One passenger survives London-bound Air India plane crash at Ahmedabad
Hamas "brutally attacked" a bus carrying the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) staff to a distribution site near the southern city of Khan Yunis on Wednesday night, killing at least five, the US-backed charity said.
"There are at least five fatalities, multiple injuries and fear that some of our team members may have been taken hostage," GHF said in a statement. The five killed staff members are Palestinian.
'We condemn this heinous and deliberate attack in the strongest possible terms,' GHF said. 'These were aid workers. Humanitarians. Fathers, brothers, sons, and friends, who were risking their lives everyday to help others.'
The killings early Wednesday were carried out by the Hamas Sahm police unit, which Hamas claims it established to combat looting.
The unit released video footage showing several dead men lying in the street, saying they were Abu Shabab militia fighters who had been detained and killed for collaborating with Israel. It was not possible to verify the images or the claims around them.
Abu Shabab officials denied that the images showed members of their militia.
Israel's foreign ministry reacted to the news by stating on X that "Hamas is weaponising suffering in Gaza -- denying food, targeting lifesavers and forsaking its own people."
Reverend Johnnie Moore, a Christian evangelical advisor to US President Donald Trump who was recently appointed head of GHF, called the killings 'absolute evil' and lashed out at the UN and Western countries over what he said was their failure to condemn them.
'The principle of impartiality does not mean neutrality. There is good and evil in this world. What we are doing is good and what Hamas did to these Gazans is absolute evil,' he wrote on X.
Israel and the US say the new system is needed to prevent Hamas from siphoning off aid from the long-standing UN-run distribution scheme, which is capable of delivering food, fuel and other humanitarian assistance to all parts of Gaza.
UN officials deny there has been any systematic diversion of aid by Hamas, and instead say they have struggled to deliver it because of Israeli restrictions and the breakdown of law and order in Gaza.
The GHF began operating in late May, stating it has distributed more than 7 million meals worth of food during the first week of its mandate. However, its work has been marred by deadly shootings which have taken place near some of its four aid distribution centres in recent weeks.
On Wednesday, at least 25 people were reportedly killed near a GHF convoy in the Netzarim corridor in Gaza, according to two hospitals there.
The GHF has claimed it has faced continued threats from Hamas, saying on Saturday this has "made it impossible" to operate in Gaza. Hamas has denied this, in turn accusing the GHF of "failing on all levels".
An Air India plane bound for London's Gatwick airport with 232 passengers and 12 crew members on board has crashed on takeoff at Ahmedabad airport on Thursday.
Air India, whose numbers differed from those of the national civil aviation authority, reported that two fewer people, or 242, were on board, including crew.
There were 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, one Canadian national and seven Portuguese nationals on board, according to the airline.
The police first said there were no survivors of those on board. However, one passenger has survived the crash and has been hospitalised, according to authorities.
The plane, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, crashed into a residential area close to the airport shortly after takeoff.
Local media reported that the aircraft crashed into a medical staff hostel in Ahmedabad shortly after it left the runway. Unverified photos show the tail of the plane lodged in a building with plumes of black smoke billowing behind it.
It is unclear how many were injured on the ground. Police Commissioner GS Malik said "some (residents) would have also died" in the wreckage.
"Exact figures on casualties are being ascertained,' Malik added. He later told the press that at least 41 were taken to hospital for treatment.
Malik also told India's ANI news agency that one of the passengers, identified by his seat number 11A, survived the crash and "has been in the hospital and is under treatment".
The flight manifest made public by authorities identifies the person in seat 11A as Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a UK citizen.
"We received the last signal from the aircraft at 08:08:51 UTC, just seconds after takeoff," tracking website Flight Radar wrote in a post on X.
The Air India flight was scheduled to arrive at 6:25 pm local time (7:25 pm CEST).
Videos from the scene show a low-flying aircraft trailing flames and descending toward a residential neighbourhood before bursting into orange and black smoke.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the tragedy "heartbreaking beyond words".
Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the scenes of a "London-bound plane carrying many British nationals crashing in the Indian city of Ahmedabad are devastating.'
The UK Foreign Office has arranged crisis teams in India and the UK, Foreign Secretary David Lammy said.
"My thoughts, and I'm sure those of the entire House, are with those who've been affected by the tragic plane crash in India this morning," Lammy told the House of Commons.
"We know that British nationals were on board and I can confirm that the FCDO is working urgently with local authorities to support British nationals and their families, and has stood up a crisis team in both Delhi and in London."
India's Aviation Minister Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu said he was "shocked and devastated" when news of the crash in the Indian state of Gujarat broke.
"We are on highest alert. I am personally monitoring the situation and have directed all aviation and emergency response agencies to take swift and coordinated action," Ram Mohan Naidu said.
"Rescue teams have been mobilised, and all efforts are being made to ensure medical aid and relief support are being rushed to the site. My thoughts and prayers are with all those on board and their families."
The jet was 11 years old. This is the first-ever crash of a Boeing 787 aircraft, which was introduced in 2011, according to the Aviation Safety Network database.
Boeing said it was aware of reports and "working to gather more information."
Air India's Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran said that the company's "primary focus is on supporting all the affected people and their families.'
The UN nuclear watchdog's board of governors on Thursday formally found that Iran is not complying with its nuclear obligations for the first time in 20 years, a move that could lead to further tensions and set in motion an effort to restore United Nations sanctions on Tehran later this year.
Iran immediately responded to the International Atomic Energy Agency board's vote, stating that it will establish a new enrichment facility.
The announcement said the facility will be 'in a secure location".
'The Islamic Republic of Iran has no choice but to respond to this political resolution,' the Iranian Foreign Ministry and the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran said in a joint statement.
Nineteen countries on the IAEA's board, which represents the agency's member nations, voted for the resolution, according to diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the outcome of the closed-door vote.
Russia, China and Burkina Faso opposed it, 11 abstained ,and two did not vote.
In the draft resolution seen by media outlets, the board of governors renews a call on Iran to provide answers 'without delay' in a long-running investigation into uranium traces found at several locations that Tehran has failed to declare as nuclear sites.
Western officials suspect that the uranium traces could provide evidence that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program until 2003.
France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States proposed the resolution.
In Brussels, the European Commission expressed support for the text and called on Iran to "restore full cooperation with the agency and fully implement its obligations".
"We call on Iran to show restraint and avoid any step that would further escalate the situation," a Commission spokesperson said on Thursday afternoon.
The vote comes at a sensitive time, as tensions in the region have been rising.
On Wednesday, the US State Department announced that it is drawing down the presence of non-essential personnel in the Middle East.
The European Commission said its "limited" diplomatic presence on the ground had been "informed" about the Pentagon's plan, but that no evacuation order would be issued to its staff for now.
US President Donald Trump has previously said that Israel or Washington could carry out airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations failed.
The US and Iran have been holding talks on Tehran's rapidly advancing nuclear program. Oman's foreign minister said earlier Thursday that a sixth round of negotiations will be held in his country on Sunday.
The draft resolution makes a direct reference to the US-Iran talks, stressing its 'support for a diplomatic solution to the problems posed by the Iranian nuclear program, including the talks between the United States and Iran, leading to an agreement that addresses all international concerns related to Iran's nuclear activities, encouraging all parties to constructively engage in diplomacy.'
This article has been updated to reflect the European Commission's reaction.
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France 24
2 hours ago
- France 24
Why did Israel attack Iran in the middle of US-Iran nuclear talks?
Once again, the world has woken up to watch the minute hand inch closer to midnight. Early on Friday, more than 200 Israeli fighter jets hurtled across the skies over Iran, hitting targets linked to the nation's burgeoning nuclear programme and killing at least three senior members of the Islamic Republic's military leadership – as well as several nuclear scientists. The attacks, which Israel has said will not stop, reportedly also hit a number of residential apartment blocks in the capital Tehran, killing an unknown number of women and children, state media said. Emergency services have said that 95 people wounded in the strikes have so far been brought to medical centres across the country. The strikes came the morning after news broke that the sixth round of the US-Iran nuclear talks would take place in Oman Sunday, with US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff set to hold another round of indirect negotiations with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. 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'I told them, in the strongest of words, to 'just do it,' but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn't get it done.' 'There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end. Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left.' A few hours later, the president posted again, reminding the world of a 60-day deadline he had reportedly given the Islamic Republic at the beginning of the talks. 'Two months ago, I gave Iran a 60-day ultimatum to 'make a deal',' he wrote. 'They should have done it! Today is day 61. "Now they have, perhaps, a second chance!" Months in the making Mirzaei said that the US's hardline position during the talks cast some doubt on how committed Trump – who pulled the US out of the six-nation nuclear treaty with Iran during his first term in office – was to sealing a deal on Tehran's nuclear programme. 'I'm not really sure how sincere the Trump administration is in those nuclear talks,' she said. 'The US basically wants Iran to not even have the civil use of nuclear energy, which would be very far-reaching. No country has to do that – when you look at the non-proliferation treaty, every country has the right to use nuclear energy for civil purposes. So of course Iran would not agree to such a deal.' Iran's own willingness to restrict its nuclear programme to civilian use was called into question earlier this week when the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – the UN's nuclear watchdog – determined that Tehran was not complying with its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It was the first such censure issued against Iran in almost 20 years, prompting a furious Tehran to announce that it would be setting up a new enrichment site in a 'secure' location. 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'Because if you look at an attack of that scale, this is not something that has been planned for a couple of days, but has probably been planned for weeks, for months even … I think the plans were there, and now, because of the meeting that was supposed to take place on Sunday between Iran and the US, they basically saw that the timing was fit to do that.' Now, with Tehran reeling from the unprecedented assault, the question of just how Iran will respond to the strikes in the days to come has taken on an urgent edge. 'I don't think that Iran is interested in a full-scale war, but I don't think that it can actually prevent a full breaking out if those attacks continue,' Mirzaei said. 'But instead of just looking at the military options that Iran has, you can also look at the political options. And I do believe that Iran could in the near future actually withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, for example – it could abandon its cooperation with the IAEA, it could actually just cancel all of the negotiations with the US. And all those options on the political front are also very worrisome.'
France 24
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France 24
3 hours ago
- France 24
Iran's nuclear programme, Netanyahu's age-old obsession
In its largest military action against Iran to date, Israel's strikes hit about 100 targets including nuclear facilities and military command centres, and killed the armed forces' chief, top nuclear scientists and other senior figures. The strikes came as the United States and Iran were due to meet in Oman Sunday to pick up negotiations towards an agreement on the Islamic republic's nuclear programme. "We are fairly close to a pretty good agreement," Trump told reporters on Thursday, hours before news broke of the Israeli attacks. "I don't want them going in, because I think it would blow it", Trump added, speaking of the Israelis. But on Friday, Trump seemed unbothered by Israel's action, and on his Truth Social platform urged Iran to make a deal. "There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end," he wrote. - Timing 'makes sense'- Netanyahu, who has always scorned talks with Iran, paid no heed to Trump's original warning and took advantage of the seismic changes in the Middle East since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023. "I don't know what kind of understanding there was between Israel and the US but I doubt Israel would do this if the US told it not to," Menachem Merhavy, an Iran expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told AFP. Merhavy said that the timing of the attack "makes sense because Israel has been clipping the wings of Iran for the last year and a half", in actions against Tehran-aligned groups and proxies in the region, many of whom Israel has significantly weakened. But Netanyahu's obsession with Iran goes back much further than the ongoing Gaza war, sparked by an unprecedented attack by Tehran-backed Palestinian group Hamas. After Iran's former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad caused international uproar in 2005 when he called for Israel to be "wiped off the map", Netanyahu -- then an opposition leader following his first term as premier in 1996-1999 -- called Tehran's nuclear programme "a serious threat for the future". He said at the time Israel "must do everything" to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear bomb, even if it meant striking the country's nuclear facilities as Israel had in Iraq in 1981. Iran has consistently denied seeking atomic weapons, but after his return to power in 2009, Netanyahu repeatedly dismissed Tehran's assurances that its nuclear programme was meant for civilian purpose only, and advocated a "military option". Netanyahu called the UN Security Council's 2015 approval of an agreement with world powers lifting sanctions in exchange for curbs on Iran's nuclear activities a "historic mistake". In 2018, he applauded Trump's decision to withdraw the United States from the agreement, effectively scrapping it. Iran's reaction was to gradually abandon its commitments, enriching uranium to levels close to weapons-grade material and in unprecedented quantities. This gave Netanyahu a justification to keep up the fight against Iran's nuclear programme. 'Reshape the Middle East' All the while, Israel's Mossad spy agency worked in secret to undermine Iran's nuclear programme. Since the start of the Gaza war, Netanyahu has said on several occasions he was seeking to "reshape the Middle East". In late 2024, Israel dealt a hard blow to Iran's so-called "axis of resistance", by crippling Lebanese armed group Hezbollah. The fall of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, another Iranian ally, helped cement the regional dominance of Israel -- the Middle East's only, if undeclared, nuclear power. But it was an Israeli response to 200 Iranian missiles in October 2024 that "changed the balance of power" between the two foes, according to statements at the time by then defence minister Yoav Gallant, after a series of Israeli strikes inside Iran -- a rare direct confrontation. In February, Netanyahu told US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that with the Trump administration's support "I have no doubt that we can and will finish the job". Danny Citrinowicz, of the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, told AFP that Trump most likely viewed Israel as "serving his interests". "Trump really thinks that as long as Iran is weaker, he will be able to achieve a deal on the nuclear file," said Citrinowicz. Holly Dagres, an Iran expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, warned that "if the Trump administration somehow thinks it's going to be having a sixth round of talks with the Iranians in Oman on Sunday, then it truly doesn't understand the Islamic republic and how it operates."
