https://arab.news/4ua4s
The US military said on Tuesday that its forces had destroyed two anti-ship cruise missile launchers in a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen.
US Central Command said on the social media site X that the missile launchers “presented an imminent threat to US and coalition forces and to merchant vessels transiting the region.”
DUBAI: Iranians will vote for a new president on Friday following Ebrahim Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash, choosing from a tightly controlled group of four candidates loyal to the supreme leader, at a time of growing public frustration.
While the election is unlikely to bring a major shift in the Islamic Republic’s policies, the outcome could influence the succession to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s 85-year-old supreme leader, in power for three-and-a-half decades.
Khamenei has called for a “maximum” turnout to offset a legitimacy crisis fueled by public discontent over economic hardship and curbs on political and social freedoms.
Voter turnout has plunged over the past four years, with a mostly young population chafing at political and social restrictions.
Polls open at 8:00 am local time (0430 GMT) and close at 6:00 p.m. (1430 p.m. GMT), but are usually extended until as late as midnight. As ballots are counted manually, the final result is expected to be announced only in two days although initial figures may come out sooner.
If no candidate wins at least 50 percent plus one vote from all ballots cast including blank votes, a run-off round between the top two candidates is held on the first Friday after the election result is declared.
Three of the candidates are hard-liners and one a low-profile comparative moderate, backed by the reformist faction that has largely been sidelined in Iran in recent years.
Critics of Iran’s clerical rule say the low and declining turnout of recent elections shows the system’s legitimacy has eroded. Just 48 percent of voters participated in the 2021 election that brought Raisi to power, and turnout hit a record low of 41 percent in a parliamentary election three months ago.
The election now coincides with escalating regional tensions due to war between Israel and Iranian allies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as increased Western pressure on Iran over its fast-advancing nuclear program.
The next president is not expected to produce any major policy shift on Iran’s nuclear program or support for militia groups across the Middle East, since Khamenei calls all the shots on top state matters. However, the president runs the government day-to-day and can influence the tone of Iran’s foreign and domestic policy.
A hard-line watchdog body made up of six clerics and six jurists aligned with Khamenei vets candidates. It approved just six candidates from an initial pool of 80. Two hard-line candidates subsequently dropped out.
Prominent among the remaining hard-liners are Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, parliament speaker and former commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, and Saeed Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator who served for four years in Khamenei’s office.
The sole comparative moderate, Massoud Pezeshkian, is faithful to the country’s theocratic rule but advocates detente with the West, economic reform, social liberalization and political pluralism.
His chances hinge on reviving the enthusiasm of reform-minded voters who have largely stayed away from the polls for the last four years after previous pragmatist presidents achieved little change. He could also benefit from his rivals’ failure to consolidate the hard-line vote.
All four candidates have vowed to revive the flagging economy, beset by mismanagement, state corruption and sanctions reimposed since 2018 after the US ditched Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six world powers.
The hashtag #ElectionCircus has been widely posted on social media platform X by Iranians in the past few weeks, with some activists at home and abroad calling for an election boycott, arguing that a high turnout would legitimize the Islamic Republic.
GAZA CITY: There is little Gaza’s doctors can do to alleviate the pain that three-year-old Suhaib Khuzaiq still feels from a shrapnel injury that caused his leg to be amputated above the knee in December.
“He is in pain and in need of painkillers and a prosthetic limb that is only available outside Gaza,” his father Ali Khuzaiq, 31, told AFP from Gaza City’s Al-Ahli hospital where Suhaib receives treatment.
On December 6, an Israeli air strike on their neighborhood of Tal Al-Hawa, southwest of Gaza City, injured Suhaib and destroyed their home, displacing the family who are now staying with relatives, Khuzaiq said.
The war and Israel’s blockade have caused a shortage of medicines and destroyed much of Gaza’s medical capacity.
As a result, amputations have become a key way of handling injuries that in other circumstances might have been treated differently, causing their number to soar further.
Citing data from UNICEF, the chief of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on Tuesday that in Gaza “every day 10 children... are losing one leg or two legs on average,” adding that it meant “around 2,000 children” had lost legs since the start of the war.
UNICEF’s spokesman Jonathan Crickx later told AFP that difficulties in gathering data in a war zone meant the figures were only “estimates” that would take time to verify, but that the agency “has met many children who have lost limbs.”
Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for Gaza’s Civil Defense agency, told AFP that the estimate seemed realistic, because “as the civil defense crews work in the field, with every strike they recover children, many of whom lose either legs or arms, sometimes requiring amputations reaching high points on the limb.”
Medical sources said that amputations are often the only available option, but they have to be performed in inadequate conditions.
“There are moments when anaesthesia is not available, but in order to save the lives of citizens, we resort to amputation, and this causes severe pain for the wounded,” doctor Maher, a surgeon at Al-Ahli hospital, told AFP.
“Every day, there are attacks that result in amputations of legs or arms for children, adults, and women.”
In May, nonprofit Save The Children said that “thousands of child amputees and injured children are struggling to recover without adequate pain relief and devices like wheelchairs.”
Proper prostheses are in short supply in the Gaza Strip, which is subject to a tight blockade that does not automatically allow medical equipment and medicines to enter the territory.
“God willing, the crossings will open and Suhaib will receive treatment outside Gaza. Hospitals here have neither treatment nor medicines,” Khuzaiq said.
The situation at his hospital is particularly dire because northern Gaza is harder to access, making shortages there graver while most hospitals are “going out of service due to direct targeting by the Israeli army,” he said.
Marwa Abu Zaida, 40, and her eight-year-old son Nasser Abu Drabi also hope to travel abroad to get access to treatment and prostheses.
Her leg and his arm were amputated after they were injured when an Israeli strike hit their home in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahia.
“I hope that the war will end, that the crossing will be opened, and that facilities will be provided to us so that we can travel, install (artificial) limbs, and live our lives normally,” she told AFP from Al-Ahli hospital.
“My son and I worry when we need to change the wound dressing because of the pain we are experiencing,” she said, because they have no painkillers.
Medical evacuations are needed but are rare in Gaza, including for other patients such as those in need of cancer treatment, said Bashar Murad of the Palestinian Red Crescent in Gaza.
“There is no cancer treatment in Gaza. We cannot treat cases with chemotherapy or radiation inside the Strip,” he said.
“The health sector has collapsed entirely in Gaza. 25,000 cases require traveling out of the Strip for treatment,” and only 4,000 have been able to leave,” Murad added.
Ali Khuzaiq has little hope that his son will be evacuated.
“People get sick and the healthy fall ill. There is no hope, comfort or anything uplifting,” he said.
The war started with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,765 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
JERUSALEM: The United Nations children’s fund said Thursday that Israel had agreed to restore power to a key desalination plant in southern Gaza, which could provide much-needed water to a million displaced people.
“UNICEF confirms an agreement (with Israel) was reached to re-establish the medium voltage feeder power line for the Southern Gaza Desalination Plant,” said Jonathan Crickx, the agency’s spokesman in the Palestinian territories.
Water has become scarce for the Palestinian territory’s 2.4 million residents since war broke out nearly nine months ago.
More than two thirds of Gaza’s sanitation and water facilities have been destroyed or damaged, according to data cited by UN agencies, and only an intermittent supply of bottled water has been allowed in since Israel imposed a punishing siege on the territory.
The plant in Khan Yunis, once resupplied with electricity, should produce enough water to “meet what humanitarian standards define as a minimum intake of 15 liters per day of drinking water per person, for nearly a million displaced people” in southern Gaza, Crickx said.
“This is an important milestone, and we are very much looking forward to seeing it implemented.”
Israel’s coordinator for civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories, known as COGAT, did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.
The plant should be able to produce 15,000 cubic meters, or 15 million liters, of water per day at full capacity, according to UNICEF.
After Hamas’s unprecedented attack on October 7, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced that he was imposing “a complete siege” on Gaza with “no electricity, no water, no gas.”
Since then, the humanitarian situation has deteriorated considerably, according to aid groups working in Gaza.
Crickx said it was vital to also see “generators and infrastructure to be delivered” to address the damage to the war-battered territory, adding more than 60 percent of its water distribution systems have been damaged since October.
The Gaza war started with Hamas’s attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 37,765 people, also mostly civilians, according to data provided by the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
GAZA STRIP: Palestinians fled eastern Gaza City on Thursday under heavy bombardment as the Israeli military issued an evacuation order for the area it had previously declared clear of Hamas militants.
The flare-up in the northern Gaza Strip’s Shujaiya district, which witnesses and medics said caused numerous casualties, comes as fears grow of a wider regional conflagration involving Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah, a Hamas ally.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, on a visit to Washington to discuss the Gaza crisis and ways to avoid broader conflict in the Middle East, said Israel did not want war but warned fighting on a massive scale would send Lebanon “back to the Stone Age.”
In Gaza, fighting has ground on despite comments Sunday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the “intense phase” of the war — now nearing its 10th month — was winding down.
Officials and medics in the Hamas-run territory said Israeli strikes overnight and early Thursday killed at least six people in northern Gaza, and the Israeli military said it had “attacked terrorists” in Khan Yunis,” in the south.
In Gaza City, a witness in Shujaiya who declined to be named told AFP the situation was “frightening” as Israeli military vehicles approached amid air strikes and shelling.
“Residents are running through the streets in terror... wounded and martyrs lie in the streets.”
The military’s Arabic-language spokesman, Avichay Adraee, told residents and displaced Gazans in the Shujaiya area to leave “for your safety,” in a message posted on social media.
They were asked to head south, to a declared “humanitarian zone” about 25 kilometers (15 miles) away.
An AFP photographer saw many leaving on foot, carrying their belongings as they walked through rubble-strewn streets.
Hamas in a statement said Israeli forces were “starting a ground incursion,” reporting “several” dead as “thousands flee under relentless bombing.”
Muhammad Ghurab, a doctor at Gaza City’s Al-Ahli hospital, said the facility had received seven “martyrs including four children” and dozens who were wounded “as the Israeli forces advanced to the east of Shujaiya neighborhood.”
Shujaiya resident Omar Sukar said he saw strikes as Gazans were collecting drinking water, which has been in limited supply due to an Israeli siege.
“The water truck had just arrived when the shelling began,” he told AFP.
A displaced Gazan woman, who asked not to be named, told AFP she was “devastated” by the violence and destruction.
“We lost our children and homes, and we keep fleeing from place to another.”
Beyond the evacuation order announced by Adraee, the military declined to comment on the fighting.
The war started with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza although the army says 42 are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,765 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from Gaza’s health ministry.
Israel in early January announced it had dismantled “Hamas’s military framework” in Gaza’s north, which saw the most intense fighting in the early stages of the war, but militants have since regrouped.
The war and siege have triggered a dire humanitarian crisis, with Gaza hospitals struggling to function, and basic supplies hard to come by as the vast majority of the territory’s 2.4 million people have been displaced.
UNICEF announced Thursday an agreement with Israel to restart a power line that could return a key water desalination plant in Khan Yunis to full operating capacity.
“This is an important milestone, and we are very much looking forward to seeing it implemented,” said Jonathan Crickx, spokesman for the United Nations children’s fund.
In a rare medical evacuation from Gaza, 21 cancer patients left through the Kerem Shalom crossing on the Israeli border, a medical source in Egypt said.
It was the first evacuation since the closure of the Rafah border crossing — a key conduit for aid into Gaza — when Israeli forces took over its Palestinian side in early May.
Months of talks toward a truce and hostage release deal have so far failed as Israel has rejected Hamas demands for a permanent end to fighting and full troop withdrawal.
Israeli protesters have piled pressure on Netanyahu’s government,with thousands gathering in front of Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem on Thursday to call for a hostage release deal, according to an AFP reporter.
US officials have voiced hope a Gaza ceasefire could also lead to a reduction in hostilities between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, which have traded near daily cross-border fire since early October.
Tensions have surged as Israel said this month that its war plans were ready, sparking threats from Hezbollah that, in the event of all-out war, none of Israel would be safe.
Germany and Canada have advised citizens in Lebanon to leave.
In the latest clashes on Thursday, Hezbollah said it fired rockets at an Israeli military base and sent drones in retaliation for Israeli strikes on Lebanon, one of which killed a fighter.
Israel said its air defenses “intercepted most of the launches,” reporting no casualties.
Israel meanwhile dismissed a UN-backed report that said nearly half a million Gazans faced “catastrophic” hunger.
Government spokesman David Mencer said “claims regarding starvation” were designed to “exert pressure on Israel.”
WASHINGTON: The US on Thursday announced sanctions against shipping companies for transporting Iranian oil, saying it was a response to Tehran’s nuclear “escalation,” on the eve of presidential elections in the Islamic republic.
“Over the past month, Iran has announced steps to further expand its nuclear program in ways that have no credible peaceful purpose,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
He said the United States was imposing the sanctions “in response to these continued nuclear escalations,” saying, “We remain committed to never letting Iran obtain a nuclear weapon, and we are prepared to use all elements of national power to ensure that outcome.”
The State Department announced sanctions on three shipping companies for allegedly transporting Iranian oil as well as 11 associated vessels.
The sanctions block any assets of the companies in the US and criminalize US transactions with them.
The United States already has a sweeping unilateral ban on other countries buying Iranian oil, imposed by former president Donald Trump when he withdrew from a nuclear deal.
President Joe Biden’s administration initially said it would restore the 2015 deal but gave up after exhaustive negotiations with Tehran, major protests inside Iran and, more recently, tension over Iran’s support for Palestinian militants Hamas.
The UN nuclear watchdog said earlier this month that Iran is further expanding its nuclear capacities, with Tehran informing the agency that it was installing more cascades at enrichment facilities.
Iran’s cleric-led government denies seeking a nuclear weapon. Iran on Friday holds elections for president after conservative Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash.
