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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.The clerical leadership who took power after the 1979 Islamic revolution remains in place despite the protests, with many opponents of the system looking to outside intervention as the most likely driver of change.US President Donald Trump has previously threatened to step in, 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 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. The Lincoln’s strike group has arrived in the region, US Central Command said in a post on X, adding the ships were “currently deployed to the Middle East to promote regional security and stability”. – ‘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 Iran was “confident in its own capabilities”.In apparent reference to the Lincoln, he added: “The arrival of such a battleship is not going to affect Iran’s determination and seriousness to defend the Iranian nation.”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.State news agency IRNA quoted the commander of the Iranian navy Shahram Irani as saying on Monday: “Iran’s naval power is not merely defensive but also acts as an anchor of stability in the region.”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 toll 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 number.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 remains in place, monitor Netblocks said the shutdown was “obscuring the extent of a deadly crackdown on civilians”.”Gaps in the filternet are being tightened to limit circumvention while whitelisted regime accounts promote the Islamic Republic’s narrative,” it added.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”.

A visiting Qatari official on Monday announced a multi-million dollar aid package for Lebanon, primarily to support the country’s crumbling electricity sector.In a separate statement, the Qatar Development Fund said the package was valued at about $430 million, the majority of it to support the energy sector, adding that it would benefit some 1.5 million people.”The support includes a contribution of up to $400 million to support the energy sector,” of which 10 percent would be allocated as a grant, it addedAt a press conference in Beirut, Qatari state minister for foreign affairs Mohammed al-Khulaifi announced “a package of development and humanitarian projects” for Lebanon, including “a grant of $40 million to support the electricity sector”.Lebanon’s electricity sector has cost Lebanon more than $40 billion since the end of its 1975-1990 civil war, and successive governments have failed to reduce losses or repair crumbling infrastructure.Last year, Lebanon signed a $250 million deal with the World Bank to modernise the sector. Khulaifi also announced “the launch of a project supporting the voluntary and safe return of Syrians from Lebanon to Syria” in cooperation with the United Nations migration agency.The first phase of the project is worth $20 million and “targets some 100,000 people”, he told a joint press conference with Lebanese Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri.The assistance will help secure housing in Syria ahead of the returnees’ departure “in addition to providing food and medicine for three months” after they arrive, as part of supporting their reintegration, he said.According to the UN refugee agency, more than 500,000 Syrians returned home from Lebanon last year. However, another 115,000 have fled to Lebanon since the December 2024 ouster of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad.Around one million Syrian refugees remain in Lebanon, according to UNHCR.Lebanon has been urging the international community to help refugees return, particularly since an economic collapse began in late 2019 and amid international aid cuts.Lebanese officials have more recently raised the issue with the new authorities in Damascus.Qatar has been a supporter of Lebanon for years, in particular providing assistance for the country’s army, including for soldiers’ salaries.Doha is also a key supporter of Syria’s new authorities, and Qatari companies have signed major contracts in Syria including on energy, electricity and transport.

The man faces the camera with his face blurred as dramatic music pounds in the background.”I made a mistake,” he says, his voice trembling as an unseen interrogator presses him about the deaths of members of Iran’s security forces. “If I’d known, I would not have done it.”According to one rights group, at least 240 such “forced confessions” have been broadcast by Iranian state television in recent weeks — an “unprecedented” quantity — after authorities arrested thousands of people in the wake of protests that shook the country’s clerical leadership.Questioned by an interviewer, detainees are shown confessing to a variety of alleged offences ranging from committing violence against members of the security forces, to accepting money from monarchists or Iran’s foes, or sharing images with banned groups or media outlets.In some cases, people are accused of merely following accounts of opponents of the Islamic republic on social media.Activists say the so-called confessions are extracted by psychological and physical torture, and are a familiar tactic used in the past by Iranian authorities against detainees who in some cases have subsequently been executed.Amnesty International termed the scenes “propaganda videos”, saying it had received reports “authorities are forcing detainees to sign statements they have not been allowed to read and to give forced ‘confessions’ to crimes they did not commit as well as to peaceful acts of dissent”.The UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Mai Sato, told the UN Human Rights Council that such “false confessions” seek to “reinforce the state’s narrative that protesters are dangerous criminals”.- ‘Deterring dissent’ -Iran’s feared judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei appeared to take the lead earlier this month by personally interrogating detainees in sessions broadcast by state TV.”Coerced televised confessions in totalitarian regimes such as Iran have multiple key functions, including that of manufacturing political legitimacy, creating a false, official narrative such as framing peaceful protesters as violent agents of foreign influence, and deterring dissent,” Roya Boroumand, director of the US-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran, told AFP. The demonstrations started in late December sparked by economic grievances but grew into a mass movement against the Islamic republic, with huge street protests from January 8, when authorities imposed an internet blackout.Thousands were killed in an ensuing crackdown on the protests, which have for now abated, with the authorities blaming the unrest on Iran’s enemies, including Israel and the United States.More than 41,000 people have been arrested in the crackdown, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), which has recorded 240 instances of “forced confessions”.One video widely circulating on social media Monday showed a teen, identified by users as 18-year-old Shervin Bagherian, being questioned over the killing of a member of the security forces and then told he would face charges that could see him executed.In another widely shared case, a man was shown admitting to having sent footage of the protests to US President Donald Trump via social media accounts.Such broadcasts have in the past been used ahead of executions. In one notorious case, the formerly Paris-based dissident Ruhollah Zam, who according to supporters was abducted from Iraq by Iranian security forces, was subjected to an interrogation on Iranian TV before his execution in December 2020.Foreigners have also been subjected to the same treatment. French citizen Cecile Kohler was shown in October 2022 on Iranian television making what activists described as a “forced confession” before being sentenced on espionage charges her family vehemently rejects.She and fellow French citizen Jacques Paris were released late last year but are still unable to leave Iran.- ‘Humiliating’ dissidents -The US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) said that in the wake of the protests, the forced confessions were being broadcast by Iranian state television on an “unprecedented scale”.”These false confessions are routinely used as the sole evidence to convict, including in capital cases where the death penalty may be imposed,” it added.”By forcing dissidents to publicly ‘confess’ to actions such as ‘colluding with foreign powers’, the state legitimises its repression as necessary to protect national security and, bypassing the presumption of innocence, uses the televised confessions as proof of guilt to justify severe punishment such as executions,” said Boroumand.”These broadcasts also aim at humiliating and destroying dissidents’ credibility while reminding the public of the high cost of challenging the state,” she added.

The Israeli military said on Monday that the remains of the last hostage held in Gaza, Ran Gvili, had been identified and were being repatriated to Israel for burial.The announcement put an end to a lengthy process to locate and return the last of the 251 hostages taken by Hamas militants during their October 2023 attack on Israel.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday hailed the return of all those held captive “down to the very last”.The latest set of hostage handovers were part of the first phase of the US-backed ceasefire deal, which began on October 10 and aimed to stop the fighting in the Palestinian territory.Hamas said the return of Gvili’s body showed the militant group’s “commitment” to the ceasefire, which entered its second phase earlier this month.Gvili’s family had expressed strong opposition to launching the second phase of the plan before they had received his remains.The Israeli military said in a statement on Monday that its representatives “informed the family of hostage Ran Gvili… that their loved one has been identified and will be returned for burial”.”With this, all hostages have been returned from the Gaza Strip to the State of Israel”, it added.Footage released by the Israeli military showed Gvili’s coffin draped in an Israeli flag and surrounded by soldiers singing the national anthem.The young Israeli police officer in the elite Yassam unit was on medical leave ahead of shoulder surgery when Hamas launched its deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.Instead of staying home, the 24-year-old motorcycle enthusiast grabbed his personal gun and raced toward the area of the attack in southern Israel to fight the Palestinian militants.- ‘Many difficult years’ -The gradual return of the hostages over several stages had been a complicated and arduous process for both sides.”This is an extraordinary achievement for the State of Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told journalists in parliament on Monday. “We promised — and I promised — to bring everyone back. We brought them all back, down to the very last captive,” he added.Israeli President Isaac Herzog celebrated Gvili’s return saying: “After many difficult years, 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 earlier wars were being held in Gaza.Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said in a statement that “the discovery of the body of the last Israeli prisoner in Gaza confirms Hamas’s commitment to all the requirements of the ceasefire agreement on the Gaza Strip”.Officials said on Sunday that Israeli forces were searching for Gvili’s remains in a cemetery in northern Gaza.The announcement of the search came after visiting US envoys reportedly pushed Israeli officials to reopen Gaza’s Rafah crossing, a vital entry point for aid.Israeli officials said on Monday that though they would open the crossing, only pedestrians would be allowed to travel through the crossing to Egypt.Reopening Rafah, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza, forms part of the US-brokered truce.- ‘True friend’ -Nicknamed the “Defender of Alumim” by his family and the kibbutz of that name, Gvili was killed in combat near the community and his body taken to Gaza by Hamas militants.Israeli authorities confirmed to his parents in January 2024 that the young officer had been killed on that day and that his body had been taken to Gaza.”He ran to help, to save people… even though he was already injured before October 7,” his father told AFP in December, referring to Gvili’s shoulder injury.”But that was Rani — always running forward, the first to help and the first to jump in.”In a statement, the Israeli group representing the families of hostages held in Gaza described Gvili as “a true friend, loved by everyone”.”He loved life, was a young man of deep values, always spoke at eye level, and carried a powerful yet calm presence,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum added.The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.The Israeli retaliation flattened much of Gaza, a territory that was already suffering severely from previous rounds of fighting and from an Israeli blockade imposed since 2007.The two-year war between Israel and Hamas has left at least 71,660 people dead in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry which operates under Hamas authority, figures considered reliable by the United Nations.

Ran Gvili, a young Israeli police officer, was on medical leave when Hamas launched its deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.Instead of staying home, the 24-year-old grabbed his personal gun and raced toward the area of the attack in southern Israel, where he fought until his last bullet.Nicknamed the “Defender of Alumim” by his family and the kibbutz of that name, Gvili was killed in combat near the community and his body taken to Gaza by Hamas militants.Of the 251 people abducted during the assault on Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza, only his body remains in the Palestinian territory.A motorcycle enthusiast and non-commissioned officer in the elite Yassam unit of the Israeli police in the Negev desert region, Gvili was on medical leave and living with his parents in the town of Meitar ahead of a shoulder surgery, according to his family.It was then that he heard of the attack.Gvili drove towards the onslaught and joined his unit to fight the attackers — his team was highly outnumbered as they faced about 40 Hamas fighters.”We were both wounded,” recalled Colonel Guy Madar, who was fighting alongside Gvili outside Alumim — the site of fierce fighting.- ‘First to help’ -Madar was the last person to see Gvili alive before they got separated.It took several months before Israeli authorities informed his parents in January 2024 that the young officer had been killed on that day and that his body had been taken to Gaza.”He ran to help, to save people… even though he was already injured before October 7,” his father told AFP in December, referring to Gvili’s shoulder injury.”But that was Rani — always running forward, the first to help and the first to jump in.””He fought until the last bullet and then he was taken hostage,” added Talik Gvili, his mother.A man of skills, Gvili had been using his medical leave to carry out renovation work at the family home.His father recalled seeing him working outside the house with a Palestinian labourer from Gaza just days before the Hamas attack.”In a way, it fits him, to be the one to stay behind,” Talik Gvili, a lawyer, has repeatedly said at events held across the country calling for her son’s return before the implementation of phase two of the US-backed truce plan for Gaza.His family has steadfastly opposed the opening of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza until his remains are returned.Emmanuel Ohayon, a close friend of Gvili, described him as “a man of great physical presence, but also gentle and kind”.”When he entered a room, you felt his presence, not because of his size, but because he knew how to be there for everyone,” Ohayon said Saturday evening at a weekly gathering in Meitar.