DUBAI: Iran has transferred five Iranian-Americans from prison to house arrest, US officials said Thursday. The move comes after Tehran has spent months suggesting a prisoner swap with Washington in exchange for billions of dollars frozen in South Korea.
Iranian officials at the United Nations confirmed the agreement to The Associated Press.
The complicated, multinational deal comes amid months of heightened tensions between Iran and the US. A major American military buildup in the Arabian Gulf is underway, with the possibility of armed US troops boarding and guarding commercial ships traveling through the crucial Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of all oil traded passes.
It remains unclear whether the Iranian-Americans’ transfers, however, guarantee they’ll make it home. Iran in past months has overstated progress in talks, likely conducted with mediation from Oman and Qatar, on a potential trade.
The US in March called remarks by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian that a deal for a swap was close a “cruel lie.”
US-based lawyer Jared Genser identified three of the transferred prisoners as Siamak Namazi, Emad Sharghi and Morad Tahbaz. Genser, who has represented Namazi, did not identify the fourth and fifth prisoners. The five likely will be held at a hotel under guard until they possibly leave Iran, Genser added.
“The move by Iran of the American hostages from Evin Prison to an expected house arrest is an important development,” Genser said in a statement. “While I hope this will be the first step to their ultimate release, this is at best the beginning of the end and nothing more. But there are simply no guarantees about what happens from here.”
Sharghi’s sister, Neda Sharghi, also acknowledged the transfer.
“My family has faith in the work that President Biden and government officials have undertaken to bring our families home and hope to receive that news soon,” she said in a statement. “Until that point, I hope you can understand that we do not think it will be helpful to comment further.”
Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council, acknowledged the prisoners’ move to house arrest and described the negotiations for their release as “ongoing” and delicate.”
“While this is an encouraging step, these US citizens ... should have never been detained in the first place,” she said in a statement. “We will continue to monitor their condition as closely as possible. Of course, we will not rest until they are all back home in the United States.”
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not acknowledge a request for comment.
It remains unclear how many Iranian-Americans are held by Tehran, which does not recognize dual citizenship.
The three released prisoners cited by Genser whose identities are known are Namazi, who was detained in 2015 and later sentenced to 10 years in prison on internationally criticized spying charges; Sharghi, a venture capitalist sentenced to 10 years in prison; and Tahbaz, a British-American conservationist of Iranian descent who was arrested in 2018 and also received a 10-year sentence.
Comments by US officials in recent months had suggested there could be a fourth detainee in Iran, and an Iranian newspaper in August had reported there was a fifth prisoner, revealing the case amid apparent negotiations for the release.
Iran, meanwhile, has said it seeks the release of Iranian prisoners held in the US
Iranian media in the past identified several prisoners of interest with cases tied to violations of US export laws and restrictions on doing business with Iran.
The alleged violations include the transfer of funds through Venezuela and sales of dual-use equipment that the US alleges could be used in Iran’s military and nuclear programs. Iran has been enriching uranium and stockpiling it as part of its advancing nuclear program.
The deal hinges on some $6 billion to $7 billion in Iranian assets tied up in South Korean banks, frozen due to international sanctions on Tehran. Already, Tehran seized a South Korean oil tanker amid the dispute and threatened further retaliation in August.
“Definitely Iran will not remain silent, and we have many options that could harm the Koreans and we will certainly use them,” said Fadahossein Maleki, a member of Iran’s parliament who sits on its influential national security and foreign policy committee.
Iran and the US have a history of prisoner swaps dating back to the 1979 US Embassy takeover and hostage crisis following the Islamic Revolution. The most-recent major exchange between the two countries happened in 2016, when Iran came to a deal with world powers to restrict its nuclear program in return for an easing of sanctions.
Four American captives, including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, flew home from Iran, and several Iranians in the United States won their freedom. That same day, the Obama administration airlifted $400 million in cash to Tehran.
Iran has received international criticism over its targeting of dual nationals amid tensions with the wider world. A United Nations panel has described “an emerging pattern involving the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of dual nationals.” The West accuses Iran of using foreign prisoners as bargaining chips in political negotiations, an allegation Tehran rejects.
Negotiations over a major prisoner swap faltered after then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the nuclear deal in 2018. From the following year on, a series of attacks and ship seizures attributed to Iran have raised tensions. While President Joe Biden entered office with hopes of restarting the deal, diplomatic negotiations on the accord have been stalled for a year.
It remains unclear how any possible deal would affect Biden, who now is ordering the Arabian Gulf buildup. In 2016, then-President Barack Obama received withering criticism from Republicans over that prisoner swap, though he already was nearing the end of his second term. Biden will face re-election in November 2024, potentially against Trump.
Those in the US long critical of diplomacy with Iran began questioning the deal immediately after Genser’s announcement.
“Paying $6 billion in ransom payments means the regime will only take more hostages,” said Mark Dubowitz of the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which led criticism of the Iran nuclear deal. “This has become a lucrative means of international extortion for Iran’s supreme leader.”
That troop buildup, however, may insulate Biden from criticism from Gulf Arab nations in the Arabian Gulf, who rely on American security guarantees. The US also is negotiating with Saudi Arabia over potentially recognizing Israel diplomatically, a deal that may involve further guarantees about military support against Iran. That’s even as Riyadh reached a détente with Iran in March after years of tensions.
Also long missing in Iran is retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who vanished on the Iranian island of Kish in 2007. A 2013 Associated Press investigation revealed he had been sent on an unauthorized CIA mission. The US alleges he was abducted by Iranian government agents. Iran has denied arresting Levinson or knowing his whereabouts.
He is presumed to have died in Iranian custody. He would be 75 years old now.
Iran transfers 5 Iranian-American prisoners to house arrest
https://arab.news/4v5b3
Iran transfers 5 Iranian-American prisoners to house arrest
- “The move by Iran of the American hostages from Evin Prison to an expected house arrest is an important development,” Genser said
Iran to hold nuclear talks with 3 European powers January 13: local media
- Iran insists on its right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and has consistently denied any ambition of developing nuclear weapons capability
Tehran: Iran will hold nuclear talks with France, Britain, and Germany on January 13 in Switzerland, local media reported on Wednesday, quoting a foreign ministry official.
“The new round of talks between Iran and three European countries will be held in Geneva on January 13,” said Kazem Gharibabadi, Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs, according to ISNA news agency.
He added the talks were only “consultations, not negotiations.”
The three European countries had on Dec. 17 accused Iran of growing its stockpile of high-enriched uranium to “unprecedented levels” without “any credible civilian justification.”
They have also raised the possibility of restoring sanctions against Iran to keep it from developing its nuclear program.
Iran has in recent years increased its manufacturing of enriched uranium such that it is the only non-nuclear weapons state to possess uranium enriched to 60 percent, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear watchdog said.
That level is well on the way to the 90 percent required for an atomic bomb.
On November 29, Iran held a discreet meeting with the three European powers in Geneva which Gharibabadi at the time described as “candid.”
Iran insists on its right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and has consistently denied any ambition of developing nuclear weapons capability.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all state matters, has long issued a religious decree, or fatwa, prohibiting atomic weapons.
Late Monday, Iran’s security chief Ali Akbar Ahmadian maintained that Iran has “not changed” its nuclear doctrine against pursuing atomic weapons.
The January 13 talks will take place one week before Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
In 2015, Iran and world powers — including France, Britain and Germany — reached an agreement that saw the easing of international sanctions on Tehran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.
But the United States, during Trump’s first term in office, unilaterally withdrew from the accord in 2018 and reimposed biting economic sanctions.
Tehran adhered to the deal until Washington’s withdrawal, and then began rolling back on its commitments.
Gaza babies die from winter cold say medics and families
- Yahya Al-Batran clutched the tiny clothes of his dead newborn son Jumaa, just days after the baby died from the cold in their tent in war-torn Gaza
DEIR EL BALAH: Yahya Al-Batran clutched the tiny clothes of his dead newborn son Jumaa, just days after the baby died from the cold in their tent in war-torn Gaza.
“We are watching our children die before our eyes,” said the 44-year-old.
Their baby was one of the seven children who died from the cold within the span of a week, the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry said on Monday.
“We fled the bombing from Beit Lahia, only for them to die from the cold here?” said the child’s mother Noura Al-Batran, referring to their hometown in northern Gaza.
The 38-year-old is still recovering from giving birth prematurely to Jumaa and his surviving twin brother, Ali, who is being treated in an intensive care unit at a hospital in southern Gaza.
Completely destitute and repeatedly displaced by the Israel aggression on Gaza, the Batran family live in a makeshift tent in Deir el-Balah made of worn-out blankets and fabric.
Like hundreds of others now living in a date palm orchard, they have struggled to keep warm and dry amid heavy rains and temperatures that have dropped as low as eight degrees Celsius (46 degrees Fahrenheit).
“We don’t have enough blankets or suitable clothing. I saw my baby start to freeze, his skin turned blue and then he died,” she cried.
The twins were born prematurely and she said the doctor decided to take the babies out of the incubator despite the family not having access to heating.
On a rain-soaked mat, the father hugged his older children tight with blankets and worn-out cloth in a corner of their tent.
He then placed a small pot of water on the stove to make tea, which he then mixed with dry bread to make a meagre lunch for his family with a little cheese and the thyme-based spice blend called zaatar.
Like thousands of other families enduring dire conditions, they face shortages of food, fuel, and medicine, with the United Nations warning of an imminent collapse of the health care system.
In southern Gaza’s Khan Yunis, Mahmoud Al-Fasih said he found his infant daughter, Seela, “frozen from the cold” in their small tent near Al-Mawasi beach, where they were displaced from Gaza City.
He rushed her to the hospital in the area that Israel has designated a “humanitarian zone,” but she was already dead.
Ahmad Al-Farra, a doctor and director of the emergency and children’s department at Nasser Hospital, told AFP that the three-week-old baby arrived at the hospital with “severe hypothermia, without vital signs, in cardiac arrest that led to her death.”
Another 20-day-old baby, Aisha Al-Qassas, also died of cold in the area, according to her family.
“In Gaza, everything leads to death,” said the baby’s uncle, Mohamed Al-Qassas. “Those who do not die under Israeli bombardments succumb to hunger or cold.”
The Hamas government press office in Gaza warned on Monday of the impact of more harsh weather expected in the coming days, saying it posed a “real threat to two million displaced people,” the majority of whom live in tents.
Farra warned that this would likely be accompanied by “the death of greater numbers of children, infants, and the elderly.”
“Life in tents is dangerous due to the cold and the scarcity of energy and heating sources,” he said.
Israeli strikes kill 9 in Gaza as war grinds into the new year with no end in sight
- Gaza’s Health Ministry says seven people were killed, including a woman and four children, and that at least a dozen other people were wounded
DEIR AL-BALAH: Israeli strikes killed at least nine Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, mostly women and children, officials said Wednesday, as the nearly 15-month war ground on into the new year with no end in sight.
“Fifteen people were martyred and more than 20 were injured in this massacre after midnight in a house where displaced people were living in the town of Jabalia,” civil defense agency’s spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP. The Israeli military, when contacted, said it was looking into the reported strike.
Bassal said that those living in the house were members of the Badra, Abu Warda, and Taroush families who had sought refuge there.
Most of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once since the start of the war on October 7 last year.
Since October 6, the Israeli military has been conducting a major land and air offensive in northern Gaza, particularly targeting the city of Jabalia and its adjacent refugee camp, in what it described as an effort to prevent Hamas militants from regrouping there.
The assault has since been expanded across the northern areas of the Palestinian territory and last week targeted a major hospital which is now empty of its staff and patients.
On Friday, the Israeli military raided the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, describing it as “one of the largest” operations targeting militants since the start of the war.
The military said it killed more than 20 militants and detained over 240 others, including the director of the hospital, who it claims, is a suspected Hamas militant.
Rights groups and the World Health Organization have called for the immediate release of Hossam Abu Safiyeh, whose detention is seen as a blow to the territory’s devastated health care system.
One strike hit a home in the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza, the most isolated and heavily destroyed part of the territory, where Israel has been waging a major operation since early October.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says seven people were killed, including a woman and four children, and that at least a dozen other people were wounded.
Another strike overnight into Wednesday in the built-up Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza killed a woman and a child, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and abducting around 250. About 100 hostages are still held in Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed over 45,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It says women and children make up more than half the fatalities but does not say how many of those killed were militants.
The Israeli military says it only targets militants and blames Hamas for civilian deaths because its fighters operate in dense residential areas. It says it has killed 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The war has caused widespread destruction and displaced some 90 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, many of them multiple times.
Hundreds of thousands are living in tents on the coast as winter brings frequent rainstorms and temperatures drop below 10 degrees Celsius (50 F) at night. At least four infants have died of hypothermia.
American and Arab mediators have spent nearly a year trying to broker a ceasefire and hostage release, but those efforts have repeatedly stalled as Hamas demands a lasting ceasefire and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayhu vows to keep fighting until “total victory” over the militants.
A new year dawns on a Middle East torn by conflict and change
- Last year was a dramatic one in the Middle East, bringing calamity to some and hope to others
- War-weary Palestinians in Gaza say they see little hope 2025 will bring an end to their suffering
DAMASCUS: In Damascus, the streets were buzzing with excitement Tuesday as Syrians welcomed in a new year that seemed to many to bring a promise of a brighter future after the unexpected fall of Bashar Assad’s government weeks earlier.
While Syrians in the capital looked forward to a new beginning after the ousting of Assad, the mood was more somber along Beirut’s Mediterranean promenade, where residents shared cautious hopes for the new year, reflecting on a country still reeling from war and ongoing crises.
War-weary Palestinians in Gaza who lost their homes and loved ones in 2024 saw little hope that 2025 would bring an end to their suffering.
The last year was a dramatic one in the Middle East, bringing calamity to some and hope to others. Across the region, it felt foolish to many to attempt to predict what the next year might bring.
In Damascus, Abir Homsi said she is optimistic about a future for her country that would include peace, security and freedom of expression and would bring Syrian communities previously divided by battle lines back together.
“We will return to how we once were, when people loved each other, celebrated together whether it is Ramadan or Christmas or any other holiday — no restricted areas for anyone,” she said.
But for many, the new year and new reality carried with it reminders of the painful years that came before.
Abdulrahman Al-Habib, from the eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor, had come to Damascus in hopes of finding relatives who disappeared after being arrested under Assad’s rule. He was at the capital’s Marjeh Square, where relatives of the missing have taken to posting photos of their loved ones in search of any clue to their whereabouts.
“We hope that in the new year, our status will be better ... and peace will prevail in the whole Arab world,” he said.
In Lebanon, a tenuous ceasefire brought a halt to fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group a little over a month ago. The country battered by years of economic collapse, political instability and a series of calamities since 2019, continues to grapple with uncertainty, but the truce has brought at least a temporary return to normal life.
Some families flocked to the Mzaar Ski Resort in the mountains northeast of Beirut on Tuesday to enjoy the day in the snow even though the resort had not officially opened.
“What happened and what’s still happening in the region, especially in Lebanon recently, has been very painful,” said Youssef Haddad, who came to ski with his family. “We have great hope that everything will get better.”
On Beirut’s seaside corniche, Mohammad Mohammad from the village of Marwahin in southern Lebanon was strolling with his three children.
“I hope peace and love prevail next year, but it feels like more (challenges) await us,” he said.
Mohammad was among the tens of thousands displaced during more than a year of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. Now living in Jadra, a town that was also bombarded during the conflict, he awaits the end of a 60-day period, after which the Israeli army is required to withdraw under the conditions of a French and US-brokered ceasefire.
“Our village was completely destroyed,” Mohammad said. His family would spend a quiet evening at home, he said. This year “was very hard on us. I hope 2025 is better than all the years that passed.”
In Gaza, where the war between Hamas and Israel has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians, brought massive destruction and displaced most of the enclave’s population, few saw cause for optimism in the new year.
“The year 2024 was one of the worst years for all Palestinian people. It was a year of hunger, displacement, suffering and poverty,” said Nour Abu Obaid, a displaced woman from northern Gaza.
Obaid, whose 10-year-old child was killed in a strike in the so-called “humanitarian zone” in Muwasi, said she didn’t expect anything good in 2025. “The world is dead,” she said. “We do not expect anything, we expect the worst.”
The war was sparked by the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in which militants killed around 1,200 people and abducted some 250 others.
Ismail Salih, who lost his home and livelihood, expressed hopes for an end to the war in 2025 so that Gaza’s people can start rebuilding their lives.
The year that passed “was all war and all destruction,” he said. “Our homes are gone, our trees are gone, our livelihood is lost.”
In the coming year, Salih said he hopes that Palestinians can “live like the rest of the people of the world, in security, reassurance and peace.”
‘Like a dream’: Photographer’s return to Syria
- AFP photographer Sameer Al-Doumy never dreamed he would be able to return to the hometown in Syria that he escaped through a tunnel seven years ago after it was besieged by Bashar Assad’s forces
DOUMA: AFP photographer Sameer Al-Doumy never dreamed he would be able to return to the hometown in Syria that he escaped through a tunnel seven years ago after it was besieged by Bashar Assad’s forces.
Douma, once a rebel stronghold near Damascus, suffered terribly for its defiance of the former regime, and was the victim of a particularly horrific chemical weapons attack in 2018.
“It is like a dream for me today to find myself back here,” he said.
“The revolution was a dream, getting out of a besieged town and of Syria was a dream, as it is now being able to go back.
“We didn’t dare to imagine that Assad could fall because his presence was so anchored in us,” said the 26-year-old.
“My biggest dream was to return to Syria at a moment like this after 13 years of war, just as it was my biggest dream in 2017 to leave for a new life,” said the award-winning photographer who has spent the last few years covering the migrant crisis for AFP’s Lille bureau in northern France.
“I left when I was 19,” said Sameer, all of whose immediate family are in exile, apart from his sister.
“This is my home, all my memories are here, my childhood, my adolescence. I spent my life in Douma in this house my family had to flee and where my cousin now lives.
“The house hasn’t changed, although the top floor was destroyed in the bombardments.
“The sitting room is still the same, my father’s beloved library hasn’t changed. He would settle down there every morning to read the books that he had collected over the years — it was more important to him than his children.
“I went looking for my childhood stuff that my mother kept for me but I could not find it. I don’t know if it exists anymore.
“I haven’t found any comfort here, perhaps because I haven’t found anyone from my family or people I was close to. Some have left the country and others were killed or have disappeared.
“People have been through so much over the last 13 years, from the peaceful protests of the revolution, to the war and the siege and then being forced into exile.
“My memories are here but they are associated with the war which started when I was 13. What I lived through was hard, and what got me through was my family and friends, and they are no longer here.
“The town has changed. I remember the bombed buildings, the rubble. Today life has gone back to a kind of normal as the town waits for people to return.”
Douma was besieged by Assad’s forces from the end of 2012, with Washington blaming his forces for a chemical attack in the region that left more than 1,400 people dead the following year.
Sameer’s career as a photojournalist began when he and his brothers began taking photos of what was happening around them.
“After the schools closed I started to go out filming the protests with my brothers here in front of the main mosque, where the first demonstration in Douma was held after Friday prayers, and where the first funerals of the victims were also held.
“I set up my camera on the first floor of a building which overlooks the mosque and then changed my clothes afterwards so I would not be recognized and arrested. Filming the protests was banned.
“When the security forces attacked, I would take the SIM card out of my phone and the memory card out of my camera and put them in my mouth.”
That way he could swallow them if he was caught.
In May 2017, Sameer fled through a tunnel dug by the rebels and eventually found himself in the northern rebel enclave of Idlib with former fighters and their families.
“I took the name Sameer Al-Doumy (Sameer from Douma) to affirm that I belonged somewhere,” even though he was exiled, he said. “I stopped using my first name, Motassem, to protect my family living in Damascus.
“In France I have a happy and stable life. I have a family, friends and a job. But I am not rooted to any particular place. When I went back to Syria, I felt I had a country.
“When you are abroad, you get used to the word ‘refugee’ and you get on with your life and make a big effort to integrate in a new society. But your country remains the place that accepts you as you are. You don’t have to prove anything.
“When I left Syria, I never thought one day I would be able to return. When the news broke, I couldn’t believe it. It was impossible Assad could fall. Lots of people are still in shock and are afraid. It is hard to get your head around how a regime that filled people with so much fear could collapse.
“When I returned to the Al-Midan district of Damascus (which had long resisted the regime), I could not stop myself crying.
“I am sad not to be with my loved ones. But I know they will return, even if it takes a while.
“My dream now is that one day we will all come together again in Syria.”
