Devastating civilian toll in Iranian capital

Tehran’s Mayor Alireza Zakani has laid bare the human cost of the Israeli regime’s 12-day military aggression against Iran, disclosing that 3,600 civilian residential units across the capital were damaged in the assault.

In a somber address on Tuesday, Zakani confirmed hundreds of families remain displaced from their homes, underscoring a "defining experience" for the city’s crisis management infrastructure.

"According to documented statistics, 3,600 residential units suffered damage during this imposed war," Zakani stated.

"Among these, 200 units require complete reconstruction, 250 need fundamental reinforcement, and 1,500 necessitate repairs."

Minor damage, including shattered windows and doors, affected the remainder. The mayor emphasized that municipal teams are mobilizing to complete minor repairs, such as window and door replacements, by late July.

The Israeli assault that took place in June plunged ordinary citizens into profound hardship, with some communities bearing the brunt of the impact.

Currently, 350 displaced families are sheltering in hotels leased by the municipality, with another 450 households urgently requiring temporary housing while their homes undergo rebuilding.

For those whose residences were fully destroyed or require major reconstruction, Zakani outlined a support package, "Affected families will receive 1.5 billion tomans for deposits and 30 million tomans monthly rent assistance" to alleviate their burdens.

Beyond housing, the mayor reported extensive ancillary damage. "Claims have been formally registered for 875 civilian vehicles struck during the attacks," he said, adding that municipal teams are now documenting losses of household belongings for future compensation.

The devastation unfolded during the 12-Day War — a coordinated US-Israeli assault launched on June 13, 2025, targeting Iranian nuclear facilities, civilian infrastructure, and military compounds. The offensive extended to the assassinations of senior commanders and scientists, many executed in residential areas.

Iran’s human toll has been severe. At least 1,060 Iranians were martyred, according to Saeed Ohadi, head of Iran’s Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs, who said the figure could rise to 1,100 given the critical condition of many wounded.
 

 

Iran threat to Britain, significant and rising

Iran poses a significant and wide-ranging threat to Britain and, while not in the same league as Russia or China, it is one which is rising and for which the British government is not fully prepared, British lawmakers said in a report released on Thursday, reports Reuters.

Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) said the Iranian risk varied from physical attacks on and potential assassinations of dissidents and Jewish targets, to espionage, offensive cyber capabilities and its attempt to develop nuclear weapons."

Iran is there across the full spectrum of all the kinds of threats we have to be concerned with," the committee chair, Kevan Jones, said in a statement.

Although the evidence given to the committee concluded in August 2023, the lawmakers said their recommendations about action the government should take remained relevant and it is the latest message from the British authorities on the danger they say Tehran poses.

Last year, the head of Britain's domestic spy agency MI5 said since January 2022, his service and British police had responded to 20 Iran-backed plots to kidnap or kill British nationals or individuals based in the United Kingdom regarded by Tehran as a threat.

In March, Britain said it would require the Iranian state to register everything it does to exert political influence in Britain, subjecting Tehran to an elevated tier of scrutiny in light of what it said was increasingly aggressive activity.

British security services say Tehran uses criminal proxies to carry out its work in Britain, and the ISC said the threat to individuals was comparable to that posed by Russia.

In December, two Romanians were charged after a journalist working for a Persian language media organization in London was stabbed in the leg, while just last month three Iranian men appeared in court charged with assisting Iran's foreign intelligence service and plotting violence against journalists.

The ISC said the British government should fully examine whether it would be practicable to proscribe the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), an action for which some lawmakers have long called.

US imposes sanctions on Francesca Albanese

The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the United Nations' special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, who has been very critical of Israel's war in Gaza, reports Reuters.

In a post on X late on Wednesday, Albanese wrote that she stood "firmly and convincingly on the side of justice, as I have always done," without directly mentioning the US sanctions. In a text message to Al Jazeera, she was quoted as dismissing the US move as "mafia style intimidation techniques."

Since returning to office in January, President Donald Trump has stopped US engagement with the UN Human Rights Council, extended a halt to funding for the Palestinian relief agency UNRWA and ordered a review of the UN cultural agency UNESCO. He has also announced US plans to quit the Paris climate deal and the World Health Organization.

"Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt (International Criminal Court) action against US and Israeli officials, companies, and executives," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has called on states at the UN Human Rights Council to impose an arms embargo and cut off trade and financial ties with Israel while accusing the US ally of waging a "genocidal campaign" in Gaza.

Israel has faced accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice and of war crimes at the ICC over its devastating military assault on Gaza.

Israel denies the accusations and says its campaign amounts to self-defense after a deadly October 2023 Hamas attack.

In a report published earlier this month, Albanese accused over 60 companies, including major arms manufacturers and technology firms, of involvement in supporting Israeli settlements and military actions in Gaza. The report called on companies to cease dealings with Israel and for legal accountability for executives implicated in alleged violations of international law.

Albanese is one of dozens of independent human rights experts mandated by the United Nations to report on specific themes and crises. The views expressed by special rapporteurs do not reflect those of the global body as a whole.

Rights experts slammed the US sanctions against Albanese. Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy think tank, labeled them as "rogue state behavior" while Amnesty International said special rapporteurs must be supported and not sanctioned.

"Governments around the world and all actors who believe in the rule-based order and international law must do everything in their power to mitigate and block the effect of the sanctions against Francesca Albanese and more generally to protect the work and independence of Special Rapporteurs," Amnesty International's Secretary General Agnes Callamard, a former UN special rapporteur, said.

His administration imposed sanctions on four judges at the ICC in June in retaliation over the war tribunal's issuance of an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a past decision to open a case into alleged war crimes by US troops in Afghanistan.

 

Trump threatens 50% tariffs on Brazil

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened Brazil with a crippling tariff of 50% starting August 01, according to a letter he sent to the country’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

In the letter posted on Truth Social, Trump alleged Lula is undertaking a “Witch Hunt that should end immediately” over charges against its right wing former president, Jair Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro, who has bragged about his closeness with Trump, is facing trial for allegedly attempting to stage a coup against Lula.

Bolsonaro and dozens of associates have been charged with attempting a coup d’état, which prosecutors allege involved a plan to potentially assassinate elected President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Lula vowed to reciprocate if Trump follows through with his threat.

“Brazil is a sovereign nation with independent institutions and will not accept any form of tutelage,” Lula said in a post on X.

“Any measure to increase tariffs unilaterally will be responded to in light of Brazil’s Law of Economic Reciprocity,” he added.

This marks the first time in months another country has threatened to match Trump’s tariff threat.

Unlike the 21 other countries that have received letters from Trump this week, Brazil was not set to face “reciprocal” tariffs in April. Goods from there have instead been tariffed at a minimum of 10%, which is the rate Trump has been taxing most goods from countries that were set to face “reciprocal” tariffs.

Unlike the other 21 countries, the US ran a US$6.8 billion trade surplus with Brazil last year, meaning the US exported more goods to there than it imported from there. That means Brazil’s 50% tariff on American goods could severely harm domestic businesses that rely on exporting goods there.

This is not the first time Trump has used the threat of tariffs to try to change other countries’ domestic policy decisions.

Earlier this year, he threatened 25% tariffs on Colombian exports that would grow to 50% if the country didn’t accept deportees from the US. Colombia ultimately accepted the deportees and avoided those tariffs.

Trump also imposed tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada and China over the role he alleges they play in facilitating illegal migration to the US and enabling fentanyl to reach the country.

In all the letters except the one sent to Brazil’s Lula, Trump wrote that he takes particular issue with the trade deficits the United States runs with other nations, meaning America buys more goods from there compared to how much American businesses export to those countries. Trump also said the tariffs would be set in response to other policies that he deems are impeding American goods from being sold abroad.

JPMorgan economists said in a note to clients on Wednesday titled “Another day, another step closer to Liberation Day” that the 50% tariff threat on Brazilian goods was “most surprising.” (“Liberation Day” refers to April 02, the day Trump held a Rose Garden event to announce “reciprocal” tariff rates.)

 

Trump and Netanyahu partners in killing of Gazans

As Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, along with their respective delegations, sat down to dinner in the White House on Monday, Israeli forces were busy doing what they have been doing in the killing fields of Gaza for the past 21 months - murdering and pillaging.

And perhaps the most unfortunate development during this meeting was the fact that the Israeli leader — responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children — announced that he had nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Sometimes reality is far more grotesque than fiction. And though negotiations for a possible ceasefire continue, no one should doubt Israel’s long-term intentions even if the butchery stops - the Israeli state seeks to ethnically cleanse the occupied territories of their Palestinian inhabitants, and forever obstruct the chances of a viable Palestinian state.

Those who believe a two-state solution is still possible should listen closely to what Netanyahu said at the White House. “Never again” he declared when discussing a “complete state” for the Palestinians, while adding that “overall security will always remain in our hands”.

By security, one assumes the Israeli leader means that Tel Aviv will always retain the ‘right’ to butcher Palestinians into submission should they step out of line.

As for Gaza? The Israeli leader repeated the intention to ethnically cleanse the Strip, and ship the Palestinians off to other countries.

His defence minister offered more details, saying that all of Gaza’s Palestinians will be rounded up into a concentration camp in Rafah, and after “de-radicalization”, they will be “encouraged” to leave for other states.

Perhaps starvation and mass murder are amongst the methods the Israeli state uses to ‘encourage’ Palestinians to flee. But the brave people of Gaza are not ready to go anywhere; they would rather die on their land than face expulsion and exile.

Ever since the October 07, 2023 events, over 57,000 people have been slaughtered by Israel in Gaza. However, the Gaza Mortality Survey, conducted by experts from the Britain and other Western states, suggests the actual death toll may be over 83,000.

But to the world these are mere numbers; no one has the moral courage to halt this massacre. What is particularly shocking is how much Zionism in modern Israel resembles Nazism in 20th-century Europe. Both are exclusionary ideologies, with their followers known to perpetrate unimaginable cruelty.

The Nazis sent their victims off to the gas chambers; the Israeli state oversees a genocide in Gaza. But while Nazism is today rightly condemned the world over, the modern followers of Zionism get the best seat at the table, and are wined and dined by the world’s most powerful leaders, as the children of Gaza suffer and die in pain.

Courtesy: Dawn Newspaper

 

Israel to create an open air prison in Rafah

Israeli defense minister says he has instructed its military to prepare a plan to move all Palestinians in Gaza into a camp in the south of the territory, Israeli media reports say.

Israel Katz told journalists on Monday he wanted to establish a "humanitarian city" on the ruins of the city of Rafah to initially house about 600,000 Palestinians - and eventually the whole 2.1 million population.

He said the goal was to bring people inside after security screening to ensure they were not Hamas operatives, and that they would not be allowed to leave.

If conditions allowed, he added, construction would begin during a 60-day ceasefire that Israel and Hamas are trying to negotiate.

One Israeli human rights lawyer condemned it as nothing less than an "operational plan for a crime against humanity".

"It is all about population transfer to the southern tip of the Gaza Strip in preparation for deportation outside the strip," Michael Sfard told the Guardian newspaper.

The UN has also previously warned that the deportation or forcible transfer of an occupied territory's civilian population is strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law and "tantamount to ethnic cleansing".

Later on Monday, during a meeting at the White House, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about US President Donald Trump's proposal that the US take over post-war Gaza and permanently resettle its population elsewhere.

Netanyahu said, "I think President Trump has a brilliant vision. It's called free choice. If people want to stay, they can stay, but if they want to leave, they should be able to leave...

"We're working with the United States very closely about finding countries that will seek to realize what they always say - that they wanted to give the Palestinians a better future."

Trump said,"We've had great co-operation from... surrounding countries, great cooperation from every single one of them. So, something good will happen."

In March, Arab states backed a US$53 billion Egyptian alternative to Trump's plan for Gaza's reconstruction that would allow the Palestinians living there to stay in place. They also stressed their "categorical rejection of any form of displacement of the Palestinian people", describing such an idea as "a gross violation of international law, a crime against humanity and ethnic cleansing".

The Palestinian Authority and Hamas also endorsed the Egyptian plan, but the US and Israel said it failed to address realities in Gaza.

Palestinians fear a repeat of the Nakba - the Arabic word for "catastrophe" - when hundreds of thousands fled or were driven from their homes before and during the war that followed the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.

Many of those refugees ended up in Gaza, where they and their descendants make up three-quarters of the population. Another 900,000 registered refugees live in the occupied West Bank, while 3.4 million others live in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, according to the UN.

Most of Gaza's population has also been displaced multiple times. More than 90% of homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and there are shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter.

 

Palestinians have no place to live, except open air prisons

US President Donald Trump, hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday, talked about a controversial plan to relocate Palestinians out of Gaza. Netanyahu said the United States and Israel were working with other countries who would give Palestinians a "better future," suggesting that the residents of Gaza could move to neighboring nations. This raises a basic question, will any country/ other countries accept Palestinians?

It is a harsh reality that Palestinians have faced expulsions, restrictions, and marginalization in several countries over the decades, often due to political instability, regional conflicts, or domestic pressures in host countries. Here's a summary of key incidents and contexts:

Jordan (1970–71) Black September

After the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, large numbers of Palestinian fighters (PLO) operated from Jordan. Tensions rose between the PLO and Jordanian government. In 1970–71, during Black September, the Jordanian army crushed the PLO, killing thousands and forcing its leadership and fighters to flee to Lebanon. While most ordinary Palestinian civilians remained, some were expelled or displaced during the crackdown.

Lebanon (1982 and 1990s)

Lebanon became a new base for the PLO after Jordan. In 1982, during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, the PLO was forced out (mostly to Tunisia). After the Lebanese civil war ended in the 1990s, some Palestinian militias were disarmed and displaced. Lebanon still denies citizenship and basic rights to most Palestinian refugees, and they are barred from many professions.

Kuwait (1991 Gulf War)

Before 1990, over 400,000 Palestinians lived in Kuwait, many working in key sectors. During the Gulf War, PLO supported Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. After Kuwait was liberated in 1991, the government expelled over 200,000 Palestinians in retaliation. This was one of the largest mass expulsions in recent history.

Iraq (Post-2003 War)

Under Saddam Hussein, Palestinians were treated well and given housing and rights. After the US invasion in 2003, and the rise of sectarian violence, Palestinians were targeted by militias who viewed them as Ba'athist loyalists. Thousands fled Iraq, and some were stranded in desert camps on the border with Syria and Jordan.

Syria (2011 onwards)

Syria hosted over 500,000 Palestinians before its civil war. Many lived in Yarmouk camp (near Damascus). After 2011, Yarmouk became a war zone. Many residents were displaced, killed, or fled. Tens of thousands of Palestinians fled Syria, becoming refugees again in Lebanon, Jordan, or Turkey.

Egypt

While Egypt has not expelled Palestinians en masse, it has historically been strict about residency and movement, especially after the peace treaty with Israel. After Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, Egypt severely restricted the Rafah border crossing, effectively trapping Gazans and limiting their freedom.

Why This Happens

Palestinian communities often get caught in political conflicts in host countries. The presence of armed Palestinian groups (like the PLO or Hamas) has sometimes led to tensions with host governments. Palestinians are also stateless, making them especially vulnerable to political shifts and expulsions.

Moral of the story

Palestinians have been expelled, marginalized, or displaced multiple times even beyond their original 1948 exile. Their statelessness, the unresolved nature of their refugee status, and involvement in regional politics have made them especially vulnerable over decades.

It’s a story not just of one time displacement—but of repeated uprooting, often in harsh and unstable environments.