Factors contributing to this crisis include heavy traffic congestion, industrial emissions, topographical challenges trapping pollutants, and adverse weather conditions hindering dispersion.
Tehran’s dense population exacerbates emissions from various sources, worsening the situation.
Efforts to combat these issues are underway, including stricter emission standards, promoting public transportation, and investing in green technologies.
“I reiterate: We will operate in Rafah. This will take several weeks, and it will happen,” Netanyahu said at the beginning of a government meeting.
“To our friends in the international community, I say: Are your memories that short? Have you so quickly forgotten October 7, the most horrific massacre of Jews since the Holocaust?”
Netanyahu added “the operational plans for action in Rafah, including advancing the steps to evacuate the civilian population from the combat zones”, have been approved.
“This is an essential stage ahead of the military action.”
Netanyahu went on to say that in the international community, “there are those who are trying to stop the war” by “hurling false accusations at the IDF, the Government of Israel and the Prime Minister of Israel”.
“They are doing so by means of an effort to bring about elections now, at the height of the war. They are doing this because they know that elections now will halt the war and paralyze the country for at least six months,” he continued.
The World Health Organization head, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has stressed he is “gravely concerned” about an offensive in Rafah, where 1.4 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza announced Sunday ninety-two people have been killed in Gaza over the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll since October 7 to 31,645 Palestinians.
A total of 130 people were injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added, bringing the number of injured to 73,676.
Many of the victims remain trapped under rubble and on the roads, with ambulance and civil defense crews unable to reach them, according to the ministry.
Osama Hamdan, a Lebanon-based Hamas official, made the remarks on Saturday night as reports say the stalled Gaza truce talks are expected to restart in Qatar as soon as Sunday.
“Hamas’s recent offer for a ceasefire [in Gaza] is so realistic that the enemy cannot reject it,” he said.
“In its proposal, Hamas has provided specific details regarding the issue of captives and the withdrawal of the occupation forces from Gaza.”
Hamdan also added that Hamas is still waiting for a response from Israel and its supporter in the bloody Gaza war, the United States.
The Zionist regime has not achieved any of its declared objectives of “destroying Hamas” and finding the Israeli captives held in Gaza, he continued.
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows what blows his regime’s military has suffered.”
The Hamas official further stated that the resistance group has insisted on an end to the Israeli aggression against Gaza in all its contacts with mediators.
The upcoming Gaza truce talks would mark the first time both Israeli and Hamas leaders officials join the indirect negotiations since the start of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.
According to Egyptian officials, Hamas’s new proposal includes a three-stage plan to end the war.
The first stage would be a six-week ceasefire that would see the release of 35 Israeli captives in exchange for 350 Palestinian abductees held in the regime’s jails.
In the second phase, the two sides would declare a permanent ceasefire and swap more prisoners.
In the third stage, Hamas would hand over the bodies it is holding in exchange for Israel lifting the inhumane blockade on Gaza and allowing the reconstruction process to start.
Israel waged its genocidal US-backed war on the Gaza Strip on October 7 after Hamas carried out its historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 31,553 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 73,546 others.
People throng the market to by different kinds of plants and flowers to decorate their homes before ringing in the New Year.
Flowers and Plants have traditionally revived Iranians’ homes in the run-up to the Persian New Year.
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“Fortunately, good investments have been made in oil production,” said Javad Oji on Sunday.
“Today, a contract was signed for 6 oil fields to boost output by 400,000 barrels per day, which will bring in $15 billion,” the minister added.
“We have donated around 400 trillion rials for the government’s community service projects,” he explained.
“Some projects will be unveiled in the second and third quarter of 2024” said the minister, adding, “The conclusion of these contracts will create some 66,000 job opportunities.”
This comes as the Islamic Republic has been under harsh US sanctions.
Last month Macron refused to rule out putting troops on the ground in Ukraine, which prompted a stern response from Berlin and other European partners.
But the French president has not recanted from his position, but stressed that western allies would not take the initiative.
“Maybe at some point—I don’t want it, I won’t take the initiative—we will have to have operations on the ground, whatever they may be, to counter the Russian forces,” Macron told newspaper Le Parisien in an interview.
“France’s strength is that we can do it”.
Disagreements over the possibility of ground operations and the delivery of long-range missiles to Kyiv had threatened to undermine cooperation between the allies.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reacted angrily to Macron’s earlier refusal to rule out sending troops to Ukraine and his pointed comments urging allies not to be “cowards”.
Macron met his German and Polish counterparts in Berlin on Friday, in a show of solidarity behind Kyiv.
After the meeting, Macron stressed the three countries of the so-called Weimar Triangle were “united” in their aim to “never let Russia win and to support the Ukrainian people until the end”.
Every winter, villagers hand out part of their fodder and animal feed as “votive offerings for nature” to ewes and rams as well as birds in a local wildlife habitat.
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“Children’s malnutrition is spreading fast and reaching unprecedented levels in Gaza,” UNRWA wrote on X.
The UN agency stressed, “famine is looming. There is no time to waste.”
“We need safe, sustained and unimpeded access to deliver aid across the Gaza Strip. The needs are overwhelming in Gaza,” it added.
Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack led by Hamas in which 1,163 people were killed.
More than 31,500 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have since been killed in Gaza, and over 73,500 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.
The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of most food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to ensure its forces do not commit acts of genocide, and guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
In a meeting with his Syrian counterpart Ali Mahmoud Abbas in Tehran on Saturday, Ashtiani warned against plots by the United States and Israel to intensify crisis across West Asia.
“Any strategic mistake and adventure of the US and the Zionist regime will lead to the worsening of the situation in the region,” he said.
He condemned Israel’s airstrikes against Syria and violation of its territorial integrity, stating the regime seeks to destroy the country’s infrastructure such as airports and ports and hit convoys carrying fuel and food under the pretext of fight against the resistance front.
The Iranian defense chief expressed confidence that Israel’s attacks are rooted in the regime’s fear and failures.
He stressed the importance of reinforcing deterrence in countering Israel’s attacks and noted that “necessary and urgent” measures and plans are on the agenda to counter the regime’s aggression.
Ashtiani emphasized that the US’s “illegitimate, occupying, illegal and unjustifiable” military presence in Syria is a blatant violation of the fundamental principles of international law and the United Nations Charter.
The destructive performance of the US in West Asia, particularly in Syria, has only led to instability, insecurity and displacement of millions of Syrians, he added.
The Iranian defense minister stressed the need to boost Syria’s defense capability and implement bilateral agreements in this regard, saying the two countries should hold constant consultations given the ongoing developments in the region.
Pointing to the sensitive and complicated situation in the region, he said more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 70,000 injured during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza over the past five months.
He criticized the United Nations and Security Council for failing to fulfill their international responsibility vis-a-vis Israel’s war crimes and genocide in Gaza, emphasizing that the regime will definitely fail to achieve any of its goals in the Strip.
Tel Aviv has significantly ramped up the strikes against Syria since last October, when it began the genocidal war against the Gaza Strip.
Damascus has repeatedly complained to the United Nations over the Israeli assaults, urging the Security Council to take action against Tel Aviv’s crimes. Its demands have, however, fallen on deaf ears.
The Syrian defense minister, for his part, said the developments in Gaza and massacre of the innocent Palestinian people exposed Israel’s flimsy power and disclosed the hypocritical nature of the US and West.
Abbas added that the child-killing Israeli regime mounted tensions in the region, particularly in Syria and Lebanon, after it failed to achieve its goals in Gaza and used support of the resistance front and Iran for the oppressed Palestinian people as a pretext.
He noted that the illegal presence of the US in Syria has turned the country into a base to support separatist and terrorist groups.
Resistance and enhanced defense cooperation between Tehran and Damascus are the best ways to counter enemies, he pointed out.
Saba news agency, citing a security source speaking on condition of anonymity, reported that an airstrike hit the At-Ta’iziyah district in Ta’izz province early on Sunday. No further details about any casualties were immediately available.
The development came hours after US and British forces conducted four strikes against the al-Durayhimi district in Yemen’s coastal province of Hudaydah.
A top-ranking member of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council has denounced continued US strikes across Yemen, emphasizing that Washington will have to face a severe punishment for the open aggression.
“It is completely out of the question to welcome Americans with wreaths of flowers, as they are wreaking havoc throughout Yemeni soil and territorial waters. Americans should rather expect harsh retaliation and punishment,” Mohammad Ali al-Houthi said on Saturday night.
He went on to send out a warning to US military forces, stating that the Yemeni nation’s high morale will eventually prevail over them.
“The mountains and plains of Yemen can by no means be occupied by Americans. Our heroic fighters will be the ones who safeguard our lands. You (Americans) are simply perennial losers,” Houthi added.
Commenting on the recently concluded “Promised Day” war game, Houthi noted that the combat scenarios and operations performed in the large-scale military exercise indicated the full preparedness of various units of the Yemeni military for defense.
He hailed the participating units for achieving all objectives of the drill, stating they simulated rapid response to any US-British ground invasion of Yemen.
The United States and Britain have been carrying out such strikes on Yemen since Washington and its allies offered the Tel Aviv regime unqualified support and said Yemeni forces bear the consequences of attacks against Israeli-owned ships or merchant vessels heading to the occupied territories.
Yemenis have declared their open support for Palestine’s struggle against the Israeli occupation since the regime launched a devastating war on Gaza on October 7 after the territory’s Palestinian resistance movements carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm.
The Yemeni Armed Forces have said they won’t stop retaliatory strikes.
The maritime attacks have forced some of the world’s biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes.
Tankers are instead adding thousands of miles to international shipping routes by sailing around the continent of Africa rather than going through the Suez Canal.
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