Israel | Pakistan

Iran vowed on Wednesday a “decisive” retaliation for the death of its security chief Ali Larijani, firing off a wave of missiles at Israel which said it killed him in an air strike. A barrage of Iranian missiles killed two people near Israel’s commercial hub Tel Aviv, while Gulf nations intercepted rockets and drones headed for targets including US bases in the region. Larijani is the most prominent figure of the Islamic republic killed since Israel and the United States launched their attacks on Iran on February 28, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and igniting a war in the Middle East. “Iran’s response to the assassination of the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council will be decisive and regrettable,” Iranian army chief Amir Hatami said in a statement. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), which said on Wednesday they launched missiles at central Israel as retaliation, warned in a statement that Larijani’s death would spur further attacks. The “pure blood of this great martyr… will b...

The foreign ministers of Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Qatar issued a joint statement condemning Israel’s continued closure of Al-Aqsa Mosque and Al-Haram Al-Sharif to Muslim worshippers, the Foreign Office (FO) said on Thursday. During the holy month of Ramazan, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians traditionally attend prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque — Islam’s third-holiest site, located in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in 1967 and later annexed. The FO statement posted to X, dated March 11, said, “Security restrictions on access to the Old City of Jerusalem and its places of worship coupled with discriminatory and arbitrary access restrictions to the other places of worship in the old city constitute a flagrant violation to international law, including international humanitarian law, the historical and legal status quo, and the principle of unrestricted access to places of worship.” According to the statement, the ministers affirmed their “absolut...

Reveals she received payments for every Israel post on social media, including troll posts

• Najafabad ‘double-tap’ airstrike kills 19 civilians seeking municipal services, emergency workers • Bombing of Qeshm Island desalination plant cuts off fresh water to 30 villages THE United States and Israel stand accused of committing “war crimes” in Iran, after a series of recent airstrikes that have killed hundreds of civilians and devastated non-military infrastructure, targeting a water desalination plant, and a park housing emergency responders, hospitals, and schools. The accusations followed a deadly strike on Sunday morning in Najafabad, where local officials reported 19 civilians were killed. Akbar Salehi, the security and law enforcement deputy of the Isfahan Governorate, said fighter jets he linked to the US and Israel struck a local office for traffic and driving services. He added that a second missile targeted the same location minutes later as residents and emergency personnel were attempting to rescue the wounded. The Iranian Red Crescent Society said it has formally requested the Internati...

In a war already redrawing the region’s red lines, with the death toll from the US-Israeli attacks on Iran reportedly having surpassed 1,000, Tehran has brought one of the Middle East’s most sensitive strategic sites into the escalation equation: Israel’s Dimona nuclear site. A senior Iranian military official told the Iranian website Iran Nuances, later reported by Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency, that if the US and Israel pursue a “regime change” scenario in practice, Tehran’s “final effective missiles will target the Dimona nuclear reactor and all regional energy infrastructure,” adding: “This is a scenario we have already prepared for.” Iran has retaliated with waves of drone and missile strikes targeting Israel as well as Gulf countries hosting US military assets, raising fears of a wider regional war. The warning has reignited questions that often remain muted in regional crises: what is Dimona, why is it seen as the backbone of Israel’s nuclear capability, and how does its secrecy shape the polit...

• Stages rare helicopter raid deep into Bekaa Valley, killing 41 • UN, Ghana condemn ‘war crime’ attack that wounded three peacekeepers BEIRUT: Israel warned Lebanon it would pay a “very heavy price” if it fai­l­­ed to control the Hezbollah group on Saturday, as Israeli forces pounded the Beirut with airstrikes and mounted a deadly airborne raid in the country’s east. The warning came as the cross-border conflict, which dragged Lebanon into a wider Middle East war on Monday following Hezbollah’s retaliation after Israel killed Iran’s supreme leader Ayat­ollah Ali Khamenei, escalated sharply. On Saturday morning, more buildings in the southern suburbs of Beirut lay as mounds of smoking rubble and twisted metal, Reuters video showed, after heavy Israeli bombardment that followed an evacuation order for civilians. ‘A night of hell’ Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz, addressing Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun in a statement, said that if the Lebanese government failed to enforce a 2024 agreement to disarm Hezb...

• Iran says building housing Assembly of Experts, tasked with electing new supreme leader, was ‘not in use’ • Death toll rises to 787 after Tehran rocked by intense bombing; Tel Aviv hit by retaliatory salvos • Khamenei to be laid to rest in Mashhad • Trump shatters Pehlavi’s ambitions, says ‘someone from within’ should take over Iran • Rubio reveals US invasion triggered by fear of imminent Israeli attack • US president contradicts secretary of state, says he may have ‘forced Israel’s hand’ • US lawmakers outraged after Washington empties embassies, orders citizens to flee Middle East without any official help • Gulf states continue to reel from attacks WASHINGTON: Explosions tore through Tel Aviv, Tehran, Qom and Beirut on Tuesday, as financial markets around the world tumbled at the prospect of a prolonged disruption to global energy supplies, on the fourth day of the US-Israeli war against Iran. Israeli and US strikes on Tuesday hit the Assembly of Experts building in Qom, which is tasked with electing Ir...

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei is dead, the Gulf is on fire, and global markets are in chaos. One weekend, precisely the last of February and the first of March 2026, changed everything. We are now living in the midst of a war that is escalating with every airstrike, missile and bomb. It began on Feb 28, when the United States and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran in a massive operation to destroy the country’s military and nuclear capabilities. Tehran responded with missile and air strikes across the Middle East, including in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Israel. Iran has also vowed to hit the US and Israel with a force “never seen before”. Meanwhile, in a video address earlier today, President Donald Trump warned Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to lay down arms or “face certain death”. He added that America was standing with the people of Iran. But how did we get here? Here is a timeline: 2025: The Iran-Israel standoff Even though the roots of the matter go back a lo...

On the international chessboard, no piece can move as freely as the United States. It moves vertically, horizontally and diagonally, across any number of squares. Regime change in Venezuela, blockades on Cuba, strikes on Iran, all within a few months. It can move north, east, south and west. And Iran? Iran is the opposing king trapped in a corner by not only the king and rook (Israel), but also its own pawns — the many factions inside Iran that the Israelis have been funding to rise up against it. A war against it from abroad and at home. In refusing to capitulate, the Iranians have decided they would rather die on their feet than be checkmated on their knees in front of their rivals. The opening gambit By the day prior to the strikes, the US had at least 50 per cent of its deployable air power around the Middle East poised to attack Iran, including more than 250 combat aircraft. As Professor Pape from the University of Chicago notes, the US had never deployed this much force against a potential enemy and not...

Airspace across 10 countries has been shut following the Iran–Israel war, disrupting thousands of flights and leaving hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded worldwide.

Islamabad - The outbreak of conflict between Israel and the United States against Iran, triggered by joint US-Israeli strikes across Iran, has drawn frantic calls for calm as deep consternation spreads across globe.

The United States and Israel launched a wave of strikes against targets in Iran on Saturday, triggering explosions in the capital Tehran and an escalation across the region. “We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally — again — obliterated. We’re going to annihilate their navy,” said US President Donald Trump in an address from his Florida home posted to his Truth Social platform. On the other hand, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation aimed to “remove the existential threat posed by the terrorist regime in Iran”, and urged Iranians to overthrow the Islamic Republic’s clerical leadership. In response to the Israel-US aggression, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran later in the day confirmed the launch of the “first wave” of missile and drone attacks against Israel in response to the strikes on its territory. Political figures and analysts in Pakistan have condemned the recent developments, particularly criticising ...

Countries in the Middle East and around the world were watching with bated breath after the United States and Israel carried out long-feared strikes on Iran on Saturday. Trump: ‘annihilate’ US President Donald Trump vowed that the strikes would cripple Iran’s military and urged Iranians to rise up against the Islamic republic. “We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally — again — obliterated. We’re going to annihilate their navy,” Trump said in the address from his Florida home posted to his Truth Social platform. Calling on Iranians to stand up to their government, Trump added: “The hour of your freedom is at hand.” But he also warned that “the lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties”. Netanyahu ‘cast off the yoke’ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation aimed to “remove the existential threat posed by the terrorist regime in Iran”, and urged Iranians to overthrow the Islamic republic’s cleri...

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Friday condemned Israel’s recent actions in the occupied West Bank of converting the territory’s areas into “state property”, highlighting that the country’s “expansionist mindset” held no regard for international law. The minister made the statement while addressing a meeting of the executive committee of the Organisation of Islamic Council (OIC) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The meeting was taking place against the backdrop of the Israeli government approving a proposal to register large areas of the occupied West Bank as “state property” for the first time since the occupation of the territory in 1967. Addressing the meeting, the foreign minister took note of the “latest illegal measures taken by Israel to convert areas of the occupied West Bank into so-called state property”, stressing that Israel’s actions reflected “an annexationist and expansionist mindset bereft of any regard for international law or humanitarian norms”. At the outset of his address, ...

GENEVA: Israel’s actions in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip seem aimed at creating “permanent demographic change”, UN rights chief Volker Turk said on Thursday. “Taken together, Israel’s actions appear aimed at making a permanent demographic change in Gaza and the West Bank, raising concerns about ethnic cleansing”, Turk said in a speech before the UN’s Human Rights Council in Geneva. Turk pointed in particular to an ongoing, year-long Israeli military operation in the West Bank’s north that has caused the displacement of 32,000 Palestinians. Elsewhere in the West Bank, entire Bedouin herder communities have been displaced by increasing harassment and violence from Israeli settlers, including near Mikhmas to the east of Ramallah, and Ras Ein al-Auja, in the Jordan Valley, since the start of the year. In addition to roughly three million Palestinians, more than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements and outposts in the West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law. Far-right minister ...

India will soon give final shape to a mutually beneficial free trade agreement with Israel, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday. The two countries will also pursue joint development, production, and transfer of technology in defence, Modi said at the end of his two-day trip aimed at strengthening ties with Israel. Modi said Tel Aviv and New Delhi agreed there was “no place for terrorism in the world”. “India and Israel are clear that there is no place for terrorism in the world, in any form… We will oppose it shoulder to shoulder. We will always oppose it in the future,” Modi said at a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. “Humanity must never become a victim of conflict,” he added. Following their meeting, Netanyahu’s office said the “two leaders will sign a series of agreements between Israel and India in economic, security, and diplomatic fields”. Separately, Modi said he and Israeli President Isaac Herzog held “extremely fruitful and wide-ranging” t...

Prime Minister Narendra Modi told lawmakers in Jerusalem on Wednesday that India stands “firmly” with Israel following Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023. Modi also met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a two-day visit aimed at deepening trade and defence ties that has drawn criticism at home. “I … carry with me the deepest condolences of the people of India for every life lost and for every family whose world was shattered in the barbaric terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7,” Modi said in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. “We feel your pain, we share your grief. India stands with Israel firmly with full conviction in this moment and beyond.” In his speech, Modi did not explicitly mention the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed in Gaza during the more than two-year-long Israeli onslaught. But he said that India “supports all efforts that contribute to durable peace and regional stability”. Modi also told Israeli lawmakers that his country’s economic growth and Israel’s leadership...

A record 129 journalists and media workers were killed worldwide in 2025, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Wednesday, blaming Israel for two-thirds of the deaths. It was the second consecutive annual record for press deaths and the deadliest year since the CPJ began collecting data more than three decades ago. “Journalists are being killed in record numbers at a time when access to information is more important than ever,” CEO Jodie Ginsberg said in a statement. “We are all at risk when journalists are killed for reporting the news.” Over three-quarters of all the fatalities in 2025 were in conflict settings, the CPJ said in its report. More than 60 per cent of the 86 members of the press killed by Israeli fire in 2025 were Palestinians reporting from Gaza, it added. The Israeli military claims that it never “deliberately targets” journalists. The number of journalists killed in Ukraine and Sudan also increased in 2025 compared to the year before. The CPJ highlighted a rise in drones being used, w...

More than a dozen international humanitarian organisations have petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to block an imminent order that would force 37 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to cease operations in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, warning of catastrophic consequences for civilians. Organisations including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Oxfam, the Norwegian Refugee Council and CARE were notified on December 30, 2025 that their Israeli registrations had expired and that they had 60 days to renew them by providing lists of their Palestinian staff. If they fail to do so, they will have to cease operations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem, from March 1. The petition, described as unprecedented in its scale and joint nature, seeks an urgent interim injunction from Israel’s top court to suspend the closures pending full judicial review. The 17 petitioners, which include some of the NGOs hit by the ban, argue the Israeli measures are incompatible with an occupying power’s ob...

The Israeli opposition has planned to boycott the address of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Knesset during his visit to the country, top Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Tuesday. The Indian prime minister will visit Israel from February 25 to 26, India’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday. It will be Modi’s second visit to Israel. According to the report, the opposition — led by Yair Lapid — is in a “standoff” with Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana due to his decision not to invite the Israeli Supreme Court President Isaac Amit to attend a special session of the parliament “as is customary”. The report said that Lapid on Monday urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ensure Amit’s invitation. According to Haaretz, Lapid, in a post on X, said: “We want to be in the session, we need to be in the session. Prime Minister Netanyahu must instruct Ohana to allow us to participate in the session.” As per the report, Lapid, while speaking in the Knesset last week, warned that “boycotting Justice Amit is...