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Journalists at the Persian-language TV station Iran International in London have been working flat out, vowing to “show the truth” about the protests in Iran, despite threats against them and their families.The private broadcaster, housed in a heavily-secured building in west London, was labelled a “terrorist” organisation by Tehran in 2022 along with the BBC’s Persian-language channel.But Iranians can still access it via satellite and private VPN codes, and have continued to tune in even after authorities imposed an unprecedented nationwide communications blackout on January 8.Thousands of Iranians managed to send the channel videos of the crackdown, broadcast after verification. Many also sent audio or written testimonies describing atrocities they had witnessed.Farnoosh Faraji, a senior journalist, scrolled through images of piles of bodies, a man killed by a bullet in his back, and armed forces firing on fleeing protesters.”Honestly, it’s horrible. At the beginning I couldn’t believe it. I thought maybe the images were made with AI,” said the journalist, who fled Iran in 2012.- ‘Shocked by brutality’ -Part of the digital team, she spends her days analysing footage of the bloodshed.”I promised myself to be strong. I must help my people, this is part of my job,” she said.Presenter Reza Mohaddes said: “We were shocked by the brutality of the regime. How can you do this sort of things to your own people?”On Sunday, the channel reported that at least 36,500 people had been killed by security forces during the January 8-9 crackdown, citing newly obtained classified documents and accounts from medical sources and families.The anti-government demos were sparked by economic grievances in late December, but soon turned into mass street rallies against the Islamic republic.The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said Monday it had confirmed that 5,848 people had been killed, adding it was still investigating another 17,091 possible fatalities.Launched in 2017, Iran International “was created to be the voice of truth, the voice of the people of Iran,” Mohaddes said.The channel estimates its weekly audience is “probably now over 40 million,” said spokesman Adam Baillie.It is one of several Persian‑language outlets critical of Iran’s clerical leadership operating from abroad, including the London‑based station Manoto.According to Baillie, Iran International is the most-watched television channel inside Iran and is also followed by the large Iranian diaspora.The newsroom employs about 200 journalists, with correspondents in Washington, Paris, Berlin and Tel Aviv. Iran International is regularly accused of receiving backing from Saudi Arabia — claims the station denies.”Our investor is a British-Saudi national. But it is not … controlled by Saudi Arabia. It’s nothing to do with the Saudi Arabian state,” said Baillie.- Anonymous threats -He insisted the station is independent and supports neither Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s former shah who has backed the sweeping protests, nor Israel, contrary to allegations from Tehran.Working at Iran International “you need a lot of courage … You have to be quite tough,” said Baillie.”The threats against the channel have grown exponentially since we began. We’ve never been free of them … but it has reached another level”.Faraji recalled how her best friend, who is still in Iran, was arrested and forced by police to send her a message urging her to resign.Mohaddes recently received an anonymous email threatening to kill him and also to blow up the building.Like previous threats, the message was reported to London police.In 2023, on the advice of British counter-terrorism police, Iran International was forced to shut down and temporarily broadcast from Washington for seven months. In March 2024, one of the channel’s reporters was stabbed near his London home, spurring an investigation by Scotland Yard.Britain’s foreign ministry has also summoned Iran’s most senior diplomat to protest “serious threats” against journalists living in the UK.”I’m not afraid at all,” insisted Mohaddes. “We’re all fighting to get rid of this brutal regime.” 

Israeli forces brought home on Monday the remains of Ran Gvili, the last hostage held in Gaza, finally closing the chapter on a painful saga that has haunted Israeli society since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.Militants took 251 hostages to Gaza that day, and the process of returning them has dragged over the course of the ensuing war in a series of ceasefire and prisoner-swap deals as well as efforts to rescue them militarily.The most recent set of hostage handovers was part of the US-backed Gaza ceasefire deal that took effect on October 10, aiming to halt more than two years of fighting that has devastated the Palestinian territory.The return of Gvili’s remains paves the way for a limited reopening of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, a key entry point for aid into Gaza.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had signalled pedestrian crossings would resume at Rafah, subject to Israeli inspections, once every hostage had been recovered.Gvili’s coffin was accompanied by a convoy of cars with blaring sirens and flashing lights, passing civilians waving Israeli flags on the side of the road.At a ceremony held at a military base near Gaza, the slain police officer’s father, Ytzik Gvili, addressed his son’s coffin, saying: “You should see the honours we’re giving you here.””I’m proud of you my son,” he added.Netanyahu lauded Gvili as “a hero of Israel”.Hamas said it provided information on the location of Gvili’s body, and spokesman Hazem Qassem said Monday that his recovery “confirms Hamas’s commitment to all the requirements of the ceasefire agreement”.The first phase of the US-backed deal stipulated the return of every hostage, and Gvili’s family had opposed moving on to the second phase before they had received his remains.Reopening Rafah forms part of the truce framework announced by US President Donald Trump.- Killed in action -Gvili’s mother Talik called her son’s return “amazing”.”He’s finally coming home, we can’t believe it,” she told Israel’s public broadcaster KAN. “They found him intact, dressed in his uniform.”Footage released by the military showed Gvili’s coffin draped in an Israeli flag and surrounded by soldiers singing the national anthem.”With this, all hostages have been returned from the Gaza Strip to the State of Israel,” the Israeli military said in a statement announcing it had definitively identified Gvili’s remains.The 24-year-old Israeli police officer in the elite Yassam unit was on medical leave ahead of shoulder surgery when Hamas launched its deadly 2023 attack in southern Israel, but grabbed his gun and raced towards the area.Nicknamed the “Defender of Alumim” by his family and the kibbutz of that name, Gvili was killed in combat and Hamas militants took his body to Gaza.- ‘Many difficult years’ -Israeli President Isaac Herzog celebrated Gvili’s return, saying that “for the first time since 2014, there are no Israeli citizens held hostage in Gaza. An entire nation prayed and waited for this moment.”Prior to October 2023, two civilian hostages and the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed in previous wars were being held in the territory.US President Donald Trump offered his congratulations on his Truth Social platform, adding: “Most thought of it as an impossible thing to do.”Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel was now “at the doorstep of the next phase” of the deal, which involves “disarming Hamas and demilitarising the Gaza Strip”.While the ceasefire plan demands the group’s disarmament in the second phase, Hamas has so far refused to commit.- ‘True friend’ -The Israeli group representing the families of hostages held in Gaza described Gvili as “a true friend, loved by everyone”.The Hostages and Missing Families Forum has worked throughout the war to keep the plight of the captives in the public eye, organising regular rallies at a plaza in Tel Aviv now known as Hostages Square, where supporters gathered again on Monday evening.”I’m very emotional,” said Orna Cheled, 70, who was wearing a pendant shaped like a yellow ribbon, a symbol of the hostages. “I’ve been wearing this with me throughout this whole period and tomorrow I’m removing it, because (Gvili) will be laid to rest with dignity, in the country he loved so much.”Central Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital said on Monday it had received nine living Palestinian detainees released by Israel after Gvili’s recovery.Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliation has left at least 71,660 people dead in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.

A US naval strike group led by an aircraft carrier has deployed to Middle Eastern waters, the United States said Monday, as Tehran warned it was ready to hit back at any American attack launched in response to a crackdown on anti-government protests.A US-based rights group said on Monday that it had confirmed the deaths of nearly 6,000 people in the wave of protests suppressed by Iran’s security forces, but emphasised the actual toll could be several times higher.The protests started in late December, driven by economic grievances, but turned into a mass movement against the Islamic republic, with huge street demonstrations for several days from January 8.But rights groups have accused authorities of quelling the movement with unprecedented violence, shooting into crowds of protesters under the cover of an internet shutdown that has now lasted 18 days — the longest Iran has ever imposed.US President Donald Trump has previously threatened to intervene, saying last week that Washington was sending a “massive fleet” to the region “just in case”. The deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group dramatically boosts American firepower in the region.The strike group has arrived in the Middle East, US Central Command said Monday, adding it was there “to promote regional security and stability”. The United States backed and briefly joined Israel’s 12-day war against Iran in June, and while Trump last week appeared to step back from his threats of new military intervention, he has never ruled the option out. – ‘Regret-inducing response’ -Iran’s foreign ministry warned on Monday of a “comprehensive and regret-inducing response to any aggression”. Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said: “The arrival of such a battleship is not going to affect Iran’s determination and seriousness to defend the Iranian nation.”A senior military official told state television that the “buildup of extra-regional forces and equipment… would not act as a deterrent but rather increase their vulnerability and turn them into accessible targets”.Meanwhile, a new anti-US billboard has appeared in the central Enghelab Square in Tehran that appears to show an American aircraft carrier being destroyed. “If you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind,” its English-language caption reads.In Lebanon, Iran-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah, whose capabilities and leadership were severely degraded in a war with Israel in 2024, organised a rally in support of the Islamic republic featuring an address by its leader Naim Qassem, who warned “a war on Iran this time will ignite the region”.Iran’s Gulf neighbour the United Arab Emirates, which hosts a US airbase, said it would not allow attacks on Iran to be launched from its territory.- Rising toll -NGOs tracking the deaths from the crackdown have said their task has been impeded by the internet shutdown, warning that confirmed figures are likely to be far lower than the actual toll.The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said it had confirmed that 5,848 people had been killed, including 209 members of the security forces. But the group added it was still investigating another 17,091 possible fatalities.  At least 41,283 people have been arrested, it said. Giving their first official toll from the protests, Iranian authorities last week said 3,117 people were killed, the majority of whom it described as members of the security forces or innocent bystanders killed by “rioters”.Confirming that the internet blackout remained in place, monitor Netblocks said the shutdown was “obscuring the extent of a deadly crackdown on civilians”.Hosein Rafieian, a senior Iranian official for matters relating to the digital economy, told the Mehr news agency on Monday that “we hope that companies’ access to the international internet will be restored within the next day or two”. Over the weekend, Persian-language TV channel Iran International, which is based outside the country, said more than 36,500 Iranians were killed by security forces from January 8 to 9, citing reports, documents and sources. It was not immediately possible to verify the report.Activists have said that the Revolutionary Guards, a military force separate from the regular army with the mandate of keeping the Islamic revolution alive, took a frontline position in putting down the protests.Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani on Monday urged the European Union to list the Guards as a “terrorist organisation”, as Canada and the United States have done, saying the “the losses suffered by the civilian population during the protests demand a clear response”.