US envoy warns Iran not to attack Americans over Syria consulate strike

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Updated 03 April 2024
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US envoy warns Iran not to attack Americans over Syria consulate strike

  • Ambassador Robert Wood tells Security council the US was not involved in the strike now did it know about it ahead of time
  • ‘Iran has exercised considerable restraint but there are limits to our forbearance,’ says Iranian ambassador

NEW YORK CITY: Israel must bear the full responsibility for the consequences of its attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, and Iran reserves its right to deliver a “decisive response to such reprehensible acts,” Tehran’s deputy permanent representative to the UN told members of the Security Council during a meeting on Tuesday.

“Iran has exercised considerable restraint but there are limits to our forbearance,” said Zahra Ershadi.

On Monday, an Israeli airstrike destroyed Iran’s Consulate in the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing 12 people, including two Iranian generals and a member of the Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah. At least six Syrian citizens were also killed by the strike.

Ershadi called on the Security Council to condemn the attack, which she said “goes beyond mere criminality and represents a profound affront to the shared principle of the inviolability of representatives and diplomatic and consular premises.”

The envoy accused Israel of escalating and perpetuating the conflict in Gaza while evading accountability while it “kills civilians and uses starvation as a method of warfare.”

She continued: “Israel’s primary concern is to use force to advance its apartheid policies, ethnic-cleansing, genocidal acts, and military objectives in Gaza at all costs.

“The absence of accountability and the Security Council's inaction has only encouraged this regime to continue its violations unchecked.”

Ershadi also accused the US of bearing responsibility “for all crimes committed by the Israeli regime.”

US ambassador Robert Wood reiterated that Washington has communicated to Iran that it “had no involvement” in the strike on the consulate, nor did it have any knowledge of it ahead of time.

“We cannot confirm any information about this event,” he said, adding that “as we gather details, one thing is clear: Iran and its proxy and partner groups need to avoid escalating tensions in the region.”

Wood said that since the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, the US has repeatedly warned Iran not to take advantage of the situation by escalating its “longstanding proxy war against Israel and other actors,” but Iran has ignored that warning.

“Terrorists and other armed groups, some backed by the Syrian regime and Iran, have used Syrian territory to plot and launch attacks on Israel and US facilities and personnel,” he added.

He warned that US authorities “will not hesitate to defend our personnel, and repeat our prior warnings to Iran and its proxies not to take advantage of this situation to resume their attacks on US personnel.”

Wood also expressed his sadness and grave concern about the recent Israeli air strike that hit a World Central Kitchen aid convoy.

“This incident is yet a further reminder that Israel needs to do much more to protect humanitarian personnel and facilities in Gaza,” he said. “It is unacceptable and inexplicable that nearly six months into this conflict, Israeli military deconfliction mechanisms are not functioning appropriately.”

Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzia, who had called for the emergency meeting of the Security Council, said he condemned the Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus in the strongest terms, and stressed that it followed a trend of escalating Israeli attacks on Syrian soil and other neighboring countries.

“We’re of the view that such aggressive actions by Israel are designed to further fuel the conflict,” he said. “They are absolutely unacceptable and must stop.

“We urge West Jerusalem to abandon the practice of provocative acts of force in the territory of Syria and other neighboring countries, which is fraught with extremely dangerous risks and consequences for the entire region, a region that is already destabilized as the results of the six-month escalation of violence around Gaza.”

Nebenzia warned council members that should they fail to condemn attacks on diplomatic premises then “next time, the diplomatic mission of any state could be targeted by an air raid.”

Slovenia’s permanent representative to the UN denounced “attacks on diplomatic premises, that are unacceptable and unjustifiable.”

Samuel Zbogar expressed his country’s profound concern about the spillover effects of the war in Gaza across the region, which has already “had a strong impact on the situation along the Blue Line and in the Red Sea,” and he called on all parties to show restraint.

“It should be in no one’s interest to have further dangerous escalation in the Middle East,” he added. “Any of the geographically separated but ultimately intertwined crises could take on a life of their own.

“People of the region have suffered enough and this includes people in Palestine, Israel, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Iran and elsewhere. We should all place their interests first, and this is why it is crucial for this council to send a clear call for restraint by all, starting with compliance with Resolution 2728, demanding a ceasefire.”

China’s deputy ambassador, Geng Shuang, strongly condemned the attack “of an extremely vicious nature” on Iran’s consulate and reaffirmed the inviolability of diplomatic institutions.

Since the conflict in Gaza began in October, Geng said, there have been attacks on homes, schools, hospitals, humanitarian facilities, UN agencies, “and today attacks on diplomatic premises. The red line of international law and the basic norms of international relations have been breached time and again, and the moral bottom line of human conscience has been crushed time and time again. Such a situation, such a tragedy must stop immediately.”


Egypt grand museum delay puts tourism hopes on hold

Updated 5 sec ago
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Egypt grand museum delay puts tourism hopes on hold

  • The vast museum, two decades in the making, has faced repeated delays
  • Tourism accounts for about 10 percent of Egypt’s workforce, but the sector has struggled
CAIRO: In the shadow of the Grand Egyptian Museum, souvenir shop owner Mona has been readying for the tourist boom she hoped the long-awaited opening would bring – now once again out of reach.
“I had bet everything on this opening,” she said from her shop, just steps from the iconic pyramids of Giza, which the much-anticipated museum overlooks.
Originally scheduled to fully open this month, the museum was expected to attract up to five million visitors annually, fueling optimism across Cairo’s battered tourism sector.
“We planned our entire summer and fall packages around the museum opening,” said Nadine Ahmed, a 28-year-old agent with Time Travel tours.
“But with group cancelations, refunds and route changes, we’ve lost tens of thousands of dollars.”
Though parts of the museum have been open for months, the main draw – the treasures of Tutankhamun – will remain under wraps until the official launch.
Less than three weeks before its July 3 opening, the government announced another delay, this time pushing the landmark event to the final quarter of the year.
Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly cited regional security concerns and the desire to host an event of “global scale.”
The vast museum, two decades in the making, has faced repeated delays – from political upheaval and economic crises to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ahead of the expected launch, Mona, who asked to be identified by her first name only, took out a loan to renovate her store and stock up on goods inspired by the museum’s collection.
A few streets away, Mohamed Mamdouh Khattab, 38, prepared months in advance, hiring and training extra staff and expanding his inventory.
“The opening of the museum is a key milestone,” said Khattab, who owns a sprawling bazaar of handcrafted jewelry and ancient replicas.
“It’s a project that should have been launched a long time ago,” said the vendor, whose family has been in the industry since the 1970s.
Tourism accounts for about 10 percent of Egypt’s workforce, but the sector has struggled – from the fallout of the 2011 Arab Spring to militant attacks and the COVID-19 shutdown.
Still, signs of recovery have emerged: Egypt welcomed 3.9 million tourists in the first quarter of 2025, up 25 percent from the same period last year – itself a record.
At a Giza papyrus workshop, 30-year-old tour guide Sara Mahmoud hopes the opening will revive visitor numbers.
“Big openings have brought a lot of tourism to Egypt before,” she said, pointing to the 2021 Pharaohs’ Golden Parade and the reopening of the Avenue of the Sphinxes.
“These events get people excited – we saw the crowds coming in.”
Such momentum could make a real difference, said Ragui Assaad, an economist at the University of Minnesota.
“Any initiative that directly increases foreign exchange earnings is likely to have a good return on investment,” he said.
“If you compare it with all the other mega-projects, which do not increase foreign exchange earnings... this is a far better project.”
He was referring to a sweeping infrastructure drive under President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, including the construction of a massive new administrative capital east of Cairo.
The stakes are high: since 2022, Egypt’s currency has lost two-thirds of its value, squeezing household budgets and straining every layer of the economy.
“There were days when I sold just one bracelet,” Mona lamented, thinking back to the years when “tourists arrived in droves.”

Israeli ultra-Orthodox party leaves government over conscription bill

Updated 15 July 2025
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Israeli ultra-Orthodox party leaves government over conscription bill

  • Ultra-Orthodox parties have argued that a bill to exempt yeshiva students was a key promise in their agreement to join the coalition in late 2022

JERUSALEM: One of Israel's ultra-Orthodox parties, United Torah Judaism, said it was quitting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition due to a long-running dispute over failure to draft a bill to exempt yeshiva students from military service.
Six of the remaining seven members of UTJ, which is comprised of the Degel Hatorah and Agudat Yisrael factions, wrote letters of resignation. Yitzhak Goldknopf, chairman of UTJ, had resigned a month ago.
That would leave Netanyahu with a razor thin majority of 61 seats in the 120 seat Knesset, or parliament.
It was not clear whether Shas, another ultra-Orthodox party, would follow suit.
Degel Hatorah said in a statement that after conferring with its head rabbis, "and following repeated violations by the government to its commitments to ensure the status of holy yeshiva students who diligently engage in their studies ... (its MKs) have announced their resignation from the coalition and the government."
Ultra-Orthodox parties have argued that a bill to exempt yeshiva students was a key promise in their agreement to join the coalition in late 2022.
A spokesperson for Goldknopf confirmed that in all, seven UTJ Knesset members are leaving the government.
Ultra-Orthodox lawmakers have long threatened to leave the coalition over the conscription bill.
Some religious parties in Netanyahu's coalition are seeking exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students from military service that is mandatory in Israel, while other lawmakers want to scrap any such exemptions altogether.
The ultra-Orthodox have long been exempt from military service, which applies to most other young Israelis, but last year the Supreme Court ordered the defence ministry to end that practice and start conscripting seminary students.
Netanyahu had been pushing hard to resolve a deadlock in his coalition over a new military conscription bill, which has led to the present crisis.
The exemption, in place for decades and which over the years has spared an increasingly large number of people, has become a heated topic in Israel with the military still embroiled in a war in Gaza. 

 


More than 100 migrants freed in Libya after being held captive by gang, officials say

Updated 15 July 2025
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More than 100 migrants freed in Libya after being held captive by gang, officials say

  • As of December 2024, around 825,000 migrants from 47 countries were recorded in Libya, according to UN data released in May

BENGHAZI: More than 100 migrants, including five women, have been freed from captivity after being held for ransom by a gang in eastern Libya, the country’s attorney general said on Monday.
“A criminal group involved in organizing the smuggling of migrants, depriving them of their freedom, trafficking them, and torturing them to force their families to pay ransoms for their release,” a statement from the attorney general said.
Libya has become a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe via the dangerous route across the desert and over the Mediterranean following the toppling of Muammar Qaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.
Many migrants desperate to make the crossing have fallen into the hands of traffickers. The freed migrants had been held in Ajdabiya, some 160 km (100 miles) from Libya’s second city Benghazi.
Five suspected traffickers from Libya, Sudan and Egypt, have been arrested, officials said.
The attorney general and Ajdabiya security directorate posted pictures of the migrants on their Facebook pages which they said had been retrieved from the suspects’ mobile phones.
They showed migrants with hands and legs cuffed with signs that they had been beaten.
In February, at least 28 bodies were recovered from a mass grave in the desert north of Kufra city. Officials said a gang had subjected the migrants to torture and inhumane treatment.
That followed another 19 bodies being found in a mass grave in the Jikharra area, also in southeastern Libya, a security directorate said, blaming a known smuggling network.
As of December 2024, around 825,000 migrants from 47 countries were recorded in Libya, according to UN data released in May.
Last week, the EU migration commissioner and ministers from Italy, Malta and Greece met with the internationally recognized prime minister of the national unity government, Abdulhamid Dbeibah, and discussed the migration crisis. 

 


Mediators working to bridge gaps in faltering Gaza truce talks

Updated 15 July 2025
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Mediators working to bridge gaps in faltering Gaza truce talks

  • Hamas’s top negotiator, Khalil Al-Hayya, and the leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad held a “consultative meeting” in Doha on Sunday evening to “coordinate visions and positions,” a Palestinian source with knowledge of the talks told AFP
  • US President Donald Trump said he was still hopeful of securing a truce deal, telling reporters on Sunday night: “We are talking and hopefully we’re going to get that straightened out over the next week”

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Stuttering Gaza ceasefire talks entered a second week on Monday, with meditators seeking to close the gap between Israel and Hamas, as more than 20 people were killed across the Palestinian territory.
The indirect negotiations in Qatar appear deadlocked after both sides blamed the other for blocking a deal for the release of hostages and a 60-day ceasefire after 21 months of fighting.
An official with knowledge of the talks said they were “ongoing” in Doha on Monday, telling AFP: “Discussions are currently focused on the proposed maps for the deployment of Israeli forces within Gaza.”
“Mediators are actively exploring innovative mechanisms to bridge the remaining gaps and maintain momentum in the negotiations,” the source added on condition of anonymity.
Hamas accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who wants to see the Palestinian militant group destroyed — of being the main obstacle.
“Netanyahu is skilled at sabotaging one round of negotiations after another, and is unwilling to reach any agreement,” the group wrote on Telegram.
In Gaza, the civil defense agency said at least 22 people were killed Monday in the latest Israeli strikes in and around Gaza City and in Khan Yunis in the south.
An Israeli military statement said troops had destroyed “buildings and terrorist infrastructure” used by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants in Gaza City’s Shujaiya and Zeitun areas.
The Al-Quds Brigades — the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas — released footage on Monday that it said showed its fighters firing missiles at an Israeli army command and control center near Shujaiya.
The military later on Monday said three soldiers — aged 19, 20 and 21 — “fell during combat in the northern Gaza Strip” and died in hospital on Monday. Another from the same battalion was severely injured.

US President Donald Trump said he was still hopeful of securing a truce deal, telling reporters on Sunday night: “We are talking and hopefully we’re going to get that straightened out over the next week.”
Hamas’s top negotiator, Khalil Al-Hayya, and the leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad held a “consultative meeting” in Doha on Sunday evening to “coordinate visions and positions,” a Palestinian source with knowledge of the talks told AFP.
“Egyptian, Qatari and American mediators continue their efforts that make Israel present a modified withdrawal map that would be acceptable,” they added.
On Saturday, the same source said Hamas rejected Israeli proposals to keep troops in more than 40 percent of Gaza, as well as plans to move Palestinians into an enclave on the border with Egypt.
A senior Israeli political official countered by accusing Hamas of inflexibility and trying to deliberately scupper the talks by “clinging to positions that prevent the mediators from advancing an agreement.”

Netanyahu has said he would be ready to enter talks for a more lasting ceasefire once a deal for a temporary truce is agreed, but only when Hamas lays down its arms.
He is under pressure to wrap up the war, with military casualties rising and with public frustration mounting at both the continued captivity of the hostages taken on October 7 and a perceived lack of progress in the conflict.
Politically, Netanyahu’s fragile governing coalition is holding, for now, but he denies being beholden to a minority of far-right ministers in prolonging an increasingly unpopular conflict.
He also faces a backlash over the feasibility, cost and ethics of a plan to build a so-called “humanitarian city” from scratch in southern Gaza to house Palestinians if and when a ceasefire takes hold.
Israel’s security establishment is reported to be unhappy with the plan, which the UN agency for Palestinian refugees and Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert have described as a “concentration camp.”
“If they (Palestinians) will be deported there into the new ‘humanitarian city’, then you can say that this is part of an ethnic cleansing,” Olmert was quoted as saying by The Guardian newspaper late on Sunday.
Hamas’s attack on Israel in 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
A total of 251 hostages were taken that day, of whom 49 are still being held, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s military reprisals have killed 58,386 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

 


Paramilitary attack kills 48 in central Sudan village: war monitor

Updated 15 July 2025
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Paramilitary attack kills 48 in central Sudan village: war monitor

  • Over 4 million refugees have fled Sudan’s more than two-year civil war to seven neighboring countries where shelter conditions are widely viewed as inadequate due to chronic funding shortages

PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed 48 civilians in an attack on a village in the center of the war-torn country, a monitoring group reported Monday.
The Emergency Lawyers, a group that has documented atrocities throughout the two-year conflict between the regular army and the RSF, reported civilians were killed en masse Sunday when paramilitary fighters stormed the village of Um Garfa in North Kordofan state, razing houses and looting property.