Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
Iran’s supreme leader has called on Muslim countries to unite against Israel and the United States, as fresh incidents were reported across the wider Middle East. A tanker was hit in the Strait of Hormuz, Israel said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s eldest son was evacuated from the US over a threat, and an Israeli strike in Gaza killed two Palestinians, including a three-year-old child.
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The latest developments also included violence in the occupied West Bank, where NBC said settlers attacked one of its crews, and the reported detention of a British activist by settlers before he was handed over to Israeli police.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, urged rulers of Muslim countries to “know your real enemy, understand its plans and confront it”, and described the US and Israel as enemies of all Islamic nations, according to the official IRNA news agency. His remarks came in a letter to religious leaders attending a conference in Tehran. Six months after the US and Israel attacked Iran, killing Khamenei’s father and other senior leaders, he has still not appeared in public. The war has also exposed divisions in the Muslim world after Iran struck targets in neighbouring Gulf Arab countries and restricted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran has opposed the US military presence in the region.
Israel’s Shin Bet security agency said it urgently evacuated Yair Netanyahu from the United States because of a “significant threat” against him. The agency did not give details. Last week, Netanyahu told an Israeli television station that Iran had tried to kill one of his sons, but his office declined to comment on Sunday. Yair Netanyahu moved to Miami in 2023 and has spent most of the period of Israel’s wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran outside the country. He has often acted as an unofficial adviser to his father and has also drawn controversy for attacks on critics on social media.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Organisation, a monitoring agency run by the British military, said an unknown projectile struck a tanker on Saturday north of Khasab in Oman, in the Strait of Hormuz. It said the ship was inbound and that there were no reported casualties or environmental damage, citing unspecified military authorities. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
In the West Bank, NBC said settlers attacked one of its crews on Saturday while they were interviewing a Palestinian woman who said she had been forced from her home. The network said correspondent Matt Bradley, two other crew members and the woman were treated for injuries, but did not provide details. NBC also shared footage showing masked settlers approaching the crew with sticks and beating their vehicles. Israel’s military said it was “aware of reports of Palestinian injuries, including a Palestinian woman who sustained non-life-threatening injuries”, but did not comment on the attack on the NBC team. Netanyahu issued a rare condemnation on Saturday after a wave of settler violence in the West Bank, amid criticism from the US.
Separately, a British activist was seized by Israeli settlers from a Palestinian village in the West Bank on Saturday and locked in a shed before being handed over to police, his lawyer said on Sunday. It was not clear what led to the incident. Settlers alleged that Finn Joughin assaulted a child, an accusation his lawyer Inbar Shaked Vardi denied. Settlers referred to a video in which the activist appears to use his body to block a settler boy from passing through a fence, but Vardi said it showed he was trying to protect the village. “Without any hearing, the police has decided to move him to deportation, which just shows that this entire case has been political in the first place,” Vardi said, adding that Joughin was likely to be deported on Sunday night. A spokesperson for the UK government said embassy officials had raised the case with Israeli authorities.
In Gaza, an Israeli strike hit a group of people in western Deir al-Balah, killing a three-year-old child and a man whom Israel’s military described as a Hamas operative. The military said he had “posed an immediate threat”, but did not provide evidence. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said another Palestinian was wounded. Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 1,318 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since a fragile ceasefire agreement in October sought to halt more than two years of war between Israel and Hamas. The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government, keeps detailed casualty records that UN agencies and independent experts generally regard as reliable, but it does not distinguish between civilians and militants.
The latest developments showed the conflict continuing on several fronts, from Iran’s call for Muslim unity and a strike on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz to violence in the West Bank and fresh deaths in Gaza.
With PTI Inputs
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
