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A massive explosion tore through Iran’s largest commercial port on Saturday, triggering a major blaze, with 14 people killed and 750 injured so far.The blast occurred at Shahid Rajaee Port in southern Iran, near the Strait of Hormuz through which a fifth of world oil output passes.Although the cause of the blast was not immediately clear, the port’s customs office said in a statement carried by state TV that it probably resulted from a fire that broke out at the hazardous and chemical materials storage depot.The New York Times reported that a person with ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss security matters, told the newspaper that what exploded was sodium perchlorate, a major ingredient in solid fuel for missiles.Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said on Telegram early Sunday that there were “14 dead and 750 injured so far in the explosion”.With choking smoke spreading throughout the area, all schools and offices 23 kilometres (14 miles) away in Bandar Abbas, the capital of Hormozgan province, have been ordered closed on Sunday, state TV said, to allow authorities to focus on the emergency effort.”The intensity of the fire in Shahid Rajaee Port has increased and it is possible that the fire could spread to other areas and containers,” state TV said late Saturday.Strong winds were complicating efforts to extinguish the flames, a reporter for the broadcaster said.Shahid Rajaee, more than 1,000 kilometres south of Tehran, is Iran’s most advanced container port, according to the official IRNA news agency.Images from IRNA showed rescuers and survivors walking along a wide boulevard carpeted with debris after the blast.Flames engulfed a truck trailer and blood stained the side of a crushed car, while a helicopter dropped water on massive black smoke clouds billowing from behind stacked shipping containers.Citing local emergency services, state TV reported that “hundreds have been transferred to nearby medical centres”, while the provincial blood transfusion centre issued a call for donations.Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian expressed sympathy for the victims of the deadly blast, adding he had “issued an order to investigate the situation and the causes”.He said Momeni would go to the area to look into the incident.Speaking later at the scene, Momeni told state TV: “All resources from other cities and Tehran have been dispatched… and we hope to be able to extinguish the fire in the coming hours.”In a video posted to social media, which AFP was not able to verify, a man filming the disaster said “my truck was completely destroyed and my friend died”. A dead body can be seen on the ground.- Containers exploded -Saturday is the start of the working week in Iran, meaning the port would have been busy with employees.Three Chinese nationals were “lightly injured”, China’s state broadcaster CCTV reported, citing its Bandar Abbas consulate.Mehrdad Hassanzadeh, head of the province’s crisis management authority, told state TV that “the cause of this incident was the explosion of several containers stored in the Shahid Rajaee Port wharf area”.The explosion was so powerful that it was felt and heard about 50 kilometres away, Fars news agency reported.”The shockwave was so strong that most of the port buildings were severely damaged,” Tasnim news agency reported.The United Arab Emirates expressed “solidarity with Iran” over the explosion and Saudi Arabia sent condolences.The state-owned National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company said in a statement carried by local media that the explosion “has no connection to refineries, fuel tanks, distribution complexes or oil pipelines”.It added that “Bandar Abbas oil facilities are currently operating without interruption”.The explosion comes several months after one of Iran’s deadliest work accidents in years.The coal mine blast in September, caused by a gas leak, killed more than 50 people at Tabas in the east of the country.Saturday’s explosion also came as Iranian and US delegations met in Oman for high-level talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme. Both sides reported progress, with a US official calling it “positive and productive”.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas appointed a close aide as the first ever vice president of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on Saturday, positioning him as a potential successor to the veteran leader.Hussein al-Sheikh was appointed by Abbas, 89, after the vice presidency position was created during a convention held in Ramallah this week.The new post follows years of international pressure to reform the PLO and comes as Arab and Western powers envision an expanded role for Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA) in the post-war governance of the Gaza Strip.”Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas appointed Hussein al-Sheikh as a deputy (vice president) of the PLO leadership,” a member of the organisation’s executive committee, Wasel Abu Yousef, told AFP.Founded in 1964, the PLO is empowered to negotiate and sign international treaties on behalf of the Palestinian people, while the PA is responsible for governance in parts of the Palestinian territories.The PLO is an umbrella organisation comprising several Palestinian factions, but not the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which are currently at war with Israeli forces in Gaza.Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim gave the appointment a frosty reception.”The Palestinian people are not a herd to be imposed upon leaders with dubious history who have tied their present and future to the occupation,” he said in a statement.”Legitimacy is held only by the Palestinian people, and its tools are the rifle for resisting the occupation, and the ballot box. The guardianship over our people is long gone.”Sheikh, 64, is a veteran leader of Abbas’s Fatah movement, which dominates the PA, and is considered close to the president.He spent more than 10 years in Israeli jails in the late 1970s and early 80s, during which he learned Hebrew.In 2022, he was made the PLO executive committee’s secretary-general and head of its negotiations department, a sensitive portfolio, demonstrating his close ties to Abbas.Abbas also recently appointed him as the head of a committee overseeing Palestinian diplomatic missions abroad.- ‘Prelude to creating a successor’ -Palestinian analyst Hani al-Masri called for the creation of a vice presidential post within the PA itself.”This is not a reform measure but rather a response to external pressure,” said Masri of the Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Strategic Studies.”What is required is a vice president for the PA to whom the powers could be transferred,” he told AFP.However, analyst Aref Jaffal said the new role was created to pave the way for someone to take the reins from Abbas, “as there are many things the Palestinian situation requires”.”The Palestinian political system is already miserable, so I believe that all these arrangements are a prelude to creating a successor to Abbas,” Jaffal, the director of the Al-Marsad Election Monitoring Center, told AFP.Saudi Arabia welcomed the “reform steps” taken by Abbas in appointing Sheikh as his deputy.”These reform steps will strengthen Palestinian political efforts… foremost among them the right to self-determination through the establishment of their independent state along the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital,” the Saudi foreign ministry said.In March, at a summit in Cairo about Gaza’s post-war future, Abbas had announced he would create a vice presidency within the PLO.- Move opposed by factions -Abbas has been head of the PA since 2005 following the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The following year he was elected to a four-year term, with no presidential vote since.According to Palestinian officials, in the event of Abbas’s death or resignation, the vice president would be expected to become the acting head of the PLO and of the State of Palestine, which is recognised by nearly 150 countries.Abbas had brought a proposal for creating the vice president post during a PLO convention this week, but it was opposed by several factions who staged a walkout.They argued that the initiative threatened the PLO’s sovereignty and was a sign of foreign interference.The PA is teetering on the brink of financial collapse and, following the Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, several international donors have increasingly insisted that financial support be tied to concrete political and institutional reforms.On Wednesday, Abbas argued that creating a vice presidency would strengthen Palestinian institutions and bolster international recognition of the Palestinian state.Some analysts view the move as a calculated attempt by Abbas to project the appearance that he is decentralising power.

Hamas is open to an agreement to end the war in Gaza that would see all hostages released and secure a five-year truce, an official said Saturday as the group’s negotiators held talks with mediators.A Hamas delegation visited Cairo to discuss with Egyptian mediators ways out of the 18-month war while, on the ground, rescuers said Israeli strikes in Gaza killed at least 35 people.Nearly eight weeks into an Israeli aid blockade, the United Nations says food and medical supplies are running out in the territory.The Hamas official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the Palestinian militant group “is ready for an exchange of prisoners in a single batch and a truce for five years”.A statement later from Hamas said its delegation had left Cairo on Saturday evening.The latest bid to seal a ceasefire follows an Israeli proposal Hamas rejected earlier this month as “partial”. The new proposal calls instead for a “comprehensive” agreement to halt the war ignited by the group’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.The rejected Israeli offer, according to a senior Hamas official, included a 45-day ceasefire in exchange for the return of 10 living hostages.Hamas has consistently demanded that a truce deal must lead to the war’s end, a full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a surge in humanitarian aid.An Israeli pullout and a “permanent end to the war” would also have occurred — as outlined by then-US president Joe Biden — under a second phase of a ceasefire that had begun on January 19 but which collapsed two months later.Hamas had sought talks on the second phase but Israel wanted the first phase extended. Israel demands the return of all hostages seized in the 2023 attack, and Hamas’s disarmament, which the group has rejected as a “red line”.”This time we will insist on guarantees regarding the end of the war,” Mahmud Mardawi, a senior Hamas official, said in a statement.”The occupation can return to war after any partial deal, but it cannot do so with a comprehensive deal and international guarantees.”Later on Saturday, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan reiterated that “any proposal that does not include a comprehensive and permanent cessation of the war will not be considered.” “We will not abandon the resistance’s weapons as long as the occupation persists”, he said in a statement.- ‘The house collapsed’ -Israel pounded Gaza again on Saturday. Mohammed al-Mughayyir, an official with the territory’s civil defence rescue agency, told AFP that the death toll had risen to at least 35. In Gaza City, in the territory’s north, civil defence said a strike on the Khour family home killed 10 people and left an estimated 20 more trapped in the debris.Umm Walid al-Khour, who survived the attack, said “everyone was sleeping with their children” when the strike hit and “the house collapsed on top of us.” Elsewhere across Gaza, 25 more people were killed, rescuers said.There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the latest strikes but it said that “1,800 terror targets” had been hit across Gaza since the military campaign resumed on March 18.The military added that “hundreds of terrorists” were also killed.Qatar, the United States and Egypt brokered the truce which began on January 19 and enabled a surge in aid, alongside exchanges of hostages and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.With Israel and Hamas disagreeing over the ceasefire’s next phase, Israel cut all aid to Gaza before resuming bombardment, followed by a ground offensive.- Gazans ‘slowly dying’ -Since then, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, at least 2,111 Palestinians have been killed, taking the overall war death toll in Gaza to 51,495 people, mostly civilians.The Hamas attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, also mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Militants also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.Israel says the military campaign aims to force Hamas to free the remaining captives.On Friday, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said the hot meal kitchens it was supplying with food in Gaza “are expected to fully run out of food in the coming days”.On Saturday, AFP footage showed queues of people waiting for food in front of a community kitchen.”There is no food in the free kitchen, there is no food in the markets… There is no flour or bread,” said north Gaza resident Wael Odeh.A senior UN official, Jonathan Whittall, said Gazans were “slowly dying”.”This is not only about humanitarian needs but also about dignity,” Whittall, head of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs in the Palestinian territories, told journalists.

An explosion of unknown origin tore through Iran’s most advanced container port on Saturday, triggering a major fire, killing eight people and injuring hundreds, state media said.Around 10 hours after the blast at Shahid Rajaee Port in southern Iran, state TV reported the fire had intensified.With choking smoke spreading throughout the area, all schools and offices 23 kilometres (14 miles) away in Bandar Abbas, the Hormozgan provincial capital, have been ordered closed on Sunday, state TV said, to allow authorities to focus on the emergency effort.Although the cause of the blast was not immediately clear, the port’s customs office said in a statement carried by state TV that it probably resulted from a fire that broke out at the hazmat and chemical materials storage depot.”The intensity of the fire in Shahid Rajaee Port has increased and it is possible that the fire could spread to other areas and containers”, state TV said late Saturday.Strong winds were complicating efforts to extinguish the flames, a reporter for the broadcaster said.Shahid Rajaee is the country’s largest commercial port, located near the Strait of Hormuz through which a fifth of world oil output passes.Images from the official IRNA news agency showed rescuers and survivors walking along a wide boulevard carpeted with debris after the blast.Flames engulfed a truck trailer and blood stained the side of a crushed car, while a helicopter dropped water on massive black smoke clouds billowing from behind stacked shipping containers.Citing local emergency services, state TV reported that “hundreds have been transferred to nearby medical centres”, while the provincial blood transfusion centre issued a call for donations.Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian expressed sympathy for the victims of the deadly blast, adding he had “issued an order to investigate the situation and the causes”.He said Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni would go to the area to look into the incident.Speaking later at the scene, Momeni told state TV: “This incident has left eight people dead and 750 injured. All resources from other cities and Tehran have been dispatched… and we hope to be able to extinguish the fire in the coming hours.”In a video posted to social media, which AFP was not able to verify, a man filming the disaster said “my truck was completely destroyed and my friend died”. A dead body can be seen on the ground.Saturday is the start of the working week in Iran, meaning the port would have been busy with employees. Three Chinese nationals were “lightly injured”, China’s state broadcaster CCTV reported, citing its Bandar Abbas consulate.Shahid Rajaee, more than 1,000 kilometres south of Tehran, is Iran’s most advanced container port, according to IRNA.- Containers exploded -Mehrdad Hassanzadeh, head of the province’s crisis management authority, told state TV that “the cause of this incident was the explosion of several containers stored in the Shahid Rajaee Port wharf area”.The explosion was so powerful that it was felt and heard about 50 kilometres away, Fars news agency reported.”The shockwave was so strong that most of the port buildings were severely damaged,” Tasnim news agency reported.The United Arab Emirates expressed “solidarity with Iran” over the explosion and Saudi Arabia sent condolences.The state-owned National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company said in a statement carried by local media that the explosion “has no connection to refineries, fuel tanks, distribution complexes or oil pipelines”.It added that “Bandar Abbas oil facilities are currently operating without interruption”.The explosion comes several months after one of Iran’s deadliest work accidents in years.The coal mine blast in September, caused by a gas leak, killed more than 50 people at Tabas in the east of the country.Saturday’s explosion also came as Iranian and US delegations met in Oman for high-level talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme. Both sides reported progress.

The United States and Iran reported progress in their latest round of nuclear talks on Saturday and agreed to meet again next week as they pursue a deal that could help ease soaring Middle East tensions.A US official called the talks “positive and productive”, and Iran’s top diplomat said the two sides will study how to narrow their differences on a range of subjects before next week’s fourth round.The highest-level contact in years between the long-time foes is targeting a new deal that would stop Iran developing nuclear weapons — an objective Tehran denies pursuing — in return for relief from sanctions.”There is still much to do, but further progress was made on getting to a deal,” the senior US official said on condition of anonymity, adding that the next talks would be in Europe.Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called Saturday’s talks, which included technical-level teams for the first time, “serious and businesslike”.”There are differences both in the major issues and in the details,” he told Iranian state TV.”Until the next meeting, further studies are to be conducted in the capitals on how to reduce the differences.”Araghchi added: “I think our progress has been good so far. I am satisfied with the process of the negotiation and its speed. I think it is proceeding well and satisfactorily.”US President Donald Trump pulled out of an earlier, multilateral agreement during his first term. The United States and Israel have repeatedly threatened Iran with military strikes.- ‘Minute details’ -US special envoy Steve Witkoff again led the American delegation while Michael Anton, the State Department’s head of policy planning, headed the US expert-level negotiators.Deputy foreign ministers Kazem Gharibabadi and Majid Takht-Ravanchi led Tehran’s technical team, according to Iran’s Tasnim news agency.The delegations were in separate rooms and communicated in writing via the hosts, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei and Araghchi said.”The expert and technical talks… reached the stage of minute details about mutual demands and expectations,” an Iranian state TV reporter said.Iran’s defence and missile capabilities were not discussed, Baqaei told state TV, while an Iranian negotiator said the talks were “uniquely about sanctions and nuclear questions”, according to Tasnim.Araghchi had earlier expressed “cautious optimism”, saying this week: “If the sole demand by the US is for Iran to not possess nuclear weapons, this demand is achievable”.The talks coincided with a major blast at Iran’s Shahid Rajaee port that injured hundreds of people and killed at least four, state media reported.The port’s customs office said it probably resulted from a fire in a storage depot.Before the talks, Trump, in an interview published Friday by Time magazine, reiterated his threat of military action if a deal fell through.But he added that he “would much prefer a deal than bombs being dropped”. The talks began in Muscat a fortnight ago and continued in Rome last Saturday.- Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ -They are the most senior engagement between the traditional enemies since 2018, when Trump withdrew from the landmark 2015 accord that gave Iran sanctions relief in return for curbs on its nuclear programme.Since returning to office, Trump has reinstated his “maximum pressure” policy of sanctions against Tehran.In March, he wrote to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei proposing talks, but also warning of potential military action if diplomacy failed.On Tuesday, Washington announced new sanctions targeting Iran’s oil network — a move Tehran described as “hostile” ahead of Saturday’s talks.On Wednesday, UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi called on Iran to explain tunnels built near its Natanz nuclear site, seen in satellite imagery released by the Institute for Science and International Security.Iran currently enriches uranium to 60 percent, far above the 3.67 percent limit imposed by the 2015 deal but still below the 90 percent threshold required for weapons-grade material.Araghchi has previously called Iran’s right to enrich uranium “non-negotiable”.Tehran last year revived engagement with Britain, France and Germany — also signatories to the 2015 deal — holding several rounds of nuclear talks ahead of the US meetings.Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged the three European states to decide whether to trigger the “snapback” mechanism under the 2015 agreement, which would automatically reinstate UN sanctions on Iran over its non-compliance.The option to use the mechanism expires in October.Iran has warned it could withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if the snapback is triggered.

Syria’s Kurdish parties on Saturday adopted a joint political vision calling for a “decentralised democratic” state in Syria with guarantees for Kurdish rights.Their statement came at the end of a conference held in Qamishli, northeastern Syria, where a top Kurdish official disputed suggestions that the meeting sought division following the fall of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.Syria’s new Islamist-led rulers seek to establish government control over the entire country since they ousted Assad in December after more than 13 years of civil war.Marginalised and repressed during decades of Assad family rule, Kurdish-led forces took advantage of the civil war to establish de facto autonomy in the north and northeast.Syria’s new government vision puts into question the status of that authority.Mohamad Ismail, a high-ranking official in the Kurdish National Council, announced at the close of the conference the “joint Kurdish political vision, expressing a collective will and a realistic project for a fair solution to the Kurdish issue in Syria, as a decentralised democratic state”.The statement, closing the “Unity of the Kurdish Position and Ranks” conference, said the vision “ensures constitutional rights for the Kurdish people, adheres to international human rights treaties, preserves women’s freedom and rights”.The statement also called for the vision to be “a basis for national dialogue” between Kurdish forces and the new administration in Damascus.More than 400 people, including representatives from major Kurdish parties in Syria, Turkey and Iraq’s Kurdistan region took part in the conference, according to the Kurdish Anha news agency.Among the delegates were the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) as well as groups opposed to it.- ‘Unity of Syria’ -Last month, Syria’s presidency announced an agreement to integrate the institutions of the autonomous Kurdish administration into the national government.But that agreement has not prevented the Kurdish authorities from criticising Syria’s new authorities.The Kurdish-led administration rejected a new national government formed last month, saying it does not reflect the country’s diversity. They levelled a similar criticism against last month’s constitutional declaration that concentrated executive power in the hands of interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa during a transition period.Mazloum Abdi, head of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish administration’s de facto army, said at the conference that “my message to all Syrian constituents and the Damascus government is that the conference does not aim, as some say, at division”. It was being held, he added, “for the unity of Syria”.The US-backed SDF played a key role in the fight against the Islamic State group, which was defeated in its last Syrian territorial stronghold in 2019.”We support all Syrian components receiving their rights in the constitution to be able to build a decentralised democratic Syria that embraces everyone,” Abdi said.In a post shared on social media platform X, AANES official Bedran Ciya Kurd said the conference marked a “historic moment” that will allow Kurds to “play a leading role in the radical democratic transformations in Syria”.”This blessed step should be a source of hope, optimism, and relief for all Syrians for their unity and strength, not a reason for reservation or fear,” he added.Most of the country’s oil and gas fields are in areas administered by the Kurdish authorities. These may prove a crucial resource for Syria’s new authorities as they seek to rebuild the impoverished, war-devastated country.

A powerful explosion ripped through a key port in southern Iran on Saturday, killing four people and injuring more than 500, state media said.Although the cause of the blast was not immediately clear, the port’s customs office said in a statement carried by state TV that it probably resulted from a fire that broke out at the hazmat and chemical materials storage depot.State media reported a “massive explosion” at Shahid Rajaee, the country’s largest commercial port, located in Hormozgan province on the southern coast.Footage on state TV showed thick columns of black smoke billowing from the port where many containers are stored, with helicopters deployed to fight the flames.Citing local emergency services, state TV reported that at least 516 people were injured and “hundreds have been transferred to nearby medical centres”.”Unfortunately, at least four deaths have been confirmed by rescuers,” the head of the Red Crescent Society’s Relief and Rescue Organisation, Babak Mahmoudi, later told the broadcaster.Three Chinese nationals were “lightly injured”, China’s state broadcaster CCTV reported, citing its Bandar Abbas consulate.Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian expressed sympathy for the victims of the deadly blast, adding he had “issued an order to investigate the situation and the causes”, sending Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni to look into the incident.Images from the official IRNA news agency showed rescuers and survivors walking along a wide boulevard carpeted with debris.Flames engulfed a truck trailer and blood stained the side of a crushed car.Containers stacked at the port appeared to have buckled in the blast.Shahid Rajaee, more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) south of Tehran, is Iran’s most advanced container port, according to IRNA.It is located 23 kilometres west of Bandar Abbas, the Hormozgan provincial capital, and near the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of world oil output passes.- Containers exploded -Mehrdad Hassanzadeh, head of the province’s crisis management authority, told state TV that “the cause of this incident was the explosion of several containers stored in the Shahid Rajaee Port wharf area”.”We are currently evacuating and transporting the injured to nearby medical centres,” he said.The explosion was so powerful that it was felt and heard about 50 kilometres away, Fars news agency reported, with residents saying they could feel the ground shake even at a distance.”The shockwave was so strong that most of the port buildings were severely damaged,” Tasnim news agency reported.The state-owned National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company said in a statement carried by local media that “the explosion at Shahid Rajaee Port has no connection to refineries, fuel tanks, distribution complexes or oil pipelines”.It added that “Bandar Abbas oil facilities are currently operating without interruption”.The rare explosion comes several months after one of Iran’s deadliest work accidents in years.The coal mine blast in September, caused by a gas leak, killed more than 50 people at Tabas in the east of the country.Saturday’s explosion also came as Iranian and US delegations met in Oman for high-level talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme.