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Iran holds state funeral for top brass slain in war with Israel

Iran held a state funeral service Saturday for around 60 people, including its military commanders, killed in its war with Israel, after Tehran’s top diplomat condemned Donald Trump’s comments on supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as “unacceptable”.The proceedings started at 8:00 am local time (0430 GMT) in the capital Tehran as government offices and many businesses were closed on Saturday for the occasion.”The ceremony to honour the martyrs has officially started,” state TV said, showing footage of thousands of people donning black clothes, waving Iranian flags and holding pictures of the slain military commanders. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, along with other senior government officials and military commanders — including Esmail Qaani, head of the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the Revolutionary Guards — attended the event.Senior advisor to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Shamkhani, who was targeted and wounded during the war, also took part in the ceremony, using a walking cane, state TV showed.Images also displayed mock-ups of Iranian ballistic missiles as well as coffins draped in Iranian flags and bearing portraits of the deceased commanders in uniform near Enghelab (Revolution) Square in central Tehran, where the march began.- Commanders, scientists to be buried -A patriotic eulogy blared from loudspeakers as the procession set out across the sprawling metropolis toward Azadi (Freedom) Square, 11 kilometres (seven miles) away.”Boom boom Tel Aviv,” read one banner, referring to Iranian missiles fired at Israel during the conflict in retaliation for its attacks on Iran.Among the dead is Mohammad Bagheri, a major general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the second-in-command of the armed forces after the Iranian leader.He will be buried alongside his wife and daughter, a journalist for a local media outlet, all killed in an Israeli attack.Nuclear scientist Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, also killed in the attacks, will be buried with his wife.Revolutionary Guards commander Hossein Salami, who was killed on the first day of the war, will also be laid to rest after Saturday’s ceremony — which will also honour at least 30 other top commanders.Of the 60 people who are to be laid to rest after the ceremony, four are children and four are women.- No sanction relief -The United States had carried out strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites last weekend, joining its ally Israel’s bombardments of Iran’s nuclear programme in the 12-day conflict launched on June 13.Both Israel and Iran claimed victory in the war that ended with a ceasefire, with Iranian leader Khamenei downplaying the US strikes as having done “nothing significant”.  In a tirade on his Truth Social platform, Trump blasted Tehran Friday for claiming to have won the war. He also claimed to have known “EXACTLY where he (Khamenei) was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the U.S. Armed Forces… terminate his life”.”I SAVED HIM FROM A VERY UGLY AND IGNOMINIOUS DEATH, and he does not have to say, ‘THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP!'” the US leader said.Trump added he had been working in recent days on the possible removal of sanctions against Iran, one of Tehran’s main demands.”But no, instead I get hit with a statement of anger, hatred, and disgust, and immediately dropped all work on sanction relief, and more,” Trump said.Hitting back at Trump Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi condemned the Republican president’s comments on Khamenei. “If President Trump is genuine about wanting a deal, he should put aside the disrespectful and unacceptable tone towards Iran’s Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei,” Araghchi posted on social media platform X.”The Great and Powerful Iranian People, who showed the world that the Israeli regime had NO CHOICE but to RUN to ‘Daddy’ to avoid being flattened by our Missiles, do not take kindly to Threats and Insults.”The Israeli strikes on Iran killed at least 627 civilians, Tehran’s health ministry said. Iran’s attacks on Israel killed 28 people, according to Israeli figures.- ‘Imminent threat’ -During his first term in office, Trump pulled out in 2018 of a landmark nuclear deal — negotiated by former US president Barack Obama.The deal that Trump had abandoned aimed to make it practically impossible for Iran to build an atomic bomb, while at the same time allowing it to pursue a civil nuclear programme.Iran, which insists its nuclear programme is only for civilian purposes, stepped up its activities after Trump withdrew from the agreement.After the US strikes, Trump said negotiations for a new deal were set to begin next week. But Tehran denied a resumption, and leader Khamenei said Trump had “exaggerated events in unusual ways”, rejecting US claims Iran’s nuclear programme had been set back by decades.Israel had claimed it had “thwarted Iran’s nuclear project” during the 12-day war. But its foreign minister reiterated Friday the world was obliged to stop Tehran from developing an atomic bomb.”The international community now has an obligation to prevent, through any effective means, the world’s most extreme regime from obtaining the most dangerous weapon,” Gideon Saar wrote on X.

‘We must help them’: Morocco students get peers back in school

Moroccan student Said Rifai, 15, is on a mission to help his peers pursue education in a country where an estimated 270,000 children drop out of school each year.”We must help them come back,” said Rifai, who goes to middle school in Tiflet, a town east of the capital Rabat, and has already helped several of his friends back to school as part of a national youth-led effort.To tackle the problem, which educators and officials warn exacerbates social inequalities and drives poverty, Moroccan authorities offer dropouts a chance back in with support from fellow students.One of Rifai’s classmates, Doha El Ghazouli, who is also 15, said that together they had helped several friends return to school “before they abandoned their future”.Huda Enebcha, 16, told AFP how she and her friend Ghazouli managed to convince a neighbour to resume her studies.”We helped her review the most difficult subjects, and we showed her videos of some school activities”, said Enebcha.”She finally agreed after a lot of effort.”To ease the transition back into the education system, the “second chance school” scheme offers some teenagers vocational training alongside remedial classes, with an emphasis on giving former dropouts agency and choice.Hssain Oujour, who leads the national programme, said 70 percent of the teenagers enrolled in it have taken up vocational training that could help them enter the labour force, with another 20 percent returning to the traditional school system.Across Morocco, a country of 37 million people, classrooms are often overcrowded, and the public education system is generally viewed as inferior to private institutions, which charge fees that can be prohibitive for many families.- ‘Lend a hand’ -Around 250 million children worldwide lack basic literacy skills, and in Morocco, nearly one in four inhabitants — around nine million people — are illiterate, according to the UN children’s agency UNICEF. Dropout rates tend to be higher in rural and impoverished areas, said Said Tamouh, the principal of the Jawhara School in Tiflet that the students interviewed by AFP attend.An NGO-run “second chance school” nearby has some 110 students, who can sign up for art classes, hairdressing training or classical Arabic language courses.Sanae Sami, 17, who took up a make-up class, said she was “truly” given another shot at pursuing education.”When you leave school, there’s nothing for you,” she said.”That’s why I decided to come back, especially thanks to the teachers at this centre.”Hafida El Fakir, who heads the Salam association which runs the school, said that “support and guidance” were key in helping students “succeed and go far”.Amine Othmane, a student who had re-entered the system last year with encouragement from his friends, is now helping others.To convince dropouts, he said, “they first have to regret leaving and want to return”.Back in school, 18-year-old Aya Benzaki now hopes to achieve her dream of graduating with a diploma, and Jihane Errafii, 17, said she was grateful for the friends who had supported her journey.”I just needed someone to lend me a hand.”

Trump hopeful for Gaza ceasefire, possibly ‘next week’

US President Donald Trump voiced optimism Friday about a new ceasefire in Gaza, as criticism grew over mounting civilian deaths at Israeli-backed food distribution centers in the territory. Asked by reporters how close a ceasefire was between Israel and Hamas, Trump said: “We think within the next week, we’re going to get a ceasefire.”The United States brokered a ceasefire in the devastating conflict in the waning days of former president Joe Biden’s administration, with support from Trump’s incoming team.Israel broke the ceasefire in March, launching new devastating attacks on Hamas, which attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.Israel also stopped all food and other supplies from entering Gaza for more than two months, drawing warnings of famine.Israel has since allowed a resumption of food through the controversial US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which involves US security contractors with Israeli troops at the periphery.United Nations officials on Friday said the GHF system was leading to mass killings of people seeking aid, drawing accusations from Israel that the UN was “aligning itself with Hamas.”Eyewitnesses and local officials have reported repeated killings of Palestinians at distribution centers over recent weeks in the war-stricken territory, where Israeli forces are battling Hamas militants. The Israeli military has denied targeting people and GHF has denied any deadly incidents were linked to its sites.But following weeks of reports, UN officials and other aid providers on Friday denounced what they said was a wave of killings of hungry people seeking aid.”The new aid distribution system has become a killing field,” with people “shot at while trying to access food for themselves and their families,” said Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian affairs (UNWRA).”This abomination must end through a return to humanitarian deliveries from the UN including @UNRWA,” he wrote on X.The health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory says that since late May, more than 500 people have been killed near aid centers while seeking scarce supplies.The country’s civil defense agency has also repeatedly reported people being killed while seeking aid.”People are being killed simply trying to feed themselves and their families,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.”The search for food must never be a death sentence.”Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) branded the GHF relief effort “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid.”- Israel denies targeting civilians -That drew an angry response from Israel, which said GHF had provided 46 million meals in Gaza.”The UN is doing everything it can to oppose this effort. In doing so, the UN is aligning itself with Hamas, which is also trying to sabotage the GHF’s humanitarian operations,” the foreign ministry said.Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a report in left-leaning daily Haaretz that military commanders had ordered troops to shoot at crowds near aid distribution sites to disperse them even when they posed no threat.Haaretz said the military advocate general, the army’s top legal authority, had instructed the military to investigate “suspected war crimes” at aid sites.The Israeli military declined to comment to AFP on the claim.Netanyahu said in a joint statement with Defense Minister Israel Katz that their country “absolutely rejects the contemptible blood libels” and “malicious falsehoods” in the Haaretz article.- Civil defense says 80 killed -Gaza’s civil defense agency told AFP 80 Palestinians had been killed on Friday by Israeli strikes or fire across the Palestinian territory, including 10 who were waiting for aid.The Israeli military told AFP it was looking into the incidents, and denied its troops fired in one of the locations in central Gaza where rescuers said one aid seeker was killed.Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP six people were killed in southern Gaza near one of the distribution sites operated by GHF, and one more in a separate incident in the center of the territory, where the army denied shooting “at all.”Another three people were killed by a strike while waiting for aid southwest of Gaza City, Bassal said.Elsewhere, eight people were killed “after an Israeli air strike hit Osama Bin Zaid School, which was housing displaced persons” in northern Gaza.- Militants attack Israeli forces -Meanwhile, Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said they shelled an Israeli vehicle east of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza on Friday.The Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas-ally Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said they attacked Israeli soldiers in at least two other locations near Khan Yunis in coordination with the Al-Qassam Brigades.Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 56,331 people, also mostly civilians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures reliable.

UN officials say new Gaza aid system leads to mass killings

United Nations officials on Friday said a US- and Israeli-backed distribution system in Gaza was leading to mass killings of people seeking humanitarian aid, drawing accusations from Israel that the UN was “aligning itself with Hamas”.Eyewitnesses and local officials have reported repeated killings of Palestinians seeking aid at distribution centres over recent weeks in the war-stricken territory, where Israeli forces are battling Hamas militants.The Israeli military has denied targeting people seeking aid and the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has denied any deadly incidents were linked to its sites.But following weeks of reports, UN officials and other aid providers on Friday denounced what they said was a wave of killings of hungry people seeking aid.”The new aid distribution system has become a killing field,” with people “shot at while trying to access food for themselves and their families,” said Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian affairs (UNWRA).”This abomination must end through a return to humanitarian deliveries from the UN including @UNRWA,” he wrote on X.The health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory says that since late May, more than 500 people have been killed near aid centres while seeking scarce supplies.The country’s civil defence agency has also repeatedly reported people being killed while seeking aid.”People are being killed simply trying to feed themselves and their families,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.”The search for food must never be a death sentence.”Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) branded the GHF relief effort “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid”.- Israel denies targeting civilians -That drew an angry response from Israel, which said GHF had provided 46 million meals in Gaza.”The UN is doing everything it can to oppose this effort. In doing so, the UN is aligning itself with Hamas, which is also trying to sabotage the GHF’s humanitarian operations,” the foreign ministry said.Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a newspaper report that the country’s military commanders ordered soldiers to fire at Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid in Gaza.Left-leaning daily Haaretz had earlier quoted unnamed soldiers as saying commanders ordered troops to shoot at crowds near aid distribution centres to disperse them even when they posed no threat.Haaretz said the military advocate general, the army’s top legal authority, had instructed the military to investigate “suspected war crimes” at aid sites.The Israeli military declined to comment to AFP on the claim.Netanyahu said in a joint statement with Defence Minister Israel Katz that their country “absolutely rejects the contemptible blood libels” and “malicious falsehoods” in the Haaretz article.The military said in a separate statement it “did not instruct the forces to deliberately shoot at civilians, including those approaching the distribution centres”.It added that Israeli military “directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians.”Israel blocked deliveries of food and other crucial supplies into Gaza from March for more than two months.It began allowing supplies to trickle in at the end of May, with GHF centres secured by armed US contractors and Israeli troops on the perimeter.Guterres said that from the UN, just a “handful” of medical deliveries had crossed into Gaza this week.- Civil defence says 80 killed -Gaza’s civil defence agency told AFP 80 Palestinians had been killed on Friday by Israeli strikes or fire across the Palestinian territory, including 10 who were waiting for aid.The Israeli military told AFP it was looking into the incidents, and denied its troops fired in one of the locations in central Gaza where rescuers said one aid seeker was killed.Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP six people were killed in southern Gaza near one of the distribution sites operated by GHF, and one more in a separate incident in the centre of the territory, where the army denied shooting “at all”.Another three people were killed by a strike while waiting for aid southwest of Gaza City, Bassal said.Elsewhere, eight people were killed “after an Israeli air strike hit Osama Bin Zaid School, which was housing displaced persons” in northern Gaza.MSF said that in the week of June 8, shortly after GHF opened a distribution site in central Gaza’s Netzarim corridor, the MSF field hospital in nearby Deir el-Balah saw a 190-percent increase in bullet wound cases compared to the previous week.- Militants attack Israeli forces -Meanwhile, Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said they shelled an Israeli vehicle east of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza on Friday.The Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas-ally Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said they attacked Israeli soldiers in at least two other locations near Khan Yunis in coordination with the Al-Qassam Brigades.Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 56,331 people, also mostly civilians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures reliable.

Trump says would bomb Iran again if nuclear activities start

US President Donald Trump said Friday he had saved Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from assassination and lashed out at the supreme leader for ingratitude, declaring he would order more bombing if the country tried to pursue nuclear weapons.In an extraordinary outburst on his Truth Social platform, Trump blasted Tehran for claiming to have won its war with Israel and said he was halting work on possible sanctions relief.The tirade came as Iran prepared to hold a state funeral for 60 nuclear scientists and military commanders who were killed in the 12-day bombing blitz Israel launched on June 13.Iran says the scientists were among a total of at least 627 civilians killed. Trump said the United States would bomb Iran again “without question” if intelligence indicated it was able to enrich uranium to military grade.Iran has consistently denied any ambition to develop a nuclear arsenal.Trump accused the Iranian leader of ingratitude after Khamenei said in a defiant message that reports of damage to nuclear facilities were exaggerated and that Tehran had dealt Washington a “slap” in the face.”I knew EXACTLY where he was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the U.S. Armed Forces, by far the Greatest and Most Powerful in the World, terminate his life,” Trump posted.”I SAVED HIM FROM A VERY UGLY AND IGNOMINIOUS DEATH, and he does not have to say, ‘THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP!'” Trump also said that he had been working in recent days on the possible removal of sanctions against Iran, one of Tehran’s main demands.”But no, instead I get hit with a statement of anger, hatred, and disgust, and immediately dropped all work on sanction relief, and more,” Trump added, exhorting Iran to return to the negotiating table.Iran has denied it is set to resume nuclear talks with the United States, after Trump said that negotiations were set to begin again next week.Its government on Friday rejected a request by Rafael Grossi, the director of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, to visit facilities bombed by Israel and the United States, saying it suggested “malign intent.”Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi hit out at Grossi personally in a post on X for not speaking out against the air strikes, accusing him of an “astounding betrayal of his duties.”- ‘Beat to hell’ -Asked earlier in a White House press conference whether he would consider fresh air strikes if last week’s sorties were not successful in ending Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Trump said: “Sure. Without question. Absolutely.”Trump added that Khamenei and Iran “got beat to hell”.The war of words came with a fragile ceasefire holding in the conflict between Israel and Iran.Speculation had swirled about the fate of Khamenei before his first appearance since the ceasefire — a televised speech on Thursday.Khamenei hailed what he described as Iran’s “victory” over Israel, vowing never to yield to US pressure.”The American president exaggerated events in unusual ways, and it turned out that he needed this exaggeration,” the Iranian leader said.It was unclear if Khamenei would attend Saturday’s state funeral in Tehran.The commemorations begin at 8:00 am (0430 GMT) at Enghelab Square in central Tehran, to be followed by a funeral procession to Azadi Square, about 11 kilometres (seven miles) across the sprawling metropolis.In a televised interview on Friday, Mohsen Mahmoudi, head of Tehran’s Islamic Development Coordination Council, had vowed it would be a “historic day for Islamic Iran and the revolution”.On the first day of the war on June 13, Israel killed Revolutionary Guards commander Hossein Salami.He will be laid to rest after Saturday’s ceremony, which will also honour at least 30 other top commanders.Armed forces chief of staff General Mohammad Bagheri will be buried with his wife and journalist daughter who were killed alongside him in an Israeli strike.Of the 60 people who are to be laid to rest after Saturday’s ceremony, four are women and four are children.Tehran is still coming to terms with the damage wrought by Israel’s bombing campaign, the capital’s first taste of war since the devastating 1980-88 conflict with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.Israel bombed multiple residential neighbourhoods as it killed the senior figures being laid to rest on Saturday, many of them in their own homes.Retaliatory drone and missile fire by Iran killed 28 people in Israel, according to official figures.

‘Shooting the messengers’: Trump tears into media over Iran report

President Donald Trump has escalated his longstanding assault on the mainstream media, denigrating individual reporters and threatening legal action against major outlets over their coverage this week of US military strikes on Iran.Trump has staked significant political capital on the success of last weekend’s strikes, which he ordered despite criticism within his own support base for breaking his campaign promises to avoid foreign military interventions.The president has blasted press coverage of a preliminary classified report from his own administration that suggested that Trump’s claim that Iran’s nuclear facilities were “obliterated” was overstated.The unusually scathing attack on reporters underscores what many observers view as Trump’s effort to put the media — already battling record low public trust — on the defensive and stifle scrutiny of the bombing raid.”Having made the decision to join the fight against Iran, being able to claim that the intervention was brief and successful has obvious political upside for Trump in repairing rifts within his coalition,” Joshua Tucker, co-director of the New York University Center for Social Media and Politics, told AFP.”The discussion by the media of the preliminary intelligence report therefore complicated the president’s preferred narrative about the US attack.”The preliminary intelligence assessment, first reported by CNN and The New York Times, then picked up by other mainstream media, suggested that the strikes may not have destroyed the core parts of the nuclear sites and had set back Iran’s nuclear program by only a few months.Trump said CNN should throw the reporter on the story out “like a dog.” He said CNN and New York Times reporters were “bad and sick people” attempting to demean American pilots involved in the strikes.At a televised news conference on Thursday, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth reiterated the president’s complaints and pushed back on the findings of the report — issued by the US Defense Intelligence Agency –- but did not deny its existence.- ‘Increasingly ugly’ -Both news outlets have stood behind their journalists and defended their reporting.”President Trump and his administration are going after shooting the messengers in an increasingly ugly way,” said CNN’s top political anchor Jake Tapper.”They’re calling journalists ‘fake news’ for true stories,” he added.Trump has also threatened to sue The New York Times and CNN over their coverage of the intelligence report.In a letter, the president’s personal lawyer said the New York Times had damaged Trump’s reputation and demanded that it “retract and apologize” for its report, calling it “false,” “defamatory” and “unpatriotic,” according to the newspaper.The newspaper said it had rejected those demands.”Trump is killing the messenger,” Todd Belt, director of the political management program at George Washington University, told AFP.”He’s taking it out on the press because he knows that the press are unpopular,” particularly among his core Make America Great Again (MAGA) base, he said.”Additionally, he and others in the administration are using the attack line of patriotism to bolster their side against the press.”- ‘Peace through strength’ -The anti-media rhetoric escalates Trump’s longstanding battle with the press.Since the beginning of his second term, his administration has sought to target the finances of media organizations — already struggling in an increasingly tough commercial climate — by cutting government agencies’ news subscriptions.He has also targeted news outlets with multi-million dollar lawsuits.Trump’s latest attacks come amid a public relations campaign to portray himself as a peacemaker in the Middle East, while retaining the support of his core MAGA base.On Friday, Trump doubled down on his stance, stating that Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “got beat to hell” in the hostilities involving the United States and Israel, while exhorting Tehran to return to the negotiating table.”If his ‘peace through strength’ single attack didn’t work and the conflict gets drawn out, this undermines his claim as a peacemaker,” said Belt.”If the public believes the single strike didn’t work, then he will either have to attack again or negotiate from a position that recognizes that Iran still maintains fissile material, which may not work.”