NOURNEWS- The following headlines appeared in English-language newspapers in the Iranian capital on Sunday, November 5, 2023.
IRAN DAILY:
-- VP Mokhber to attend opening ceremony of China International Import Expo
Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber will visit China to participate in the opening ceremony of the 6th China International Import Exhibition (CIIE), as he will negotiate with the officials of China and the countries present at the event on the development of the international markets of Iran.
Announcing the above, Mohammad Jamshidi, the Iranian president’s deputy chief of staff for political affairs added that the 6th CIIE will officially open on Sunday, with the presence of Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang, as well as high-ranking officials from other countries, fvpresident.ir wrote.
At the official invitation of the Chinese premier, Mokhber departed Tehran for Shanghai to speak at the opening ceremony of the event, as he will conduct bilateral and multilateral talks for the development of economic relations and finding new markets for Iranian goods in China and other countries.
Referring to China’s great market, Jamshidi noted that the presence of other countries in the exhibition is a very good opportunity for Iran to find new markets for Iranian goods and increase the export capacity of the country.
Also, with the presence of other high-ranking officials, Mokhber will inaugurate the pavilion of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Shanghai exhibition.
The visit of traders and officials from other countries to Iran’s pavilion will be a good opportunity to introduce Iran’s economic capabilities, Jamshidi stated.
Over 50 companies as well as 250 Iranian businesspersons in different economic and commercial sectors will showcase their products at the exhibition.
-- China opens doors for imports by holding CIIE
China International Import Expo (CIIE) is a trade fair that has been held in Shanghai, China every year since 2018. The event is the first expo in the world at the national level with the subject of imports.
Various exhibitors from different businesses and countries as well as “Hongqiao International Economic Forum” are participating in the expo. The formation of the China International Import Expo was personally proposed, promoted and directed by the current Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The exhibition is jointly organized by the Ministry of Commerce of China and the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government. The partners of the CIIE include the World Trade Organization, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.
The purpose of the CIIE is to introduce China’s domestic market to foreign companies and strengthen domestic consumption. The exhibition has provided a platform for the cooperation of rich and poor countries as well as small and large economies in the form of win-win cooperation. It also allows companies and experts to talk closely to find their business partners.
China’s open-door policy
Reviewing the past five editions of the CIIE, “open doors” and “sharing opportunities” have always been the keywords in the five inaugural speeches of Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasized that not only will China’s doors not be closed, but they will become more open day by day. China will always provide a positive and stable driving force for the growth of the world economy, and will always be a large and dynamic market for countries looking for business opportunities. Parts of the Chinese president’s speech last year are as follows:
•Opening up is an important driving force for the progress of human civilization and the only way for global prosperity and development. Currently, the world is undergoing major changes not seen in a century and the global economy lacks the momentum to recover. We should use openness to solve development problems, use openness to bring together the power of cooperation, use openness to gather innovation momentum, and use openness to seek common interests. This action will benefit development results. It makes the people of all countries fairer.
•China will encourage all countries to share opportunities for deepening international cooperation, participate fully and deeply in WTO reform negotiations, promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, and promote international macroeconomic policy coordination. , will jointly create a new impetus for global development, and will actively join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement, expand the global network of high-standard free trade zones. It will strongly support and assist developing countries to accelerate their development and promote the construction of a society with a common future for mankind.
•China is willing to work with other countries to practice true multilateralism, build greater consensus on opening up, and overcome the difficulties and challenges facing global economic development and the opening brings a new bright future for global development.
Introduction of CIIE 2023
The first edition of the expo was opened by President Xi Jinping in 2018. The 2019 Expo was also opened by Xi Jinping, while French President Emmanuel Macron was one of the honored visitors of the expo.
The fifth edition of the CIIE was held in 2022, with more than 2,800 booths and 100 countries as the turnover of the exhibition days last year was $73.6 billion.
This year, the sixth edition (CIIE 2023) will be held in Shanghai on November 5-10. The exhibition consists of four sections, including national pavilions, commercial pavilions, international economy section and activities related to cultural exchange.
Guests from 145 countries and international organizations will participate in the event. More than 3,400 exhibitors and 394,000 professional visitors have registered to attend the exhibition, which shows a complete return to the pre-coronavirus level. Hundreds of executives from Fortune 500 companies are expected to attend the CIIE, which shows an increase compared to previous years. A total of 15 major brands of the automotive industry, 10 major industrial power companies, 10 medical equipment manufacturers, three mining giants, four top grain trading companies and five top shipping companies have confirmed their presence in the exhibition.
The CIIE will be active in six major areas, including the following: Medical and health care equipment, food and agricultural products, smart industries and information technology, consumer goods, business services and automobiles.
Iran’s pavilion at CIIE 2023
The Iran-China Trade Center is responsible for holding the Iran Pavilion at the CIIE 2023. The pavilion offers Iranian products to buyers in the following four areas: food products, smart industries and information technology, medical equipment and consumer goods.
The invitation to participate in the exhibition was published by the Iran-China Trade Center in April, and the companies applying to participate in CIIE sent their documents to the center. A conference as well as press meetings were held by the center to better explain the opportunities in the CIIE. Iran’s trade pavilion in China is expected to provide opportunities for companies.
Officially invited by the Chinese prime minister, Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber will participate and give a speech at the opening ceremony of the exhibition.
High-ranking officials of some other countries, including Germany, Australia and Cuba will be also present and deliver speeches at the opening ceremony.
The opening of CIIE 2023 will be held in the presence of the Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang, and then all the officials will attend the national pavilions of the invited countries and inaugurate them.
The presence of Iran’s first vice president in the great even is a new opportunity for the development of Iran’s international markets.
-- Iran imports basic goods worth over $9b: IRICA
Official statistics released by the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA) indicate that in the first seven months of the current Iranian calendar year (started March 21), over 13 million tons of essential commodities of 20 different types were imported into the country, worth $9.163 billion.
The imports of basic goods have experienced a 0.98% increase in terms of weight and a 4.97% decrease in terms of value compared to the same period last year, according to ISNA.
Corn, semi-solid and liquid edible oils, various types of oilseeds, rice, wheat, barley, chemical fertilizers, heavy rubber, soybean meal, raw sugar, printing and writing paper, paper pulp, dry tea, legumes, red meat, chemical technical poisons, chicken meat, various seeds, and newspaper paper were among the 20 essential commodities imported to the country.
Corn has secured the top position among essential imported commodities exceeding 4.9 million tons, worth more than $2 billion. Semi-solid and liquid edible oils rank second, with over 1.1 million tons imported, valued at $1.8 billion.
Red meat, chemical fertilizers, and barley have the highest increases in imports among the essential commodities while the imports of chicken meat, dry tea, raw sugar, and rice have decreased by 62% compared to the first seven months of the previous Iranian calendar year.
Figures by the IRICA show the country's foreign trade reached $64.4 billion in the seven months to October 22 with a deficit of $7.7 billion.
Iran exported 79.5 million tons of non-oil commodities worth $28.3 billion from March 21 to October 22, IRICA head Mohammad Rezvani-Far said last week.
-- Iranian satellites to contribute to environmental pursuits
Iranian Space Agency (ISA) provided satellite images of the Kajaki Dam sources in Afghanistan to the country’s National Dust Control Headquarters, announced Ali Sadeqi Naeini, the representative of the ISA at the headquarters.
“These images serve as valuable resources for Iranian representatives at the Hirmand Water Commissionerate to facilitate negotiations with the Afghan delegation,” he said, according to Tasnim News Agency.
One of the fields in which satellite images play an important role is environmental monitoring. Satellite images with a wide view provide users with the ability to monitor various aspects such as dust paths, water sources, and subsidence rates.
The impact of satellites on improving the quality of human life is widely acknowledged. Satellites, including those used for sensing and telecommunication purposes, operate in different orbits around the Earth and have diverse applications. These effects can be observed in various fields such as weather forecasting, Earth resource observation, satellite-based communications, and aerial photography.
Environmental monitoring is a crucial area where satellite images play a significant role. These images, offering a broad perspective, enable users to monitor dust paths, water resources, subsidence rates, border surveillance, and boundary mapping.
In our country, satellite images are also employed for environmental protection purposes, as previously illustrated.
These satellite images have also contributed to the creation of dust maps, aiding in the identification and control of both internal and external dust sources. Given the water disputes between Iran and Afghanistan, these images provide crucial support to Iranian representatives, equipping them with valuable evidence during negotiations.
Another illustrative example of the impact of satellite images can be observed through the words of Jabbar Vatan Fada, Director General of the Border Rivers Office at the Ministry of Energy.
“When the Taliban claimed there was a water shortage due to reduced rainfall, we presented satellite images from the past five years, including the most recent ones, demonstrating that the current year had witnessed more rainfall than the previous two to three years,” he said.
These images served as undeniable proof of the water availability behind the dam.
While monitoring dust and water resources is one of the key environmental functions of satellite images, these images have versatile applications in other fields as well. In addition to Iran, many countries in the region also face environmental challenges.
“Iran’s satellite images can assist these countries in monitoring and addressing such problems. For instance, countries like Iraq and Syria, which, like Iran, confront issues related to dust and water disputes with neighboring nations, can benefit from the use of satellite images,” he said, adding, “The availability of accurate information through these images holds significant value for both these countries and Iran.”
KAYHAN INTERNATIONAL:
-- ‘Haniyeh Met Ayatollah Khamenei in Tehran After Op’
A senior Hamas member said Saturday the resistance movement’s leader Ismail Haniyeh was in Iran in recent days to meet with Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
Osama Hamdan, himself a member of Hamas politburo and its top representative in Lebanon, said Haniyeh traveled to Tehran “a couple of days ago” and “had met and talked with” Ayatollah Khamenei.
-- U.S. House Passes Bill to Step Up Iran Oil Sanctions
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill to bolster sanctions on Iranian oil.
The Stop Harboring Iranian Petroleum (SHIP) bill, which passed 342-69, would impose measures on foreign ports and refineries that process petroleum exported from Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions.
-- With Palestinians Until Final Victory
Millions of Iranians took to the streets in some 800 cities and towns Saturday to mark the anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” while condemning Washington’s support of Israel as it goes on with its massacre of the Palestinians.
Shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution toppled the Western-backed shah, Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held more than 50 Americans for 444 days.
The rally came as the occupying regime of Israel’s ruthless killing of Palestinians entered its fourth week.
People assembled outside the former U.S. embassy in Tehran, with some burning American and Israeli flags.
Protesters stomped on images of extremist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden. Others carried banners calling the U.S., “Great Satan.” The banner on the main podium read: “We trample America under our feet.”
Parliament speaker, Muhammad Bagher Ghalibaf, addressed the crowds while denouncing U.S. support of Israel. “We consider the criminal U.S. a principal culprit in all these crimes,” in Gaza and against Palestinians, he said.
Ghalibaf said the Hamas operation against the Zionist regime has caused “irreparable” intelligence and security damage to Israel.
In a statement published at the end of the commemoration, protesters called for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza and warned the U.S., Britain and France that the crisis might expand in the region.
The statement ended with a pledge that Iranians would stand by the Palestinians “until final victory.”
“For more than three weeks, educational centers in Gaza have been subjected to the most brutal rocket attacks by the Zionist regime, and as a result, more than three thousand children have been martyred and hundreds of thousands of students have been displaced.
“This level of brutality in shedding the blood of innocent people who have taken refuge in the hope of respecting international laws in not attacking schools is unprecedented.
“Once again, the arrogance of the US and its western allies
is revealed in their all-out support of the child-killing Zionist regime,” the statement said.
They also censured Western media attempts to distort reports of Israeli crimes and atrocities in Gaza.
“Despite the efforts of the Western media in distorting and attenuating the crimes of the Zionist regime, freedom-seeking people were able to bring the events to the world’s attention through social networks and explanation,” the communiqué said.
“This action removed the mask from the face of the child-killing Zionist regime and its supporters, and the truth of the oppression of the Palestinian people has been revealed to everyone,” it added.
The Iranian students called on the justice-seeking people of the world to ramp up pressure on Western politicians by explaining, narrating and expanding the pro-Palestine gatherings, and demanded an immediate stop to the bombing of the Palestinian people by the Zionist regime.
The demonstration began in Palestine Square in central Tehran. Protesters walked for nearly two kilometers till they reached the former U.S. embassy compound. National TV showed footage of similar rallies in other Iranian cities and towns.
The annual rally is a venue for anti-Western sentiments and usually draws huge crowds.
On Wednesday Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei slammed the U.S. for its support of Israel, saying the Zionist entity would have been paralyzed without American support.
He called for an end to the Israeli atrocities and for Muslim-majority nations to halt economic cooperation with the Zionist regime.
-- Zionist Airstrikes on Gaza Hospitals Intensify
The occupying regime of Israel on Saturday struck Al-Fakhoura school in the Jabalia neighborhood in Gaza, martyring at least 15 people and wounding dozens of others, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Thousands of people, who had fled their homes due to bombing, were sheltering in the school when missiles struck, leaving craters in the courtyard and causing panic.
Victims of the bombing were mostly women and children sitting in the school yard, according to a health ministry official, who said they “were torn to pieces” and “their bones and flesh were collected in plastic bags”.
Israeli bombing also targeted Al-Quds hospital, while Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza shut down after its generator stopped working due to fuel shortages.
Al-Nasr Children’s hospital, the only one of its kind in the besieged enclave, was also targeted.
Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesperson for the Palestinian health ministry, announced that 16 hospitals in Gaza have now been rendered out of service, while 105 medical facilities have been targeted.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “horrified” by the bombing that struck an ambulance convoy outside Al-Shifa hospital Friday.
He added that “now, for nearly one month, civilians in Gaza, including children & women, have been besieged, denied aid, killed and bombed out of their homes. This must stop.”
At least 15 people were martyred in the bombing of Al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital, according to Al Jazeera. Video footage circulating online showed bloody and chaotic scenes.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “utterly shocked by reports of attacks on ambulances evacuating patients close to Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, leading to deaths, injuries and damage.”
“We reiterate: patients, health workers, facilities and ambulances must be protected at all times. Always,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Video footage shared by Al Jazeera Arabic showed Israel bombing al-Azhar University in Gaza. Since the war started, the occupying regime has also bombed Gaza University, the Islamic University of Gaza and Al-Aqsa University.
The health ministry also said that around 2,200 people, including 1,250 children, are buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings in Gaza and that one Palestinian in Gaza has been martyred every four minutes since the start of the war.
Israeli missiles also targeted the home of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who is not at present in Gaza, according to Reuters.
The death toll of the Zionist regime’s most ruthless bombing campaign in Gaza has reached 9,448 since the start of the war on October 7, including 3,900 children and 2,500 women.
Local Palestinian media reported that Israeli bombing was intentionally targeting vital services, including mosques, solar panels, generators and hospitals, as well as water tanks. Gaza’s Al-Azhar University was also bombed, seen in footage shared widely online.
Over 25,000 tonnes of explosives have been dropped on Gaza by Israel since the start of the war, Gaza’s media office announced on Saturday.
The Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, announced that they killed five Israeli soldiers and wounded several others in a building northwest of Gaza City.
Meanwhile, another exchange of fire took place at the Lebanon border, with the Zionist army saying it attacked Hezbollah targets.
In response, rockets were launched from southern Lebanon at Zionist targets near the border.
Hezbollah’s Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday warned Israel against any major operation against Lebanon, saying that “all options are on the table on the Lebanese front”.
In Jordan, meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rejected calls for a ceasefire during a meeting with his Arab counterparts in Amman. He claimed that a truce would leave Hamas in a position to regroup and carry out similar attacks to the one on October 7 which killed around 1,400 Zionists.
Blinken was set to meet the Saudi, Qatari, Lebanese, Emirati, Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers, as well as Palestinian representatives, who will press for an immediate ceasefire. Blinken will also visit Turkey for two days from Sunday as part of a regional tour.
Turkey on Saturday recalled its ambassador to Israel in view of “the ongoing humanitarian tragedy in Gaza caused by continued attacks on civilians and Israel’s refusal [to accept] a ceasefire,” the Turkish foreign ministry said.
In London, tens of hundreds of people gathered outside the BBC offices to demand a ceasefire and criticize the network’s coverage of the war. A sit-in was also staged in Oxford Circus, one of the busiest parts of the capital.
More than 600 academics and scholars co-signed an open letter, demanding that universities in Ireland suspend all ties with the occupying regime of Israel.
The letter states: “The scale and severity of Israel’s current war on the Gaza Strip has exceeded all previous levels of violence in the prolonged and brutal Israeli occupation of Palestine. It is a campaign of ethnic cleansing and, according to many experts, genocidal violence.”
“The dehumanizing language and tropes widely used by Israeli leaders in reference to Palestinians echo those typically associated with genocidal incitement and intent,” the letter read.
Among those who have signed the letter are Professor Kathleen Lynch and Professor Eugenia Siapera, both from University College Dublin, and Professor Aoife O’Donoghue, from Queen’s University, Belfast.
In the occupied West Bank, Zionist settlers mounted an Israeli flag on the minaret of a mosque in the occupied West Bank, in the latest example of increased attacks.
The mosque is in the Al-Fawwar refugee camp, close to Al-Khalil. According to local media reports, settlers also removed photos and posters that had been left in remembrance of those killed in Israeli attacks.
-- U.S., EU Pressure Ukraine Into Peace Talks With Russia
U.S. and European officials have spoken to the Ukrainian government about what possible peace negotiations with Russia might entail to end the war, NBC quoted an unidentified senior U.S. official and one former U.S. official as saying.
The war in Ukraine, now in its 21st month, has killed or wounded hundreds of thousands and destroyed swathes of the country. It has also triggered the deepest crisis in Moscow’s relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
NBC said the conversations had included very broad outlines of what Ukraine might need to give up to reach a deal with Russia.
Asked on Saturday about the NBC report, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky reaffirmed his stance that this was not the time to negotiate with Russia, and he also denied that any Western leaders were pressuring him to do so.
“Everyone knows my attitude, which coincides with the attitude of Ukrainian society ... Today no one is putting pressure (on me to negotiate), not one of the leaders of the EU or the United States,” he told a joint news conference with the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in Kyiv.
“For us now to sit down with Russia and talk and give it something - this will not happen.”
Ukraine has repeatedly said it aims to retake all the territory taken by Russia, including Crimea which was annexed in 2014, and that it will not rest until every Russian soldier has been driven from its lands.
NBC quoted the U.S. officials as saying that the conversations with Ukraine came amid concerns in the United States and Europe that the war has reached a stalemate and worries about the West’s ability to continue providing aid to Kyiv.
Russia currently controls about 17.5% of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory.
Moscow says it had to launch what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine in response to what it sees as a hostile and aggressive West it says is using Kyiv to undermine Russia.
The Kremlin says it will achieve all of its aims in Ukraine.
On Friday, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in an interview with German broadcaster ZDF that his country is not conducting any secret talks with Russia.
He said the basis for a peace deal is respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
“From diplomatic to plain language, it means that Russia must leave Ukraine,” Kuleba said. “Until that happens, until they are ready to do that, there
is no point in holding any negotiations.”
Ukrainian and Russian delegations are currently discussing three main issues, as reported by The Washington Post: the exchange of prisoners of war and the return of the bodies of deceased soldiers, the passage of ships through the Black Sea, and the repatriation of Ukrainian children from Russia.
Since the beginning of the war in February 2022, Ukrainian officials have consistently rejected peace talks with Russia.
Last month, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder revealed that Ukraine had requested his mediation in talks with Russia at the war’s onset, but no agreement on this had been reached.
In September, President Zelensky signed a decree issued by the National Security and Defense Council, making negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin impossible.
-- Zionist Troops Afraid of Facing Resistance Forces
Israeli troops are terribly afraid of face-to-face confrontation with the Palestinian resistance fighters in the Gaza Strip, the spokesman for the Iranian Armed Forces said Saturday.
“World powers are incapable of confronting the small group of Hamas. They are afraid of fighting face to face with Hamas, and therefore target women and children out of desolation and humiliation. Such atrocities and bloodshed will not last long, as Palestine and resistance groups will eventually emerge victorious,” Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi said.
He said superpowers cannot fight off Hamas resistance fighters, as the Gaza-based group is at the forefront of the struggle to restore the Palestinian nation’s inalienable rights and liberate the Israeli-occupied Palestinian lands.
Shekarchi said more than 3,000 children have lost their lives as a result of Israel’s genocidal attacks on the Gaza Strip, stating that the most notable victory for the Muslim world following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was the consensus among Muslim and non-Muslim nations to censure the oppressive and bloodthirsty Israeli regime.
Shekarchi said the presence of commanders from the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) as well as the U.S. Army and Navy in Tel Aviv is meant to boost the Israeli military’s morale, since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood by Gaza’s resistance fighters brought utter disgrace upon the force.
“With every day of the war that passes, Israel sinks further into the quagmire of collapse. There is no option left for Israel’s child-killing regime other than downfall.”
The spokesman said the Americans have publicly demonstrated their unconditional support for the occupying Israeli regime, stating that most NATO members threw their backing behind Israel in the aftermath of the heroic and successful Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in a clear manifestation of oppression against the long downtrodden residents of Gaza.
TEHRAN TIMES:
-- Iran FM talks to Russian, British and Brazilian counterparts on Gaza
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian has held separate phone calls with foreign ministers of Russia, Britain, and Brazil on the humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip and the spread of war beyond Gaza. In a conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov Friday, they discussed the latest developments in Gaza, expressing concern over the spillover of the Israeli war to other parts of the region. The international community was encouraged by Amir Abdollahian to step up its efforts to stop Israel’s “crimes and genocide” against the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Lavrov stated that Russia and Iran share a common perspective on the serious situation in Palestine, notably in Gaza, which has been subjected to Israeli airstrikes since October 7. The senior Russian official stated that his country is fearful that the war’s spread may spiral out of control. Earlier on Friday, Amir Abdollahian held separate phone talks with Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Faisal Mekdad and Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani.
-- Blinken’s empty proposals
Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, has made his second trip to the occupied territories since the beginning of the regime’s attacks on Gaza. According to media reports, Blinken has raised the issue of ‘humanitarian pauses’ during his meetings with Israeli officials. At the same time, another American official has stated that the temporary ceasefire should be in exchange for the release of Israeli captives. Benjamin Netanyahu has also stated that he does not agree with Blinken’s proposal and will continue the bombing and killing of the people of Gaza. In fact, it must be said that the Israeli army in Gaza is facing challenges beyond its expectations. An army that claims to be the fourth most powerful and technological army in the world has been stuck in less than ten kilometers of progress and consolidation in the depths of Gaza after a week.
-- Israeli army losing heavily in Gaza
Al-Qassam has staged three major attacks on the Israeli regime’s army beyond the separation wall that divides the besieged Gaza Strip from the Israelioccupied Palestinian territories. On October, 7 (the first day of Operation al-Aqsa storm), the freedom fighters attacked the Erez crossing point and its military base inflicting heavy casualties on the Israelis. Although entering a well-equipped military center and killing and capturing almost everyone present in it is very surprising, the operation can be justified. After the Zionists gradually emerged from the surprise attack, preparations for ground operations hastily began. One of the most important aspects of this was the unprecedented gathering of forces near Gaza. Hundreds of thousands of Israeli troops are currently stationed around the coastal enclave, with a significant number concentrated in the same area of Erez.
-- Israel bombardment intensifies; 9500 Palestinians killed in Gaza
At least 231 people were killed in Israeli attacks in the last 24 hours alone in Gaza, bringing the overall death toll since October 7 to 9,488 Palestinians, including 3,900 children and 2,500 women, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Saturday. 24,000 have also been wounded, the ministry said. In the latest Israeli attacks on Gaza, the ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra said at least 20 people were killed and another 54 were wounded in the Israeli bombing of al-Fakhoora School. Also, 2 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike at the gate of Al-Aqsa hospital. Israeli occupation forces launched a strike on Al-Fakhoura School north of the coastal strip, which houses dozens of refugees. The ministry announced that 105 medical facilities were ‘deliberately targeted’ by Israeli forces. Also, 150 paramedics have been killed since October 7. 27 ambulance vehicles have been totally destroyed, including two carrying the convoy of victims headed for Rafah on Friday.
-- Iran accounts for 35% of Afghanistan’s import market
The economic adviser of the Iranian president’s special envoy in Afghanistan affairs said Iran has a 35 percent share in Afghanistan’s import market, which is a considerable figure in bilateral trade ties. Speaking in an interview with IRNA, Mohammad-Mehdi Javanmard-Ghassab stated that Tehran and Kabul enjoy high capacities to expand bilateral trade relations, especially in the fields of technical engineering services, transportation, and transit. The economies of Iran and Afghanistan can complement each other, he said, adding that the two countries need a long-term strategic plan to take advantage of these conditions optimally. Turning to Iran’s 35 percent share in Afghanistan’s market, Javanmard-Ghasab stressed that the country is seeking to export technology, technical know-how as well as technical and engineering services to Afghanistan. Increasing the production of Iranian products in Afghanistan is also on the agenda, he emphasized. According to Mohammad Ghanadzadeh, the deputy head of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO), the trade between Iran and Afghanistan has increased by 20 percent in the current Iranian calendar year (started on March 21).
-- Iranians shout against Report Israel as they mark Aban 13
On Saturday morning, Iranians from all walks of life, especially pupils, flocked to the streets to mark Aban 13, the day students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979. The day is known as National Day of Students or National Day of Fight against Global Arrogance. This year Aban 13 (November 4) turned into a scene of protests against Israel, which has been committing indescribable crimes against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since October 7. The rallies kicked off in the capital, Tehran, and hundreds of cities and towns across the country at 9:00 a.m. local time (0530 GMT). The marchers wearing Palestinian keffiyeh chanted slogans such as “Down with the U.S.” and “Down with Israel”
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