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Iran’s top security official said Saturday that progress had been made towards negotiations with the United States, even as the Islamic republic’s army chief warned Washington against launching military strikes.Washington has deployed a naval battle group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier off Iran’s shores, after Trump threatened to intervene in the wake of a deadly crackdown on anti-government protests. The arrival of the flotilla has raised fears of a direct confrontation with Iran, which has warned it would respond with missile strikes on US bases, ships and allies — notably Israel — in the event of an attack.But Trump has said he believes Iran will prefer to seal a deal over its nuclear and missile programmes rather than face American military action — and Tehran has said it is ready for nuclear talks if its missiles and defence capabilities are not on the agenda.”Contrary to the hype of the contrived media war, structural arrangements for negotiations are progressing,” said Ali Larijani, head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, a day after the Kremlin said he held talks in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin.Iranian army chief Amir Hatami earlier warned the US and Israel against any attack, saying his forces were “at full defensive and military readiness” to respond. “If the enemy makes a mistake, without a doubt it will endanger its own security, the security of the region, and the security of the Zionist regime,” Hatami said, according to official news agency IRNA. He said Iran’s nuclear technology and expertise “cannot be eliminated”.With tensions heightened, Iranian authorities rushed to deny that several incidents on Saturday were linked to any attack or sabotage, including an explosion in the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas that local firefighters said was caused by a gas leak.The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) denied that any of the buildings belonging to its naval forces had been targeted, according to a statement carried by the Fars news agency.The Tasnim agency on Saturday also denied “assassination rumours” surrounding the commander of the Guards’ navy Alireza Tangsiri.- ‘Own turf’ -On Friday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the IRGC would conduct “a two-day live-fire naval exercise” in the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit hub for global energy supplies.In a statement, CENTCOM warned the IRGC against “any unsafe and unprofessional behaviour near US forces”. It drew criticism from Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.”Operating off our shores, the US military is now attempting to dictate how our Powerful Armed Forces should conduct target practice in their own turf,” he wrote on X.The United States designated the IRGC a terrorist organisation in 2019, a move the European Union followed on Thursday, prompting angry reactions from Tehran.The US carried out strikes on key Iranian nuclear sites in June when it briefly joined Israel’s 12-day war against its regional foe.Nationwide protests against the rising cost of living then erupted on December 28, before turning into a broader anti-government movement that peaked on January 8 and 9 in what authorities called “riots” blamed on the US and Israel.- ‘Want to be free’ -The official death toll from the authorities stands at 3,117. However, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said it has confirmed 6,563 deaths, including 6,170 protesters and 124 children.On Saturday, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian urged his government to heed public grievances after the demonstrations and “serve the people”. Some Iranians at the Kapikoy border point that separates Iran and Turkey, where a little over 100 people crossed on Saturday, say they want freedom from the clerical leaders in Tehran.”We want to be free too, to see tourists like in Turkey… Everyone sees us as terrorists. With the mullahs, we’ve gone back 100 years,” said Shabnan, using a pseudonym.”They were shooting us in the back. We were even targeted through our windows. Everyone has lost loved ones, friends, neighbours, acquaintances.”Rosa, a 29-year-old travelling to Istanbul from the crossing, said American pressure over the protests was not enough.”It’s much too late now. We know they won’t come for us, but for the oil. For their own interests. We don’t count,” she said.On Saturday, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei visited the shrine of Ruhollah Khomeini, the Islamic republic’s founder, offering prayers on the occasion of 10-day celebrations marking the 47th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. 

Israeli air strikes killed 32 people including children in Gaza on Saturday, according to the Palestinian territory’s civil defence agency, as the military said it had attacked in response to a Hamas ceasefire violation.Despite a US-brokered truce entering its second phase earlier this month, violence in the Palestinian territory has continued, with both Israel and Hamas accusing each other of violating the agreement.The latest bloodshed comes after Israel announced it would reopen the crucial Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Sunday for the “limited movement of people”.”The death toll since dawn today has risen to 32, most of them children and women,” said the civil defence agency, a rescue force operating under the Hamas authority, updating an earlier toll of 28.”Residential apartments, tents, shelters and a police station were targeted, resulting in this humanitarian catastrophe,” agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said in the statement.A unit in an apartment building of Gaza City’s Rimal neighbourhood was left entirely destroyed, and blood spatters from its occupants were visible on the street below, an AFP journalist reported.”Three girls died while they were sleeping. We found their bodies in the street”, Samer al-Atbash, a relative of the family, told AFP.”What truce are you talking about? Everyone is deceiving everyone else,” added Nael al-Atbash, another relative.One strike hit the police station in the Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City, the territory’s largest urban centre.Gaza’s general police directorate said seven people were killed in that attack, while Bassal said the dead included four women police officers.”The killed included police officers and personnel as well as civilians who were present at the station at the time,” the directorate said.- Ceasefire violations -About a dozen first responders rushed to the devastated building and pulled bodies from the rubble, an AFP journalist reported.Another Israeli attack hit a shelter in Al-Mawasi, an area of south Gaza where tens of thousands of displaced Gazans live in tents and makeshift shelters, an AFP journalist reported.Large plumes of smoke rose above the thousands of densely pitched tents.The number of casualties from this strike was still not known.Although people have been killed almost daily in Gaza since the start of the ceasefire on October 10, Saturday’s toll was particularly high.Israel’s military said that the air strikes were retaliation for an incident on Friday in which eight Palestinian fighters exited a tunnel in the city of Rafah, in southern Gaza, which it said violated the fragile ceasefire.It said forces “struck four commanders and additional terrorists from the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organisations across the Gaza Strip”.Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in a statement condemned Saturday’s strikes as “a brutal crime”.The health ministry, which operates under the Hamas authority, has said Israeli attacks have killed at least 509 people in Gaza since the ceasefire came into effect.Israel’s military says four soldiers have been killed in the same period in Gaza in suspected militant attacks.- Rafah reopening -Media restrictions and limited access in Gaza have meant that AFP has been unable to independently verify casualty figures or freely cover the violence.Key mediators Egypt and Qatar condemned what they said were Israeli violations of the ceasefire.Egypt demanded that all parties “exercise the utmost restraint” ahead of Sunday’s reopening of Rafah crossing, while Qatar said it denounced the “repeated Israeli violations of the ceasefire”.The violence was a “dangerous escalation that will inflame the situation and undermine regional and international efforts aimed at consolidating the truce,” the Qatari foreign ministry said.Israel has said reopening of the Rafah crossing will only allow the “limited movement of people”.The reopening is a key element in the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement.Israel had previously expressed its unwillingness to reopen the gateway until it received the remains of Ran Gvili, the last hostage to be held in Gaza, who was recovered earlier this week and laid to rest in Israel on Wednesday.The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliation flattened much of Gaza, which was already suffering from previous rounds of fighting and from an Israeli blockade imposed since 2007.The two-year war has left at least 71,769 people dead in Gaza, according to the health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.burs-az-lba-jd/dc

Israeli air strikes killed 28 people in Gaza Saturday, including children, according to the civil defence agency, as the military said it attacked in response to a Hamas ceasefire violation.Despite a US-brokered ceasefire entering its second phase earlier this month, violence in the Palestinian territory has continued, with both Israel and Hamas accusing each other of violating the truce agreement.The latest bloodshed comes after Israel announced it would reopen the crucial Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Sunday for the “limited movement of people”.”Twenty-eight martyrs have been recovered, a quarter of whom are children, a third of whom are women, and one elderly man,” the civil defence agency, a rescue force operating under the Hamas authority, said in a statement, adding that people were still missing under the rubble.”Residential apartments, tents, shelters and a police station were targeted, resulting in this humanitarian catastrophe,” agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.One strike hit the police station in the Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City, the territory’s largest urban centre.Gaza’s general police directorate said seven people were killed in that attack, while Bassal said the dead included four women police officers.”The killed included police officers and personnel as well as civilians who were present at the station at the time,” the directorate said.About a dozen first responders rushed to the devastated building and pulled bodies from the rubble, an AFP journalist reported.Another Israeli attack hit a shelter in Al-Mawasi, an area of south Gaza where tens of thousands of displaced Gazans live in tents and makeshift shelters, an AFP journalist reported.Large plumes of smoke rose above the thousands of densely pitched tents.The number of casualties from this strike was still not known.Although people have been killed almost daily in Gaza since the start of the ceasefire on October 10, Saturday’s toll was particularly high.- Ceasefire violations -Israel’s military said in a statement that the air strikes were retaliation for an incident on Friday in which eight Palestinian fighters exited a tunnel in the south Gaza city of Rafah, which it said violated the fragile ceasefire.It said forces “struck four commanders and additional terrorists from the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organisations across the Gaza Strip”.Gaza health ministry general director Munir al-Barsh told AFP that Israel “continues its serious violations of the ceasefire agreement amid a severe shortage of medical supplies, medicines and medical equipment”.Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in a statement condemned Saturday’s strikes as “a brutal crime”.The health ministry, which operates under the Hamas authority, has said Israeli attacks have killed at least 509 people in Gaza since the ceasefire came into effect.Israel’s military says four soldiers have been killed in the same period in Gaza in suspected militant attacks.Media restrictions and limited access in Gaza have meant that AFP has been unable to independently verify casualty figures or freely cover the violence.Meanwhile, Israel has said Sunday’s reopening of the Rafah crossing will be only for the “limited movement of people”.The reopening, a major demand of humanitarian organisations, is a key element in the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement.Israel had previously expressed its unwillingness to reopen the gateway until it received the remains of Ran Gvili, the last hostage to be held in Gaza, who was recovered earlier this week and laid to rest in Israel on Wednesday.The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliation flattened much of Gaza, which was already suffering from previous rounds of fighting and from an Israeli blockade imposed since 2007.The two-year war has left at least 71,769 people dead in Gaza, according to the health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.bur-az-lba-jd/srm