Tehran says it ‘had nothing to do with’ attack near Syrian border after US president vows Washington will respond ‘at a time and in a manner of our choosing’
The former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark has urged Australia and other western countries to reinstate funding to a key UN agency to avoid “a very, very harsh, collective punishment of the Gazan people”.
Over the weekend, more than 10 donor countries – including Australia, the US and the UK – suspended funding to UNRWA after Israel provided the agency with information alleging that as many as 12 of its staff were involved in Hamas’s 7 October attack on southern Israel.
Clark said that given the allegations related to 12 people out of a UNRWA workforce of 13,000, the decision to suspend aid funding was “completely disproportionate”.
She said the UNRWA chief had “immediately dismissed the nine people of the 12 that he could find – one is dead and two others are untraced”.
Clark said the suspension could have a “catastrophic” impact because UNRWA was the biggest deliverer of services, including emergency relief, in Gaza.
“If UNRWA is crippled financially it has devastating impacts for the families living in Gaza,” she said.
Iran has executed four people it says were linked to an Israeli intelligence operation, after the Supreme Court rejected their appeal, Iranian state media has reported according to Reuters. The news wire writes:
The defendants were accused of illegally entering Iranian territory from Iraq’s Kurdistan region to carry out a bombing operation in an Isfahan-based factory producing equipment for Iran’s Ministry of Defence.
Their operation was meant to take place in the summer of 2022 on behalf of Israel’s Mossad and was averted by Iranian intelligence, according to the reports.
Iran and Israel are longtime foes and are currently locked in a row over Iran’s nuclear programme. Israel accuses Iran of backing militant attacks against it, while Iran says Israel has carried out a number of killings of Iranian officials and scientists. Israel does not confirm nor deny such actions.
A man has been shot dead in the occupied West Bank town of Yamoun, west of Jenin, Al Jazeera is reporting.
The broadcaster had earlier reported that Israeli forces were raiding Jenin and that clashes had also erupted in the nearby village of Muthalath al-Shuhada and that Israeli soldiers had stormed residential neighbourhoods in the town of Ya’bad, south-west of Jenin.
The Qatar-based broadcaster said it had also verified footage circulating on social media showing Israeli soldiers beating a man who was said to be a paramedic with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, even as he held his hands in the air.
According to the UN, 362 Palestinians including 92 children had been killed in the occupied West Bank by the Israeli military and settlers as of Sunday.Iran denies involvement in deadly Jordan drone attack on US base
Tehran has denied any involvement in a drone strike that killed three US troops at a base in Jordan, near the border with Syria, after US President Joe Biden blamed Iran-backed militia and vowed revenge.
