Iranian Foreign Minister to meet European officials in Geneva on Friday
Iran-EU talks in Geneva to take place on Friday
Major Iranian rocket attack hits Israel's central and southern areas
Iran will pay 'full price' after hospital strike, Netanyahu says
Israel warns Iranians to leave area near Arak heavy water reactor
Trump considers joining as Israel-Iran war enters seventh day
Iran offline for more than 12 hours, monitor says
In pictures: Israel-Iran conflict
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Middle East Eye
34 minutes ago
- Middle East Eye
EU review finds Israel violated trade agreement, but sanctions not expected
A major upcoming review of the EU-Israel trade agreement has found that Israel has violated the agreement due to its conduct in Gaza, Middle East Eye understands. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas commissioned the review last month in response to a request by the Dutch government. Now MEE understands from diplomatic sources in Brussels that the review finds that Israel has violated the trade agreement's human rights and international law clauses. The EU is Israel's biggest trading partner. Sources told MEE the review contains evidence that Israel has breached international humanitarian law during its war on Gaza. They said that Kallas will present the review to EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Diplomats expect a "difficult" debate and believe there will be no agreement reached on whether to "suspend political dialogue" or impose sanctions on Israel. Those issues will be addressed again at the 15 July meeting of EU foreign ministers, diplomats believe. MEE also understands that Kallas has a mandate from EU foreign ministers to push for de-escalation in the conflict between Israel and Iran - and that she is set to visit the Middle East next week. MEE has contacted Kallas' team for comment. Israel has gone 'beyond self-defence' Foreign ministers from Britain, France and Germany are reportedly scheduled to join Kallas on Friday in a meeting with the Iranian foreign minister to promote de-escalation. EUObserver and RTE have also reported the review is expected to find Israel violated the trade agreement. EU Commission and states indirectly fund Israeli military industry, report says Read More » On Wednesday Kallas told members of the European parliament that Israel's "blocking food... goes beyond self-defence". She said Israel was responsible for "disproportionate use of force" against civilians - and that "if it was up to me, personally", the EU would impose sanctions on Israel. Last week it emerged that Israel's largest state-owned defence company, which is directly involved in the war on Gaza, has received millions of euros in EU defence funding. According to a report published last Wednesday by Investigate Europe, the French newsroom Disclose and the Greek outlet Reporters United, Intracom Defense is currently involved in 15 European Defence Fund projects worth at least €15m (around $17.5m). Seven of them were awarded after Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023. The company was acquired by Israel Aerospace Industries in May 2023.
The National
an hour ago
- The National
Assad-era general asks Iran for funds to launch anti-Israel front in Syria
A top military figure under Syria's former president Bashar Al Assad has contacted Tehran for financial support to rebuild Iran's influence in the country and strengthen its position as it comes under attack by Israel, a Syrian security official and former regime operatives has told The National. Iran is unlikely to divert resources from its current war effort but re-establishing a proxy presence in Syria could help it strategically in future, the sources said. The proposal to Tehran came from Ghiath Dalla, a brigadier general in elite Fourth Division, the praetorian guard of the former Iran-backed regime and the military unit closest to Iran, within the past 10 days. He is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars to create a militia drawn from former members of Mr Al Assad's now disbanded army that would fight Syria's new government led by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham and launch attacks on Israeli targets, the sources said. Mr Dalla, like most of his peers and the deposed president, is from the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, that dominated Sunni-majority Syria after a coup in 1963. He is among thousands of Alawite security personnel who have been on the run after the Assad regime fell to HTS-led rebel forces on December 8. Hundreds of Alawite officers, including Mr Dalla, are believed to have fled to Lebanon, where the Iran-backed Hezbollah group still wields significant influence, despite heavy losses in its war with Israel last year. 'He thinks that the [Israel-Iran] war is a golden chance to unite the Alawites and form a resistance force supported by Iran,' said the security official, who requested anonymity. Mr Dalla commanded the 42nd Armoured Brigade, regarded as among the best-equipped and best-trained formations in the former military. During the 2011-2024 civil war it operated in southern Syria, from where proxy groups backed by Iran launched rocket attacks on Israel in the final year of the Assad regime. 'The south has remnants of Iranian proxies whom Dalla can re-activate to resume the attacks,' the security official said. The official said the seizure by authorities of Grad rockets at a warehouse in the southern Deraa province this week, and a rocket attack on June 3 on an Israeli-occupied area of the Golan Heights by a splinter Hezbollah group, were signs of the potential for destabilisation that could be boosted by Iranian money. The official, who was a rebel fighting the regime in the northern province of Idlib, said the threat from Mr Dalla and his followers could not be underestimated. 'We were like him, hiding in the woods of Idlib, bereft of support. Once support [from Arab countries and Turkey] started coming, the game changed quickly,' he said, referring to the early years of the civil war. The official would not be drawn on whom Mr Dalla has been in contact with in Iran, citing ongoing intelligence gathering. The contact was made directly, not through Hezbollah, he said. A prominent figure in the Alawite community said Mr Dalla's obvious recruiting pool comprises at least 100,000 former Alawite security personnel. Many of them, associated with atrocities under the former regime, have sought refuge in the Alawite Mountains in Syria's coastal region, the ancestral homeland of the minority sect. However, widespread killings of Alawites in the area by pro-government forces have raised fears that the community might not survive under the new government led by HTS, a group once affiliated with Al Qaeda. An estimated 1,300 Alawite civilians were killed over two days in March after gunmen from the sect resisted, mainly through ambushes, an HTS-led incursion into the Alawite Mountains. The security operation was aimed at cleansing the coastal provinces of regime remnants, according to the government. Mr Dalla's loyalists, called the Military Council for the Liberation of Syria, led the ultimately failed resistance. The Alawite figure said Mr Dalla and his men, who are believed to number several thousand, still have an underground arsenal consisting mainly of light weapons but also significant amounts of medium weaponry, such anti-aircraft guns mounted on pickup trucks. 'He has been depleted cash-wise. But he is counting on the spreading fears that the Alawites have no home and the only path is resistance to create an Alawite province.' He said many Alawites still see a future in acquiescing to the new order and do not want to be associated with Iran, and added that he himself had declined requests for money by insurgents associated with Mr Dalla. A former Syrian intelligence operative, who is also Alawite, said Mr Dalla was trying to fill the leadership vacuum in the community created by the fall of Mr Al Assad, who fled to Moscow. Unlike the former regime, Mr Dalla is, in the main, not viewed as corrupt. He is also religious, unlike the secular Assads, which would make him more trustworthy to Iran. In contrast to the Assads, who have 'sacrificed the Alawites' for their own survival, Mr Dalla is a more ideological figure who believes that the only way for the community to survive is a long-term fight supported by Iran to a break away from Syria, the former intelligence operative said. Observers are split on how much advantage a Iran would have had in the war with Israel had the Assad regime survived the civil war. After Israeli attacks on Syrian security personnel and military infrastructure in 2023-2024, signs emerged that Mr Al Assad viewed his alliance with Iran as too costly for the regime. It remains an open question whether the former president was willing, or able, to stop Iran from using Syria as a conduit for weapons and supplies to Hezbollah, once considered Tehran's first line of defence against Israel. The Israeli military had already largely destroyed Syrian air defences by the time Mr Al Assad was ousted, giving its air force freedom to operate over Syria. However, Iran would be striking at Israel from short range with missiles and drones launched from Syria, instead of relying solely on long-distance attacks, had the former regime remained, a former member of Mr Al Assad's military said. 'It would have made a difference had they not lost Syria,' the source said. 'But nowhere near enough to gain a decisive advantage'.
Middle East Eye
2 hours ago
- Middle East Eye
Parnia Abbasi: Iranian poet killed by Israel whose bright future became a 'fading star'
'In a thousand places I come to an end I burn I become a fading star that disappears in your sky.' This short poem was written by Parnia Abbasi - a young woman who had yet to celebrate her 24th birthday before, on 13 June, an Israeli missile hit her home in the Sattarkhan neighborhood in western Tehran. Parnia was killed along with her father, her mother and her 16-year-old brother Parham. Parnia, a poet with no ties to any military institution in Iran, was a graduate of Qazvin International University, where she studied English translation. She was teaching English and had just started a job at Bank Melli. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters It was supposed to be a turning point - finally a stable path. 'She had a very gentle spirit. She always dreamed of becoming a great poet," said one of her friends, who asked to remain anonymous, speaking to Middle East Eye. "One of her biggest joys was reading poetry. I used to envy her for how many poems she knew by heart.' Following the news of her death, some pro-Israel users and opponents of the Iranian government falsely claimed that Parnia was the daughter of Fereydoun Abbasi, the former head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, and had been killed alongside him. But it was later confirmed that she had no relation to Fereydoun Abbasi. Her father's name was Parviz - a retired Bank Melli employee. All four members of her small family died in the Israeli strike. The building's collapse made it difficult even to retrieve their bodies. The attack targeted Block 4 of a ten-unit apartment complex in Sattarkhan, destroying apartments from the third to fifth floors. It's believed that nearly all residents on those floors were killed. #ParniaAbbasi, a poet and English teacher, was killed in her sleep. It was the night of June 12, when her apartment on Sattar Khan Street in Tehran was struck by #Israeli attack.#Tehran #WarOnIran #Israel — Hana (@HanaNabavi) June 16, 2025 'Usually, people are either good at literature or math - not both. But she loved both. Literature and poetry were her passion, and we always saw her with a poetry book in hand," said one of Parnia's relatives, who also didn't want to be identified. "At the same time, because her father had worked in banking for many years, she also grew to like numbers and dreamed of working in a bank. In the end, she achieved that dream.' Another friend spoke about the day she got her job offer: 'That day, her eyes sparkled more than ever. She was overjoyed - finally a stable job. She had so many dreams. She loved to travel, wanted to see the world. But above all, she loved being in nature.' Blood-stained bedsheet A photo of Parnia's hair on a blood-soaked pink bedsheet went viral inside Iran and left many devastated. She quickly became a symbol of the toll that Israel's new bombing campaign has taken on the civilian population of Iran since it began last week. Despite earlier claims from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that they were only targeting Iran's military infrastructure, the civilian death toll has climbed into the hundreds. Zahra Rahnavard, wife of Mir Hossein Mousavi and a prominent figure in the reformist Green Movement who remains under house arrest, mentioned Parnia by name in a statement on 17 June condemning Israel's attacks. 'Weren't they claiming the strikes are only on nuclear facilities? Then how did our dear Parnia become a victim?' - friend of Parnia 'Women are always the first civilian victims. From Parnia Abbasi, the young poet and translator, to dozens of others, women have lost their lives due to the aggression of Israel's woman-killing, child-killing regime," she said. Parnia's home was struck as part of an Israeli operation reportedly targeting a nuclear scientist who taught at Shahid Beheshti University. While he was believed to be the main target, other homes in the area, including Parnia's, were also destroyed. She was not the only young woman to be killed in the Israeli strikes on Iran. But the images of her - a vibrant poet with a bright future - captured public attention in a unique way. Like the poem she once wrote, she came to an end, burned out, and faded into the sky like a dying star. 'Weren't they saying they only target military personnel? Weren't they claiming the strikes are only on nuclear facilities? Then how did our dear Parnia become a victim?" asked one of her friends. "How does her death align with what Israel's supporters claim? Isn't this just the killing of innocent civilians?'
