Netanyahu claims Iran victory opens ‘opportunities' to free Gaza hostages
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Sunday that Israel's recent military success against Iran has unlocked new "opportunities" – particularly to free hostages held in Gaza.
Speaking to security forces, he linked the 12-day conflict with Iran to progress on two goals: rescuing captives and defeating Hamas. Netanyahu asserted both objectives would be achieved. His remarks come 20 months after Hamas militants abducted 251 people during the October 7, 2023 attacks. Today, 49 hostages remain captive in Gaza, including 27 whom Israel believes are dead. Hamas also holds the body of an Israeli soldier killed in 2014.The Hostages and Missing Families Forum cautiously welcomed Netanyahu's statement, calling it "very important" that freeing captives is finally the "top priority." However, they stressed this must lead to a single agreement bringing home all hostages and ending the fighting. The group emphasized: "The only way to free them all is through a comprehensive deal... not rescue operations" that risk lives. They urged immediate diplomatic action, noting families have endured agonizing uncertainty since the war began. Netanyahu's comments follow global pressure to prioritize hostage releases as Gaza's humanitarian crisis deepens.
The October 7 Hamas attacks killed 1,219 people, mostly civilians. Israel's subsequent military campaign has claimed at least 56,500 lives in Gaza, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry – figures the UN considers reliable.
While Netanyahu frames hostage recovery as part of "victory," mediators struggle to restart stalled truce talks. Families maintain only a ceasefire deal can secure their loved ones' return, warning military operations endanger captives. With Ramadan approaching and Gaza's infrastructure devastated, international calls grow louder for a negotiated solution to halt the suffering on both sides.
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Time of India
16 minutes ago
- Time of India
Iran Airspace Reopening: Iran Resumes Central and Western Airspace for International Flights Following Conflict, ET TravelWorld
Advt Join the community of 2M+ industry professionals. Subscribe to Newsletter to get latest insights & analysis in your inbox. All about ETTravelWorld industry right on your smartphone! Download the ETTravelWorld App and get the Realtime updates and Save your favourite articles. Iran has announced reopening its airspace in central and western areas to allow international flights, the Roads and Urban Development Ministry announced. The decision was made following the approval of the Civil Aviation Organization (CAO) of Iran and completion of security and safety assessments by the relevant authorities, ministry spokesman Majid Akhavan said in a added the country had earlier reopened its eastern airspace to domestic, international, and passing flights, stressing that no flight would land in or take off from Iran's airports in the northern, southern and western another statement, the CAO said the country's airspace in the northern, southern, and western parts would remain closed until 14:00 local time (1030 GMT) on Sunday. Iran closed its airspace on June 13 following Israeli airstrikes on Tehran and other areas. Following a 12-day aerial conflict, a ceasefire between the two sides was achieved on ministry had announced on Wednesday night the reopening of its eastern airspace, saying the move aimed to gradually restore air traffic to pre-conflict levels, Xinhua news agency reported."In view of the reopening of Iran's eastern airspace to domestic and international flights, the country's airspace in the northern, southern and western parts will remain closed until 14:00 local time on Friday (1030 GMT)," IRIB quoted Spokesman of Iran's Roads and Urban Development Ministry Majid Akhavan as in the day, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) announced that its 12-day military operation against Iran resulted in significant damage to three of the country's main nuclear facilities, Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, dealing a major blow to the Iranian regime's nuclear infrastructure. The IDF asserted that Israel launched 'Operation Rising Lion' on June 13 intending to damage the Iranian nuclear and missile projects following the identification of progress in the three programmes whose ultimate goal was to "destroy the State of Israel".
Time of India
17 minutes ago
- Time of India
Iranian regime change? Not the kind you're looking for.
Back when I used to be able to visit Iran , I remember always being surprised by the popularity of Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary's Guard Corps ' elite Al-Quds force , who was assassinated on US President Donald Trump 's orders in 2020. This was true even of Westward-looking Tehranis who loathed the regime and held parties where the alcohol flowed and the skirts were short. Asked why, the answer was always the same. Soleimani kept the foreign threats destabilizing other countries of the Middle East at bay; he fought them abroad so they wouldn't have to be fought at home. Islamic State, a Sunni-Islamist terrorist organization, could terrorize Shiites in Iraq and their Alawite cousins in Syria, but the streets of Tehran were safe. Soleimani played on this. He'd be photographed wearing fatigues out with pro-Iranian militias in Iraq, carefully curating a near mythological image of daring and skill. This resonated, even though he stood at the core of a hated regime, because he seemed to hold the ring for what most Iranians craved: normal lives, safety and a chance at prosperity. They wanted a nuclear reconciliation with the US and Europe, allowing for sanctions to lift and investment to return, for precisely the same reasons. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Moose Approaches Girl At Bus Stop In Bejaia - Watch What Happens Happy in Shape Undo But that was then. A 2015 nuclear deal was agreed but quickly eviscerated by Trump. The IRGC profited from the 'maximum pressure' sanctions that followed, taking over much of the domestic economy and trade ( which became primarily smuggling). Inflation soared. Private business withered. Living standards plummeted. And the worse things got, the more the IRGC cracked down domestically. There is no new Soleimani. The very source of his popularity — that he kept the dogs of war from Iranian doors — has become cause to despise his successors. Al-Quds increasingly was in the business of using the proxy network he built to poke the US and Israeli bears. That obsession backfired spectacularly this month, with Israeli jets bombing Tehran and US B-2s dropping bunker busters on Iranian nuclear facilities. Live Events Soleimani would be hated, too, were he alive today, because he was a leading architect of all this hubris. Indeed, attitudes were changing even before he died. But I think his passage from hero to villain is the context in which to see Iran's next move, now the US and Israel have called off their jets. Change will come in some form, though likely not one we'd all prefer. Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is 86 years old. He rules a youthful nation in which some 70% of the population weren't even born when the revolution that drives him took place. Having led the country into so desolate a cul-de-sac, his regime will pay a price. The question is how and at whose expense. Change can form around Khamenei or by the IRGC replacing or marginalizing him. But there are clear limits; the regime can't afford to acknowledge that the billions upon billions of dollars it has spent on a nuclear program, and the hundreds of billions more lost due to the sanctions, were all for nothing. It cannot be seen to surrender to 'The Great Satan.' Nor can it realistically afford to just carry on as before, pursuing reckless aggression abroad, while ruling by fear alone at home. A successful popular uprising is unlikely. Khamenei and the IRGC have faced major protests before and repeatedly crushed them. They have about 1 million men under arms, many of them heavily indoctrinated. Urban Iranians are also by now cautious, not just because of that experience, but also because they know theirs is an ethnically fractured country. They have no interest in becoming the next Iraq, Libya or Afghanistan. This leaves the best plausible outcome as a return to the popular age of Soleimani, so an internal regime recalibration rather than regime change. As Cameran Ashraf, an Iranian human rights activist and assistant professor of public policy at the Central European University in Vienna, puts it, we may all be surprised by how things unfold. 'The regime has had very strong emphasis on survival from day one,' he said. 'So, I think there is a type of flexibility there.' We saw some of that already in the carefully choreographed response Iran gave to the US bombing of Fordow. In such a scenario, negotiators would return to talks this week in search of ways to relieve pressure on the regime and Iran's economy, making limited concessions on the nuclear program in exchange. The IRGC would take a more defensive posture abroad. At home, authorities would relent in some areas of needlessly provocative domestic repression — like enforcement of headscarf laws — as they've done at times in the past. Any such course correction would be tactical. The Islamic Republic will not change its spots, until it is no more. But as I argued last week, there is no one-and-done when it comes to Iran's nuclear program, neither by diplomacy nor by force. Both sides would be trying to buy time. The alternative is that Khamenei simply doubles down, concluding that no diplomatic settlement is possible because the US is bent on Iran's destruction and can't be trusted. The focus would be on regime consolidation, rebuilding defenses and acquiring a nuclear deterrent as soon as possible. So far, most signs point to this uglier outcome. Driven to paranoia by the level of Israeli intelligence penetration that led to the killing of dozens of top military commanders and nuclear scientists, a brutal domestic crackdown is underway. As of Sunday, there was little sign the nuclear negotiations Trump has trailed for this week will in fact take place. The US and the West as a whole need to play a more subtle game. In the wake of the bombings, keeping Iran from pulling out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and from expelling International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors is vital. This should not be sacrificed to the pursuit of an unachievable certainty. Failure to reach a political settlement would all but guarantee further airstrikes and leave the region more unstable and prone to a nuclear arms race than before Trump's military intervention.
United News of India
26 minutes ago
- United News of India
Iran urges UN to recognize Israel, US as initiators of act of aggression
Tehran, June 30 (UNI) Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called on the UN Security Council to recognize Tel Aviv and Washington as the initiators of the act of aggression and demand that they compensate for the damage caused to Iran during their attacks, the minister said in a letter addressed to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. "We officially request hereby that the Security Council recognize the Israeli regime and the United States as the initiators of the act of aggression and acknowledge their subsequent responsibility, including the payment of compensation and reparations," the minister's official Telegram channel quotes the text of the letter. Araghchi also called on the UN Security Council to hold those responsible for this aggression accountable and prevent a repetition of the crimes. Israel launched an operation against Iran on the night of June 13, accusing it of implementing a secret military nuclear program. The targets of aerial bombardments and raids by sabotage groups were nuclear facilities, generals, prominent nuclear physicists, and air bases. Iran rejected the accusations and responded with its own attacks. The two sides exchanged strikes for 12 days, with the US joining in with a one-off attack on Iran's nuclear facilities on the night of June 22. Tehran then launched missile strikes on the US base Al Udeid in Qatar on the evening of June 23, stating that the Iranian side had no intention of further escalation. US President Donald Trump then expressed hope that the strike on the US military base in Qatar had "let off steam" and that a path to peace and harmony in the Middle East was now possible. He also said that Israel and Iran had agreed to a ceasefire, which after 24 hours should formally end the 12-day war. UNI SPUTNIK GNK
