

WASHINGTON: The USS Gerald R. Ford will depart for Europe next week, a Navy official said Friday, placing a third American aircraft carrier in closer proximity to the Middle East as Israel and Iran trade strikes.
Israel launched an unprecedented air campaign against Iran last week, and US President Donald Trump has said he is weighing whether to join Israel in the fight.
“The Gerald Ford carrier strike group will depart Norfolk (Virginia) the morning of June 24 for a regularly scheduled deployment to the US European Command area of responsibility,” the Navy official said.
The USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group has been operating in the Middle East since earlier this year, taking part in an air campaign against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
And a US defense official has confirmed that Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth ordered the Nimitz carrier strike group to the Middle East, saying it was “to sustain our defensive posture and safeguard American personnel.”
Trump said Thursday he will decide whether to join Israel’s strikes on Iran within the next two weeks, citing a chance of negotiations to end the conflict.
That deadline comes after a tense few days in which the US president publicly mulled hitting Iran and said that Tehran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was an “easy target.”
Trump had spent weeks pursuing a diplomatic path toward a deal to replace the nuclear deal with Iran that he tore up in his first term in 2018, but has since backed Israel’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities and military top brass.
A key issue is that the United States is the only country with the huge “bunker buster” bombs that could destroy Iran’s crucial Fordo nuclear enrichment plant.
A number of key figures in his “Make America Great Again” movement have vocally opposed US strikes on Iran, and Trump’s promise to extract the United States from its “forever wars” in the Middle East played a role in his 2016 and 2024 election wins.