High-ranking Iranian officials, military and political figures as well as ministers, joined the large crowds of participants to honor Haniyeh.
More in pictures:
Nearly %70 of Germans oppose military support for Israel: Survey
Compared to a survey from March, criticism of the military actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in the Middle East is growing among the German population.
Some 57% of those questioned said Israel’s military response to the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 has now gone too far. That is an increase of seven percentage points.
The number of respondents who consider military action in the Gaza Strip to be appropriate dropped by seven percentage points to merely 21%. Only 4% think it did not go far enough.
According to six out of 10 Germans (61%), Israel is completely or somewhat responsible for the situation in Gaza.
Germany has been a staunch supporter of Israel for decades as a result of its Nazi past. The European country is a significant arms supplier to Israel, with a substantial contribution of €326.5 million ($353.70 million) worth of military equipment and weapons in the past year alone.
In 10 months of subsequent warfare, more than 39,700 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, hundreds of thousands displaced, and most of the enclave laid to waste as a humanitarian crisis has unfolded.
Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice for its actions in the coastal enclave.
Young Iranian robotic talents race in 2024 qualifying competitions
The 2024 Robotics World Olympiad will be hosted by the Turkish city of Izmir from November 28 to 30, when some of the brightest teenagers and young adults from across the world will gather for the competitions.
The WRO theme for 2024 is Earth Allies, which will help the teams learn more about how we humans affect nature and how nature and natural events can affect us.
More in pictures:
At least 100 killed in Israeli strike on Gaza school
Three Israeli bombs hit the al-Tabin school, located in Daraj district, Gaza’s civil defence agency said of the attack on Saturday which it described as a “horrific massacre”.
Women, children and the elderly are reported to be among the dead and the toll was expected to rise. The attack took place while people were performing morning prayers and triggered a fire that ripped through the building.
Ismail al-Thawabta, the head of Gaza’s Government Media Office, told Al Jazeera that the Israeli army used three bombs weighing 2,000 pounds (907kg) each in its attack.
He added Israel was aware of the presence of displaced people inside the school.
Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked schools used as shelters, claiming they are command centres for Hamas, the Palestinian group that governs Gaza, to hide fighters and manufacture weapons.
Saturday’s attack was the fourth such incident in a week. Israel has not presented evidence to prove its claims that schools are being used by Hamas.
Hamas has denied Israeli accusations that it operates from civilian facilities such as schools and hospitals.
“The occupation army directly bombed the displaced people while they were performing the dawn prayer, and this caused the number of martyrs to rise rapidly,” the Gaza Government Media Office announced in a statement following the attack.
Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat reported that rescue teams were unable to help those trapped by the flames as the Israeli military cut water access to the area.
Many of the wounded rushed to the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City were in a critical condition.
Some of the bodies were hard to recognise, “so relatives at the hospital searching for their loved ones are struggling to find any way to identify them”.
“The massacre at al-Tabin school in the Daraj neighbourhood in central Gaza City is a horrific crime that constitutes a dangerous escalation,” Hamas announced in a statement.
Izzat al-Rishq, a member of the Palestinian group’s political bureau, stressed there were no armed men at the school.
Israel’s claims of the school being used as the group’s command centre are “excuses to target civilians, schools, hospitals, and refugee tents, all of which are false pretexts and exposed lies to justify its crimes”.
“We call on our Arab and Islamic countries and the international community to fulfill their responsibilities and take urgent action to stop these massacres and halt the escalating Zionist aggression against our people and defenseless citizens,” the statement read.
Fatah, the rival Palestinian faction that last month signed a “national unity” agreement with Hamas, said in a statement the attack was a “heinous bloody massacre” that represents the “peak of terrorism and criminality”.
“Committing these massacres confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt its efforts to exterminate our people through the policy of cumulative killing and mass massacres that make living consciences tremble,” it added.
The attack comes as Qatar, Egypt and the United States have called on Israel and Hamas to resume talks on August 15 to reach a ceasefire.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health says at least 39,699 people have been killed and 91,722 wounded in Israel’s war on the enclave. An estimated 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7 and more than 200 were taken captive.
Top official: Iran made preparations for harsh punishment of Israel
The political adviser to the Iranian Leader, Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani, posted a message on his X social media account on Saturday to also censure the Israeli regime’s ongoing onslaught against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
He wrote, “The only goal of the Israeli regime in killing the worshippers of the Al-Tabin school in Gaza and assassinating martyr Ismail Haniyeh in Iran is warmongering and leading ceasefire talks to failure.”
Shamkhani added that Iran has gone through the legal, diplomatic, and media processes for a retaliatory operation and “the preparations for a severe punishment of the regime, that only understands the language of force, have been made.”
Israel assassinated Haniyeh, an official guest of Iran who enjoyed diplomatic immunity, on July 31 in the Iranian capital Tehran by targeting him at his residence.
Iran has vowed a crushing response, warning Israel it would be harsher than the mid-April drone and missile operation that only targeted military and strategic sites inside Israel.
US says to provide $3.5bn more in military aid to Israel amid Gaza war
A State Department spokesperson said on Friday that the department had notified Congress on Thursday that the Joe Biden administration intended to release billions of dollars worth of foreign military financing to Israel.
US broadcast media first reported on the release of the funds, which comes from a $14.5bn supplemental funding bill for Israel passed by the Congress in April. The supplemental budget comes on top of the more than $3bn in annual US military aid to Israel.
Part of the new financial aid will go to an Israeli military unit, which is accused of carrying out human rights abuses against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. The State Department announced it had decided against sanctioning the unit – which would have been the first-ever blocking of aid to the Israeli military – saying it was satisfied with Israeli efforts to address “violations by this unit” which have been “effectively remediated”.
While the US has not publicly named the unit, it is believed to be Israel’s Netzah Yehuda battalion, which has historically been based in the occupied West Bank.
The battalion and some of its members have been linked to the abuse of Palestinian civilians, including the death of a 78-year-old Palestinian-American man after his detention by the unit in 2022.
The greenlight given to Netzah Yehuda comes after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken determined in a finding made public in April that an Israeli army battalion committed grave human rights abuses against Palestinians, triggering an investigation under US legislation related to US military aid to foreign forces known as the Leahy Law.
In the face of protests from Republican lawmakers over the findings of abuse related to the battalion, Blinken stated he would allow aid to continue to the unit in order to give Israel time to address the wrongdoing.
News of Blinken’s reversal comes as criticism of Israel mounts amid the killings of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in its war on Gaza.
The Israeli military has been accused of numerous human rights violations against Palestinians both in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, including killing civilians indiscriminately in attacks on homes, hospitals and school shelters, torture of prisoners, and depriving hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians of water, food and medical supplies.
Most recently, 10 Israeli soldiers were accused of the brutal gang rape of a Palestinian detainee in an Israeli prison camp, which was caught on video.
Iran’s Taekwondo athlete takes silver medal in 2024 Olympics
Katoussi defeated Barkhordari 2-0 in the men’s -80kg gold medal contest on Friday, becoming Tunisia’s first Olympic champion in taekwondo.
In the first bronze medal match, Simone Alessio from Italy won 2-0 over CJ Nickolas from the United States, then Denmark’s Edi Hrnic won bronze 2-0 over the Republic of Korea’s Seo Geonwoo.
Iranian female taekwondo athletes Nahid Kiani in the -57kg and Mobina Nematzadeh in the -49kg had won a silver and a bronze medal, respectively.
Permanent Mission to UN: Iran recognizes any deal Hamas accepts
Answering questions by the media, the mission said, “Our priority is to establish a lasting ceasefire in Gaza; any agreement accepted by Hamas will also be recognized by us.”
The permanent mission also lashed out at the Israeli regime for the assassination of the head of the political office of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, last Wednesday in the Iranian capital Tehran and warned of reprisal against the occupying regime.
It noted, “The Israeli regime has violated our national security and sovereignty through its recent act of terrorism. We have the legitimate right to self-defense – a matter totally unrelated to the Gaza ceasefire.”
The Iranian mission, however, sounded optimistic “that our response will be timed and conducted in a manner not to the detriment of the potential ceasefire.”
The diplomatic mission also touched on discussions between Tehran and Washington, explaining “Direct and intermediary official channels to exchange messages have always existed between Iran and the United States, the details of which both parties prefer to remain untold.”
US says to lift ban on offensive arms sales to Saudi Arabia
The State Department was lifting its suspension on certain transfers of air-to-ground munitions to Saudi Arabia, a senior department official confirmed.
“We will consider new transfers on a typical case-by-case basis consistent with the Conventional Arms Transfer Policy,” the official added.
Reuters was first to report the decision earlier, citing five sources.
The administration briefed Congress this week on its decision to lift the ban, a congressional aide said. One source stated sales could resume as early as next week. The US government was moving ahead on Friday afternoon with notifications about a sale, a person briefed on the matter noted.
“The Saudis have met their end of the deal, and we are prepared to meet ours,” a senior Biden administration official added.
Under US law, major international weapons deals must be reviewed by members of Congress before they are made final. Democratic and Republican lawmakers have questioned the provision of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia in recent years, citing issues including the toll on civilians of its campaign in Yemen and a range of human rights concerns.
But that opposition has softened amid turmoil in the Middle East following Hamas Oct. 7 attack on Israel and because of changes in the conduct of the campaign in Yemen.
Since March 2022 – when the Saudis and Houthis entered into a UN-led truce – there have not been any Saudi airstrikes in Yemen and cross-border fire from Yemen into the kingdom has largely stopped, the administration official said.
“We also note the positive steps that the Saudi Ministry of Defense have taken over the past three years to substantially improve their civilian harm mitigation processes, in part thanks to the work of US trainers and advisors,” the State Department official added.
Biden adopted the tougher stance on weapons sales to Saudi Arabia in 2021, citing the kingdom’s campaign against the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen, which has inflicted heavy civilian casualties. The conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of people and left 80% of Yemen’s population dependent on humanitarian aid.
Ties between the kingdom and the United States have warmed since then, as Washington has worked more closely with Riyadh in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack to devise a plan for post-war Gaza.
The Biden administration also has been negotiating a defense pact and an agreement for civil nuclear cooperation with Riyadh as part of a broad deal that envisions Saudi Arabia normalizing ties with Israel, although that remains an elusive goal.
Injured Iranian wrestler Yazdani wins silver in 2024 Olympic Games
Yazdani suffered a hand injury at the beginning of the match and was forced to request the doctor on the mat for several times.
The injury finally cost him and he lost to Bulgarian wrestler Magomed Ramazanov 7-1 in the final.
On his way to the final, Yazdani defeated Jayden Lawrence of Australia 10-0 in his first match and then beat Greek wrestler Dauren Kurugliev 9-4 and later defeated San Marino’s Myles Amine 7-1 in semifinals.
It was Yazdani’s third medal in the Olympics. He had won a gold medal in the 2016 Olympic Games and also bagged a silver four years later in Tokyo.
