Masked gunmen on Wednesday ambushed and killed the local commander of a paramilitary security force in southwestern Iran, an associate of Iran's top general recently killed in an American drone strike in Baghdad, the official IRNA news agency reported.
The slain commander, Abdolhossein Mojaddami, headed the Basij forces, a paramilitary wing of the Revolutionary Guard used for internal security and other tasks, in the town of Darkhoein. He was gunned down in front of his home in the town in the country's oil rich Khuzestan province.
Two gunmen on a motorcycle, armed with an assault rifle and a hunting rifle, ambushed Mojaddami, IRNA reported. Other Iranian media said the gunmen's faces were covered with masks and that four shots were fired.
A man lights a candle at a gathering to commemorate the late Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, shown in posters, who was killed in Iraq in a U.S. drone attack on Jan. 3, and victims of the Ukrainian plane that was mistakenly downed by the Revolutionary Guard last week, at the Tehran University campus in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2020. (AP PhotoVahid Salemi)
The case is under investigation and a motive was not immediately clear, but Basij units had been involved in violent clashes with demonstrators in the area in November in which many protesters were injured and killed. Amnesty International has reported that more than 300 people were killed in the unrest across the country, though Iran has not announced a death toll.
Mojaddami's killing is seen another blow to the Revolutionary Guard, following the death of top general Qasse Soleimani earlier this month in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq. Mojaddami was described by IRNA as an associated of Soleimani, who was the head of the Quds forces, the foreign wing of the Guard.
Posters of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and deputy commander of Iran-backed militias Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, both killed in a U.S. strike earlier this month, hang on the walls at the site where they were killed in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2020. (AP PhotoHadi Mizban)
Israel has vowed to respond to Iran’s unprecedented weekend attack, leaving the region bracing for further escalation after months of fighting in Gaza. Israel’s allies have been urging Israel to hold back on any response to the attack that could spiral.
Officials at a Group of Seven meeting in Italy on Thursday are calling for new sanctions against Iran over the attack.
The Iranian attack on Saturday marked the first time that Tehran has launched a direct military assault on Israel. Israeli authorities said Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles, 99% of which were intercepted by air defenses in tandem with the U.S., Britain, France and Jordan. The attack took place less than two weeks after a suspected Israeli strike in Syria killed two Iranian generals in an Iranian consulate building in Damascus.
Regional tensions have increased since the start of the latest Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, when Hamas and Islamic Jihad — two militant groups backed by Iran — carried out a cross-border attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 250 others. Israel responded with an offensive in Gaza that has caused widespread devastation and killed more than 33,900 people, according to local health officials.
The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to vote Thursday afternoon on a resolution that would give a green light for a Palestinian state to join the United Nations as a full member.
Israel says such steps are an attempt to sidestep the negotiating process. The United States, Israel’s closest ally, has promised to veto any resolution endorsing Palestinian membership.
Currently:
— Officials at G7 meeting call for expanded Iran sanctions
— China and Indonesia call for a cease-fire in Gaza.
— Netanyahu brushes off calls for restraint, saying Israel will decide how to respond to Iran’s attack.
— UN agency helping Palestinians in Gaza seeks support against Israel’s demands for its dissolution.
— Lebanon says Israeli agents likely killed Hezbollah-linked currency exchanger near Beirut.
— Israelis grapple with how to celebrate Passover, a holiday about freedom, while many remain captive.
Here is the latest:
WASHINGTON — U.S. and Israeli officials are holding a virtual meeting to discuss a possible major Israeli military offensive in the southern Gaza town of Rafah and Washington’s opposition to that.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters aboard Air Force One as President Joe Biden flew to a campaign stop in Philadelphia on Thursday that he didn’t want to comment extensively on a meeting that was still occurring. He said U.S. officials will release a readout after it concludes.
“The main purpose really is to talk about Rafah,” Kirby said “and share our continued concerns over a major ground offensive there.”
UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations chief says “the Middle East is on a precipice” and is urging all countries to work together to prevent any actions that could spark a regionwide conflict.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a ministerial meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Thursday that “this moment of maximum peril must be a time for maximum restraint.”
“One miscalculation, one miscommunication, one mistake, could lead to the unthinkable: a full-scale regional conflict that would be devastating for all involved, and for the rest of the world,” he warned.
Guterres said the international community has a shared responsibility to engage in “comprehensive diplomatic action” to de-escalate violence and tensions in the Mideast, starting with Gaza.
UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council scheduled a vote for late Thursday on a resolution that would give a green light for a Palestinian state to join the United Nations as a full member. The U.S. is expected to veto the move, which is opposed by its ally Israel.
Malta, which holds the council presidency this month, announced Thursday morning that the vote will take place at 5 p.m. EDT. It will follow a ministerial meeting focusing on the Palestinians’ bid to raise their status from a non-member observer state to full membership.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas delivered the Palestinian Authority’s application to become the 194th member of the United Nations to then Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sept. 23, 2011. That bid failed because the Palestinians didn’t get the required minimum support of nine of the Security Council’s 15 members.
The United States had promised to veto any council resolution endorsing Palestinian membership. The U.S. says the issue is something that needs to be negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians.
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have been stalled for years, and Israel’s current right-wing government is dominated by hard-liners who oppose Palestinian statehood.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — The Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip says that 71 bodies were taken to hospitals over the past 24 hours.
It said Thursday that a total of at least 33,970 Palestinian have been killed since the Israel-Hamas war erupted more than six months ago. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its tallies but has said women and children make up most of those killed.
Palestinian medical officials say an Israeli airstrike overnight on the southern town of Rafah killed eight members of a family, including four children and three women, who had been displaced from northern Gaza.
More than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have sought refuge in Rafah, on the border with Egypt. Israel has vowed to expand its ground offensive to the city.
The Health Ministry says people in Gaza City and other parts of the north are meanwhile living with no “real” medical services. It says northern Gaza needs field hospitals with 200 beds that also include operation rooms, intensive care units and laboratories.
CAPRI, Italy — Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani opened the first working session of the Group of Seven meeting in Italy by calling for new sanctions against Iran for its weekend attack on Israel.
The Israel-Hamas war and Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine were taking center stage at the meeting of foreign ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States. On Wednesday, EU leaders meeting in Brussels vowed to ramp up sanctions on Iran to target its drone and missile deliveries to proxies in Gaza, Yemen and Lebanon.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said at the G7 meeting that the existing EU sanctions regime would be strengthened and expanded to punish Tehran and help prevent future attacks on Israel. At the same time, he said, Israel needed to exercise restraint.
“I don’t want to exaggerate but we are on the edge of a war, a regional war in the Middle East, which will be sending shockwaves to the rest of the world, and in particular to Europe,” he warned. “So stop it.”
KATHMANDU, Nepal — Family members of the Nepali man still being held captive by Hamas militants after the Oct. 7 attack in Israel have called for his release.
Relatives of Bipin Joshi, 23, traveled from their home in western Nepal to the capital, Kathmandu, to make a public appeal on Thursday.
“My life has been devastated since his kidnapping,” his father, Mahananda Joshi, said. “He is my only son without whom I cannot even imagine living my life. I love my son more than my life."
“I beg of you to kindly bring my son back home safe and alive,” he said.
Joshi was abducted in the Oct. 7 attack in which 10 Nepalis were killed. Six other Nepalis survived, but many of them sustained injuries. They have returned to Nepal.
There has been no news of Joshi since the day he was taken captive. Nepal's government has given several assurances to the family that it was working with Israeli authorities to get him freed. But relatives were appealing for more to be done.
The Chinese and Indonesian foreign ministers called for an immediate and lasting cease-fire in Gaza after a meeting Thursday in Jakarta, condemning the humanitarian costs of the Israel-Hamas war.
Indonesia's foreign minister, Retno Marsudi, told reporters that the two countries share the same view about the importance of a cease-fire and of resolving the Palestinian problem through a two-state solution.
“I am sure that China would use its influence to prevent escalation,” Marsudi said, adding that China and Indonesia “would also fully support Palestine’s membership in the U.N.”
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi blamed the United States for holding up cease-fire resolutions at the United Nations.
The U.S. vetoed a number of proposed U.N. Security Council resolutions because they didn’t tie a cease-fire directly to the release of Israel hostages, or condemn Hamas’ attacks that prompted the war, before allowing a resolution to a pass with an abstention in late March.
Osnat Peri, right, whose husband, Haim, is in Hamas captivity, takes part in a Passover Seder commemoration with relatives of hostages held in the Gaza Strip, at the communal dining room at Kibbutz Nir Oz, Thursday, April 11, 2024. For many Jews, no matter how observant, Passover is a time to unite with family to eat and drink around what's known as a Seder table, remembering how the Jews persevered through harsh times. But this year, when Passover begins on Monday, many families are torn on how to celebrate, or if it's worth acknowledging at all. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
Protesters shout slogans against Israel and wave Palestinian flags during a sit-in in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza in front of UNRWA office in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 18, 2024. Hundreds of Palestinian refugees protested Thursday outside the offices of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees in Beirut, expressing solidarity with fellow Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Ambassador of Israel to Nepal, Hanan Goder, speaks to an assembly at his residence in Kathmandu, during which family members of a Nepalese man who is still being held captive by Hamas, appealed for his prompt release in Kathmandu, Nepal, Thursday, April 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)
Protesters wave Palestinian flags during a sit-in in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza in front of UNRWA office in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 18, 2024. Hundreds of Palestinian refugees protested Thursday outside the offices of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees in Beirut, expressing solidarity with fellow Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Protesters wave Palestinian flags during a sit-in in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza in front of UNRWA office, background, in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday, April 18, 2024. Hundreds of Palestinian refugees protested Thursday outside the offices of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees in Beirut, expressing solidarity with fellow Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Iranian army members march during Army Day parade at a military base in northern Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. In the parade, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi warned that the "tiniest invasion" by Israel would bring a "massive and harsh" response, as the region braces for potential Israeli retaliation after Iran's attack over the weekend. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
