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US President Donald Trump said Friday he had saved Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khameni 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.Trump said that the United States would bomb Iran again “without question” if the country was still able to enrich nuclear-weapons grade uranium following US strikes.The US president accused the Iranian leader of ingratitude after Khamenei said in a defiant message that reports of damage to its nuclear sites from US bombing were exaggerated, and said Iran had beaten Israel and dealt Washington a “slap.”Trump posted: “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.””I SAVED HIM FROM A VERY UGLY AND IGNOMINIOUS DEATH, and he does not have to say, “THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP!'” Trump said that he had been working in recent days on the possible removal of sanctions against Iran, one of Tehran’s long-term 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’s foreign minister on Wednesday denied it is set to resume nuclear talks with the United States, after Trump said at a NATO summit in The Hague that negotiations were set to begin again next week.- ‘Beat to hell’ -Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff had expressed hope “for a comprehensive peace agreement.”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” in the hostilities involving the United States and Israel and that “it was a great time to end it.”He had said during the press conference that he would be “putting out a little statement” on Khamenei’s comments, which appeared to be the Truth Social post.In the post, he accused Khamenei of “blatantly and foolishly” saying Iran won the 12-day war with Israel, adding: “As a man of great faith, he is not supposed to lie.”The war of words come as a fragile ceasefire holds in the conflict between Israel and Iran.Speculation had however swirled about the fate of Khamenei.In a televised speech on Thursday — his first appearance since the ceasefire — Khamenei hailed what he described as Iran’s “victory” over Israel, vowed never to yield to US pressure and insisted Washington had been dealt a humiliating “slap”.”The American president exaggerated events in unusual ways, and it turned out that he needed this exaggeration,” Khamenei said, rejecting Trump’s claims Iran’s nuclear program had been set back by decades.

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Friday branded a controversial Israel- and US-backed food distribution effort in Gaza as “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid”, calling for it to be ended.The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which began operating last month and has largely replaced established humanitarian organisations, “is degrading Palestinians by design, forcing them to choose between starvation or risking their lives for minimal supplies”, MSF said in a statement.Starting in March, Israel blocked deliveries of food and other crucial supplies into Gaza for more than two months, leading to warnings of famine across a territory widely flattened by Israeli bombing since the massive October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas.Israel began allowing food supplies to trickle in at the end of May, using GHF — backed by armed US contractors, with Israeli troops on the perimeter — to run operations.The UN and major aid groups have refused to work with it, saying it serves Israeli military goals and violates basic humanitarian principles.Washington meanwhile announced this week that it would provide $30 million in direct funding to the GHF, even as it has slashed practically all of its traditional foreign aid support.- Over 500 killed -The organisation has been marred by chaotic scenes and near-daily reports of Israeli forces firing on people desperate to get food.World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters Friday that in the past two weeks 500 people have been killed “at non-UN militarised food-distribution sites”.MSF said that “with over 500 people killed and nearly 4,000 wounded while seeking food, this scheme is slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid and must be immediately dismantled”.GHF has denied that fatal shootings have occurred in the immediate vicinity of its aid points.And Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday rejected an Israeli media report that military commanders have ordered soldiers to fire at Palestinians seeking humanitarian aid in Gaza.But MSF insisted its teams in Gaza were seeing patients daily “who have been killed or wounded trying to get food” at one of GHF’s four distribution sites, pointing to “a stark increase in the number of patients with gunshot wounds”.Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, MSF’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, said the four sites were all under the full control of Israeli forces, surrounded by watch points and barbed wire.”If people arrive early and approach the checkpoints, they get shot. If they arrive on time but there is an overflow and they jump over the mounds and the wires, they get shot,” he said in the statement.”If they arrive late, they shouldn’t be there because it is an ‘evacuated zone’ — they get shot.”- ‘Hunger stalks everyone’ -MSF also warned that the way GHF distributes food aid supplies “forces thousands of Palestinians, who have been starved by an over 100 day-long Israeli siege, to walk long distances to reach the four distribution sites and fight for scraps of food supplies”. “These sites hinder women, children, the elderly and people with disabilities from accessing aid, and people are killed and wounded in the chaotic process,” it said.MSF urged “the Israeli authorities and their allies to lift the siege on food, fuel, medical and humanitarian supplies and to revert to the pre-existing principled humanitarian system coordinated by the UN”.The United Nations this week condemned what it said appeared to be Israel’s “weaponisation of food” in Gaza — a war crime.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said that Israeli forces killed at least 62 people on Friday, including 10 who were waiting for aid in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.The reported killing of people seeking aid marks the latest in a string of deadly incidents near aid sites in Gaza, where a US- and Israeli-backed foundation has largely replaced established humanitarian organisations.Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that 62 Palestinians had been killed Friday by Israeli strikes or fire across the Palestinian territory.When asked by AFP for comment, the Israeli military said 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. Bassal told AFP that six people were killed in southern Gaza near one of the distribution sites operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (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.The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory says that since late May, more than 500 people have been killed near aid centres while seeking scarce supplies. GHF has denied that fatal shootings have occurred in the immediate vicinity of its aid points.- ‘Slaughter’ -Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Friday slammed the GHF relief effort, calling it “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid”.It noted 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.Aitor Zabalgogeaskoa, MSF emergency coordinator in Gaza, said in a statement that under the way in which the distribution centres currently operate: “If people arrive early and approach the checkpoints, they get shot.””If they arrive on time, but there is an overflow and they jump over the mounds and the wires, they get shot”.”If they arrive late, they shouldn’t be there because it is an ‘evacuated zone’, they get shot,” he added.Meanwhile, Bassal said that ten people were killed in five separate Israeli strikes near the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, east of which he said “continuous Israeli artillery shelling” was reported Friday.Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said they shelled an Israeli vehicle east of Khan Yunis Friday.The Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas-ally Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said they had attacked a group of Israeli soldiers north of Khan Yunis in coordination with the Al-Qassam Brigades.Bassal added that thirty people were killed in six separate strikes in northern Gaza on Friday, including a fisherman who was targeted “by Israeli warships”.He specified that eight of them were killed “after an Israeli air strike hit Osama Bin Zaid School, which was housing displaced persons” in northern Gaza.In central Gaza’s al-Bureij refugee camp, 12 people were killed in two separate Israeli strikes, Bassal said.Israeli restrictions on media in the Gaza Strip and difficulties in accessing some areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by rescuers and witnesses.Israel’s military said it was continuing its operations in Gaza on Friday, after army chief Eyal Zamir announced earlier in the week that the focus would again shift to the territory after a 12-day war with Iran.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.

Desperate relatives of two French detainees in Iran demanded “proof of life” Friday after Israel struck their Tehran prison and a lawyer denounced their “forced disappearance”.French national Cecile Kohler, 40, and her 72-year-old partner Jacques Paris have been held in Iran since May 2022 on espionage charges their families reject.Their fate has been unknown since Israel targeted Tehran’s Evin prison in an air strike on Monday, before a US-proposed ceasefire between the Middle East foes came into force.Iran’s prison authority transferred inmates out of the prison after it was hit, the judiciary said on Tuesday, but it is not clear how many inmates were moved or who they were.”We don’t know if they are still alive, we don’t know where they are,” Noemie Kohler said at a press conference in Paris.”We await proof of life immediately,” she added.Anne-Laure Paris said she also had no idea where her father was.”In view of the gravity of the situation, I am addressing you today, for the first time, because I’m scared for my father’s life,” she said at a press conference.Chirinne Ardakani, the lawyer of the relatives, said: “Cecile and Jacques, state hostages arbitrarily detained in a cruel and inhuman manner in Iran, are missing.””In law, this is a forced disappearance,” she added.They “could have been transferred to another prison”, be buried “under the rubble” or they could have been moved “into secret detention locations”, she said.A French junior minister said on Wednesday that France had been assured that the French couple had not been wounded during the Israeli strike.But Noemie Kohler said that this information “from the Iranian authorities” was “far from a guarantee”.Rights groups say that Evin has been home to dozens of “political prisoners” innocent of any crime, including foreigners, and women who are kept in a separate wing. The prison is believed to have the capacity for hundreds of inmates.The Israeli strike destroyed part of the administrative building of the large, heavily fortified prison complex in the north of Tehran.

One week after the US strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, there is no consensus as to how effective they were.With those strikes, Washington joined Israel’s bombardments of Iran’s nuclear programme in the 12-day conflict launched on June 13.Israel said its campaign was aimed at ending Iran’s nuclear programme, which Tehran insists is for civilian purposes but which Washington and other powers insist is aimed at acquiring atomic weapons.Here is an overview of the different positions on the strikes.- US hails ‘historic success’ -The Trump administration on Thursday insisted the operation had been a total success, berating journalists for having reported on an intelligence assessment that took a more conservative line.President Donald Trump “created the conditions to end the war, decimating — choose your word — obliterating, destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities”, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told journalists at the Pentagon.Trump himself has called the strikes a “spectacular military success”, insisting they “obliterated” the nuclear sites, setting Iran’s programme back by “decades”.Earlier this week however, US media reported on a leaked preliminary US intelligence assessment that said the strikes had only set back Iran’s nuclear programme by months — coverage sharply criticized by Hegseth and others.The document was “leaked because someone had an agenda to try to muddy the waters and make it look like this historic strike wasn’t successful”, Hegseth said.He also highlighted a statement by CIA chief John Ratcliffe, who pointed to a “historically reliable and accurate” source of information indicating that “several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years”.- Israel claims ‘significant hit’ -The Israeli military has said it had delivered a “significant hit” to Iran’s nuclear programme.While it said its attacks had delayed the programme “by several years” it also said it was “still early to assess the results of the operation”.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday hailed a “historic victory” in the 12-day conflict and vowed to thwart “any attempt” by Iran to rebuild its nuclear programme.- ‘Nothing significant’: Khamenei -Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has hailed what he described as Iran’s “victory” over Israel.”The American president exaggerated events in unusual ways,” Khamenei said, insisting the strikes had done “nothing significant” to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi however called the damage “serious” and said a detailed assessment was under way.Doubts remain about whether Iran quietly removed more than 400 kilogrammes (880 pounds) of uranium enriched to 60 percent from its most sensitive sites before the strikes — to hide it elsewhere in the country.The stockpile could in theory produce more than nine atomic bombs — if the enrichment level were raised to 90 percent.A Khamenei adviser, Ali Shamkhani, has said that the country still had its stockpile.”Even if nuclear sites are destroyed, game isn’t over, enriched materials, indigenous knowledge, political will remain,” he said in a post on X.UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has called for its inspectors to be able to return to Iran’s nuclear sites in a bid to account for the stockpiles.But on Thursday, the Iranian body tasked with vetting legislation approved a bill passed by lawmakers suspending cooperation with the IAEA. That will go to Iran’s president for final ratification.- ‘Enormous damage’ IAEA -All sides, even some voices in Tehran, agree the strikes on Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan caused major damage.”I believe annihilated is too strong. But it (Iran’s nuclear programme) has suffered enormous damage,” IAEA head Rafael Grossi told French radio RFI.”It is true that, with its reduced capacities, it will be much more difficult for Iran to continue the pace it had.”Thousands of centrifuges — the machines used to enrich uranium — were no longer operational, he said, “given the explosive payload utilised and the extreme vibration-sensitive nature” of the equipment.Experts say that some centrifuges were stored in unknown locations in recent years, as Iran’s cooperation with the UN agency deteriorated.Other sites of the nuclear programme remain intact.

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) called on Friday for a controversial Israel- and US-backed relief effort in Gaza to be halted, branding it “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid”.The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which began operating last month, “is degrading Palestinians by design, forcing them to choose between starvation or risking their lives for minimal supplies”, MSF said in a statement.It said more than 500 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip while seeking food in recent weeks.Starting in March, Israel blocked deliveries of food and other crucial supplies into Gaza for more than two months, leading to warnings of that the entire population of the occupied Palestinian territory is at risk of famine.The United Nations sas Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is illegal under international law.The densely populated Gaza Strip has been largely flattened by Israeli bombing since the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas.Israel began allowing food supplies to trickle in at the end of May, using GHF — backed by armed US contractors, with Israeli troops on the perimeter — to run operations.The latter have been marred by chaotic scenes and near-daily reports of Israeli forces firing on people desperate to get food.There are also concerns about the neutrality of GHF, officially a private group with opaque funding. The UN and major aid groups have refused to work with it, citing concerns it serves Israeli military goals and that it violates basic humanitarian principles.The Gaza health ministry says that since late May, nearly 550 people have been killed near aid centres while seeking scarce food supplies. “With over 500 people killed and nearly 4,000 wounded while seeking food, this scheme is slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid and must be immediately dismantled,” MSF said.- Surge in gunshot wounds -GHF has denied that fatal shootings have occurred in the immediate vicinity of its aid points.On Tuesday, the United Nations condemned what it said was Israel’s “weaponisation of food” in Gaza and called it a war crime.MSF said the way GHF distributes food aid supplies “forces thousands of Palestinians, who have been starved by an over 100 day-long Israeli siege, to walk long distances to reach the four distribution sites and fight for scraps of food supplies”. “These sites hinder women, children, the elderly and people with disabilities from accessing aid, and people are killed and wounded in the chaotic process,” it said.Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, MSF’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, said the four sites were all under the full control of Israeli forces, surrounded by watch points and barbed wire.”If people arrive early and approach the checkpoints, they get shot. If they arrive on time but there is an overflow and they jump over the mounds and the wires, they get shot,” he said in the statement.”If they arrive late, they shouldn’t be there because it is an ‘evacuated zone’ — they get shot.”MSF said that its teams in Gaza were seeing patients every day who had been killed or wounded trying to get food at one of the sites.It pointed to “a stark increase in the number of patients with gunshot wounds”.MSF urged “the Israeli authorities and their allies to lift the siege on food, fuel, medical and humanitarian supplies and to revert to the pre-existing principled humanitarian system coordinated by the UN”.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has re-emerged after the war with Israel but faces a struggle to maintain the authority he has wielded over the Islamic republic in over three-and-a-half decades of rule, analysts say.After days of silence, Khamenei appeared on Thursday in a video address to proclaim “victory” and prove he is still alive following the 12-day conflict with Israel which ended with a truce earlier this week.But Khamenei, appointed Iran’s number one and spiritual leader for life in 1989, spoke softly and hoarsely in the address, without the charismatic oratory for which he is known.Whereas his regular interventions before the war usually took place in public in front of an audience, this message was filmed against a plain backdrop of curtains and a picture of revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.This may indicate he could still be in hiding after Israel refused to rule out seeking to assassinate him.On Thursday, Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz told media that the military would have killed Khamenei during the war if the opportunity had presented itself.”If he had been in our sights, we would have taken him out,” Katz told Israel’s public radio station Kan, adding that the military had “searched a lot”.But in the end, the conflict did not trigger the removal of the system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 revolution.Still, it enabled Israel to demonstrate military superiority and deep intelligence penetration of Iran by killing key members of Khamenei’s inner circle in targeted strikes.The war was also the latest in a series of setbacks over the last year for Khamenei.These include the downgrading of pro-Tehran militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah in conflicts with Israel and the fall of Iran’s ally in Syria Bashar al-Assad, against the background of economic crisis and energy shortages at home.”At this time, the regime does not seem to be on the verge of falling but it is certainly more vulnerable than it has been since the early years after the revolution,” said Thomas Juneau, professor at the University of Ottawa.- ‘Diminished figure’ -“The authority of the supreme leader has therefore certainly been undermined,” Juneau told AFP.”Even though his position remains secure, in that there is unlikely to be a direct challenge to his rule for now, he has lost credibility and bears direct responsibility for the Islamic republic’s major losses.”Khamenei is 86 and suffers the effects of a 1981 assassination attempt in Tehran which paralysed his right arm, a disability he has never made any attempt to hide.But discussion of succession has remained taboo in Iran, even if Western analysts have long eyed his son Mojtaba as a possible — but far from inevitable — contender.Arash Azizi, visiting fellow at Boston University, said Khamenei looked “frail and weak” in his televised message in “a far cry from the grand orator we know”.”It’s clear that he is a diminished figure, no longer authoritative and a shadow of his former self,” he said.”Power in Tehran is already passing to different institutions and factions and the battle for his succession will only intensify in the coming period.”Khamenei has come through crises before, using the state’s levers of repression, most recently during the 2022-2023 protests sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian Kurd detained for allegedly breaching Iran’s strict dress code for women.Rights activists say hundreds of people have been arrested in a new crackdown in the wake of the conflict.- ‘Sidelined’? -The New York Times and Iran International, a Persian-language television channel based outside Iran that is critical of the authorities, have said Khamenei spent the war in a bunker avoiding use of digital communication for fear of being tracked and assassinated.Iran International reported that Khamenei was not even involved in the discussions that led to the truce which were handled by the national security council and President Masoud Pezeshkian. There has been no confirmation of this claim.Jason Brodsky, policy director at the US-based United Against Nuclear Iran, said Khamenei appeared “frail and hoarse” and also “detached from reality” in insisting that Iran’s nuclear programme did not suffer significant damage.”Nevertheless, I remain sceptical of the theories that Khamenei has been sidelined,” he told AFP.”I have no doubt the war will prompt a debate within the Islamic Republic’s political elite as to how best to rebuild the system’s capabilities, but in the end, the buck has always stopped with Khamenei,” he said.