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Relations with US at a historic low: Russia

By
IFP Media Wire
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In an interview with national broadcaster, Russia 1, the top official emphasized that Washington has been consistently trampling on Moscow’s interests and exerting pressure for several decades.

Ties between the two states have reached “a cracking-up point” during Joe Biden’s presidency, according to Peskov, who stressed that the US administration is demonstrating an openly hostile position towards Russia by supporting Ukraine.

“Right in the middle of Mr. Biden’s presidency all these processes have culminated […] Bilateral relations are now at probably their historical low point with no prospects for entering a growth trajectory to be seen,” he said.

“The US, despite many statements to the contrary, is directly involved in the Ukraine conflict,” Peskov concluded.

Bilateral ties between Russia and the US took a nose-dive in 2022 when Washington and its allies attacked Moscow with a barrage of economic sanctions following the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict. Moreover, the White House has been providing Kiev with substantial economic and military aid, drawing reprobation from Russian officials, who have accused Washington of playing a direct role in the conflict.

In addition, the US withdrew from two security treaties, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty and the Open Skies treaty, under the administration of Donald Trump. While the White House under President Joe Biden has extended the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) through 2026, last year Moscow suspended its participation, citing the US role in the Ukraine conflict.

Peskov also cast doubt on statements made by former US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly pledged to resolve the Ukraine conflict within 24 hours if elected a second time. The Republican presidential frontrunner has also claimed that he had an excellent relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin while in office, adding that the conflict would have never started on his watch.

“I don’t think there is a magic wand, it is impossible to do anything in a day,” Peskov stated.

“Although, if we assume that the next US president will make a statement during his inauguration speech that the US stands for peace and is therefore ending its support for Ukraine […], then something in someone’s brain will change.”

Iranians hold ceremonies to mourn Imam Hassan’s martyrdom, Prophet’s demise

By
IFP Editorial Staff
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Millions gathered in holy shrines in the country, including in Imam Reza’s shrine in the northeastern city of Mashhad as well his sister Hazrat Fatima al-Massoumeh’s shrine in Qom, to hold mourning ceremonies.

The Prophet of Islam passed away in 11 AH (632 AD) at the age of 62 in Medina, Saudi Arabia. Thanks to his teachings and his legacy, Islam is now the fastest-growing major religion in the world.

Muslims praise Prophet Muhammad as the harbinger of peace, ethics, friendship, freedom, and life for all of humanity.

Imam Hassan Mojtabi was poisoned to death and martyred by his wife, ordered by then despot Muawiya, in 50 AH (670 AD) at the age of 47.

He was the brother of Imam Hussein and the son of Imam Ali and Hazrat Fatimah, the Prophet’s daughter.

US Senator blames Iran for Israeli captive deaths

By
IFP Media Wire
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“If you want the hostages home, which we all do, you have to increase the cost to Iran. Iran is the Great Satan. Hamas is the junior partner,” Graham told the ABC news programme This Week.

“I would urge the Biden administration and Israel to hold Iran accountable for the fate of [the] remaining hostages, and put on the target list oil refineries in Iran if the hostages are not released.”

Graham told Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “tell the Ayatollah [Seyed Ali Khamenei] what he values is on the target list. Until that happens, nobody is coming home”.

Israel’s military has announced that its troops have recovered the bodies of six captives, including a dual US national, from a tunnel in southern Gaza, as it continued its 11-month long military onslaught on the besieged strip.

Iranian officials have slammed the Israeli regime and its atrocities as the main factor behind expansion of tensions and conflict across West Asia. They considered the regime as the major obstacle in the way of establishing ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Tehran has also stressed that Washington is complicit in the ongoing Zionist regime’s atrocities in the besieged enclave. The US has given military aid to Israel throughout the months-long war on Gaza.

In July, the Gaza-based Palestinian movement Hamas agreed to a deal featuring withdrawal of the Israeli soldiers, return of the displaced people, an end to the siege that has been imposed by Tel Aviv on Gaza, and initiation of the territory’s reconstruction process. The regime, however, rejected the proposal before coming up with “new conditions,” including its keeping its forces inside Gaza along the coastal sliver’s border with Egypt.

More than 40,700 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched war on Gaza on October 7 following an attack led by Palestinian group Hamas that left more than 1,200 people dead. The Palestinian fighters took about 250 captives in the wake of the attack.

The coastal enclave has since been turned into rubble amid non-stop bombardment as Israel has been accused of stalling a ceasefire deal to free the captives.

Israel has been accused of war crimes and atrocities against Palestinians. The International Criminal Court persecutor has sought arrest warrants against Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes.

Tens of thousands of Israelis protest to demand hostage swap deal with Palestinians

By
IFP Media Wire
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Scuffles between the protesters and security forces were reported on Sunday night in one of the largest anti-government demonstrations in Israel since the Gaza war began nearly 11 months ago.

The protesters chanted “Now! Now!” and demanded that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reach a ceasefire with Palestinian group Hamas to bring the remaining captives home.

Many Israelis blocked roads in Tel Aviv and demonstrated outside Netanyahu’s office in West Jerusalem.

In a statement, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents the families of captives held in Gaza, said the death of the six hostages was the direct result of Netanyahu’s failure to secure a deal to halt the fighting and bring their loved ones home.

“They were all murdered in the last few days, after surviving almost 11 months of abuse, torture and starvation in Hamas captivity,” the forum announced.

Meanwhile, in a first since October 7, Israel’s largest trades union federation, the Histadrut, has called for a general strike to pressure the government into signing a ceasefire deal.

The union said Ben Gurion Airport, Israel’s main air transport hub, would be closed from 8am (05:00 GMT) on Monday, as it aimed to shut down or disrupt major sectors of Israel’s economy, including banking and healthcare.

Municipal services in Israel’s economic hub Tel Aviv will also be shut for part of Monday.

The Manufacturers Association of Israel noted it backed the strike and accused the government of failing in its “moral duty” to bring the captives back alive.

“Without the return of the hostages, we will not be able to end the war, we will not be able to rehabilitate ourselves as a society and we will not be able to begin to rehabilitate the Israeli economy,” stressed association head Ron Tomer.

Israeli opposition leader and former Prime Minister Yair Lapid said he supported the strike.

But Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has asked Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to submit an urgent request to courts to block the planned nationwide strike.

In his letter, Smotrich argued that a strike had no legal basis since it aimed to improperly influence significant policy decisions of politicians on issues related to state security.

He also said that a broad strike – which would shut Israel including outgoing flights – has significant economic consequences which would cause unnecessary economic damage in wartime.

Truce negotiations between Israel and Hamas have dragged on for months, and many blame Netanyahu for failing to reach a deal.

The Israeli military has killed at least 40,738 people and wounded 94,154 in its war on Gaza since October 7. An estimated 1,200 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, with some 250 people seized by the group.

Israel’s army has acknowledged the difficulty of rescuing dozens of remaining captives and said only a deal can bring a large-scale return.

Final report says late President Raisi’s helicopter crashed due to bad weather, sabotage ruled out

By
IFP Media Wire
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President Raisi Helicopter Crash

The helicopter carrying 63-year-old Raisi and his entourage came down on a fog-shrouded mountainside in northern Iran, killing the president and seven others, including his Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, leading to snap elections.

The main cause of the helicopter crash was the “complex climatic and atmospheric conditions of the region in the spring”, said the final report of the Supreme Board of the General Staff of the Armed Forces.

The report added that “the sudden emergence of a thick mass of dense and rising fog” caused the helicopter’s collision into the mountain.

According to the report, there were no signs of sabotage in parts and systems.

Armenia says delivered 10th package of proposals on peace treaty to Azerbaijan

By
IFP Media Wire
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Armenia Azerbaijan

“Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanyan took part in the Armenia and the EU conference which was held in the sidelines of the GLOBSEC conference. In his speech, Kostanyan touched upon Armenia’s foreign policy and stressed the importance of its diversification to defend the republic’s sovereignty, international borders and democracy. Touching upon the process of the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, Vahan Kostanyan noted that Armenia had handed over to the Azerbaijani side the 10th package of a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The deputy foreign minister reiterated Yerevan’s readiness to establish peace in the South Caucasus and in the region,” it said.

The senior Armenian diplomat also hailed the active political dialogue and the solid basis for cooperation between Armenia and the European Union countries, the ministry added.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have engaged in a series of bloody confrontations since both republics declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The two countries fought a war over the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, and Azerbaijani forces clashed with the province’s separatist forces in 2023. The conflict ended with the dissolution of Nagorno-Karabakh’s government and the return of the province to Azerbaijani control.

Although situated inside Azerbaijani territory, Nagorno-Karabakh was governed by ethnic Armenian separatists until last year. Before the fall of the USSR, the province had ruled itself as an autonomous region within the Azerbaijan SSR.

Hamas: Israel responsible for death of six captives

By
IFP Media Wire
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Al-Risheq also blamed the United States for its “bias, support and partnership” in the 11-month war on the besieged territory.

The official stated that Hamas cares more about the lives of its prisoners than President Joe Biden does, emphasising that the group had accepted his proposal and the United Nations Security Council resolution.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the proposal and the resolution and his administration conceded to the PM’s demands, which were intended to obstruct reaching an agreement to maintain his power, al-Risheq added.

Senior Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya has also blamed Netanyahu for the deaths of six Israeli hostages.

Al-Hayya added that dozens of hostages in Gaza had been killed by Israeli “strikes along with those who were sitting, guarding, and living with them”.

Israel’s military has announced that its troops have recovered the bodies of six captives, including a dual US national, from a tunnel in southern Gaza, as it continued its 11-month long military onslaught on the Palestinian enclave. It claimed that the captives were killed not long before their bodies were recovered.

Netanyahu has pledged to “settle the score” with Hamas, saying “we will hunt you down”. “Those who kill hostages do not want an agreement” for a Gaza truce, Netanyahu added.

But a forum of captives’ families, who have been critical of Netanyahu’s handling of the issue, called for a massive protest later on Sunday, demanding a “complete halt of the country” to push for the implementation of a ceasefire and release of the remaining captives.

“A deal for the return of the hostages has been on the table for over two months. Were it not for the delays, sabotage, and excuses those whose deaths we learned about this morning would likely still be alive. It’s time to bring our hostages home,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum announced in a statement.

In a statement, Biden said he was “devastated and outraged” of the death of the six captives, including Israeli-American Goldberg-Polin.

Biden, whose administration has has backed and funded Israeli bombardment of Gaza, pledged that “Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages”.

A ceasefire deal put forth by Biden in May, which called for release of captives, was rejected by Netanyahu.

About 100 captives still remain in Gaza while 105 were released in a deal with Hamas, which has set ceasefire as a condition to release the remaining captives.

But Israel has been accused of war crimes and atrocities against Palestinians. The International Criminal Court persecutor has sought arrest warrants against Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes. Warrants were also requested for two Hamas leaders.

More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched war on Gaza on October 7 following an attack led by Palestinian group Hamas that left more than 1,200 people dead. The Palestinian fighters took about 250 captives in the wake of the attack.

The coastal enclave has since been turned into rubble amid non-stop bombardment as Israel has been accused of stalling a ceasefire deal to free the captives.

American official says Ukraine should not expect more long-range missiles from US

By
IFP Media Wire
-
Russia Ukraine War

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov met with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon this week to discuss additional military aid. During the meeting he reportedly presented him with a list of “high-value” targets that Kiev would like to strike, deep inside Russia, using American-made weapons.

In an interview with CNN after the meeting, Umerov claimed that Ukraine is pushing to lift the ATACMS restrictions for “self-defense”, arguing that “the airfields being used to hit our cities are within the range of deep strikes”.

However, a US defense official told the channel that many of the targets on Ukraine’s wish list are in fact outside the missile’s range, as Moscow has relocated its high-value assets away from the front.

The US has also “made it clear that Kiev should not expect another significant delivery of ATACMS due to the finite number in US inventories and the long production time of the weapon”, CNN wrote, citing the source. The official noted that Ukraine has so far received a very “limited” supply of these missiles.

The US government seemingly drew the line on deep strikes into Russia after one of its ATACMS rockets, armed with a cluster warhead, struck a Crimean beach in early June. Moscow accused Washington of enabling that and other acts of “terrorism” against civilians, and suggested it might arm “states and entities” around the world that are hostile to the US in response.

Pentagon spokesman Major General Patrick Ryder clarified on Tuesday that Washington’s “policy has not changed,” meaning that Ukraine is allowed to use US-supplied weapons to defend against cross-border attacks but not for “deep strikes” into what the US recognizes as Russian territory. However, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday that Washington “will keep the conversations with the Ukrainians going”.

Moscow has warned that any talk of using long-range missiles to strike Russian territory is highly dangerous.

“This is blackmail, it is an attempt to create an impression that the West wants to avoid excessive escalation, but in fact this is a ruse,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press conference on Tuesday.

“The West does not want to avoid escalation. The West is asking for trouble, to put it bluntly. I reckon that this is already obvious to everyone.”

Israeli authorities say three police killed in West Bank

By
IFP Media Wire
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Israeli Police

Israeli police have confirmed that the three people killed in Sunday’s shooting attack in the occupied West Bank were members of their police force.

“Three members of the police force were killed this morning in a shooting attack,” Ouzi Levy, chief of the Israeli police in the West Bank, told reporters at the scene of the attack near the Tarqumiya checkpoint near the city of Hebron.

Two of the officers were declared dead at the scene, while the third officer was taken to hospital by helicopter but later died.

The shooting comes amid heightened tensions in the West Bank caused by an ongoing Israeli aggression in the occupied territory.

In the early hours of Wednesday, the Israeli army conducted its biggest operation – dubbed “Camps of Summer” – in the West Bank in over 20 years, deploying hundreds of troops and airstrikes on Jenin, Tulkarem, and Tubas, which are major centers of Palestinian resistance against the usurping entity.

So far, at least 25 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli raids and strikes in several West Bank towns, and many more sustained injuries.

Polio vaccine campaign starts in Gaza

By
IFP Media Wire
-

A small number of children in Gaza received vaccine doses a day before the large-scale rollout and limited pauses in the fighting agreed to by Israel and the U.N. World Health Organization.

“There must be a cease-fire so that the teams can reach everyone targeted by this campaign,” said Dr. Yousef Abu Al-Rish, Gaza’s deputy health minister, describing scenes of sewage running through crowded tent camps.

Polio is spread through fecal matter.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in a statement announced “Israel will allow a humanitarian corridor only” and “areas will be established that will be safe for administering the vaccines for a few hours”.

Israel noted the vaccination program would continue through Sept. 9 and last eight hours a day. It will allow health workers to administer vaccines with the aim of reaching some 640,000 Palestinian children.

The vaccination campaign comes after the first polio case in 25 years in Gaza was discovered this month. Doctors concluded a 10-month-old had been partially paralyzed by a mutated strain of the virus after not being vaccinated due to fighting. Most people who contract the disease do not experience symptoms, and those who do usually recover in a week or so. But there is no cure.

Healthcare workers in Gaza have warned of the potential for a polio outbreak for months.

The territory’s humanitarian crisis has deepened during the war that broke out after Hamas-led fighters stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and abducting around 250.

Israel’s offensive has killed more than 40,700 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

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