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Iran’s president on Tuesday warned US “threats” against the Islamic republic would only cause instability, as a US naval strike group led by an aircraft carrier took up position in Middle Eastern waters. Washington has not ruled out military intervention against Tehran over its crackdown on protests — which rights groups say left thousands of people dead — and President Donald Trump has dispatched the USS Abraham Lincoln to the area “just in case”. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian hit out at US “threats” in a call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, saying they were “aimed at disrupting the security of the region and will achieve nothing other than instability”. The US also maintains several bases in the Middle East, prompting a Revolutionary Guards commander to issue a warning to Iran’s neighbours on Tuesday.”Neighbouring countries are our friends, but if their soil, sky, or waters are used against Iran, they will be considered hostile,” Mohammad Akbarzadeh, political deputy of the IRGC naval forces, was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency. Since Iran launched its crackdown on protests earlier this month, accompanied by a blanket internet blackout, Trump has given mixed signals on intervention, which some opponents of the clerical leadership see as the only way to bring about change.”We have a big armada next to Iran. Bigger than Venezuela,” Trump told the Axios news site on Monday, weeks after the US military captured the Latin American nation’s president, Nicolas Maduro.But he added: “They want to make a deal. I know so. They called on numerous occasions. They want to talk.”Tehran has previously said a channel of communication is open between Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US envoy Steve Witkoff, despite the lack of diplomatic relations between the two foes. Axios said Trump declined to discuss the options presented to him by his national security team, or which he prefers. Analysts say options include strikes on military facilities or targeted attacks against the leadership under supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a bid to bring down the system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the shah. – ‘Weakest point’ -The New York Times reported that Trump has received multiple US intelligence reports “indicating that the Iranian government’s position is weakening”, and that its hold on power “is at its weakest point” since the shah’s fall.US Senator Lindsey Graham told the paper he had spoken with Trump in recent days about Iran and that “the goal is to end the regime”.”They may stop killing them today, but if they’re in charge next month, they’ll kill them then,” he said of the authorities’ treatment of protesters.Iranian officials have in recent days appeared wary of pouring oil on the fire. But the Hamshahri conservative newspaper on Tuesday quoted Revolutionary Guards spokesman Mohammad Ali Naini as saying that “if their aircraft carrier made a mistake and entered Iranian territorial waters, it would be targeted” — only to later retract the report and apologise to Naini. The conservative Javan newspaper said Iran was “ready for a major response” and would seize the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a key transit hub for energy supplies.Meanwhile, an anti-US billboard has appeared in Tehran that appears to show an American aircraft carrier being destroyed.- ‘Mass arrests, intimidation’ -Rights groups have described the crackdown as the deadliest ever against protests in Iran, and warn that compiling tolls has been complicated by an almost three-week internet blackout they say is aimed at masking the extent of the repression. Monitor Netblocks on Tuesday reported intermittent connectivity but warned internet access remained “heavily filtered on a whitelist basis” and users would still need workarounds. In an updated toll, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said it had confirmed that 6,126 people had been killed, including 5,777 protesters, 86 minors, 214 members of the security forces and 49 bystanders.But the group, which has an extensive network of sources inside Iran and has tracked the protests on a daily basis since they began, added it was still investigating another 17,091 possible fatalities. At least 41,880 people have been arrested, it said.”Security agencies continue to pursue an approach centred on mass arrests, intimidation, and control of the narrative,” HRANA said. Over the weekend, Persian-language TV channel Iran International, which is based outside Iran, said more than 36,500 Iranians were killed by security forces between January 8 and 9, citing reports, documents and sources. It was not immediately possible to verify the report.

With Gaza’s vital Rafah border crossing expected to soon reopen, residents of the war-shattered territory are hoping to reunite with family members, or are looking to leave themselves.The Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt is the Palestinian territory’s only gateway to the outside world that does not lead to Israel and is a key entry point for both people and goods.It has been closed since Israeli forces took control of it in May 2024, except for a limited reopening in early 2025, and other bids to reopen failed to materialise.Following a US-brokered ceasefire that took effect in October, Rafah is expected to reopen for pedestrians, after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing.”Opening the Rafah crossing means opening the door to life for me. I haven’t seen my wife and children for two years since they left at the beginning of the war and I was prevented from travelling,” said 48-year-old Mahmud al-Natour, who hails from Gaza City.”My children are growing up far away from me, and the years are passing by as if we are cut off from the world and life itself,” he told AFP.Randa Samih, 48, also called the crossing “the lifeline of Gaza,” but is worried about whether she would be able to leave.She had applied for an exit permit to get treatment for her injured back, which she fears might not be serious enough to be allowed out.”There are tens of thousands of injuries in Gaza, most of them more serious than mine,” she said. “We’ll die or our health will decline before we get to travel.”- ‘Limited reopening’ -Gaza, a tiny territory surrounded by Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, has been under Israeli blockade even before Hamas’s attack sparked the war.Palestinian militants took 251 people hostage on October 7, 2023, in an attack that killed 1,221 others, most of them civilians.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 71,662 Palestinians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable. The ministry does not say how many of the dead were fighters, though its data shows that more than half were women and children.Ali Shaath heads the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), created as part of the ceasefire agreement. He announced last week that Rafah would reopen in both directions.Israel said it would only allow pedestrians to travel through the crossing as part of its “limited reopening” once it had recovered the remains of the last hostage, Ran Gvili.His remains were brought back to Israel later on Monday.A Palestinian official told AFP on condition of anonymity that “estimates indicate that the Rafah crossing could be opened in both directions by the end of this week or early next week”.A member of the NCAG told AFP that the technocratic committee would be responsible for sending lists of travellers’ names to the Israeli authorities for approval.Outward travel will intially be limited to patients, the injured, students with university admission and visas, and holders of Egyptian citizenship or other nationalities and residency permits, the source said. – ‘Burning with anticipation’ -Gharam al-Jamla, a displaced Palestinian living in a tent in southern Gaza, told AFP she counted on the crossing’s opening for her future.”My dreams lie beyond the Rafah crossing. I applied for several scholarships to study journalism in English at universities in Turkey. I received initial acceptance from two universities there,” the 18-year-old said.She added she would then want to return to Gaza “to be one of its voices to convey the truth to the world.”Gaza’s civil defence agency spokesman, Mahmud Bassal, appealed for the full reopening of Rafah to allow the entry of unlimited aid and equipment for reconstruction.”There are thousands of bodies under the rubble, including children, women and people with disabilities, which have not been recovered since the beginning of the war,” he said.The civil defence is a rescue force operating under Hamas authority.Mohammed Khaled, 18, said he wanted to move on from the war.”I’m burning with anticipation,” he told AFP.”I haven’t seen my mother and sisters for two years. My mother travelled for medical treatment, and they only allowed my sisters to accompany her.”Khaled said he also hoped to be able to travel to have surgery for a shrapnel injury sustained during the war.

A US naval strike force led by an aircraft carrier was in Middle Eastern waters on Tuesday as Iran vowed to hit back against any strike and President Donald Trump said he believed the Islamic republic still wanted talks.Washington has not ruled out new military intervention against Tehran over its crackdown on protests, which according to rights groups saw thousands of people killed within days.A strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln has now arrived in Middle Eastern waters, US Central Command said, without revealing its precise location.Since Iran earlier this month launched the crackdown on protests accompanied by a blanket internet blackout, Trump has given mixed signals on intervention which some opponents of the clerical leadership see as the only way to bring about change.”We have a big armada next to Iran. Bigger than Venezuela,” Trump told the Axios news site, weeks after US military action resulted in the capture of the Latin American nation’s president Nicolas Maduro.But he added: “They want to make a deal. I know so. They called on numerous occasions. They want to talk.”Axios said Trump declined to discuss the options presented to him by his national security team, or which one he prefers. Analysts say options include strikes on military facilities or targeted hits against the leadership under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a full-scale bid to bring down the system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the shah. – ‘Weakest point’ -The New York Times, meanwhile, reported that Trump has received multiple US intelligence reports “indicating that the Iranian government’s position is weakening” and signalling its hold on power “is at its weakest point” since the shah’s fall.US Senator Lindsey Graham told the paper he had spoken with Trump in recent days about Iran and that “the goal is to end the regime”.”They may stop killing them today, but if they’re in charge next month, they’ll kill them then,” he added.Iranian officials have over the last days appeared wary of pouring oil on the fire. Tehran has in the past said a channel of communication is open between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US envoy Steve Witkoff, despite the lack of diplomatic relations between the two foes. But the Hamshahri conservative newspaper on Tuesday quoted Revolutionary Guards spokesman Mohammad Ali Naini as saying that “if their aircraft carrier made a mistake and entered Iranian territorial waters, it would be targeted”.The conservative Javan newspaper said Iran was “ready for a major response” and would seize the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a key transit hub for energy supplies.Meanwhile, an anti-US billboard has appeared in Tehran that appears to show an American aircraft carrier being destroyed.- ‘Mass arrests, intimidation’ -Rights groups have described the crackdown as the deadliest ever against protests in Iran and warn compiling tolls has been complicated by an almost three-week internet blackout they say is aimed at masking the extent of the repression.The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said it had confirmed that 6,126 people had been killed, including 5,777 protesters, 86 minors, 214 members of the security forces and 49 bystanders.But the group, which has an extensive network of sources inside Iran and has tracked the protests on a daily basis since they began, added it was still investigating another 17,091 possible fatalities. At least 41,880 people have been arrested, it said.”Security agencies continue to pursue an approach centred on mass arrests, intimidation, and control of the narrative,” HRANA said. Activists have accused authorities of raiding hospitals to find injured protesters and then arresting them. The health ministry has said all people should present themselves at hospital without worry and not treat themselves at home.Over the weekend, Persian-language TV channel Iran International, which is based outside Iran, said more than 36,500 Iranians were killed by security forces between January 8 and 9, citing reports, documents and sources. It was not immediately possible to verify the report.

At the start of “American Doctor,” a new documentary about US medics working in hospitals in the Gaza Strip during the Israel-Hamas war, director Poh Si Teng initially declines to film pictures of dead Palestinian children that one of the doctors is trying to show her.Teng worries that she will have to pixelate the gruesome scene to protect the dignity of the children.”You’re not dignifying them unless you let their memory, their bodies, tell the story of this trauma, of this genocide. You’re not doing them a service by not showing them,” Jewish-American doctor Mark Perlmutter tells her.”This is what my tax dollars did. That’s what your tax dollars did. That’s what my neighbor’s tax dollars did. They have the right to know the truth.”You have the responsibility, as I do, to tell the truth. You pixelate this, that’s journalistic malpractice.”- Smuggling antibiotics -Teng’s unflinching film follows Perlmutter and two other American doctors — one Palestinian-American and the other a non-practicing Zoroastrian — as they try to treat the results of the unspeakable brutality visited on a largely civilian population in Gaza since Israel launched its retaliation for Hamas’s October 2023 attack.Alongside the severed limbs and the open wounds the doctors labor on with their Palestinian colleagues, we also see the trio’s attempts at advocacy — in Washington’s corridors of power and in Israeli and American media.The documentary also depicts the practical difficulties they face — the surgical scrubs and antibiotics they have to smuggle across the border to get around the Israeli blockade, and the last-minute refusals of Israeli authorities to let them in.And we see the bravery of men voluntarily going to work in hospitals that are repeatedly hit by the Israeli army.Israel rejects accusations its numerous strikes against Gaza hospitals amount to war crimes, saying it is targeting “terrorists” in these facilities and claims Hamas operatives are holed up in tunnels underneath the hospitals.The attacks include the so-called “double tap” strike on the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, South of the Strip, in August 2025 where the three men have worked.Emergency responders and journalists who had rushed to the scene after a first projectile hit were killed when a second was fired at the same spot.- ‘Accessory to child murder’ -Feroze Sidwha, perhaps the most eloquent of the three doctors, repeatedly makes the case throughout the film that he has never seen any tunnels and that in any case, even the presence of wounded fighters in a hospital does not make it a legitimate target.”Americans deserve the opportunity to know what’s going on, what their money is being used for, and you know, just to decide. ‘Do you really want this being done?’,” he told AFP at the Sundance Film Festival, where the film got its premiere on Friday.”I’m pretty sure the answer is ‘no’. I just want to keep speaking out and letting people know they don’t have to be an accessory to child murder. But we all are, right now.”The film is dedicated to the around 1,700 healthcare workers who have been killed since Israel launched its invasion in October 2023.UN investigators have accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, a charge that Israel has denied as “distorted and false”, while accusing the authors of antisemitism.Despite a fragile ceasefire in place since October last year, there has been continued violence between Israeli forces and Hamas, which has seen Palestinian non-combatants killed, including dozens of children according to UNICEF.Reporters Without Borders says nearly 220 journalists have died since the start of the war, making Israel the biggest killer of journalists worldwide for three years running.The Sundance Film Festival runs until February 1.

A US-based rights group said Tuesday it had confirmed the deaths of over 6,000 people in protests in Iran suppressed by security forces, adding it was investigating over 17,000 more potential deaths and warning a wave of arrests was ongoing.The protests started in late December sparked by economic grievances but turned into a mass movement against the Islamic republic, with huge street rallies on January 8 and 9 that were the biggest in recent years.Rights groups have accused authorities of an unprecedented crackdown by shooting directly at protesters. The demonstrations have petered out for now.NGOs tracking the toll have said their task has been impeded by an almost three-week 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 6,126 people had been killed, including 5,777 protesters, 86 minors, 214 members of the security forces and 49 bystanders.But the group, which has an extensive network of sources inside Iran and has tracked the protests on a daily basis since they began, added it was still investigating another 17,091 possible fatalities. At least 41,880 people have been arrested, it said.The group condemned “the continuation of communication control policies, the ongoing wave of arrests, and growing concerns over the safety of medical centres for the injured”.Activists have accused authorities of raiding hospitals to find injured protesters and then arresting them. The health ministry has said all people should present themselves at hospital without worry and not treat themselves at home.”Security agencies continue to pursue an approach centred on mass arrests, intimidation, and control of the narrative,” HRANA said.It said the reports of arrests inside hospitals “have generated new human rights concerns regarding the right to access medical care”.Giving their first official toll from the protests, Iranian authorities last week said 3,117 people were killed, the majority members of the security forces and innocent bystanders who authorities claim were killed by “rioters”.Over the weekend, Persian-language TV channel Iran International, which is based outside Iran, said more than 36,500 Iranians were killed by security forces between January 8 and 9, citing reports, documents and sources. It was not immediately possible to verify the report.`Another NGO, Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR), says it has documented at least 3,428 killings of protesters by the security forces and warned that the final toll risks reaching 25,000.