Iran’s president visits Iraq on first foreign trip

Update Iran’s president visits Iraq on first foreign trip
Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid meets with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Baghdad, Iraq September 11, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 11 September 2024
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Iran’s president visits Iraq on first foreign trip

Iran’s president visits Iraq on first foreign trip
  • Baghdad is a strategic ally of both Iran and US
  • Visit signals desire to strengthen ties with Iraq

TEHRAN: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian visited Iraq on Wednesday on his first foreign trip, signalling the clerical establishment’s intention to strengthen ties with a strategic ally of both Tehran and Washington as regional tensions rise.
Pezeshkian, a relative moderate who was elected in July, met Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani at the start of a three-day visit that Tehran and Baghdad said would include the signing of a number of agreements and discussion of the Gaza war and the situation in the Middle East.
“The expansion of bilateral ties as well as regional and international issues such as the ongoing crimes of the Zionist regime (Israel) against the oppressed people of Palestine and the need to stop the war and genocide in Gaza, will be discussed,” Pezeshkian’s office said in a statement.
Iraq hosts several Iran-aligned parties and armed groups, as Tehran has steadily increased its sway in the major oil producer since a US-led invasion toppled its enemy Saddam Hussein in 2003.
A rare partner of both the United States and Iran, Iraq hosts 2,500 US troops and has Iran-backed armed factions linked to its security forces. It has suffered escalating tit-for-tat attacks since the Israel-Hamas war began in Gaza in October.
The Iraqi prime minister’s media office said the two countries had signed 14 memoranda of understanding (MoUs) in different fields including trade, sports, agriculture, cultural cooperation, education, media, communications and tourism.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Wednesday that Tehran and Baghdad have various areas of cooperation “including political, regional ... and security issues,” Iranian state media reported.
Pezeshkian visited a monument for Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani who was killed, in a US drone attack in 2020 in Iraq, Iranian state media reported.

Relations with US
The United States and Iran came close to a full-blown conflict in 2020 after Soleimani’s killing in a US drone attack at Baghdad airport and Tehran’s retaliation by attacking US bases in Iraq.
The United States and Iraq have reached an understanding on plans for the withdrawal of US-led coalition forces from Iraq, say sources familiar with the matter.
Iran-aligned armed groups in Iraq have repeatedly attacked US troops in the Middle East since the Gaza war began.
State media have said Pezeshkian also plans to visit Iraqi Kurdistan, a region where Iran has carried out strikes in the past, saying it is used as a staging ground for Iranian separatist groups as well as agents of its arch-foe Israel.
Baghdad has tried to tackle Iranian concerns over regional separatist groups, moving to relocate some members in a 2023 security pact with Tehran.


UN says Israeli tanks burst through gates of peacekeeper base

UN says Israeli tanks burst through gates of peacekeeper base
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UN says Israeli tanks burst through gates of peacekeeper base

UN says Israeli tanks burst through gates of peacekeeper base
JERUSALEM/NEW YORK: The United Nations said on Sunday Israeli tanks had burst through the gates of a base of its peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, the latest accusation of violations and attacks that have been denounced by Israel’s own allies.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the United Nations to evacuate the troops of the UNIFIL peacekeeping force from combat areas in Lebanon. Hours later, the force reported what it described as additional Israeli violations, including tanks forcibly entering through the gates of a base.
“The time has come for you to withdraw UNIFIL from Hezbollah strongholds and from the combat zones,” Netanyahu said in a statement addressed to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
“The IDF has requested this repeatedly and has met with repeated refusal, which has the effect of providing Hezbollah terrorists with human shields.”
Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah denies Israel’s accusation that it uses the proximity of peacekeepers for protection.
Five peacekeepers have so far been wounded in a series of strikes that have hit peacekeeping positions and personnel in recent days, most of the attacks blamed by UNIFIL on Israeli forces.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, typically one of Israel’s most vocal supporters among Western European leaders, spoke to Netanyahu by phone on Sunday and denounced the Israeli attacks.
Italy has more than a thousand troops in the 10,000-strong UNIFIL force, making it one of the biggest contributors of personnel. France and Spain, which each have nearly 700 soldiers in the force, have also condemned the Israeli attacks.
“Prime Minister Meloni reiterated the unacceptability of UNIFIL being attacked by Israeli armed forces,” the Italian government said in a statement.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz reiterated on Sunday that the country has banned UN chief Guterres from entering, due to what it says is his failure to adequately condemn Iran for a missile attack at the start of this month, and for what Katz described as antisemitic and anti-Israel conduct.
UNIFIL was set up in 1978 to monitor southern Lebanon. Since then, the area has seen persistent conflict, with Israel invading in 1982, occupying southern Lebanon until 2000 and again fighting a major five-week war against Hezbollah in 2006.
Israel’s assault against Hezbollah over the past three weeks has been the deadliest in Lebanon in decades, driving 1.2 million Lebanese from their homes and has inflicting an unprecedented blow against the group by killing most of its senior leadership.
Israeli officials say UNIFIL has failed in its mission of upholding UN Resolution 1701, passed after the 2006 war, which calls for the border area of southern Lebanon to be free of weapons or troops other than those of the Lebanese state.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in a call with Israeli Defense Minister Gallant on Saturday, expressed “deep concern” about reports that Israeli forces had fired on peacekeeper positions and urged Israel to ensure their safety and that of the Lebanese military, the Pentagon said. The Lebanese military is not party to Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah.
Security in jeopardy
The Israeli military asked the UN peacekeepers nearly two weeks ago to prepare to relocate more than 5 km (3 miles) from the border “in order to maintain your safety,” according to an excerpt from the message, seen by Reuters.
UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix told the Security Council on Thursday that “the safety and security of peacekeepers is now increasingly in jeopardy.” They remained in position but operational activities had virtually come to a halt since Sept. 23 and peacekeepers were confined to base. Three hundred had been temporarily relocated to bigger bases.
Attacks on a watchtower, cameras, communications equipment and lighting had limited UNIFIL’s monitoring abilities, a UNIFIL spokesperson said on Thursday. UN sources said they feared Israeli attacks would make it impossible to monitor violations of international law.
Lebanon’s government says more than 2,100 people have been killed and 10,000 wounded in over a year of fighting, mainly during the escalation of the past few weeks. The toll does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but includes scores of women and children.

Under bombardment, Lebanon’s expectant mothers fear for their unborn babies

Tahani Yassine, who left Beirut suburbs to move to a safer neighborhood before giving birth, looks at her baby at Trad hospital.
Tahani Yassine, who left Beirut suburbs to move to a safer neighborhood before giving birth, looks at her baby at Trad hospital.
Updated 9 min 45 sec ago
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Under bombardment, Lebanon’s expectant mothers fear for their unborn babies

Tahani Yassine, who left Beirut suburbs to move to a safer neighborhood before giving birth, looks at her baby at Trad hospital.
  • Nicolas Baaklini, an obstetrician and gynaecologist in Beirut, says he has noticed an increase in premature births and foetal deaths since hostilities began last year

BEIRUT: Tahani Yassine was in her third trimester of pregnancy when she chose to return to her hometown of Beirut to deliver her baby.
Living in Equatorial Guinea with her husband and three young children, she had more faith in the Lebanese health care system.
But just a few days after her arrival in Beirut, Yassine began to regret her decision. Israel intensified its military campaign in Lebanon, targeting Hezbollah strongholds in the south, the Bekaa Valley in the east and the southern suburbs of Beirut, close to her home.
Although her area wasn’t directly hit, the strikes were unnervingly close, and the boom of Israeli warplanes breaking the sound barrier overhead filled her with fear.
Anxious for the safety of her unborn child, the 36-year-old moved to an apartment closer to hospital where she was due to deliver.
“My doctors told me that I was too far along in my pregnancy to travel. I had no choice but to stay and deliver here,” she told Reuters just hours after giving birth at Trad Hospital in central Beirut on Oct. 10.
Lying in her hospital bed, with her newborn girl nestled next to her in a crib, Yassine expressed her relief that both she and her baby were healthy — a very different experience to many expectant mothers in the escalating conflict in Lebanon.
Nicolas Baaklini, an obstetrician and gynaecologist in Beirut, says he has noticed an increase in premature births and foetal deaths since hostilities began last year.
“What has increased the most, and what was shocking to me, is the number of foetal deaths in in-utero babies who died in their mothers’ wombs,” said Baaklini, 61, who has a private clinic and also works in several Beirut hospitals.
“There are many malformations, and surprisingly, several colleagues have observed the same. When ... in one year, you have two foetal deaths in-utero, and then suddenly, in two months, you have about 15, it indicates that something is wrong,” he added.
Mothers flee their homes
Around 11,600 pregnant women remain in Lebanon, of whom around 4,000 are expected to deliver in the next three months, according to a flash appeal published by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in October.
Many of them are displaced and lack adequate shelter, nutrition and sanitation. Access to safe antenatal, post-natal, and paediatric care is increasingly difficult.
Since the war intensified in late September, the Israeli campaign has forced about 1.2 million people from their homes, according to the Lebanese government.
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah militants erupted a year ago when the Iranian-backed group began launching rockets at northern Israel in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war.
Dressed in white scrubs in the neonatal intensive care unit of Trad Hospital, Baaklini stroked the tiny feet of a baby girl in one of the incubators. The baby and her twin brother had been delivered prematurely by a mother who had to evacuate her home in southern Beirut due to Israeli airstrikes.
He believed that the mother’s early contractions were partly caused the stress of the bombardments and having to flee.
He said all the ICU beds were occupied, attributing this to the intensifying bombardments.
“It is not panic that makes you give birth,” Baaklini said, as machines monitoring the premature babies beeped in the background. “It is the act of running, falling, and experiencing trauma to the abdomen that triggers contractions, leading to premature delivery.”


Red Cross says strike injured paramedics on rescue mission in south Lebanon

Lebanese Red Cross said its paramedics were hit by a strike on Sunday while attending the site of an earlier attack.
Lebanese Red Cross said its paramedics were hit by a strike on Sunday while attending the site of an earlier attack.
Updated 13 October 2024
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Red Cross says strike injured paramedics on rescue mission in south Lebanon

Lebanese Red Cross said its paramedics were hit by a strike on Sunday while attending the site of an earlier attack.
  • “Following the air strike on a house in Sirbin... Lebanese Red Cross ambulance teams were dispatched to the scene,” the Red Cross said in a statement
  • “As the team was searching for casualties to rescue, the house was hit for a second time resulting in concussions to the volunteers and damage to the” ambulances, it said

BEIRUT: The Lebanese Red Cross said its paramedics were hit by a strike on Sunday while attending the site of an earlier attack in the south, leaving them lightly injured.
“Following the air strike on a house in Sirbin... Lebanese Red Cross ambulance teams were dispatched to the scene in coordination with” UN peacekeepers, the Red Cross said in a statement.
“As the team was searching for casualties to rescue, the house was hit for a second time resulting in concussions to the volunteers and damage to the two ambulances,” it said, adding the paramedics had sustained light injuries.
Jagan Chapagain, who heads the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) called for rescuers to be protected.
“We have said it before and today we say it again: the Red Cross emblem must be respected under International Humanitarian Law,” he said in a statement shared on X.
Nearly a year of cross-border exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah over the Gaza war escalated into all-out conflict on September 23.
Since then, dozens of rescuers have been killed in Israeli strikes across Lebanon, officials have said.


Netanyahu tells UN chief to move peacekeepers in Lebanon out of ‘harm’s way immediately’

Netanyahu tells UN chief to move peacekeepers in Lebanon out of ‘harm’s way immediately’
Updated 13 October 2024
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Netanyahu tells UN chief to move peacekeepers in Lebanon out of ‘harm’s way immediately’

Netanyahu tells UN chief to move peacekeepers in Lebanon out of ‘harm’s way immediately’
  • Netanyahu’s appeal to UN chief Antonio Guterres comes a day after UNIFIL refused to withdraw

BEIRUT: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called on the UN chief to move UN peacekeepers deployed in southern Lebanon out of “harm’s way.”
Netanyahu’s appeal to UN chief Antonio Guterres comes a day after the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, refused to withdraw from the border area despite five of its members being wounded in Israeli fire in recent days.
“Mr Secretary General, get the UNIFIL forces out of harm’s way. It should be done right now, immediately,” Netanyahu said in a video statement issued by his office, in what were his first comments on the issue.
Netanyahu, speaking at a cabinet meeting, said Israeli forces had asked UNIFIL several times to leave but it had “met with repeated refusals” that provided a “human shield to Hezbollah terrorists.”
“Your refusal to evacuate the UNIFIL soldiers makes them hostages of Hezbollah. This endangers both them and the lives of our soldiers,” Netanyahu said.
“We regret the injuring of UNIFIL soldiers and we are doing everything in our power to prevent this injuring. But the simple and obvious way to ensure this is simply to get them out of the danger zone.”
UNIFIL has refused to leave its positions in southern Lebanon.
“There was a unanimous decision to stay because it’s important for the UN flag to still fly high in this region, and to be able to report to the Security Council,” UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti told AFP in an interview on Saturday.
Tenenti said Israel had asked UNIFIL to withdraw from positions “up to five kilometers (three miles) from the Blue Line” separating both countries, but the peacekeepers refused.
That would have included its 29 positions in Lebanon’s south.
UNIFIL, a mission of about 9,500 troops of various nationalities that was created in 1978, is tasked with monitoring a ceasefire that ended a 33-day war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah.
Forty nations that contribute to the peacekeeping force in Lebanon said on Saturday that they “strongly condemn recent attacks” on the peacekeepers.
“Such actions must stop immediately and should be adequately investigated,” said the joint statement, posted on X by the Polish UN mission and signed by nations including leading contributors Indonesia, Italy and India.


Iran FM says ‘no red lines’ in defending itself

Iran FM says ‘no red lines’ in defending itself
Updated 13 October 2024
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Iran FM says ‘no red lines’ in defending itself

Iran FM says ‘no red lines’ in defending itself
  • Abbas Araghchi was in Baghdad to discuss the wars in Gaza and Lebanon with Iraqi officials
  • After Baghdad, Araghchi will head to Oman

BAGHDAD: Iran’s top diplomat vowed Sunday there would be “no red lines” for the country in defending its people and interests, ahead of Israel’s expected retaliation for Iran’s recent missile attack.
“While we have made tremendous efforts in recent days to contain an all-out war in our region, I say it clearly that we have no red lines in defending our people and interests,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote in a post on X.
Iran fired 200 missiles at Israel on October 1 in what it said was retaliation for the killing of Tehran-aligned militant leaders in the region and a general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has vowed Israel’s response will be “deadly, precise, and surprising.”
Araghchi was in Baghdad to discuss the wars in Gaza and Lebanon with Iraqi officials, according to the ministry.
Ali Al-Moussawi, political adviser to the Iraqi prime minister, told AFP Araghchi’s visit was part of a diplomatic effort “to silence weapons and violence... to establish security and stability in the region.”
After Baghdad, Araghchi will head to Oman, the Iranian ISNA news agency reported.
On Thursday, Araghchi was in Qatar where he met Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani over the wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
Qatar has been mediating talks aimed at a Gaza ceasefire and has called for a truce in Lebanon.
A day earlier, Araghchi met Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan.
In a recent interview, Araghchi said Iran does “not want war” but it was “not afraid of it.”
“We will be ready for any scenario,” he told Al Jazeera news network.