Region

TEHRAN — Iran on Tuesday rejected Western calls to stand down its threat to retaliate against Israel for the killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran late last month.

The Islamic republic and its allies have blamed Israel for Haniyeh's killing on July 31 during a visit to the Iranian capital for the swearing-in of President Masoud Pezeshkian. Israel has not commented.

Iran has vowed to avenge the death, which came hours after an Israeli strike in Beirut killed a senior commander of Hizbollah, the powerful Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon.

Western diplomats have scrambled to avert a major conflagration in the Middle East, where tensions were already high due to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

In a statement on Monday, the United States and its European allies urged Iran to de-escalate.

"We called on Iran to stand down its ongoing threats of a military attack against Israel and discussed the serious consequences for regional security should such an attack take place," said the joint statement from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the United States.

The White House warned that a "significant set of attacks" by Iran and its allies was possible as soon as this week, saying Israel shared the same assessment.

The United States has deployed an aircraft carrier strike group and a guided missile submarine to the region in support of Israel.

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani criticised the Western call for it to de-escalate.

"The declaration by France, Germany and Britain, which raised no objection to the international crimes of the Zionist regime, brazenly asks Iran to take no deterrent action against a regime which has violated its sovereignty and territorial integrity," he said in a statement.

"Such a request lacks political logic, flies in the face of the principles and rules of international law, and constitutes public and practical support" for Israel.

 Call for 'unfettered' aid 

The United States and its European allies also called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, with difficult talks set for Thursday on halting the conflict.

They also called for the "unfettered" delivery of aid to devastated Gaza.

The Gaza war began with Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel.

Israel's retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 39,897 people, according to a toll from the territory's health ministry.

International mediators have invited Israel and Hamas to resume negotiations this week on a ceasefire and hostage release deal, an invitation Israel has accepted.

Hamas has urged mediators to implement a truce plan earlier presented by US President Joe Biden instead of holding more talks.

Analyst Esfandyar Batmanghelidj said Iran was considering how to retaliate against Israel without derailing the ceasefire talks.

"The renewed push for a ceasefire offers Iran a way out of this escalatory cycle," Batmanghelidj, CEO of the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation think-tank, told AFP.

"Iranian officials still feel obliged to hit back at Israel, but they must do so in a way that doesn't derail the prospects for a ceasefire summit."

KHAN YUNIS, Palestinian Territories — Palestinians fled southern Gaza's main city on Sunday as Israel warned of a new military operation, a day after one of the deadliest reported strikes in more than 10 months of war.

The Israeli war on the besieged Gaza Strip has sent tensions soaring across the region, including in the occupied West Bank where medics said an Israeli man was killed Sunday in a shooting.

Intense diplomacy in recent days sought to avert a wider war in the Middle East following the killings of Iran-aligned leaders, while international mediators invited Israel and Hamas to resume stalled talks towards a long-sought Gaza truce and hostage-release deal.

AFP journalists said hundreds of Palestinians fled northern neighbourhoods of Khan Yunis, southern Gaza's main city already ravaged by months of bombardment and battles, after Israel issued fresh evacuation orders in the early morning.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said that "just in the past few days, more than 75,000 people have been displaced in southwest Gaza". The entire territory has a population of about 2.4 million people.

Families gathered their meagre belongings as crowds of people left Al Jalaa, some loading mattresses, clothing and cooking utensils into pick-up trucks. Others took to the road on foot.

Umm Sami Shahada, a 55-year-old displaced Palestinian, said she had “fled Gaza City at the start of the war for Khan Yunis”, hoping to find shelter.

“My daughter was killed in bombardment, so we went to Rafah, then we came back here, and now with this new evacuation order we don’t know where to go,” she said.

In northern Gaza, an Israeli air strike on Friday killed at least 93 people at a religious school housing displaced Palestinians, according to civil defence rescuers, sparking international condemnation.

Israel said it targeted militants operating out of Gaza City’s Al Tabieen school and mosque with “precise munitions”, declaring that “at least 19 Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists were eliminated”.

The death toll, which AFP could not independently verify, would be one of the largest from a single strike since the war began.

Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defence agency in Hamas-run Gaza, said on Sunday that identifying the victims could take at least two days as “we have many bodies torn into pieces” and “shredded or burnt by the bombs”.

Hamas in a statement called Arab and Muslim nations to “take effective decisions” to stop the war and demanded an urgent UN Security Council meeting to force Israel “to stop the aggression and genocide”.

The Palestinian group, which has named its Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar to succeed slain political leader Ismail Haniyeh, has yet to respond to an invitation from US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators for truce negotiations on August 15. Israel has accepted.

Haniyeh was killed during a visit to Tehran on July 31, an attack blamed on Israel which has not claimed responsibility. But hours earlier it the military chief of Lebanese Hamas ally Hizbollah in a strike on Beirut.

Iran, Hamas, Hizbollah and other regional allies have vowed retaliation, spurring fears of a wider conflagration.

US President Joe Biden, asked what his message was to Iran, responded: “Don’t”.

TEHRAN — Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian presented his Cabinet to parliament on Sunday, notably including a woman and a Western-friendly diplomat as the country's foreign minister.

Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf announced the names of the 19-member Cabinet presented by the president during an assembly session broadcast live on state television.

For the post of foreign minister, Pezeshkian has named Abbas Araghchi, a 61-year-old career diplomat who has led nuclear negotiations since 2013.

Known for his openness to the West, he played a pivotal role in the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers that was torpedoed three years later by the United States' decision to withdraw from it.

Pezeshkian has also nominated one woman, Farzaneh Sadegh, who would become only the second Iranian woman to hold a ministerial post since the Islamic republic was established in 1979.

The 48-year-old is set to head the ministry of roads and urban development.

The reformist president has named as his future interior minister General Eskandar Momeni, a 60-year-old police commander and former member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Gen. Aziz Nasirzadeh, a former commander of the Iranian Air Force and deputy chief of staff of the armed forces since 2021, is set to take the helm of the defence ministry.

The president has chosen as his future oil minister Mohsen Paknezhad, a 58-year-old executive director with a long career in the country's energy industry.

Parliament is set to begin reviewing candidates on Monday and submit them to a vote by lawmakers starting on Saturday.

In late July, Pezeshkian had announced that he would "consult and coordinate" with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all matters of state, to present the final list of ministers.

In Iran, the vote of confidence is performed by each minister individually, rather than the government as a whole.

On Saturday, the president kept in his position the head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, Mohammad Eslami, who has held the post since 2021.

Eslami was placed on a sanctions list by the United States and the European Union in 2008, when he was deputy defence minister.

Pezeshkian, who took office in late July, had advocated during the election campaign to open Iran up to the world, vowing to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement and ease sanctions on the Islamic republic.

DUBAI — A series of attempted attacks using missiles and a sea drone targeted a merchant vessel off areas of Yemen held by Iran-backed Huthi rebels, a British maritime security agency said Friday.

A rocket-propelled grenade exploded Thursday near the ship off the city of Mokha, which overlooks the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait linking the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said.

A missile also exploded close to the same vessel, which later reported an attempted attack by an uncrewed surface vessel that was shot down by an armed security team on board, UKMTO said.

The drone "exploded a distance from the vessel," according to the agency, which is run by the British navy.

A fourth attack saw a missile splash into the sea near the ship, UKMTO said, adding that the crew and vessel were reported to be safe and continuing to the next port of call.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the operation was consistent with previous operations carried out by the Huthis, who have launched a flurry of drone and missile strikes on ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since November.

The rebels say they are fighting Israel as part of Iran's so-called "axis of resistance" in solidarity with Palestinians amid the Gaza war. 

Maritime security firm Ambrey also reported three attacks on a ship off Yemen's coast, saying they were aligned with previous operations claimed by the Huthis.

Noam Raydan, an expert tracking maritime attacks for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, identified the vessel as the Liberia-flagged crude oil tanker Delta Blue, saying it was carrying a cargo of Iraqi crude oil destined for Greece. 

The MarineTraffic tracking website also said the oil tanker's destination was Greece.

The Huthis' anti-shipping campaign has disrupted maritime traffic in the Red Sea, which usually carries up to 12 percent of global trade.

Rebel chief Abdul Malik al-Huthi on Thursday hailed the decrease in maritime traffic as "a great victory," saying that 177 vessels had been targeted.

The attacks have triggered reprisal strikes by the United States and Britain on Huthi targets inside Yemen.

On Friday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said its forces "destroyed two Iranian-backed Huthi anti-ship cruise missiles and one Huthi ground control station in Huthi-controlled areas of Yemen" over the past 24 hours.

US military forces also destroyed one Huthi uncrewed surface vessel in the Red Sea, CENTCOM said, noting that the "reckless and dangerous behavior by Iranian-backed Huthis continues to threaten regional stability and security."

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanon's Iran-back Hizbollah group said it launched on Saturday explosive-laden drones at a north Israel army base following the killing of a Hamas commander in south Lebanon a day earlier.

Hizbollah fighters launched "squadrons of explosive-laden drones" at the Michve Alon base near the Galilee town of Safed "in response to the attack and assassination carried out by the Israeli enemy in the city of Sidon" on Friday, the group said in a statement.

Hizbollah's media office said it was "the first time" the group had targeted that base.

On Friday, an Israeli strike on a vehicle in the south Lebanon city of Sidon killed a Hamas commander, the Palestinian militant group and the Israeli military said.

Hamas said in a statement that Samer al-Hajj was killed "in a Zionist strike in the city of Sidon".

The Israeli military said that its aircraft struck the Sidon area and "eliminated" Hajj, whom it identified as "a senior commander" for Hamas in Lebanon.

It was the first strike of its kind in Sidon since Hamas launched its October 7 attack on Israel, triggering war in Gaza and prompting its Lebanese ally Hizbollah to begin trading near-daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army in a bid to tie down its troops.

Ten months of cross-border violence has killed some 562 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also including at least 116 civilians, according to the AFP tally.

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — Gaza's civil defence agency said Saturday the death toll from the latest Israeli strike on a school housing displaced Palestinians had risen to more than 90, as Israel's military said it struck a militants' command centre.

AFP could not independently verify the toll which, if confirmed, would appear to be one of the largest from a single strike during 10 months of war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants.

"The death toll is now between 90 to 100 and there are dozens more wounded. Three Israeli rockets hit the school that was housing displaced Palestinians," agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP. 

The government media office in Gaza said the strike killed more than 100 people.

With most of Gaza's 2.4 million people displaced, many have sought refuge in school buildings.

Saturday's incident brings to at least 14 the number of schools struck in Gaza since July 6, killing more than 280 according to an AFP tally of tolls previously given by officials in the territory.

AFPTV live images from the scene showed a large complex with a courtyard where debris lay inside and out. Part of the structure appeared to be a mosque, the upper story of which was partially blown out and charred.

Images showed white-shrouded bodies, blood stains on the ground, and smoke rising from the rubble. 

The Islamic Jihad, a resistance group fighting alongside Hamas, said the strike took place "during the dawn prayer".

Ismail Al-Thawabta, director general of the Gaza government media office, told AFP that the strike "resulted in more than 100 martyrs and dozens of injuries, most of which are in severe and critical condition". 

Gaza government media sources said the school was housing around 250 people, about half of them women and children.

On Thursday, the civil defence agency said Israeli strikes hit two schools in Gaza City, killing more than 18 people. That came after two other schools were hit last Sunday in the city, with at least 30 dead, according to the agency.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel has vowed to eliminate new Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, the alleged mastermind of the October 7 attack, with regional hostilities threatening to boil over as the Gaza war enters its 11th month.

The naming of Sinwar to lead the Palestinian resistance group came as Israel steeled itself for potential Iranian retaliation over the killing of his predecessor Ismail Haniyeh last week in Tehran.

Speaking at a military base on Wednesday, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was "determined" to defend itself.

 Sinwar -- Hamas's leader in Gaza since 2017 -- has not been seen since the October 7 attack, the deadliest in Israel's history.

A senior Hamas official told AFP Sinwar's selection sent a message that the organisation "continues its path of resistance".

Analysts believe Sinwar has been both more reluctant to agree to a Gaza ceasefire and closer to Tehran than Haniyeh, who lived in Qatar.

"If a ceasefire deal seemed unlikely upon Haniyeh's death, it is even less likely under Sinwar," said Rita Katz, executive director of the SITE Intelligence Group, adding Hamas would "only lean further into its hardline militant strategy".

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said it is up to Sinwar to help achieve a ceasefire, saying he "has been and remains the primary decider".

Civilians in both Israel and Gaza met Sinwar's appointment with unease.

Mohammad Al-Sharif, a displaced Gazan, told AFP: "He is a fighter. How will negotiations take place?"

Hizbollah vows response 

Hamas's Lebanon-based ally Hizbollah has also pledged to avenge the deaths of Haniyeh and its own military commander Fuad Shukr in an Israeli strike in Beirut.

In a televised address to mark one week since Shukr's death, Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Tuesday his group would retaliate "alone or in the context of a unified response from all the axis" of Iran-backed groups in the region.

The United States, which has sent extra warships and jets to the region, has urged both Iran and Israel to avoid an escalation.

President Joe Biden this week spoke with regional leaders, while Blinken told reporters the message of restraint had also been communicated "directly" to both Israel and Iran.

French President Emmanuel Macron told Netanyahu on Wednesday to "avoid a cycle of reprisals", after earlier delivering the same message to his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian, the French presidency said.

Pezeshkian told Macron in a separate telephone call that the West "should immediately stop selling arms and supporting" Israel if it wanted to prevent war, his office said.

Israel has not commented on Haniyeh's killing in Iran, but it has confirmed it carried out the strike on Shukr in Beirut.

Flights cancelled 

Hizbollah has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli troops throughout the Gaza war.

On Wednesday, a Lebanese security source said that a Hezbollah fighter and a civilian were killed in an Israeli strike near Jouaiyya close to the border. The Israeli military said it had eliminated a Hamas commander in the area.

The Israeli military later said its jets had destroyed a launcher on Wednesday night that had been used by Hezbollah to send drones towards the Golan Heights earlier in the evening.

Numerous airlines have suspended flights to Lebanon or limited them to daylight hours due to security fears, while Egypt said Iran had warned civilian airlines to steer clear of its airspace as it will be conducting military exercises overnight.

The United Nations said it was "temporarily" reducing the presence of UN staff family members in Lebanon, although it was not moving its staff.

Israel's military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,677 people, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

The war has created a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with almost all of its 2.4 million people displaced and suffering from food shortages.

Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich drew sharp condemnation from some allies on Wednesday for suggesting that "it might be justified" to starve the besieged territory.

"No one in the world will allow us to starve two million people, even though it might be justified and moral in order to free the hostages," he said at a conference earlier this week.

The EU said Smotrich's remarks showed "contempt for international law and for basic principles of humanity".

France expressed its "deep dismay" at the comments, while UK Foreign Minister David Lammy called on "the wider Israeli government to retract and condemn them". 

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Batoul and her family have been scrambling to secure housing outside Beirut's southern suburbs where an Israeli strike killed a senior Hizbollah commander last week, but spiking demand has sent prices soaring.

Many in the southern suburbs -- a packed residential area known as Dahiyeh which is also a Hizbollah bastion -- have been trying to leave, fearing full-blown war between the Iran-backed group and Israel in the wake of the commander's killing.

"We are with the resistance [Hizbollah] to death," said Batoul, a 29-year-old journalist, declining to give her last name as the matter is sensitive.

"But it's normal to be scared... and look for a safe haven," she told AFP.

Iran and its regional allies have vowed revenge for the killing, blamed on Israel, of Hamas's political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last week, just hours after the Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs killed Hezbollah's top military commander Fuad Shukr.

Hizbollah has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces in support of ally Hamas since the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack on Israel triggered war in Gaza.

After the twin killings, fears have mounted of an all-out war, with foreign airlines suspending Beirut flights and countries urging their nationals to leave.

Last week's Beirut strike also killed an Iranian adviser and five civilians -- three women and two children.

"Whoever says they want to stay in Dahiyeh while it's being bombed is lying to themself," Batoul said.

 'No choice' 

On Tuesday, Hizbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said his Shiite Muslim movement and Iran were "obliged to respond" to Israel "whatever the consequences".

Batoul said she had been trying unsuccessfully to rent in "safe areas" -- unaffiliated to Hezbollah -- outside Beirut, but landlords were charging "exorbitant prices".

She said one landlord cancelled suddenly even after she agreed to pay six months' rent in advance for a flat in the mountain town of Sawfar.

A 55-year-old teacher and Hizbollah supporter, who requested anonymity because the matter is sensitive, said she felt lucky to find a flat about 15 kilometres (nine miles) outside Beirut.

But it came with a price tag of $1,500 a month, in a country battered by more than four years of economic crisis.

The teacher, also a Dahiyeh resident, said price gouging was rampant, noting another apartment was listed online for $1,500 a month "but when we arrived, they asked for $2,000".

"They know we have no choice. When there is a war, people will pay any amount of money to be safe," she said.

But "many people will stay (in Dahiyeh) because they cannot afford to rent," she added.

Riyad Bou Fakhreddine, a broker who rents out homes in the Mount Lebanon area near Beirut, said apartments were being snapped up "within half an hour to an hour of being listed".

Some landlords have asked him to raise apartments normally priced at around $500 a month to as high as $2,000, he said.

He said he refused.

"I tell them I'm not a crisis profiteer. I don't want to take advantage of people's fears," he said.

'Polarisation' 

Almost 10 months of cross-border violence have killed some 558 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also including at least 116 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 22 soldiers and 25 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.

Ali, who rents serviced apartments in central Beirut, said his phone had "not stopped ringing" ahead of Nasrallah's speech.

"I booked 10 flats in two days," he said.

"Many people walked in and booked on the spot... Or called me and were here within an hour," said the 32-year-old, who requested to be identified only by his first name.

In 2006, Hizbollah fought a devastating war with Israel, whose air force bombarded Beirut's southern suburbs nightly for a month, flattening hundreds of apartment blocks.

Back then, many people from across Lebanon's sectarian divides expressed support for Hizbollah and solidarity with the Shiite Muslim community, many of whom lost their homes and livelihoods.

But this time, Dahiyeh resident Batoul said solidarity was lacking, with politicians divided after Hezbollah decided unilaterally to begin attacking Israeli positions on October 8.

In 2006, "there wasn't such polarisation," she said.

Landlords and others profiting from high demand on housing now are simply driven by greed, Batoul said.