WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday he was willing to go to Iran for talks amid tensions between Tehran and Washington, but also called on Japan, Britain and other nations to join a maritime force to guard oil tankers sailing through the Strait of Hormuz.
Asked if he would be willing to go to Tehran, Pompeo said in an interview with Bloomberg TV: “Sure. If that’s the call, I’d happily go there... I would welcome the chance to speak directly to the Iranian people.”
Tensions between Iran and the United States have ratcheted up since last year, when President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Iranian nuclear deal, formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, saying it was not strong enough. Washington also reimposed sanctions on Tehran.
Trump and Iranian leaders have both publicly said talks were possible, but the prospect for dialogue appeared to recede on Wednesday when the top military adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tehran would not negotiate with Washington under any circumstances.
The relationship between the two countries has come under increased strained over the past three months following attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Iran.
In a separate interview broadcast by Fox News, Pompeo said that Washington had already asked Japan, France, Germany, South Korea, Australia and other nations to join a planned maritime security initiative in the Middle East.
“Every country that has an interest in ensuring that those waterways are open and crude oil and other products can flow through the Strait of Hormuz needs to participate,” Pompeo said.
A senior diplomat in Japan, Washington’s key Asian ally, told Reuters that Pompeo had talked with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by telephone on Friday, but that Japan was not in a position to decide if or how it could join any maritime force until the United Sates provided a blueprint of how such an operation would work.
“We don’t know where they want to lead,” he said, asking not to be identified because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
Pompeo’s comments came after Iran on Wednesday tested what appeared to be a medium-range ballistic missile that traveled about 1,000 km (620 miles), said a US defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The test did not pose a threat to shipping or any US personnel in the region, the official said.
Pompeo says he’d go to Iran if needed as he asks US allies to join maritime force
Pompeo says he’d go to Iran if needed as he asks US allies to join maritime force
- Tensions between Iran and the United States have ratcheted up since last year, when President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Iranian nuclear deal
- The relationship between the two countries has come under increased strained over the past three months following attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz
Israel, WHO say evacuated dozens of Gazans for medical care
- The WHO said the “patients included those with autoimmune diseases, blood diseases, cancer, kidney conditions and trauma injuries”
JERUSALEM: Israel and the World Health Organization said more than 200 Gazans, both patients and their carers, were evacuated to the United Arab Emirates or Romania Wednesday for medical treatment.
In total, the group numbered some 230 people, according to the WHO and COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body responsible for civil affairs in the Palestinian territories.
“This is the largest number of patients and caregivers who have left through the Kerem Shalom crossing in recent months,” COGAT said in a statement.
The operation was carried out in cooperation with the UAE, the European Union and the WHO, it added.
The WHO said the “patients included those with autoimmune diseases, blood diseases, cancer, kidney conditions and trauma injuries.”
The patients were transferred from Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Israel, and then to Ramon Airport near Eilat in southern Israel.
The WHO’s representative in the Palestinian territories, Rik Peeperkorn, had said Tuesday that those on the evacuation list were among up to 14,000 people currently waiting in Gaza to be evacuated for medical reasons.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 43,391 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to Gaza health ministry figures which the United Nations considers to be reliable.
The ministry also lists 102,347 people as having been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began.
Peeperkorn said Tuesday that fewer than 5,000 people had been granted medical evacuations out of the territory since the war began.
Gazans want Donald Trump to end war
- Israel demolishes seven Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, declaring them ‘illegal’
GAZA, JERUSALEM: Palestinians in Gaza want Donald Trump, who won the US election, to end the war between Israel and Hamas that has devastated their territory.
“We were displaced, killed ... there’s nothing left for us, we want peace,” Mamdouh Al-Jadba, who was displaced to Gaza City from Jabalia, said.
“I hope Trump finds a solution, we need someone strong like Trump to end the war and save us, enough, God, this is enough,” said the 60-year-old. “I was displaced three times, my house was destroyed, my children are homeless in the south ... There’s nothing left, Gaza is finished.”
Umm Ahmed Harb, from the Al-Shaaf area east of Gaza City, was also counting on Trump to “stand by our side” and end the territory’s suffering.
“God willing the war will end, not for our sake but for the sake of our young children who are innocent, they were martyred and are dying of hunger,” she said.
“We cannot buy anything with the high prices (of food). We are here in fear, terror and death.”
For Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, where violence has also surged since October last year, Trump’s victory was reason to fear for the future.
“Trump is firm in some decisions, but these decisions could serve Israel’s interests politically more than they serve the Palestinian cause,” said Samir Abu Jundi, a 60-year-old in the city of Ramallah.
Another man who identified himself only by his nickname, Abu Mohammed, said he also saw no reason to believe Trump’s victory would be in favor of the Palestinians, saying “nothing will change except more decline.”
Imad Fakhida, a school principal in the main West Bank city of Ramallah, said “Trump’s return to power ... will lead us to hell and there will be a greater and more difficult escalation.”
He added: “He is known for his complete and greatest support for Israel.”
During his campaign for a return to the White House, Trump said Gaza, which is located on the eastern Mediterranean, could be “better than Monaco.”
He also said he would have responded the same way as Israel did following the Oct. 7 attack, while urging the US ally to “get the job done” because it was “losing a lot of support.”
More broadly he has promised to bring an end to raging international crises, even saying he could “stop wars with a telephone call.”
In Gaza, such statements gave reason for hope. “We expect peace to come and the war to end with Trump because in his election campaign he said that he wants peace and calls for stopping the wars on Gaza and the Middle East,” said Ibrahim Alian, 33, from Gaza City.
Like many of the territory’s residents, Alian has been displaced several times by the fighting. He said he also lost his father to the war.
“God willing the war on the Gaza Strip will end and the situation will change,” he said.
Meanwhile, municipal workers demolished seven homes in occupied East Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood on Tuesday, Palestinian residents and the municipality said, after an Israeli court called their construction illegal.
“This morning the Jerusalem municipality, with a security escort from the Israel police, began its enforcement against illegal buildings in the Al-Bustan neighborhood in Silwan,” Jerusalem’s Israeli-controlled city hall said in a statement.
UN says Gaza polio vaccination campaign complete
- The second round of the polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip was completed Tuesday, with an overall 556,774 children under the age of 10 being vaccinated
- An estimated 7,000 to 10,000 children are stuck in “inaccessible areas” in the north and “remain unvaccinated”
JERUSALEM: The UN said Wednesday its Gaza child polio vaccination drive was complete, with more than half a million children vaccinated despite the Israel-Hamas war raging in the Palestinian territory.
The World Health Organization and the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF launched a second round of vaccinations in northern Gaza on Saturday after Israeli bombing halted an earlier attempt to do so.
“The second round of the polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip was completed yesterday (Tuesday), with an overall 556,774 children under the age of 10 being vaccinated with a second dose,” said a joint statement.
It “is a remarkable achievement given the extremely difficult circumstances the campaign was executed under.”
Israel’s military has pounded northern Gaza for weeks in a major offensive it says is aimed at stopping Hamas militants from regrouping.
An estimated 7,000 to 10,000 children are stuck in “inaccessible areas” in the north and “remain unvaccinated and vulnerable to the poliovirus,” the UN organizations said.
The vaccination campaign had been a “success,” according to a statement Wednesday from COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body that manages civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories.
The drive began on September 1 with a successful first round, after the besieged territory confirmed its first polio case in 25 years.
Typically spread through sewage and contaminated water, poliovirus is highly infectious.
It can cause deformities and paralysis and is potentially fatal, mainly affecting children aged under five.
The vaccination campaign was managed primarily by UN agencies including the WHO, UNICEF and UNRWA — the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
Last month Israel’s parliament adopted a law banning UNRWA’s activities on Israeli territory.
The aid agency remains “the largest primary health care provider in the Gaza Strip,” according to Louise Wateridge, UNRWA’s senior emergency officer.
The WHO said Saturday four children were among six people wounded in a strike on a polio vaccination center in northern Gaza.
It was unclear who carried out the attack.
The UN agencies on Wednesday again called for a ceasefire.
“Humanitarian pauses... must be systematically applied beyond the polio emergency response efforts to other health and humanitarian interventions to respond to dire needs,” they said.
Hezbollah says attacked Israel naval base with drones, missiles
- Hezbollah fighters “targeted the Stella Maris naval base northwest of Haifa with a salvo of high-quality missiles and a squadron of attack drones,” the group said
- In the evening, it said it targeted a base south of Tel Aviv, also for the first time
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Hezbollah group claimed a slew of attacks on Wednesday, including two that targeted naval bases near the Israeli city of Haifa and two near Tel Aviv.
Hezbollah fighters “targeted the Stella Maris naval base northwest of Haifa with a salvo of high-quality missiles and a squadron of attack drones,” the group said in a statement.
It was the fourth attack on the base in as many weeks.
Later Wednesday, Hezbollah said it launched “attack drones on the Haifa naval base in Haifa Bay, for the first time.”
In the evening, it said it targeted a base south of Tel Aviv, also for the first time.
Earlier, Hezbollah said it attacked a base near the country’s main international airport close to Tel Aviv.
The Israel Airports Authority said operations at the airport were not affected by the attack.
Hezbollah began low-intensity cross-border attacks on Israel in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
More than a year of clashes that escalated into war in September have killed at least 3,050 people in Lebanon, according to health ministry figures.
Israel’s Netanyahu discusses ‘Iranian threat’ with Trump
- Trump and Netanyahu agreed to work together for Israel’s security
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed the “Iranian threat” in a call with US president-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday as the wars in Gaza and Lebanon show no sign of easing.
Netanyahu’s office said in a statement the Israeli premier “congratulated Trump on his election victory, and the two agreed to work together for Israel’s security.
“The two also discussed the Iranian threat,” it added.
Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, said Wednesday tens of thousands of its militants were ready to fight Israel, adding that the US election result would have no bearing on the war in Lebanon.
Its leader warned that nowhere in Israel would be “off-limits” to attacks, as the Israeli military said about 120 projectiles were fired across the border on Wednesday.
Israel’s military also said a missile was fired into southern Israel from central Gaza, where it has battled the Tehran-backed Hamas group since Palestinian militants launched a deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Hezbollah’s main bastion of south Beirut came under Israeli air attack after a warning to evacuate.
Israel and Hezbollah have been at war since late September, when the Israeli military widened the focus of its Gaza war to securing its northern border with Lebanon.
Hezbollah began low-intensity cross-border attacks on Israel last year, in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas after the October 7 attack.
Efforts to end the war in Gaza sparked by the Hamas attack have yet to bear fruit, and the war in Lebanon has killed at least 3,050 people since October 2023, the health ministry said Wednesday.
In a televised speech marking 40 days since his predecessor Hassan Nasrallah was killed in a strike, new Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said: “We have tens of thousands of trained resistance combatants” ready to fight.
His address aired after Trump’s victory was announced, but had been recorded earlier.
Qassem said whoever won the election would have no impact on any possible ceasefire deal for Lebanon.
“What will stop this... war is the battlefield” he said, citing fighting in south Lebanon and Hezbollah attacks on Israel.
Hezbollah announced Wednesday it had Iran-made Fatah 110 missiles, a weapon with a 300-kilometer range that military expert Riad Kahwaji described as the group’s “most accurate.”
It also said it targeted a naval base near the Haifa in Israel with drones and missiles, the fourth attack on the base in as many weeks.
Earlier, Hezbollah said it targeted a military base near Israel’s main airport close to commercial hub Tel Aviv, but Israel’s Airports Authority said operations were not disrupted.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported Israeli air strikes on the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon and the southern city of Nabatiyeh.
An AFP correspondent in the eastern city of Baalbek reported intense strikes in and around the city.
Israel is “betting on prolonging the war so it becomes a war of attrition... We are ready,” Qassem said in his second speech since being named Hezbollah secretary-general last week.
He also called for Lebanese sovereignty to be safeguarded in any truce talks.
Qassem demanded explanations from the Lebanese army after Israeli commandos seized a man from north Lebanon on Saturday who they said was a senior Hezbollah operative.
He said the operation was “a great offense to Lebanon” and a “violation” of its sovereignty.
On Tuesday, a Lebanese judicial official told AFP Israeli commandos used a speedboat equipped with advanced devices capable of jamming UN peacekeepers’ radar in the operation, according to a preliminary probe.
The UN Maritime Task Force has helped Lebanon’s military to monitor territorial waters and prevent the entry of arms or related material by sea since 2006, according to the mission’s website.
In Gaza, where the 13-month war has had a devastating impact, people were desperate for a solution and voiced the hope Trump might offer one.
Hamas’s October 7 attack resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 43,391 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry the United Nations considers reliable.
“We were displaced, killed... there’s nothing left for us, we want peace,” said 60-year-old Mamdouh Al-Jadba, who was displaced to Gaza City from Jabalia.
“I hope Trump finds a solution, we need someone strong like Trump to end the war and save us...”
Netanyahu earlier feted Trump’s “huge victory” as “history’s greatest comeback.”
The United States is Israel’s top ally and military backer, and the election came at a critical time for the Middle East.
While maintaining the steady flow of aid to Israel, US President Joe Biden’s administration had for months piled pressure on Netanyahu to agree to a truce.
Analysts say Netanyahu wanted a Trump return, given their longstanding personal friendship and the American’s hawkishness on Israel’s arch-foe Iran.
