Iran has dismissed as akin to child’s play the reported Israeli retaliation for an unprecedented Iranian strike, as both sides yesterday appeared to step back from wider conflict stemming from the war in Gaza.
However, a deadly blast at an Iraqi military base emphasized the high tensions which persist, and witnesses in Gaza reported more strikes there.
Fears of a wider Middle East war escalated this month.
Photo: AFP
Israel had warned it would hit back after Iran fired hundreds of missiles and drones one week ago in retaliation for a deadly April 1 airstrike — which Iran blamed on Israel — that leveled the Iranian consulate in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards.
The Israeli retaliation appeared to come on Friday, when Iranian media reported blasts in the central province of Isfahan.
Fars news agency reported that “three explosions” were close to Qahjavarestan, near Isfahan airport and the Eighth Shekari army airbase.
“What happened last night was no attack,” Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told NBC News in a Friday interview. “It was the flight of two or three quadcopters, which are at the level of toys that our children use in Iran.”
“As long as there is no new adventure on behalf of the Israeli regime against Iran’s interests, we will have no response,” he added.
Israeli officials have made no public comment on what a senior US congressional source said were retaliatory Israeli strikes against Iran.
Tensions soared after the attack on Iran’s consulate, but violence involving Iran-backed groups had already surged throughout the Middle East alongside the Gaza war.
Officials in Iraq yesterday said one person was killed and eight wounded in an explosion at an Iraqi military base housing a coalition of pro-Iranian armed groups.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been under international pressure over the civilian toll in Gaza’s war.
Iranian political expert Hamid Gholamzadeh said that Netanyahu needs “further escalation and another war to distract the world attention” from Gaza.
However, foreign ministers of G7 nations, meeting in Italy on Friday, kept up that pressure.
The group said they opposed a “full-scale military operation in Rafah,” where most of Gaza’s population is sheltering, because it would have “catastrophic consequences” for civilians.
Yesterday, Palestinian Civil Defense said an overnight Israeli strike in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost point, killed nine members of a family including six children.
“It has been a very hard night,” agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said in a statement that reported several other areas of Rafah hit.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS