Region

GENEVA — The United Nations on Tuesday said it remained extremely worried about the fate of UN and NGO staff seized by Yemen's Huthi rebels, urging their immediate release.

Last month the Iran-backed Houthis detained more than a dozen people from UN agencies and non-governmental organisations in what appeared to be a coordinated move.

"We remain extremely worried about the well-being of 13 UN staff and a number of NGO employees who have been detained for over a month now by the Ansar Allah de facto authorities in Yemen. We continue to be refused access to them," UN human rights office spokesman Jeremy Laurence told a media briefing in Geneva.

"We also remain particularly concerned by the situation of two other UN staff members who were already in prolonged detention — one since November 2021 and the other since August 2023."

The Houthis claimed they had arrested “an American-Israeli spy network” operating under the cover of humanitarian organisations.

“We emphatically reject the shocking allegations, publicly broadcast, levelled against our staff, and we urge the de facto authorities in Sanaa to immediately and unconditionally release them,” said Laurence.

“Our office calls on those states and entities with influence over Ansar Allah to use it to secure the safe and prompt release of all detained UN and NGO staff.

“We are also deeply worried about the conditions in which they are being held.”

He said it was crucial that the Houthis ensure that those detained are treated with full respect for their human rights, and be allowed to contact their families and legal representatives.

“Further targeting of human rights and humanitarian workers in Yemen must cease immediately,” he insisted.

The Houthis are engaged in a long-running civil war that has triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. More than half of the population is dependent on aid in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country.

The rebels seized control of the capital Sanaa in September 2014, prompting a Saudi-led military intervention on behalf of the government the following March.

They Houthis have kidnapped and tortured hundreds of civilians since the start of the conflict, according to

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — The authorities in Gaza said an Israeli strike on Saturday on a UN-run school where thousands of displaced were sheltering killed 16 people.

Israel's military said its aircraft had targeted "terrorists" operating around the Al Jawni school in Nuseirat, central Gaza.

The health ministry in the territory, which condemned the strike as an "odious massacre", said 50 injured were taken to hospital from the school.

Some 7,000 people were sheltering in the school at the time of the attack, the Hamas government press office said. Dozens of people scrambled through the rubble after the strike to find survivors.

The press office said the school was run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, and most of the casualties were "children, women, and elderly".

"This is the fourth time they have targeted the school without warning," said one woman, Samah Abu Amsha, who told how some children were killed as they read the Koran in a class when the missile hit.

"Shrapnel flew at me inside the classroom and the children were injured," she told AFP.

Hamas called the attack "a new massacre and crime committed by this criminal enemy as part of its war of genocide against our Palestinian people".

The Israeli military said in a statement it “struck several terrorists operating in structures located in the area of UNRWA’s Al-Jawni school”.

“This location served as a hideout and operational infrastructure from which attacks against IDF troops operating in the Gaza Strip were directed and carried out,” it added, insisting that “steps were taken in order to mitigate the risk of harming civilians”.

‘No place is safe’ 

Israel has agreed to meetings with mediators on a ceasefire initiative but has kept up its offensive in the territory that started on October 7 after the Hamas surprise attack on southern Israel.

UNRWA said two of its workers were killed in a strike at Al Bureij, also in central Gaza, early Saturday. The agency has a major food warehouse in the district.

The Al Aqsa hospital said nine other bodies were brought to its morgue from the strike.

The UN agency said 194 of its workers have now been killed since the war started.

An UNRWA spokesperson said that since the war began, more than half of the agency’s facilities have been hit and many were shelters. “As a result at least 500 people sheltering in those facilities have been killed,” the spokesperson told AFP.

Paramedics said 10 people, including three journalists, died in another strike on a house in Nuseirat on Saturday.

“Absolutely no place in the Gaza Strip is safe,” said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.

The war began with the October 7 attack on southern Israel. In response, Israel has carried out a military offensive that has killed at least 38,098 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry there.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel said on Friday that "gaps" remained with Hamas on how to secure a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release but that it will send a delegation for fresh talks with Qatari mediators next week.

The statement from prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's spokesman came after a delegation led by the head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, David Barnea, held a first round of talks with mediators in Doha on Friday.

"It was agreed that next week Israeli negotiators will travel to Doha to continue the talks. There are still gaps between the parties," the spokesman said in a statement.

There has been no truce in the nine-month-old war in Gaza since a one-week pause in November saw 80 Israeli hostages freed in return for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

The United States, which has worked alongside Qatar and Egypt in trying to broker a deal, had talked up the significance of Netanyahu's decision to send a delegation to Qatar.

The United States believes Israel and Hamas have a "pretty significant opening" to reach an agreement, a senior official said.

Israel's military offensive killed at least 38,011 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the territory.

US President Joe Biden announced a pathway to a truce deal in May that he said had been proposed by Israel. It included an initial six-week truce, Israeli withdrawal from Gaza population centres and the freeing of hostages by Palestinian fighters.

Talks subsequently stalled but the US official said on Thursday that the new proposal from Hamas “moves the process forward and may provide the basis for closing the deal”, though “significant work” remained.

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told AFP that new ideas from the group had been “conveyed by the mediators to the American side, which welcomed them and passed them on to the Israeli side. Now the ball is in the Israeli court”.

Hamdan blamed Israel for the deadlock since Biden’s announcement and said the Doha talks “will be a test for the US administration to see if it is willing to pressure the Zionist entity to accept these proposed ideas”.

The war has uprooted 90 percent of Gaza’s population, destroyed much of the territory’s housing and other infrastructure, and left almost 500,000 people enduring “catastrophic” hunger, UN agencies say.

The main stumbling block to a truce deal has been Hamas’s demand for a permanent end to the fighting, which Netanyahu and his far-right coalition partners strongly reject.

The Israeli premier will probably meet with Biden during a scheduled visit to Washington to address Congress on July 24, the White House said.

Netanyhu has faced a well-organised protest movement in Israel demanding a deal to free the hostages, which took to the streets again on Thursday evening.

The veteran hawk demands the release of the hostages but also insists the war will not end until Israel has destroyed Hamas’s ability to make war or govern.

The head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned that “further disruption to health services is imminent in Gaza due to a severe lack of fuel”.

Only 90,000 litres of fuel entered Gaza on Wednesday, but the health sector alone needs 80,000 litres each day.

The WHO and its partners in Gaza were having “to make impossible choices” as a result, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — A source close to Hizbollah said an Israeli drone strike targeted a vehicle in eastern Lebanon Saturday, killing an official from the Iran-backed group, with tensions high between the foes.

Hizbollah has traded near daily fire with the Israeli army across Lebanon's southern border since its Palestinian ally Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, triggering the war in Gaza.

"A local Hizbollah official" was killed in an "Israeli drone" strike on a vehicle near the eastern city of Baalbek, the source close to the group said, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media.

Lebanon's official National News Agency reported one person was killed when an "enemy drone" targeted a vehicle in the Shaat area, around 15 kilometres north of Baalbek.

The area is around 100 kilometres from Lebanon’s southern border with Israel.

Recent Israeli strikes in south Lebanon have killed two senior Hizbollah commanders — one of them this week — with the Shiite Muslim movement raining rockets on northern Israel in response.

The cross-border exchanges of fire have largely been restricted to the south Lebanon-north Israel border area, although Israel has repeatedly struck deep inside eastern Lebanon.

Hizbollah earlier Saturday claimed several attacks on Israeli positions near the southern border, including one with “explosive drones” that it said came in response to “Israeli enemy attacks” on south Lebanon villages.

Hizbollah says it is acting in support of Gazans and Hamas with its attacks, which began on October 8, with the escalating violence raising fears of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah, which last went to war in 2006.

The cross-border exchanges have killed at least 497 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also including 95 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israeli authorities say at least 16 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed on their side of the border.

TEHRAN — Iran's reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian, who advocates improved ties with the West, on Saturday won a run-off presidential election against ultraconservative Saeed Jalili, the interior ministry said.

The election came against a backdrop of heightened regional tensions because of the Gaza war, a dispute with the West over Iran's nuclear programme, and domestic discontent over the state of Iran's sanctions-hit economy.

Pezeshkian received more than 16 million votes, around 54 per cent, and Jalili more than 13 million, roughly 44 per cent, out of about 30 million votes cast, electoral authority spokesman Mohsen Eslami said.

Turnout was 49.8 per cent, Eslami added, up from a record low of about 40 per cent in the first round.

In the mausoleum of Imam Khomeini in southern Tehran, Pezeshkian gave a speech thanking his supporters, saying their votes have "given hope to a society plunged into an atmosphere of dissatisfaction".

"I did not give false promises in this election," said Pezeshkian, flanked by former foreign minister Javad Zarid. 

"I didn't say anything that I wouldn't be able to do tomorrow."

In an earlier post on X, Pezeshkian said the vote was the start of a "partnership" with Iran's people.

The death of ultraconservative president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash necessitated the election, which was not due until 2025.

Under Raisi, Iran sought improved relations with China and Russia while mending ties with Arab neighbours, chiefly Saudi Arabia, to avert deeper isolation.

Saudi Arabia led Gulf states in congratulating Pezeshkian. Both Russia and China expressed hopes for further reinforcement of ties.

Nuclear deal 

Pezeshkian is a 69-year-old heart surgeon whose only previous government experience was as health minister about two decades ago.

He has called for "constructive relations" with Western countries to "get Iran out of its isolation". 

He favours reviving the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and global powers.

Washington unilaterally withdrew from the accord in 2018, reimposing sanctions and leading Iran to gradually reduce commitment to its terms. The deal aimed to curb nuclear activity which Tehran maintains is for peaceful purposes.

Iran’s foe the United States on Monday said it would make no difference whether Pezeshkian or Jalili won.

State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said there was no expectation the vote would “lead to a fundamental change in Iran’s direction” or improvement in human rights.

There were no obvious celebrations in Tehran on Saturday after the final results were announced, but state TV showed large crowds waving the Iranian flag in the north-western city of Tabriz, which Pezeshkian had represented in parliament since 2008.

In Tehran, some Iranians hailed the outcome.

“We are very happy that Mr Pezeshkian won,” said Abolfazl, a 40-year-old architect who gave only his first name.

“I expected him to become the president because we really needed a well-educated president to solve the economic problems of the people.” 

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all major policy issues, congratulated Pezeshkian.

He urged him to “continue the path of Martyr Raisi and use the country’s many capacities, especially the revolutionary and faithful youth, for the comfort of the people and the progress of the country”.

Khamenei accused “enemies of the Iranian nation” of being behind a “scheme of boycotting the elections”.

After more than one million ballots were spoiled in the first round, the figure in the runoff was more than 600,000, according to figures provided by Eslami.

 ‘Conservative dominance’ 

The vote came with some Iranians having lost faith in the system, according to analysts.

“I don’t have any feelings” about Pezeshkian’s win, said Donya, a 53-year-old babysitter who doesn’t know “whether the situation is going to get better or worse”.

Donya, who gave only her first name, added: “I didn’t vote and I don’t have any feeling for Mr Pezeshkian or anyone else.”

All candidates were approved by Iran’s Guardian Council and Pezeshkian was the lone reformist allowed to stand.

Political expert Ali Vaez, from the International Crisis Group think tank, said on X that Pezeshkian will face challenges in implementing his platform because of “continued conservative dominance of other state institutions & limits of presidential authority”.

Jalili, 58, an Iranian nuclear negotiator until 2013, is known for his uncompromising anti-West stance. After his defeat he urged his supporters to help Pezeshkian in his new role.

Hassan Rouhani, a moderate in office until Raisi’s victory in 2021, congratulated Pezeshkian on his win.

Rouhani said voters had shown “they want a serious change in the state of governance in the country”.

They had voted “for constructive interaction with the world” and for revival of the nuclear deal, he added.

Pezeshkian vowed to ease long-standing internet restrictions and to “fully” oppose police patrols enforcing the mandatory headscarf for women, a high-profile issue since the death in police custody in 2022 of Mahsa Amini.

The 22-year-old Iranian Kurd had been detained for an alleged breach of the dress code, and her death sparked months of nationwide unrest.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanon's Hizbollah said it launched more than 200 rockets and explosive drones at Israeli military positions on Thursday as tensions have soared amid the almost nine-months-old war raging in Gaza.

The Iran-backed militant group said its latest attack, which followed the launch of over 100 rockets the previous day, came in response to Israel's killing of a senior Hizbollah commander in south Lebanon.

Israel did not report any deaths in its northern border area, where most communities have been evacuated, but quickly said it had responded with strikes on targets in southern Lebanon.

Israel and Hizbollah, an ally of Palestinian resistance group Hamas, have exchanged near daily cross-border fire since the Gaza war erupted on October 7, stoking fears the clashes could escalate into all-out war.

UN chief Antonio Guterres is "very worried about the escalation of the exchange of fire", his spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Wednesday, warning of the risk to the wider Middle East "if we were to find ourselves in a full-fledged conflict".

Hizbollah and Hamas are part of an Iran-led "Axis of Resistance" against Israel and the United States, a regional alliance that also includes Yemen's Houthi rebels and militant groups in Iraq and Syria.

The Israeli military said on Thursday its forces were "striking launch posts in southern Lebanon" after "numerous projectiles and suspicious aerial targets crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory".

It said that most were intercepted by air defence systems but that "fires broke out in a number of areas in northern Israel" following the attacks.

Israel on Wednesday killed a senior Hizbollah commander, Mohammed Naameh Nasser, near the Lebanese coastal town of Tyre.

A source close to the group described him as the "Hizbollah commander responsible for one of three sectors in south Lebanon". Another border sector chief was killed in an Israeli strike last month.

Hizbollah said that "as part of the response to the... assassination carried out by the enemy" it had fired "more than 200 rockets" and "a squadron of explosive drones" at Israeli bases.

Air raid sirens blared across northern Israel in the morning, and an AFP correspondent witnessed rockets crossing the frontier that were intercepted.

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the army says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 38,011 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

The Israel-Hizbollah border clashes have killed at least 496 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also including 95 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israeli authorities say at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed on their side of the UN-patrolled border.

The Gaza war at the heart of the regional tensions has meanwhile raged on, and gun battles, air strikes and artillery shelling rocked Gaza City for an eight day on Thursday.

Israeli troops over the past day had “destroyed tunnel routes in the area and eliminated dozens of terrorists in close-quarters combat with tank fire, and in aerial strikes”, said the military.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said at least five people were killed in a strike that hit a Gaza City school.

Fears of renewed heavy fighting have also surged in Gaza’s southern areas near Khan Yunis and Rafah after the military on Monday issued a sweeping evacuation order that the UN said impacted 250,000 people.

Witnesses reported air strikes and intense artillery shelling in western Rafah on Thursday.

Efforts towards truce

Israel has faced an international outcry over the soaring civilian death toll, punishing siege and mass destruction in Gaza.

The UN humanitarian coordinator for Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, this week again called for an end to the “maelstrom of human misery”.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted Israel will destroy Hamas and bring home the remaining hostages.

US President Joe Biden, under growing domestic pressure over Washington’s support for Israel, in late May outlined a roadmap for a six-week ceasefire and exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

There has been little progress since, but Hamas said Wednesday it was communicating with officials in Qatar and Egypt as well as Turkey with an eye to ending the conflict.

Hamas said its Qatar-based political chief Ismail Haniyeh had “made contact with the mediator brothers in Qatar and Egypt about the ideas that the movement is discussing with them with the aim of reaching an agreement”.

Netanyahu’s office and the Mossad intelligence service said “Israel is evaluating the (Hamas) remarks and will convey its reply to the mediators”.

The main stumbling block so far has centred on Hamas’s demand for a permanent end to the fighting — a demand Netanyahu and his right-wing nationalist government allies strongly reject.