NOURNEWS- The following headlines appeared in English-language newspapers in the Iranian capital on Wednesday, October 11, 2023.
IRAN DAILY:
-- Raisi inaugurates four metro stations in Tehran
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi opened four metro stations in Tehran amid efforts by his government to expand the public transport network in the capital city.
The stations opened on Tuesday by Raisi included three on Line 7 and one on Line 6 of the Tehran Metro, IRNA reported.
The new stations expand the metro system in Tehran by 8.5 kilometers, according to a statement by the Municipality of Tehran, which controls the metro system in the city. It said the construction of the new lines had taken some eight years.
The Tehran Metro is currently 283 kilometers in length and has 154 stations.
In the opening ceremony, Raisi hailed efforts by young Iranian engineers and technicians to expand the public transport network, saying his government will increase its funding for subway projects to increase the number of wagons delivered to the underground transport network in Tehran.
“Today, the focus of the efforts of Tehran Municipality officials in the field of transportation is to solve the two serious problems of traffic and pollution, and we are witnessing the round-the-clock efforts of all related departments in the municipality,” he added.
Raisi also noted that the metro is one of the best systems for reducing travel time and costs, as well as helping to manage pollution. He added that it is also a safe and low-risk means of transportation and helps to reduce transportation accidents.
-- NIOC outdoes regional countries in oil, gas exploration
Iran has surpassed regional countries in oil and gas exploration since its current government took office two years ago, said the head of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).
Mohsen Khojasteh-Mehr added that three oilfields — namely Hirkan in the northeastern province of Golestan and Tengoo and Genaveh in the southwestern province of Bushehr — as well as the Cheshmeh Shour gas field in the northeastern province of Khorasan Razavi have been discovered in the two-year period, increasing the country’s recoverable liquid hydrocarbons by more than 2.6 billion barrels, Shana reported.
The NIOC CEO said 3D seismic data acquisition operations have jumped by more than 300 percent under the incumbent government when compared with surveys carried out during the previous years, indicating Iran has excelled in the region’s oil and gas exploration.
Last week, Oil Minister Javad Owji said Iran stood top among regional countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, in terms of exploration.
All wells drilled for exploration purposes under the current Iranian government have contained hydrocarbon, meaning that the exploration success rate has stood at 100 percent, he continued.
Given the latest discoveries, the reserve replacement ratio for liquid hydrocarbon is 87 percent, mentioned the minister. He explained that it means if 100 barrels of crude oil and gas condensates are produced in Iran and consumed inside the country or exported to other countries, 87 barrels of that output have been replaced by newly-discovered deposits.
-- Iraq plans to import Turkmen gas via Iran in swap deal
Iraq may buy up to 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year from Turkmenistan following talks between officials of both countries held in Baghdad in recent days.
Turkmengas Chairman Maksat Babayev led a delegation to Baghdad over October 5–8 and held detailed negotiations with Iraq’s Minister of Electricity Ziad Ali Fadel to supply Iraq with gas from Turkmenistan under a swap arrangement through neighboring Iran, Platts reported, citing a statement from the Turkmenistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
On October 6, Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity signed a memorandum of understanding to import natural gas from Turkmenistan during Turkmenistan’s Minister of State visit to Baghdad, but details of the volume of gas were not provided.
An Iraqi delegation will visit Turkmenistan on October 25 to sign a supply contract to import natural gas from the central Asian country, the Iraqi prime minister’s office said on Saturday.
Babayev is scheduled to attend the Oil and Gas of Turkmenistan forum in Ashgabat from October 25–27, where more talks will be held.
Iraq has been importing around 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from Iran through two pipelines. Supply has been inconsistent given difficulties in transferring costs in US dollars to Iran because of US sanctions and increased domestic demand during summer.
-- Iranian exports to India up 9% in seven months
India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Tuesday announced a nine percent growth in Iran’s export of goods to the South Asian country in the first seven months of 2023.
The official statistics indicated that India’s trade exchanges with Iran from January to July 2023 reached $1.171 billion, Tasnim News Agency reported.
According to the report, India’s exports of products to Iran in the first seven months of the current year hit $778 million, showing a 37 percent decline compared to the same period last year.
This is while India had exported $1.243 billion worth of goods to Iran from January to July 2022.
India imported over $393 million worth of products from Iran in the first seven months of 2023, registering a nine percent hike compared to last year’s corresponding period.
India had imported $361 million worth of products from Iran between January and July 2022. Rice, fresh fruits, and tea were among the main products exported from India to Iran during this period. In this timespan, India exported $539 million, $30 million, and $18 million worth of rice, fresh fruits, and tea to Iran, respectively.
In return, Iran exported oil products, raw materials for producing paint, and various types of fresh fruits to India from January to July 2023, the report added.
-- Iran to pin hopes on a world-class coach after Rio fiasco
Iranian volleyball will lean towards bringing in a high-profile foreign coach for the national team after hitting rock bottom at the FIVB Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Rio de Janeiro.
The Asian powerhouse finished second from bottom in the eight-team table of Pool A – registering a single victory over Qatar – as the country’s aspirations for a place in next year’s Paris Olympics now appears to be fading away.
Germany was the surprise package of the group, making a clean sweep of seven wins to finish above Brazil, with reigning world champion Italy in third.
Poland, Canada, USA, and Japan also secured an Olympic berth as the top two finishers in Pools B and C.
The other five quotas will be decided through the FIVB Men’s World Ranking by the end of the preliminary phase of 2024 Volleyball Nations League (VNL).
Egypt will likely take the African slot for the Games, while the other four spots will go to the four highest-ranked teams, which have not qualified yet.
As it stands in the FIVB Ranking, Italy (third), Argentina (sixth), Slovenia (seventh), and Serbia (ninth) are the favorites to qualify for the Olympics, with Iran lagging behind in the 15th place.
Iran’s qualification campaign was the latest episode in a disastrous five months under Behrouz Ataei – featuring a disappointing VNL run followed by a straight-set defeat against Japan on home soil in the Asian Championship final – which eventually led to the Iranian head coach stepping down from his role after a 3-1 defeat against the Czech Republic midway through the tournament in Brazil.
His resignation came two years after he had become the first domestic coach on Iran’s bench in more than a decade by taking over from Russian Vladimir Alekno following a group stage exit at the Tokyo Olympics.
Ataei’s rejuvenated side got off to a flying start in the new era as it defeated host Japan for the Asian crown in 2021 and then went on to progress to VNL quarterfinals a year later.
Ataei was faced with the flip side of his job when the below-par results in the summer saw the pundits and former players in the country question his credentials for the rest of the way, urging the Iranian Volleyball Federation to make drastic changes in the coaching staff.
Mohammadreza Davarzani, the chairman of the federation, said at the time that he would avoid an “impulsive decision-making”, as a hectic fixtures list – including an untimely participation at the Asian Games right before the Olympic qualifiers – was coming Iran’s way.
However, in a statement after Sunday’s five-set defeat against Cuba, the head of the federation conceded to the “failed strategy [over the past two years]”, while he vowed to “hire a world-class coach and put in all our efforts to succeed in next year’s Volleyball Nations League and qualify for the Paris Olympics.”
Several high-profile names have been brought up in the Iranian media in recent days – most notably Frenchman Stéphane Antiga, Italian Andrea Anastasi, and Belgian Vital Heynen, who led Poland to the world title in 2018 – though it might take a while for the Iranian volleyball governing body to mull over who will be in charge of the team next.
-- Sepahan, Al Ittihad set for rescheduled encounter: Report
The AFC Champions League fixture between Persian Gulf Pro League club Sepahan and Saudi side Al Ittihad will be rescheduled for a new date, the Arabic edition of the Goal website reported.
The Group C game in Isfahan’s Naqsh-e Jahan Stadium was called off right before the kickoff on October 2 after the Saudi Pro League giant reportedly refused to take to the pitch for unknown reasons.
In a statement later in the day, the Asian Football Confederation said the match was canceled for “unanticipated and unforeseen circumstances”, adding: “This matter will now be referred to the relevant committees.”
Goal added Sepahan could be fined by the AFC and the club will have to name a new home venue for the contest.
Al Ittihad wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, last week that the club was informed by the AFC’s organizing official that “the game would not take place on the scheduled date and the team is allowed to leave the stadium.”
Several sources, including the Iranian Fars and Tasnim new agencies, reported that the players of the Saudi side did not leave the dressing room due to a bust of Iranian Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in a US drone strike near the Baghdad airport in January 2020, being placed at the entrance to the pitch.
“Everything was in place for a proper game of football but Al Ittihad came up with demands that were not sport-related at all,” Sepahan CEO Mohammadreza Saket said afterwards.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said last Wednesday that the two countries have agreed on a second date for the encounter, while calling on the Asian football governing body to “act on a technical basis when deciding on the situation.”
Sepahan, third in the group with a point, will play away to Uzbekistan’s AGMK on October 23, with Al Ittihad hosting Iraq’s Air Force Club.
-- Leader: Zionists will receive ’heavier slap’
Iran’s Leader on Tuesday praised the Palestinian youth and masterminds of Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against Israel for achieving a remarkable victory, rejecting as “miscalculations” the claims that the “epic” act was not a “Palestinian job”.
“The usurping Zionist regime suffered an irreparable defeat both in terms of military and intelligence,” Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei told a graduation ceremony of military cadets in Tehran.
Some US and Israeli officials had accused Tehran of being behind the attack. However, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday that he had “not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack, but there’s certainly a long relationship”.
Ayatollah Khamenei said the Israelis should blame themselves for the defeat but instead, they have opted to play the victim.
The Leader said no Muslim nation in contemporary history has ever faced a regime as hostile and cruel as Israel. Neither has any nation been under as much pressure, siege, and shortage as the Palestinian nation.
“In addition, the US and the UK have not supported any cruel government as much they supported the fake regime” of Israel, he added.
However, now that the evil and cruel enemy has received the slap, it has adopted a policy of playing the victim, he said, adding, “Others including the media of the global arrogance help it.”
“The Zionists should know that after massacring the people of Gaza, they will receive a heavier slap.”
War crime
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Tuesday the Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 704 people and injured more than 3,900 people since the unprecedented operation by Hamas.
Israeli energy minister Israel Katz said on Monday that he had instructed authorities to cut the water supply to the Gaza Strip.
Secretary of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights Kazem Gharibabadi denounced the move as a “war crime,” Press TV reported.
Nearly 200K displaced
Meanwhile, the UN humanitarian office said on Tuesday that nearly 200,000 people or nearly a tenth of the Gaza population have fled their homes since the start of hostilities, adding that it is poised for shortages of water and electricity due to a possible blockade, Reuters reported.
“Displacement has escalated dramatically across the Gaza Strip, reaching more than 187,500 people since Saturday. Most are taking shelter in schools,” Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told a Geneva briefing, stating further displacement was expected as clashes continue.
The World Health Organization said that it had reported 13 attacks on health facilities in the Gaza Strip since the weekend and that its medical supplies stored there had already been used up. The organization on Tuesday called for a humanitarian corridor into the Gaza Strip as Israel imposes a siege on the blockaded Palestinian enclave.
Also, an AFP photographer and a non-governmental organization said Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt — its only one not controlled by Israel — was hit by an Israeli airstrike Tuesday for the third time in 24 hours.
The regime’s embassy in the US said on Tuesday that the death toll from Hamas’s attack on Israel has now exceeded 1,000, AFP reported.
The EU and [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council called for sustained aid to the Palestinian Territories on Tuesday. “They stressed the importance of sustained financial support for UNRWA (the UN relief agency for Palestinians) and to continue humanitarian and development support for Palestinians in the occupied territories,” said a joint declaration read out by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
This was while the first wave of US security assistance was on its way to Israel, announced White House national security spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday, adding that more US assistance is to come.
Prisoner swap
Qatar said Tuesday it was too soon to start brokering talks on a potential prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas after the resistance group captured around 150 Israelis in the wide-scale surprise attack.
An American mayor has been slammed for promoting violence and Islamophobia, over his “abhorrent” remarks referring to pro-Palestine protesters as “extremists” who support “terrorism”.
As fighting is underway between Palestinian resistance fighters and the Israeli regime, many have expressed their support for Palestine. Hundreds of people marched in Manhattan’s New York City on Sunday to express their support for Palestine. Another pro-Palestine rally took place outside the Israeli consulate in New York City on Monday. It was organized by Within Our Lifetime, a Palestinian-led advocacy organization.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said that in separate phone calls with a number of his counterparts from Muslim countries, he called for an immediate emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to discuss the Palestinian issue.
In a telephone conversation with OIC Secretary General Hissein Brahim Taha on Monday, he expressed Iran’s readiness to play host to the emergency meeting.
KAYHAN INTERNATIONAL:
-- Official: Iran Ready to Send Relief Aid to Gaza
President of the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) Pirhossein Koulivand said Tuesday Iran is ready to work with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to deliver humanitarian aid to the affected Palestinian people.
In a message to president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, Koulivand called for strengthening cooperation between the two organizations to save the lives of many civilians and defenseless people in Gaza.
-- Chance to Resolve Ukraine Plane Tragedy Row ‘Lost’
Iran on Tuesday blamed Ukraine, Canada, the UK, and Sweden for the failure of recent talks in the Swiss city of Geneva aimed at resolving the row over the 2020 Ukrainian plane crash tragedy, saying they “lost the political opportunity” for a settlement. In a statement, Iran’s Foreign Ministry said that an Iranian delegation participated in the Geneva talks on October 2 based on the principle of “good faith” and “transparency”. However, it added, the Iranian team was not able to provide a thorough report of its measures due to the negotiating partners’ insistence on their prejudice and accusations in the talks.
-- Entire Neighborhoods Wiped Out in Gaza
Palestinians woke up on Tuesday to scenes of mass destruction in Gaza, with entire neighborhoods wiped out, including in many central and crowded areas.
The Palestinian death toll from four days of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza has reached 830, with more than 4,250 others wounded, the health ministry said.
The Zionist regime is carrying out a widespread, systematic bombing campaign of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure. It has cut off all electricity, food, gas and water, severely hindering medical teams’ efforts to save wounded patients.
An Israeli army spokesperson said that “accuracy” is not the primary concern when it comes to attacking the Gaza Strip.
In a statement published by Haaretz, Daniel Hagari said the army was dropping hundreds of tonnes of bombs in the attacks and that “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy”.
Tuesday reports said two members of Hamas political bureau, including an economy minister of the Gaza-based administration, had been martyred. They were named as Jihad Abu Shammala and Zakaria Muammar.
Journalists in Gaza remain fearful after an airstrike killed three of their colleagues Monday night.
Said al-Taweel, Muhammad Sobboh and Hisham Nawajhah were killed while covering ongoing aerial bombardments of the Gaza Strip.
“Unfortunately, they have sent a warning notice to the Hiji building just now that it will be bombed,” al-Taweel said in his last words, according to Al-Jazeera.
A baby was recovered alive from under rubble in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, northwest of Gaza City.
Several children were among the wounded taken to Al-Shifa hospital earlier Tuesday after airstrikes rained down on Sheikh Radwan, the Palestinian foreign ministry said.
Meanwhile, Zionist forces have martyred at least 19 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
A Zionist military general has doubled down on the war minister’s labeling of Palestinians as “human animals” and vowed to give them “hell”.
“There will be no electricity and no water [in Gaza], there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell,” Ghassan Alian, the Israeli military liaison to the Palestinians, said.
Israel’s Channel 12 said the regime had told Egyptian officials it would attack any trucks attempting to bring supplies through the Rafah crossing that connects the Gaza Strip to northern Sinai.
Egyptian fuel trucks and relief materials had been filmed leaving the vicinity of the crossing after the warning, reports said.
Rockets were fired simultaneously from Lebanon and Gaza towards Zionist targets, with sirens blaring in southern and northern towns.
The massive rocket fire targeting Ashkelon at 5 p.m. is a response to the displacement of Gaza residents by Israeli airstrikes, Hamas’ Izzideen al-Qassam Brigades said.
The barrage of rockets was unprecedented in volume, according to Al Jazeera and Palestinian media outlets. Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Ubaida had told residents earlier to leave the city.
Sirens were also activated in Tel Aviv, and Qassam Brigades said they had targeted the Ben Gurion airport with a barrage of rockets.
The recent military operation launched by Hamas from Gaza represents a potential turning point in the conflict - one that could fundamentally reconfigure the longstanding power dynamics between Palestinian resistance and the occupying regime of Israel.
Described as a “date that will live in infamy in Israel” by one Israeli official, the operation, codenamed Al-Aqsa Flood, has reverberated deeply within Israel and has also stirred apprehension among its allies, both regionally and internationally.
On October 7, Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza initiated a multifaceted military operation involving rocket attacks on the Zionist entity, coupled with a massive ground attack that breached the Israeli-enforced barrier around Gaza.
Palestinian fighters were able to take control of Israeli settlements and military sites adjacent to Gaza.
The operation resulted in hundreds of Zionists killed and thousands injured, with more than 100 others captured and taken into Gaza, according to Hamas.
The Israeli embassy in the U.S. said the death toll in Israel from the Palestinian operation assault on Saturday had climbed to over 1,000, which included at least 123 soldiers, according to the army.
More than 3,418 have been wounded, the embassy added.
Bodies of Zionists were laid out in the grounds of the Kfar Aza communal settlement as soldiers went from building to building to take away the dead on Tuesday.
Renewed gun fights between Israeli
troops and Palestinian fighters were reported in Sderot, Israeli media said.
Yanis Varoufakis, the former finance minister of Greece, said he will not condemn Hamas after its operation, and compares the siege imposed on Gaza to the apartheid in South Africa.
In an interview, Varoufakis said the criminals were not Hamas, nor the Israeli settlers, but rather Europeans who he said “have been complicit in a crime against humanity by remaining silent when there’s no trouble or when people are dying outside the view of the cameras especially if it involves Palestinians”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the sharp escalation of the conflict was a vivid example of the U.S. policy failure in the Middle East.
Putin told the visiting Iraqi prime minister that Washington had tried to monopolize the search for a settlement in the region.
-- Leader: Zionists Suffered ‘Irreparable Defeat’
Leader of the
Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said Tuesday Israel will receive “a heavier slap” for the regime’s ongoing massacre of the Palestinian people in the besieged Gaza Strip.
“The Zionists should know that with the massacre of the people of Gaza, they will receive a heavier slap,” Ayatollah Khamenei told a joint graduation ceremony of the cadets of the armed forces at the Imam Ali Army Officer University in Tehran on Tuesday.
The Leader emphasized that the Gaza massacre will “bring a greater calamity to the Zionists” after they suffered “an irreparable defeat both in terms of military and intelligence”.
The occupying regime of Israel ferociously pounded buildings in Gaza Tuesday as battles continued in southern towns which Palestinian resistance fighters overran in a blitzkrieg on Saturday.
“In this Oct. 7 incident, the usurping Zionist regime suffered an irreparable defeat both in terms of military and intelligence. Everyone admitted the defeat but I emphasize irreparability.
“I say that this devastating earthquake has managed to destroy some of the main structures of the usurping regime’s governance, which cannot be rebuilt so easily,” the Leader said.
Ayatollah Khamenei hailed the Palestinian youth for single-handedly pulling off a stunning upset over the Zionist army.
“We kiss the foreheads and arms of the skillful and intelligent designers and Palestinian youth, but those who say that the recent epic is the work of non-Palestinians suffer from miscalculation,” he said.
Ayatollah Khamenei said the Zionists are to blame themselves for the defeat, but they have opted to play the victim.
“The actions of the Zionists brought this disaster on them. When cruelty and crime passes the limit, when rapacity reaches its peak, one should wait for the storm,” he said.
The Leader said no Muslim nation in contemporary history has ever faced as much hostile and cruel regime as Israel. Neither has any nation been under as much pressure, siege and shortage as the Palestinian nation.
“In addition, America and England have not supported any cruel government as much as the fake regime” of Israel, he added.
Ayatollah Khamenei touched on the Israelis’ killing of Palestinian men, women, children and the elderly, their desecration of Al-Aqsa Mosque, their attack on worshipers and vandalism by settlers.
“Does the zealous and thousands-year-old Palestinian nation have any other solution to all these atrocities and crimes than unleashing a storm?” the Leader asked, referring to “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm”.
“The brave and selfless act of the Palestinians was a response to the crime of the usurper enemy, which had been going on for years and had increased in intensity in recent months and the current government ruling the usurping Zionist regime is to blame,” the Leader said.
However, now that the evil and cruel enemy has received the slap, it has started a policy of playing the victim, he said, adding “others also help it, the media of the world arrogance helps it”.
“This self-victimization is 100% untrue and false, since the Palestinian combatants were able to break the siege of Gaza and reach the military and civilian centers of the Zionists.”
Ayatollah Khamenei said, “Whatever it is, this usurping regime is not a victim. It is cruel, aggressive, ignorant, and irrelevant, but it is not oppressed, it is an oppressor and no one can make the face of an oppressed out of this devilish monster.”
The Leader said the Zionist regime is playing the victim card in order to double down on its oppression and justify its “attack on people’s houses, attack on civilians, and its massacre and mass killing of Gazans”.
“This is also a wrong calculation. Let the heads and decision makers of the usurping regime and their supporters know that this will bring a bigger disaster on them. Let them know that the reaction to these atrocities will be a heavier slap in their ugly faces.”
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Tuesday the Israeli airstrikes had killed at least 704 people and injured more than 3,900 others since the unprecedented operation by Hamas.
Ayatollah Khamenei said the Israeli atrocities will make the Palestinian youth more determined and strengthen them.
“Gone is the day when certain people would come and try to eke out a place for themselves in Palestine with a forked tongue and liaison with the oppressor,” he said, referring to concessionist Palestinian leaders.
“Today, Palestinians are awake, young people are awake and Palestinian planners are working with full skill. Hence, this calculation of the enemy which thinks it can continue its criminal attacks by playing the victim is wrong.”
-- Situation Worse Than Thought in Quake-Hit Herat
Rescue workers scrabbled through rubble Tuesday for villagers buried in their homes by a series of earthquakes that killed close to 3,000 people in rural western Afghanistan, but hope of finding survivors was fading fast.
Volunteers have worked non-stop with spades and pickaxes in Herat province since Saturday’s deadly magnitude 6.3 quake struck -- followed by a series of powerful aftershocks -- but some were turning to digging graves instead.
Afghanistan is frequently hit by deadly earthquakes, but the weekend disaster is the worst to strike the impoverished country in more than 25 years.
“The situation is worse than we imagined with people in devastated villages still desperately trying to rescue survivors from under the rubble with their bare hands,” said Thamindri de Silva, national director at World Vision Afghanistan.
Reinforcement teams from the capital Kabul had arrived to help but there was only one hospital and it was “at full stretch with serious cases being transferred to other private facilities.”
“We are responding with everything we have. People need urgent medical care, water, food, shelter and help to stay safe,” de Silva added.
Mark Calder, World Vision Afghanistan’s advocacy lead, said the latest earthquake was “yet another devastating episode” for Afghans following decades of conflict, successive droughts and a collapsed economy.”
Funding from the international community, Calder added, “has been inadequate.”
“The world must not look away from Afghanistan now.”
Lack of water is also a serious challenge, said Siddig Ibrahim, UNICEF Afghanistan’s Chief of Field Office, with women and children being the most disproportionately affected.
“Afghanistan is home to one of the world’s worst humanitarian and child rights crises,” he said. “The international community should not, and cannot, look away from children in Afghanistan, especially now, when help is needed most.”
Save the Children said the scale of the damage in Herat was “horrific” and anticipates the death toll will rise as bodies are pulled from the rubble.
“This is a crisis on top of a crisis,” said Save the Children’s Afghanistan director Arshad Malik. “Even before this disaster, Afghan children were already suffering from a devastating lack of food.”
“Without an urgent injection of money, existing humanitarian programs will be impacted as already overstretched funding is strained further,” he said.
Afghanistan has long been one of Asia’s poorest countries and has been ravaged by conflict for decades.
The Taliban seized power in August 2021, 20 years after their ouster by U.S. troops – an event that saw many major aid groups and NGOs pull out and crucial aid programs halted.
The Taliban’s takeover further isolated Afghanistan from the rest of the world and led to Washington and allies cutting off international funding – crippling an economy already heavily dependent on aid.
Last week the World Bank warned that two thirds of Afghan families currently faced “significant challenges in maintaining their livelihoods” – making it harder for Afghans to recover from earthquakes.
International aid groups have said their ability to respond to calls during major disasters has been heavily impacted by the Taliban’s takeover and called for more urgent global aid – but so far only a handful of countries have publicly offered support.
“Even before this earthquake, with recent floods and instability within the country, over 29 million people in Afghanistan were in need of humanitarian assistance,” said IRC director Salma Ben Assia.
“The earthquake has further exacerbated the situation of already vulnerable communities and upcoming harsh winter conditions spell disaster for the welfare of those that have become displaced, especially for women and children who are most at risk of exploitation and abuse in their displacement.”
“Thousands are now without homes or shelter – they have lost everything,” added Malik from Save the Children.
“The international community cannot turn its backs on children and families in Herat who need urgent help.”
-- Chivalrous Palestinians Versus Unmanly Israelis
To claim by the enemies of humanity that the heroic Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the racist/terrorist illegitimate Zionist entity was not masterminded by the Resistance forces in Gaza but by outsiders, is sheer ignorance of the ability and resolve of the occupied people of Palestine to improvise technology, tactics and efforts to continue the struggle for liberation of their homeland.
Usurper Israel and its equally criminal backers in Washington, London, Paris, and Berlin want to give ‘a face-saving’ impression that Tel Aviv’s intelligence apparatus and its military might was shattered by some superior force, which all these roguish regimes are incapable of confronting with their combined strength.
No, this was not the case. The Palestinians did it themselves and proved their determination to decisively defeat Israel one day and eradicate it from the map of West Asia, even if their jihad takes the toll of tens of thousands of their civilians who are proud of achieving martyrdom for a Godly cause.
Iran and the rest of the free world salutes the Gazans for their heroism and are confident that the people of the West Bank, despite their suffocation by cowardly Israel from one side and the timid government of Jordan from the other, will soon take up arms against the occupiers.
As the Leader of the Islamic Revolution said in his remarks on Tuesday at a military parade in Tehran that an earthquake has hit the Zionist entity from which it will never recover.
He said: “We praise the minds and efforts of the Palestinian youth and the resourceful and intelligent Palestinian designers and are proud of them.”
Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei’s defence of humanitarian values which Israel has continued to trample ever since its illegitimate birth in 1948 and his emphasis that “the entire Islamic world is obligated to support the Palestinian nation”, has been hailed by Muslims worldwide as is evident by rallies in support of Palestine even in the cities of North America, Europe, and Australia.
In contrast, some of the comrades-in-crimes against humanity shamelessly voiced support for the spurious regime whose very existence is a blot on human conscience by issuing a joint statement against the Palestinian people.
These were US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (a ‘Sepoy’ slavishly serving his white English ‘Sahibs’).
The Palestinian Resistance Movement should be greatly admired for its spirit of chivalry in the face of the mounting civilian casualties it is enduring with patience by announcing in advance (in Hebrew as well) its intention to launch missiles on Israeli bases and asking civilians to evacuate the area, as opposed to the unmanly Zionists whose war crimes, in addition to the bombing of hospitals, schools, mosques, and marketplaces, include cutting of electricity and water.
TEHRAN TIMES:
-- Western media: A tentacle of Israel
Palestinians are “dead” while Israelis are “getting killed”. That’s how the London-based BBC likes to refer to the casualties of the current military conflict between Israel and the Gaza Strip. The Hamas resistance movement’s unprecedented attack on Israel has been keeping Western media abuzz with a slew of accusations and allegations pointed toward the group. Hamas launched a full-scale attack on the occupied territories Saturday as it fired thousands of rockets and sent its fighters into Israeli settlements through land, sea, and air. For people outside West Asia who have been grasping information on the region through the lens of Western media, this might be the first time they have come across the harrowing images of war between Gaza and the Israeli regime.
-- World in support of Palestinians in Gaza
With the increasing wave of bombardments by the occupying regime of Tel Aviv on Gaza that has so far cost the lives of more than 700 people, including 300 women and children, the people of different countries demonstrated in support of the residents of Gaza as well as the resistance forces and asked the international community to break their silence against the crimes of the Zionist regime. Turkish citizens of Diyarbakir came to the streets in a demonstration on Monday and declared their support for the people of Gaza. American citizens also came to the streets in San Francisco and Chicago and declared their support for the defenseless people of Gaza and condemned the Zionist criminals. In Philadelphia and New York, the citizens of that country also condemned the oppression of the Zionist regime in Gaza.
-- Iran launches diplomatic efforts to help Palestine
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian put in diplomatic efforts to mobilize the international community in solidarity with the Palestinian people amid continued Israeli atrocities in the Gaza Strip. Amir Abdollahian spoke with foreign ministers of Iraq, Qatar and Oman, the EU foreign policy chief and the secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. In his conversation with Hissein Brahim Taha, the secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Iranian foreign minister called for an extraordinary meeting of the OIC to discuss the situation in Palestine. He called on the Islamic countries to make efforts to help the oppressed people of Palestine. The secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation condemned Israel’s attacks against the Palestinian people and stressed the need for cooperation and coordination among Islamic.
-- Transit of goods via Iran rises 15% in 6 months on year
Transit of commodities through Iran increased by 15 percent during the first six months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-September 22), as compared to the same period of time in the past year, Iranian deputy transport minister announced. Shahriyar Afandizadeh said that 6,539,374 tons of commodities were transited via the country in the first half of the present year. He said the transit of oil products via Iran rose 7.42 percent, and that of the non-oil goods increased 6.3 percent in the six-month period, year on year. As previously announced by the official, 10.8 million tons of commodities were transited through the country in the past Iranian calendar year 1401 (ended on March 20). Afandizadeh also announced that Iran registered a new record high with the transit of 8.3 million tons of non-oil goods in 1401.
-- Mashhad hosting Iran-Iraq Science Week
Iran-Iraq Science Week, the first major scientific event between the two neighboring countries, kicked off on Monday in the city of Mashhad. Representatives of over 60 universities and educational institutions are attending the event, which will wrap on Thursday. Hosted by Ferdowsi University, this scientific event aims to develop diplomatic interactions, academic relations, and cultural exchange. “The development of academic cooperation and the exchange of scientific knowledge and modern technologies is one of the main goals of holding this 5-day conference,” IRNA quoted Vahid HaddadiAsl, the Iranian deputy science minister for international affairs, as saying.
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