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Iranian daily warns of ‘proxy’ tensions in Iran

Kerman Terror Attack

In a commentary on Saturday, the Sharq Daily speculated that although the Daesh terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the twin explosions on Wednesday, considering the geographical location of Kerman near the border with Afghanistan, the Daesh militants could have been aided by the Taliban to sneak into Iran through the Afghan border.
Nearly 100 civilians were killed and over 280 others were injured in the explosions.

The twin blasts targeted a massive crowd of people who had gathered in Kerman to mark the martyrdom anniversary of Iranian anti-terror commander General Qassem Soleimani who was assassinated in 2020 in a US drone attack outside the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

The Tehran-based daily also raised the alarm that the region has entered “a new phase of proxy tensions”, arguing, “The bitter reality should be admitted that one of the inevitable results of the revival of the Taliban administration is boosting terrorism in the eastern borders of the country.”

The commentary also continued that the most likely scenario for Tehran’s reaction to the terrorist blasts in Kerman is similar to the reprisal for the attack on Iran’s parliament in June 2017 and the deadly explosions in 2018 in the southern city of Ahvaz, both claimed by Daesh.

It predicted that the IRGC forces will take military actions against the bases of Daesh remnants in Syria and Iraq in the coming days or weeks.

This as the  caretaker Taliban government has condemned the blasts in Kerman, stopping short of describing them as a terrorist incident.

About 4% of Gaza’s population dead, missing, wounded: Report

Gaza War

The Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor made the assessment and said Israel’s continuous air, land and sea attacks have destroyed about 70% of the Gaza Strip’s civilian infrastructure since Oct. 7.

The group accused Israel of making the Strip uninhabitable.

“Israel is pushing hundreds of thousands of civilians towards mass forced displacement,” is announced in a statement.

Hundreds of bodies that cannot be recovered remain on roads, according to Euro-Med, particularly in areas where the Israeli army has conducted ground incursions.

The group added Israel’s attacks are an “apparent attempt” to expand its territory to include the entire Gaza Strip, uprooting the vast majority of the population in violation of international law, which, it noted, “likely amounts to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide”.

Referring to reports that Israel is prohibiting humanitarian supplies from entering the Strip more frequently, Euro-Med stressed that Israel is using “starvation as a weapon”.

It reiterated demands for special rapporteurs at the UN and the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to investigate “violations that have been widely documented since Israel started its genocidal war on Gaza.”

Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas, on Oct. 7.

At least 22,600 Palestinians have since been killed and 57,910 injured, according to Gaza’s health authorities. Nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure damaged or destroyed and nearly 2 million residents displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine.

President Raisi: Iran’s nuclear industry has become indigenized

Addressing the people in the western city of Zanjan on Saturday, Raisi said, “Despite all the threats and sanctions, the nation that chose to stand on its own feet and enjoy independence and freedom، won in this war and in the battle of determination and took big steps.”

President Raisi said Iran’s nuclear industry, like many other industries in the country, has become indigenous despite the plots by the Israeli regime to assassinate top Iranian nuclear scientists.

On the regional developments, the Iranian president blamed Israel for the surging tensions, saying “the fake regime that is supported by the global arrogance will definitely perish and its oppression will not last. This is a divine promise.”

He also stated that ever since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran has never stopped supporting Palestinians in the face of the Western pressure.

Iran says detained several terrorists involved in Kerman terror attacks

Kerman Terror Attack

In its Friday statement, the ministry said the security apparatus detected the initial signs of the role of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in the bombings right after the tragic acts of terror were carried out.

According to the statement, two terrorists conducted the bomb attacks, one with a Tajik nationality. There has been no precise information yet about the identity of the second.

The ministry noted security forces detained two terrorists on Thursday for providing support to the bombers in their hideout in Kerman’s suburbs.

Nine members of the terrorists’ support team have also been identified and arrested across six provinces of Iran, the ministry said.

Operation equipment has also been discovered in the hideouts of the terrorists, including two explosive vests, two remote control devices, detonators, thousands of bullets used in the explosive vests, wiring prepared for the vests and quantities of explosive raw materials, the ministry added.

The terrorist explosions were carried out near the burial site of Iran’s late anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani during a ceremony marking the fourth anniversary of his martyrdom. The blasts left 91 people dead and wounded 286, some of them in critical condition.

Daesh claimed responsibility for the heinous act in a statement posted on their affiliate Telegram channels. It said two of its members had detonated their explosive belts among the crowd.

Israel dropped 65k tonnes of bombs, missiles on Gaza in less than 3 months: Report

Gaza War

The “occupation aircraft dropped over 45,000 missiles and giant bombs, some of them weighing two thousand pounds of explosives, during the comprehensive genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, deliberately targeting entire residential areas,” Gaza’s Government Media Office (GMO) said.

“The weight of the explosives dropped by the [Israeli] army on the Gaza Strip exceeded 65,000 tons, which is more than the weight and power of three nuclear bombs like those dropped [by the United States] on the Japanese city of Hiroshima [in 1945],” it added.

More than 22,000 people, most of them women and children, have died throughout Gaza since October 7, when Tel Aviv launched the war against the Palestinian territory in response to an operation staged by its resistance movements.

The GMO noted that “two-thirds of the bombs and missiles are unguided and imprecise, commonly known as dumb bombs.”

It pointed out that the use of such bombs indicated the regime’s deliberate, indiscriminate, and unjustified targeting of civilians.

The report documented the Israeli military’s deployment of around nine types of internationally banned projectiles against civilians.

Despite targeting Gaza with the whopping amount of explosives, the regime has stopped short of realizing any of its stated goals, including bringing about forced displacement of the territory’s population to neighboring countries and obliterating the Gaza-based resistance movement of Hamas.

Thousands of Israeli soldiers disabled in Gaza war: Report

Israeli Army

The “gloomy forecast”, as it described, was presented by a company hired by Israel’s defence ministry to conduct an assessment of injuries among troops, Israeli outlet Yediot Ahronoth reported on Friday..

The 12,500 figure is a conservative and cautious estimate. The number of cases requesting disability recognition could reach 20,000, the report said.

The defence ministry’s rehabilitation department is currently treating 60,000 disabled Israeli soldiers.

At least 5,000 have been admitted to the department in 2023, including 3,400 admitted since 7 October. These figures include only soldiers, and not civilians.

Yediot Ahronoth added these numbers, along with other official data, show that the injury tally provided by the army during the war has some discrepancies.

As of late December, the defence ministry said the number of Israeli soldiers injured since 7 October had reached 3,000, with the Israeli army saying over 2,300 have been disabled.

The Israeli army’s reported injury tally has previously been questioned, as numbers from hospitals far surpass those the army is publishing.

The addition of thousands more soldiers into rehabilitation services could present financial and logistical challenges to the already criticised programme for disabled soldiers, according to Yediot Ahronoth.

The report warns that Israel may be facing new cases similar to that of Itzik Saidian, an Israeli soldier who participated in the 2014 Gaza war and set himself on fire in 2021 outside the defence ministry’s rehabilitation offices, after feeling “humiliated during every contact” with the ministry.

Iraq’s PM says Baghdad to start process of removing US-led troops

Us Troops

The announcement comes a day after a US drone strike killed the leader of an armed group in Baghdad.

The Pentagon confirmed on Thursday that it carried out the strike which killed Mushtaq Jawad Kazim al-Jawari, a leader of Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba, which forms part of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) umbrella group of paramilitaries.

“We are setting the date for the start of the bilateral committee to put arrangements to end the presence of the international coalition forces in Iraq permanently,” al-Sudani said on Friday, according to a statement from his office published on the social media platform X.

The US has 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria to assist with efforts to prevent the resurgence of the Islamic State (IS) group, which took over large swathes of both countries in 2014, before being defeated by international forces.

“We stress our firm position in ending the existence of the international coalition after the justifications for its existence have ended,” Sudani added.

The prime minister made the comments during a memorial event marking the fourth anniversary of the US killing of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the former deputy head of the PMF who was killed in a US drone strike alongside Iranian general Qassem Soleimani near Baghdad airport in January 2020.

“The Popular Mobilisation Forces represent an official presence affiliated with the state, subject to it, and an integral part of our armed forces,” the prime minister stated.

“We condemn the attacks targeting our security forces, which go beyond the spirit and text of the mandate that created the international coalition. We affirm the government’s ability and willingness to take appropriate decisions to preserve Iraq’s sovereignty, security, and stability.”

The Pentagon claimed on Thursday that Jawari was involved in planning and carrying out attacks on American personnel.

The armed Iraqi groups have claimed responsibility for carrying out over 100 attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria since mid-October, in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba also claimed responsibility for a drone strike in the southern Israeli city of Eilat in mid-December.

The presence of American forces has long prompted a backlash in Iraq. Following the assassination of Muhandis in 2020, Iraq’s parliament passed a resolution calling for the expulsion of foreign troops in the country.

In January 2023, however, Sudani defended the presence of US troops and underlined the need for international support against IS.

The killing of Jawari came two days after an Israeli air strike assassinated senior Hamas member Saleh al-Arouri in the Lebanese capital Beirut, and a week after Israel killed senior the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps member Sayyed Razi Mousavi in Syria.

Abu Mahdi warship joins IRGC Navy

The 47-meter long Abu Mahdi ship with advanced homegrown hull design is equipped with missiles and electronic warfare systems and can travel as fast as 36 knots.

Iranian military top brass including, the chief commander of the IRGC, Major General Hossein Salami, and IRGC Navy Commander Rear Admiral Ali Reza Tangsiri were present in the ceremony.

Addressing the ceremony, Rear Admiral Tangsiri said the warship, made by indigenous experts, took 15 months to manufacture.

The warship is named after Iraq’s top anti-terror commander with the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis who was assassinated along with Iran’s Quds Force Commander General Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike near Baghdad International Airport in January 2020.

Number of fatalities in Kerman twin terrorist blasts rises to 91

Kerman Terror Attack

The head of Kerman’s Emergency Services Seyyed Mohammad Saberi identified the new victims as Taha Shadkam, 6, and Saeed Shahnavazi, 60.

He added 103 wounded are still receiving medical treatment, 34 of them with server injuries, and that 17 of the injured are children.

The blasts, claimed by Daesh, hit a large crowd Wednesday afternoon that had gathered in the city to commemorate the martyrdom anniversary of senior Iranian commander General Qassem Soleimani.

Tens of thousands of people took part in a funeral in Kerman on Friday, calling for revenge for the victims of the explosions.

Gaza becoming ‘uninhabitable’: UN humanitarian chief

Gaza War

Griffiths said in a statement that “people are facing the highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded”, with famine “around the corner”.

He added that people in Gaza are facing “daily threats to their very existence — while the world watches on”.

“For children in particular, the past 12 weeks have been traumatic: No food. No water. No school. Nothing but the terrifying sounds of war, day in and day out.”

“Gaza has simply become uninhabitable. Its people are witnessing daily threats to their very existence – while the world watches on,” he stressed.

It is time for the parties to meet all their obligations under international law, he stated, calling on the international community to use all its influence in this regard.

“This war should never have started. But it’s long past time for it to end,” he stressed.

UNICEF executive director on Friday warned that over 1.1 million children are threatened by intensifying conflict, malnutrition and disease in the Gaza Strip.

“Children in Gaza are caught in a nightmare that worsens with every passing day,” Catherine Russell said in a statement.

Children and families in Gaza continue to be killed and injured in the fighting, and their lives are increasingly at risk from preventable diseases and lack of food and water, she said, adding all children and civilians must be protected from violence, and have access to basic services and supplies.

Cases of diarrhea in children up 50% in just one week, with 90% children under two subject to “severe food poverty”.

UNICEF is calling for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire to help save civilian lives and alleviate suffering, Russell continued, adding: “UNICEF works to provide the life-saving aid the children of Gaza so desperately need. But we urgently need better and safer access to save children’s lives”.

“The futures of thousands more children in Gaza hang in the balance. The world cannot stand by and watch. The violence and the suffering of children must stop.”

Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7.

At least 22,600 Palestinians have since been killed and 57,910 others injured, according to Gaza’s health authorities, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure damaged or destroyed and nearly 2 million residents displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has announced that after three months of Israel’s war in Gaza, almost 90 percent of the enclave’s 2.3 million population has become displaced.

“Families forced to move repeatedly, searching for safety where there is none,” UNRWA noted.