DUBAI: As the Internet was slowly being revived across Iran on Friday after a dayslong, government-imposed shutdown amid demonstrations, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for Iranians to send the US videos “documenting the regime’s crackdown” on protesters.
“The US will expose and sanction the abuses,” Pompeo tweeted early Friday, as pockets of Iran saw Internet over landlines restored.
Authorities have said the Internet may be entirely restored soon, suggesting Iran’s government put down the demonstrations that began Nov. 15 over government-set gasoline prices rising.
Amnesty International said Tuesday that protest unrest and a subsequent security crackdown killed at least 106 people. Iran disputes that figure without offering its own. A UN office earlier said it feared the unrest may have killed “a significant number of people.”
The jump in gasoline prices represents yet another burden on Iranians who have suffered through a painful currency collapse. That’s a result of the reimposition of crippling US economic sanctions as part of President Donald Trump’s maximum pressure campaign against Tehran, following his unilateral withdrawal of the US from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Iran’s relatively moderate President Hassan Rouhani has promised the fuel price increase will fund new subsidies for poor families. Rouhani declared victory Wednesday in the unrest, blaming “the Zionists and Americans” for the violence.
In Tehran’s suburbs, people described the assailants in the unrest as moving quickly, something mentioned by others. Gas stations and banks, both private and state-owned, were seriously damaged.
“Everything happened in seconds,” homemaker Maliheh Qorani said in Tehran’s western Tehransar neighborhood. “Dozens of young and organized men smashed the windows of the bank and threw (gasoline bombs) into the building.”
Abolhassan Firoozabadi, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme Cyberspace Council, told journalists Thursday that he believed the Internet would be turned on “within the next two days.”
Authorities restored Internet service Thursday in Iran’s Hormozgan province, home to the port city of Bandar Abbas, the state-run IRNA news agency report. Semiofficial news agencies said service was being restored in other parts of the country on Thursday afternoon, something the Internet watchdog NetBlocks also noted.
“At the current time national connectivity has risen further to 10%,” NetBlocks said in a tweet.
Iran’s state TV said Friday that air defense exercises were being carried out as part of its annual military drills. State TV showed footage of air defense missile systems being fired and a patrol by jet fighters in the northern Semnan province.
Iran operates a domestically built air defense system alongside the sophisticated S-300 defense system from Russia. In June, Iran shot down an unmanned US drone over the strategic Strait of Hormuz for alleged violation of its airspace.
Meanwhile, activists said Thursday that six conservationists working to save the critically endangered Asiatic cheetah have been sentenced to prison on internationally criticized espionage charges in Iran.
The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran said Thursday that the convicted members of the nonprofit Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation face six to 10 years in prison for “contacts with the US enemy state.” The conservationists found themselves arrested over their use of camera traps to track the cheetahs, a common tool of wildlife experts.
Pompeo urges Iranians to share videos showing ‘regime’s crackdown’ on protesters
Pompeo urges Iranians to share videos showing ‘regime’s crackdown’ on protesters
- Iran put down the demonstrations that began Nov. 15 over gasoline prices rising
- Rouhani has promised the fuel price increase will fund new subsidies for poor families
3 killed in Lebanon amid protests as Israeli forces remain after withdrawal deadline
- Lebanese army says one of its soldiers killed by Israeli fire south of the country
- Israeli forces opened fire on protesters who had breached roadblocks the Israeli army set up a day before
MAYS AL-JABAL, Lebanon: At least three people were killed and more than 40 others injured in southern Lebanon Sunday when Israeli forces opened fire on protesters who had breached roadblocks the Israeli army set up a day before, Lebanon’s health ministry reported.
Demonstrators, some of them carrying Hezbollah flags, attempted to enter several villages in the border area to protest Israel’s failure to withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon by the 60-day deadline stipulated in a ceasefire agreement that halted the Israel-Hezbollah war in late November.
Israel has said that it needs to stay longer because the Lebanese army has not deployed to all areas of southern Lebanon to ensure that Hezbollah does not reestablish a military presence in the area. The Lebanese army has said it cannot deploy until Israeli forces withdraw.
The Lebanese army also said Sunday that Israeli fire killed one of its soldiers in the south of the country, where hundreds of residents were trying to return to their homes on the deadline for Israel to withdraw.
“A soldier was martyred... and another was wounded” after having been “targeted by fire from the Israeli enemy as part of its ongoing aggression,” the army said in a statement.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, said in a statement addressing the people of southern Lebanon on Sunday that “Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are non-negotiable, and I am following up on this issue at the highest levels to ensure your rights and dignity.”
He urged them to “exercise self-restraint and trust in the Lebanese Armed Forces.” The Lebanese army, in a separate statement, said it was escorting civilians into some towns in the border area and called on residents to follow military instructions to ensure their safety.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, whose Amal Movement party is allied with Hezbollah and who served as an interlocutor between the militant group and the US during ceasefire negotiations, said in a statement that Sunday’s bloodshed “is a clear and urgent call for the international community to act immediately and compel Israel to withdraw from occupied Lebanese territories.”
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said in a statement that one protester was killed and 10 others injured in the border village of Houla. Another protester was killed in the village of Aitaroun and 11 injured. A third protester was killed in the village of Blida and one person injured. The health ministry also reported injuries in the areas of Mays Al-Jabal, Markaba, Bani Hayyan, Odaisseh, Rab Thalatin and Kfar Kila.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the protests.
The Israeli army’s Arabic language spokesman called Sunday morning in a post on X for residents of the border area not to attempt to return to their villages.
An AP team was stranded overnight at a base of the UN peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL near Mays Al-Jabal after the Israeli army erected roadblocks Saturday while they were joining a patrol by peacekeepers. The journalists reported hearing gunshots and booming sounds Sunday morning from the base, and peacekeepers said that dozens of protesters had gathered nearby.
In the village of Aita al Shaab, families wandered over flattened concrete structures looking for remnants of the homes they left behind. No Israeli forces were present.
“These are our houses,” said Hussein Bajouk, one of the returning residents. “However much they destroy, we will rebuild.”
Bajouk added that he is convinced that former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs in September, is really still alive.
“I don’t know how much we’re going to wait, another month or two months... but the Sayyed will come out and speak,” he said using an honorific for Nasrallah.
Some 112,000 Lebanese remain displaced, out of over 1 million displaced during the war.
– with AFP
Israeli fire kills 1, wounds 7 as Palestinians are kept out of north Gaza over a ceasefire dispute
- Under the ceasefire, Israel on Saturday was to begin allowing Palestinians to return to their homes in northern Gaza on foot
- Israel put the move on hold until Hamas freed a hostage who Israel said was supposed to have been released
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: A Palestinian man was killed and seven people were wounded by Israeli fire overnight, local health officials said Sunday, as crowds gathered in hopes of returning to the northern Gaza Strip under a fragile week-old ceasefire aimed at winding down the war.
In a separate development, President Donald Trump suggested Saturday that most of Gaza’s population should be at least temporarily resettled elsewhere, including in Egypt and Jordan, in order to “just clean out” the war-ravaged enclave. Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians themselves have previously rejected such a scenario.
Under the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, Israel on Saturday was to begin allowing Palestinians to return to their homes in northern Gaza on foot through the so-called Netzarim corridor bisecting the territory. Israel put the move on hold until Hamas freed a hostage who Israel said was supposed to have been released that day.
The man was shot and two others were wounded late Saturday, according to the Awda Hospital, which received the casualties. Another five Palestinians, including a child, were wounded early Sunday in a separate shooting, the hospital said.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Israel has pulled back from several areas of Gaza as part of the ceasefire, which came into force last Sunday, but the military has warned people to stay away from its forces, which are still operating in a buffer zone inside Gaza along the border and in the Netzarim corridor.
Hamas freed four young female Israeli soldiers on Saturday, and Israel released some 200 Palestinian prisoners, most of whom were serving life sentences after being convicted of deadly attacks.
But Israel said another hostage, the female civilian Arbel Yehoud, was supposed to have been released as well, and that it would not open the Netzarim corridor until she was freed. It also accused Hamas of failing to provide details on the conditions of the hostages set to be freed in the coming weeks.
The United States, Egypt and Qatar, which mediated the ceasefire, were working to address the dispute.
The ceasefire reached earlier this month after more than a year of negotiations is aimed at ending the 15-month war triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack and freeing scores of hostages still held in Gaza in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
Around 90 hostages are still being held in Gaza, and Israeli authorities believe at least a third, and up to half of them, were killed in the initial attack or died in captivity.
The first phase of the ceasefire runs until early March and includes the release of a total of 33 hostages and nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. The second — and far more difficult — phase, has yet to be negotiated. Hamas has said it will not release the remaining hostages without an end to the war, while Israel has threatened to resume its offensive until Hamas is destroyed.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people in the Oct. 7 attack, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 people. More than 100 were freed during a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages and recovered the remains of dozens more, at least three of whom were mistakenly killed by Israeli forces. Seven have been freed since the latest ceasefire began.
Israel’s military campaign has killed over 47,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not say how many of the dead were combatants. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
Israeli bombardment and ground operations have flattened wide swaths of Gaza and displaced around 90 percent of its population of 2.3 million people. Many who have returned to their homes since the ceasefire began have found only mounds of rubble where their neighborhoods once stood.
WHO chief urges end to attacks on Sudan health care after 70 killed in drone strike
- WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: ‘We continue to call for a cessation of all attacks on health care in Sudan’
The head of the World Health Organization called on Saturday for an end to attacks on health care workers and facilities in Sudan after a drone attack on a hospital in Sudan’s North Darfur region killed more than 70 people and wounded dozens.
“As the only functional hospital in El Fasher, the Saudi Teaching Maternal Hospital provides services which include gyn-obstetrics, internal medicine, surgery and pediatrics, along with a nutrition stabilization center,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on X after the Friday strike.
“We continue to call for a cessation of all attacks on health care in Sudan, and to allow full access for the swift restoration of the facilities that have been damaged,” Tedros said.
The war between Sudan’s army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which broke out in April 2023 due to disputes over the integration of the two forces, has killed tens of thousands, driven millions from their homes and plunged half of the population into hunger.
The conflict has produced waves of ethnically driven violence blamed largely on the RSF, creating a humanitarian crisis.
Darfur Governor Mini Minnawi said on X that an RSF drone had struck the emergency department of the hospital in the capital of North Darfur, killing patients, including women and children.
Fierce clashes have erupted in El Fasher between the RSF and the Sudanese joint forces, including the army, armed resistance groups, police, and local defense units.
Devastating toll for Gaza’s children: Over 13,000 killed and an estimated 25,000 injured, UN says
- UN says out of 40,717 Palestinian bodies identified so far, roughly a third or 13,319 were children
- Nearly 19,000 children were hospitalized for acute malnutrition in four months before December 2025
UNITED NATIONS: The war in Gaza has been devastating for children: More than 13,000 have been killed, an estimated 25,000 injured, and at least 25,000 hospitalized for malnutrition, according to UN agencies.
As Britain’s deputy UN ambassador, James Kariuki, recently told the Security Council, “Gaza has become the deadliest place in the world to be a child.”
“The children of Gaza did not choose this war,” he said, “yet they have paid the ultimate price.”
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported Thursday that of the 40,717 Palestinian bodies identified so far in Gaza, one-third – 13,319 – were children. The office said Friday the figures came from Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
The UN children’s agency, UNICEF, said the estimate of 25,000 children injured came from its analysis based on information collected together with Gaza’s Health Ministry.
UN deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said nearly 19,000 children had been hospitalized for acute malnutrition in the four months before December.
That figure also came from UNICEF, which said it was from data collected by UN staff in Gaza focusing on nutrition, in coordination with all pertinent UN agencies.
The UN says thousands of children have also been orphaned or separated from their parents during the 15-month war.
Yasmine Sherif, executive director of the UN global fund Education Cannot Wait, told a press conference that 650,000 school-age children haven’t been attending classes and the entire education system has to be rebuilt because of the widespread destruction in Gaza.
Diplomats from Britain, France and other countries also cited the toll on Israeli children who were killed, injured and abducted during Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 – with some still being held hostage.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon asked the Security Council whether it ever paused to consider the plight of Israeli children “mutilated, tortured and murdered” on Oct. 7, the 30 who were kidnapped and the tens of thousands who have been displaced, their homes destroyed.
“The trauma they have endured is beyond imagination,” he said.
Danon called Thursday’s council meeting on children in Gaza “an affront to common sense,” accusing Hamas of turning Gaza into “the world’s largest terror base” and using children as human shields.
“The children of Gaza could have had a future filled with opportunity,” he said. “Instead, they are trapped in a cycle of violence and despair, all because of Hamas, not because of Israel.”
Devastating toll for Gaza’s children: Over 13,000 killed and an estimated 25,000 injured, UN says
- The UN says thousands of children have also been orphaned or separated from their parents during the 15-month war
UNITED NATIONS: The war in Gaza has been devastating for children: More than 13,000 have been killed, an estimated 25,000 injured, and at least 25,000 hospitalized for malnutrition, according to UN agencies.
As Britain’s deputy UN ambassador, James Kariuki, recently told the Security Council, “Gaza has become the deadliest place in the world to be a child.”
“The children of Gaza did not choose this war,” he said, “yet they have paid the ultimate price.”
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported Thursday that of the 40,717 Palestinian bodies identified so far in Gaza, one-third – 13,319 – were children. The office said Friday the figures came from Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
The UN children’s agency, UNICEF, said the estimate of 25,000 children injured came from its analysis based on information collected together with Gaza’s Health Ministry.
UN deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said nearly 19,000 children had been hospitalized for acute malnutrition in the four months before December.
That figure also came from UNICEF, which said it was from data collected by UN staff in Gaza focusing on nutrition, in coordination with all pertinent UN agencies.
The UN says thousands of children have also been orphaned or separated from their parents during the 15-month war.
Yasmine Sherif, executive director of the UN global fund Education Cannot Wait, told a press conference that 650,000 school-age children haven’t been attending classes and the entire education system has to be rebuilt because of the widespread destruction in Gaza.
Diplomats from Britain, France and other countries also cited the toll on Israeli children who were killed, injured and abducted during Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 – with some still being held hostage.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon asked the Security Council whether it ever paused to consider the plight of Israeli children “mutilated, tortured and murdered” on Oct. 7, the 30 who were kidnapped and the tens of thousands who have been displaced, their homes destroyed.
“The trauma they have endured is beyond imagination,” he said.
Danon called Thursday’s council meeting on children in Gaza “an affront to common sense,” accusing Hamas of turning Gaza into “the world’s largest terror base” and using children as human shields.
“The children of Gaza could have had a future filled with opportunity,” he said. “Instead, they are trapped in a cycle of violence and despair, all because of Hamas, not because of Israel.”
