Category: 2. World

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Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ruled out direct negotiations with the US, accusing Washington of seeking an Iranian surrender.

In his first full public appearance since the 12-day war with Israel in June, Khamenei addressed thousands of people on Sunday, according to local media, after weeks of issuing only brief video messages and making limited ceremonial appearances.

His absence — following Israeli threats to assassinate him — had raised concerns over the stability of the Islamic republic’s leadership, amid growing domestic pressure on the regime to change course and pursue a rapprochement with Washington.

“This person who is currently in charge in the US revealed the essence of their hostility towards Iran — essentially, that they want the Iranian nation and the Islamic republic to surrender,” Khamenei said, without naming US President Donald Trump.

Khamenei criticised Iranian politicians advocating direct negotiations with Washington as “superficial”, insisting that “the Iranian nation will stand firmly against such [US] demands”.

Iran’s foreign minister said last month he had been in touch with US envoy Steve Witkoff, who had proposed resuming talks.

The remarks come at a critical time as reformist voices within Iran increasingly push for a diplomatic reset with the US, including the suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment and a return to negotiations aimed at de-escalating tensions and ending decades of hostility.

Pro-reform politicians such as political prisoner Mostafa Tajzadeh have argued that engagement could usher in vital economic and political reforms.

Hardline factions, however, have responded sharply, particularly in parliament and during Friday prayer sermons.

Some have even suggested that reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, elected last year, should be removed.

But Khamenei backed Pezeshkian, warning against internal strife.

“The people should support those who serve the nation, especially the president, who is hardworking and persistent,” he said, in a clear rebuke to hardliners calling for Pezeshkian’s ousting.

Public anxiety remains high following the June war with Israel, which claimed more than 1,000 civilian lives and resulted in the deaths of dozens of senior Iranian military commanders and nuclear scientists. The US joined Israel in bombing Iranian nuclear sites during the conflict.

Although open hostilities have ceased, no formal ceasefire has been reached, and fears persist of renewed conflict. Ongoing reports of fires across the country have further fuelled public concern that a shadow war remains under way, a claim that authorities deny.

Despite mounting pressure, Tehran has shown no intention of curbing its nuclear programme.

On Friday, the E3 — Britain, France and Germany — held telephone talks with Iran’s foreign minister as they reviewed the possibility of invoking a sanctions “snapback” mechanism ahead of the October 18 deadline.

This mechanism, envisaged in the 2015 deal over Iran’s nuclear programme, enables UN sanctions to be reimposed if Iran is found to be failing to comply with the agreement on curbing its nuclear activities.

October 18 is the last date on which the mechanism could be used, but in order to do so, the E3 would need to begin the process weeks beforehand.

The US unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018, and Iran claims the agreement is already void because the E3 failed to fulfil commitments to help lift sanctions in exchange for Tehran rolling back most of its nuclear activities.

Tehran has dismissed the E3’s threat and has so far shown no willingness to resume negotiations with the US or restart its co-operation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been suspended since the June war.

Ali Larijani, the newly appointed secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told domestic media on Friday that Iran would not accept an extension to the current snapback deadline, even if the E3 was considering extending the date as a temporary solution should Iran resume negotiations with the US.

“If we agree today, in six months we will be asked to do the same again. This is not sustainable,” he said.

Health Ministry in Gaza said on Sunday that 289 Palestinians, including 115 children, have died of starvation amid the ongoing famine crisis in the enclave.

Munir al-Bursh, director of the ministry, told Al Jazeera that the situation required a massive humanitarian response, warning that authorities were “in a race against time to address famine.”

He said eight Palestinians, including a child, had died from food shortages in the past 24 hours.

Moreover, at least 16 Palestinians have been killed across the enclave medical sources reported. The victims included at least seven aid seekers who were killed while waiting for food near distribution points. In the latest 24-hour reporting period, the bodies of 64 people and 278 injured Palestinians have been brought to hospitals across the besieged enclave, hospital officials said.

Hospital sources said at least five of the victims were shot while waiting for food near distribution points run by the US-backed GHF.

Since the start of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) operations, over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed and thousands wounded while seeking aid, according to figures cited by the UN. Of these, 766 people died near GHF aid points, while another 288 were killed near UN or other convoys. At least 516 deaths and nearly 3,800 injuries were documented within the first month alone.

Despite this, the US announced $30 million in funding for GHF, even as rights groups accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon. The death toll from aid queues continues to rise, underscoring how the blockade and GHF’s controversial role have combined to make humanitarian relief both scarce and deadly.

Read: International community reacts to Gaza famine confirmation

Meanwhile, the head of the children’s department at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis warned the health crisis in southern Gaza had reached “a catastrophic level,” saying the facility could no longer cope with the surge in malnourished children, Al Jazeera reports.

“One in four children in Gaza is already suffering from malnutrition, and between 60,000 and 75,000 children in southern Gaza alone are at risk,” Dr Ahmed al-Farra said, describing the figures as “horrifying and unprecedented.”

According to him, 25 children are currently hospitalised in critical condition, with some lying on the floor due to a lack of beds. He added that some children arrive at the hospital after losing their lives outside its gates “due to lack of milk and treatment.”

He added that the malnutrition clinic at Nasser, which operates only two days a week, receives more than 120 cases within hours — ten times higher than before.

Gaza City officially in famine

The United Nations on Friday declared famine in Gaza City, the first such announcement in the Middle East and only the fifth-ever official declaration worldwide. The UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) confirmed famine conditions in Gaza City and surrounding areas, warning that over 500,000 people face catastrophic hunger.

“It is a famine: the Gaza famine,” said UN emergency relief coordinator Tom Fletcher, blaming Israel for the crisis and accusing it of “systematic obstruction” of aid deliveries.

The IPC warned that famine is expected to spread to Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis by next month.

IPC said around 514,000 people — nearly a quarter of Gaza’s population — are already facing famine. The number is projected to rise to 641,000 by the end of September, it added.

Read more: Gaza City officially in famine, says global hunger monitor

Famine Classification

The IPC – an initiative involving 21 aid groups, UN agencies and regional organizations funded by the European Union, Germany, Britain and Canada – has only registered famines four times previously – in Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020 and in Sudan in 2024.

For a region to be classified as in famine at least 20% of people must be suffering extreme food shortages, with one in three children acutely malnourished and two people out of every 10,000 dying daily from starvation or malnutrition and disease.

New strikes

Israeli planes and tanks pounded the eastern and northern outskirts of Gaza City overnight Saturday to Sunday, destroying buildings and homes, residents said, as Israeli leaders vowed to press on with a planned offensive on the city.

Witnesses reported the sound of explosions non-stop overnight in the areas of Zeitoun and Shejaia, while tanks shelled houses and roads in the nearby Sabra neighbourhood and several buildings were blown up in the northern town of Jabalia.

Israel’s war on Gaza

Since October 2023, Israeli attacks across Gaza have killed at least 62,686 people and wounded 157,951, the Palestinian Health Ministry in the enclave says.

The latest deaths raise the total number of aid seekers who have been killed by Israeli fire since the establishment of the US- and Israel-backed GHF at the end of May to 2,095, with more than 15,431 wounded.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave. The proposed deal includes a pause in hostilities, increased humanitarian aid, and negotiations on the release of captives.

 

 

Israeli forces killed four aid seekers travelling on Sunday (August 24, 2025) through a military zone south of Gaza City — an area regularly used by Palestinians trying to reach a food distribution point, a hospital and witnesses said.

The deaths add to the growing toll of Palestinians killed while seeking food, as parts of the Gaza Strip plunge into famine and Israel’s military ramps up activity in northern Gaza ahead of a planned offensive to seize its largest city.

Al-Awda Hospital and two eyewitnesses told The Associated Press that the four Palestinians were killed when troops opened fire on a crowd heading to a site run by the Israeli-backed American contractor Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, in the Netzarim corridor area. It occurred hundreds of meters (yards) away from the site.

Also Read | Israel will push ahead with Gaza City takeover, renewed ceasefire talks, says Netanyahu

“The gunfire was indiscriminate,” Mohamed Abed, a father of two from the Bureij refugee camp, said, adding that while many fled, some people fell to the ground after being shot.

Abed and Aymed Sayyad, another aid seeker among the crowd, said troops opened fire when a group near the front of the crowd pushed forward toward a distribution site before its scheduled opening.

Mr. Sayyad said he and others helped two people who were wounded by gunshots, one in his shoulder and the other in his leg.

The Israeli military and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Malnutrition-related deaths

The four deaths are the latest in areas where UN convoys have been overwhelmed by looters and desperate crowds, and where people have been shot and killed while heading to sites run by the GHF.

More than 2,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 13,500 wounded while seeking aid at distribution points or along convoy routes used by the United Nations and other aid groups, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The Ministry said on Saturday that at least 62,622 Palestinians have been killed in the war, including missing people now confirmed dead by a special ministry judicial committee.

It said the number of malnutrition-related deaths rose by eight to 281. The deaths include a child, bringing the death toll among children to 115 since the war between Israel and Hamas began in 2023. A total of 174 adults have died of malnutrition-related causes since late June, it added.

The Health Ministry does not say how many of those killed have been fighters or civilians, but says around half have been women and children. It is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The UN and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification — the world’s leading authority on food crises — said Friday that famine is happening in Gaza City, home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and could spread south to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of next month.

Israel has denied there’s hunger in Gaza, calling reports of starvation “lies” promoted by Hamas.

‘Non-stop explosions’

In Jabaliya, the densely populated refugee camp just north of Gaza City, residents said they endured heavy explosions overnight. Days after Israel’s military announced it was intensifying its operations in the area and mobilising tens of thousands of reservists to take the city, they said they were living in constant fear.

In the part of Gaza City where he and his family have sheltered since being displaced from a neighbourhood on the city’s southern edge, Ossama Matter said he had seen houses reduced to rubble and neighbourhoods razed beyond recognition.

“They want it like Rafah,” he said, referring to a town in southern Gaza destroyed earlier in the war. “There have been non-stop explosions and strikes in the past days.”

While fleeing westward from Jabaliya, schoolteacher Salim Dhaher said he saw weaponised robots planting explosives as troops advanced from the opposite direction. As they set the stage for Israel’s push to seize the city, Dhaher said he feared it was part of a larger effort to forcibly remove Palestinians from the north.

The aim is clear, he said: “To destroy everything above the ground, and force the transfer.”

There has been little sign of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians evacuating south ahead of Israel’s invasion of Gaza City, which Israel says is still a Hamas stronghold. Many are exhausted by repeated displacements and unconvinced that any area— including so-called humanitarian zones — offers safety.

The military operation could begin within days in a region that threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians, who are sheltering in an area Israel has invaded multiple times but still believes harbours a network of militant tunnels underground.

Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals, but 50 remain inside Gaza, around 20 of them believed by Israel to be alive.

Published – August 24, 2025 05:54 pm IST

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday called for a united national front to confront what he described as US efforts to subjugate the Islamic republic.

The remarks, delivered at a mosque in the capital Tehran and published on Khamenei’s official website, come two months since fighting halted between Iran and its sworn enemy Israel in a war that the United States had briefly joined, and as Tehran is engaged in talks with world powers about its nuclear programme.

The rare Israeli and US attacks in June, which targeted key nuclear sites and prompted Iranian retaliation, were designed to destabilise the Islamic republic, Khamenei argued.

He said that a day after “Iran was attacked” by Israel at the start of the war, “American agents” met in Europe “to discuss what government should rule Iran after the Islamic republic”.

Khamenei claimed that the United States was ultimately seeking to make Iran “obedient to it”.

To the leader, the country has emerged strong from the 12-day war in June, the most intense direct confrontation in its history with arch foes Israel and the United States.

“The Iranian nation, by standing firm alongside the armed forces, the government and the system, delivered a strong blow” to its enemies, Khamenei said.

The supreme leader, who has the final say on state affairs, also warned against internal divisions he said foreign powers were fomenting.

“The way forward for the enemy is to create discord” in Iran, he said, blaming “agents of America and the Zionist regime” — a reference to Israel — for seeking to sow division.

“Today, thanks to God, the country is united. There are differences of opinion, but when it comes to defending the system, defending the country, and standing up against the enemy, the people are united,” Khamenei added.

Relations between Tehran and Washington were severed after the 1979 Islamic revolution and the subsequent hostage crisis at the US embassy.

Washington has since imposed successive waves of sanctions on Tehran, most recently over its nuclear programme.

The United States and its allies accuse Iran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, a claim Tehran has repeatedly denied.

The June war broke out as Tehran and Washington were due to hold their sixth round of talks on Iran’s nuclear programme, but the negotiations that had begun weeks earlier were derailed by the conflict.

Iran is due to meet on Tuesday with Britain, France and Germany for nuclear talks, as the European powers have threatened to reimpose sanctions if no agreement is reached.

Reuters