TEHRAN: The number of declared coronavirus infections in Iran topped 40,000 Monday, as the government warned the outbreak could run for several more months and cost over 10,000 lives.
With the tally climbing, President Hassan Rouhani stood accused of failing to take prompt action by some of his political opponents.
The row came as a report by Iran's anti-coronavirus committee said the country may struggle with the outbreak until at least early summer.
Parviz Karami, who published the study on Instagram, said 11,000 people would die in case of "medium government intervention", including measures already taken by Iran.
Potential fatalities could drop to 7,700 with "maximum" intervention, such as banning movement inside cities and imposing quarantines, he said.
Health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said Monday another 117 people had died from the virus over the past 24 hours and 3,186 new cases had been confirmed, raising the total to more than 41,000.
The death toll had reached 2,757.
According to Jahanpour, 13,911 of those hospitalised have recovered, while 3,511 are in critical condition.
The Islamic republic is one of the countries worst hit by the pandemic.
Iran has been scrambling to contain COVID-19's spread since it reported its first cases on February 19.
After weeks of refraining from imposing a lockdown or quarantine measures, Tehran decided last Wednesday to ban all intercity travel until at least April 8.
There is no official lockdown in Iran's cities although the government has repeatedly urged Iranians to stay at home to contain the spread of the virus.
Rouhani's political opponents argued Monday that it was all too little, too late.
"Coronavirus could have been more quickly contained" if measures such as "social distancing and limitations had been considered sooner", judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi said, quoted by ISNA news agency.
Raisi, an ultra-conservative who ran against Rouhani in the 2017 presidential election, said that "time is of the essence".
The Iranian people had started "cooperating" only after authorities appeared to take the threat seriously, the official said.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a veteran conservative who also stood against Rouhani, charged the administration has mismanaged the crisis.
He accused the authorities of "ignoring reality" and "unjustified optimism".
Rouhani had "worsened the crisis, then asked for help and put the blame on others", Ghalibaf tweeted.
The criticism came as Rouhani called on opponents to assist the government's efforts.
"This is not a time for gathering followers. This is not a time for political war," the president said.
Government spokesman Ali Rabiei on Monday defended the measures adopted by the administration at a time that the country was under crippling US sanctions.
Washington withdrew from a landmark nuclear deal with Tehran and reimposed sanctions on Iran in 2018, targeting the crucial oil and banking sectors, among others.
The administration had taken the necessary steps "once notified" of the COVID-19 outbreak, Rabiei told a news conference.
Its approach had been to try to ensure "that both physical distance be kept and people's everyday lives not be disturbed", he said.
"These two make sense together in an economy under sanctions."
According to Rabiei, the administration has endorsed a $6-billion rescue package to fend off the damage from the outbreak.
It included low-interest loans to businesses to prevent a spike in unemployment and cash handouts to impoverished Iranians.
Some of Iran's top hospitals are experimenting with stem cells to "balance immune system response" in infected patients and find a treatment, according to ISNA.
Iran also said Monday it has started mass production of "highly accurate" coronavirus testing kits that could produce results within 3 hours.
Iran virus cases top 40,000
https://arab.news/85e76
Iran virus cases top 40,000
EU pressing Israel to improve Gaza humanitarian situation, top diplomat says
- EU’s diplomatic service presented 10 options for political action against Israel after it found “indications” Israel breached human rights obligations under pact
- Foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas says the options were prepared in response to member states that want stronger pressure on Israel to rectify suffering of civilians in Gaza
KUALA LUMPUR: The European Union is seeking ways to put pressure on Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, its top diplomat said, as member states weighed action against Israel over what they see as potential human rights violations.
The EU’s diplomatic service on Thursday presented 10 options for political action against Israel after saying it found “indications” last month that Israel breached human rights obligations under a pact governing its ties with the bloc.
In a document prepared for EU member countries and seen by Reuters, the options included major steps such as suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement — which includes trade relations — and lesser steps such as suspending technical projects.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Friday the options were prepared in response to member states that wanted stronger pressure on Israel to rectify the suffering of civilians in Gaza’s now 21-month-old war.
“Our aim is not to punish Israel in any way,” she said after meeting with Asian foreign ministers in Kuala Lumpur on Friday, amid growing global jitters arising from US President Donald Trump’s tariff offensive.
“Our aim is to really improve the situation on the ground (in Gaza), because the humanitarian situation is untenable.”
EU members have voiced concern over the large number of civilian casualties and mass displacement of Gaza’s inhabitants during Israel’s war against Hamas militants in the enclave, and alarm about restrictions on access for humanitarian aid.
Kallas said on Thursday Israel had agreed to expand humanitarian access to Gaza, including increasing the number of aid trucks, crossing points and routes to distribution hubs.
She also said negotiations with the US on a trade deal to avoid high tariffs threatened by Trump were ongoing, and stressed that the EU did not want to retaliate with counter-levies on US imports.
Trump has said the EU could receive a letter on tariff rates by Friday, throwing into question the progress of talks between Washington and the bloc on a potential trade deal.
“We have of course possibilities to react, but we don’t want to retaliate. We don’t want a trade war, actually,” Kallas said.
Lebanese president rules out normalization with Israel
- Joseph Aoun calls on Israel to withdraw from the five points near the border it still occupies in southern Lebanon
- He expressed hope for peaceful relations with Israel in the future
BEIRUT: Lebanese President Joseph Aoun ruled out normalization between his country and Israel on Friday, while expressing hope for peaceful relations with Beirut’s southern neighbor, which still occupies parts of southern Lebanon.
Aoun’s statement is the first official reaction to Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar’s statement last week in which he expressed his country’s interest in normalizing ties with Lebanon and Syria.
Aoun “distinguished between peace and normalization,” according to a statement shared by the presidency.
“Peace is the lack of a state of war, and this is what matters to us in Lebanon at the moment. As for the issue of normalization, it is not currently part of Lebanese foreign policy,” the president said in front of a delegation from an Arab think tank.
Lebanon and Syria have technically been in a state of war with Israel since 1948, with Damascus saying that talks of normalization were “premature.”
The president called on Israel to withdraw from the five points near the border it still occupies. Israel was required to fully withdraw from southern Lebanon under a November ceasefire seeking to end its war with Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Aoun said that Israeli troops in Lebanon “obstruct the complete deployment of the army up to the internationally recognized borders.”
According to the ceasefire agreement, Hezbollah must pull its fighters north of the Litani River, around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border with Israel, leaving the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the area.
The United States has been calling on Lebanon to fully disarm Hezbollah, and Lebanese authorities sent their response to Washington’s demand this week.
The response was not made public, but Aoun stated that Beirut was determined to “hold the monopoly over weapons in the country.”
The implementation of this move “will take into account the interest of the state and its security stability to preserve civil peace on one hand, and national unity on the other,” hinting that Hezbollah’s disarmament will not be done through force.
Hezbollah, a powerful political force in Lebanon, is the only non-state actor to have officially retained its weaponry after the end of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war in 1990, as parts of southern Lebanon were still under Israeli occupation at the time.
The Lebanese group was heavily weakened following its year-long hostilities with Israel, which escalated into a two-month war in September.
UN reports nearly 800 deaths near Gaza aid hubs in six weeks
- Killings took place both at aid points run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and near humanitarian convoys run by other relief bodies
- GHF says UN figures are 'false and misleading' and denies killings took place at its sites
GENEVA: The UN rights office said on Friday it had recorded at least 798 killings within the past six weeks at aid points in Gaza run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and near convoys run by other relief groups.
The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a UN-led system that Israel alleges has let Hamas-led militants loot aid shipments intended for civilians. Hamas denies the allegation.
After the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians trying to reach the GHF’s aid hubs in zones where Israeli forces operate, the United Nations has called its aid model “inherently unsafe” and a violation of humanitarian impartiality standards.
“(From May 27) up until the seventh of July, we’ve recorded 798 killings, including 615 in the vicinity of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, and 183 presumably on the route of aid convoys,” UN rights office (OHCHR) spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told a regular media briefing in Geneva.
The GHF, which began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May after Israel lifted an 11-week-old aid blockade, told Reuters on Friday the UN figures were “false and misleading.” It has repeatedly denied that deadly incidents have occurred at its sites.
“The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys,” a GHF spokesperson said.
The OHCHR said it bases its figures on a range of sources such as information from hospitals in the Gaza Strip, cemeteries, families, Palestinian health authorities, NGOs and its partners on the ground.
Most of the injuries to Palestinians in the vicinity of aid distribution hubs recorded by OHCHR since May 27 were gunshot wounds, Shamdasani said.
“We’ve raised concerns about atrocity crimes having been committed and the risk of further atrocity crimes being committed where people are lining up for essential supplies such as food,” she said.
Israel has repeatedly said its forces operate near the relief aid sites to prevent supplies falling into the hands of militants it has been fighting in the Gaza war triggered by the Hamas-led cross-border attack on October 7, 2023.
The GHF said on Friday it had delivered more than 70 million meals to hungry Gaza Palestinians in five weeks, and that other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted” by Hamas or criminal gangs.The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has previously cited instances of violent pillaging of aid, while the UN World Food Programme said last week that most trucks carrying food assistance into Gaza had been intercepted by “hungry civilian communities.”
There is an acute shortage of food and other basic supplies 21 months into Israel’s military campaign in during which much of the enclave has been reduced to rubble and most of its 2.3 million inhabitants displaced.
Kurdish PKK militants begin handing over weapons in cave in Iraq
- Disarmament ceremony marks a turning point in the transition of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party from armed insurgency to democratic politics
- Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan said peace efforts with the Kurds would gain momentum after the PKK begin laying down its weapons
SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq: Dozens of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants began handing over weapons in a ceremony in a cave in northern Iraq on Friday, officials said, marking a symbolic but significant step toward ending a decades-long insurgency against Turkiye.
Helicopters hovered above the mountain where the disarmament process got underway, with dozens of Iraqi Kurdish security forces surrounding the area, a Reuters witness said.
The PKK, locked in conflict with the Turkish state and outlawed since 1984, decided in May to disband, disarm and end its separatist struggle after a public call to do so from its long-imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan.
After a series of failed peace efforts, the new initiative could pave the way for Ankara to end an insurgency that has killed over 40,000 people, burdened the economy and wrought deep social and political divisions in Turkiye and the wider region.
The ceremony was held inside the Jasana cave in the town of Dukan, 60 kilometers northwest of Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan region of Iraq’s north, according to an Iraqi security official and another regional government official.
Around 40 PKK militants and one commander were to hand over their weapons, people familiar with the plan said. It was unclear when further handovers would take place.
The PKK has been based in northern Iraq after being pushed well beyond Turkiye’s southeastern frontier in recent years. Turkiye’s military has regularly carried out operations and strikes on PKK bases in the region and established several military outposts there.
No footage of the ceremony has been made available yet, but Turkish broadcasters have been showing the crowds gathered near Sulaymaniyah and landscapes of the mountainous region as part of their coverage of what they said was a historic moment.
The arms are to be destroyed later in another ceremony attended by Turkish and Iraqi intelligence figures, officials of Iraq’s Kurdistan regional government, and senior members of Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish DEM party – which also played a key role in facilitating the PKK’s disarmament decision.
Next steps
The PKK, DEM and Ocalan have all called on Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s government to address Kurdish demands for more rights in regions where Kurds form a majority, particularly the southeast where the insurgency was concentrated.
In a rare online video published on Wednesday, Ocalan also urged Turkiye’s parliament to set up a commission to oversee disarmament and manage the broader peace process.
Ankara has taken steps toward forming the commission, while the DEM and Ocalan have said that legal assurances and certain mechanisms were needed to smooth the PKK’s transition into democratic politics.
Omer Celik, a spokesman for Erdogan’s AK Party, said the disarmament process should not be allowed to drag on longer than a few months to avoid it becoming subject to provocations.
Erdogan has said the disarmament will enable the rebuilding of Turkiye’s southeast.
Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek has said Turkiye spent nearly $1.8 trillion over the past five decades combating terrorism, endorsing the peace steps as an economic boon.
The end of NATO member Turkiye’s conflict with the PKK could have consequences across the region, including in neighboring Syria where the United States is allied with Syrian Kurdish forces that Ankara deems a PKK offshoot.
Washington and Ankara want those Kurds to quickly integrate with Syria’s security structure, which has been undergoing reconfiguration since the fall in December of autocratic President Bashar Assad. PKK disarmament could add to this pressure, analysts say.
Gaza civil defense says Israeli forces kill 18
- At least10 people shot by Israeli forces while waiting for supplies in the Al-Shakoush area northwest of Rafah, officials in Gaza say
- Six more people killed in four separate Israeli air strikes in the area of Khan Yunis, in the south of the territory
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli forces killed 18 people on Friday, including 10 who were waiting for aid in the south of the war-ravaged territory.
The fresh deaths came as the United Nations said nearly 800 people had been killed trying to access food in Gaza since late May, when Israel began easing a more than two-month total blockade on supplies.
UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said most of the deaths occurred near facilities operated by the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Gaza civil defense official Mohammed Al-Mughayyir said that 10 people were shot by Israeli forces on Friday while waiting for supplies in the Al-Shakoush area northwest of Rafah, where there are regular reports of deadly fire on aid seekers.
The civil defense reported six more people killed in four separate Israeli air strikes in the area of Khan Yunis, in the south of the territory.
Two drone strikes around Gaza City in the north killed two more people, civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
There was no immediate comment on the latest strikes from the Israeli military, which has recently expanded its operations across Gaza.
Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defense agency and other parties.
A Palestinian speaking to AFP from southern Gaza on condition of anonymity reported ongoing attacks and widespread devastation, with Israeli tanks seen near Khan Yunis.
“The situation remains extremely difficult in the area — intense gunfire, intermittent air strikes, artillery shelling, and ongoing bulldozing and destruction of displacement camps and agricultural land to the south, west and north of Al-Maslakh,” an area to Khan Yunis’s south, said the witness.
Israel’s military said in a statement that its soldiers were operating in the area, dismantling “terrorist infrastructure sites, both above and below ground,” and seizing “weapons and military equipment.”
The civil defense also reported on Friday five people killed in an Israeli strike the previous night on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Jabalia Al-Nazla, in northern Gaza.
Nearly all of Gaza’s population has been displaced at least once during the more than 21-month war, which has created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people living there.
Many have sought shelter in school buildings, but these have repeatedly come under Israeli attack, with the military often saying they were targeting Hamas militants hiding among civilians.
