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Organizations: New York Times
Hezbollah fighters at the funeral of a commander in August, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon. By 2000, Israel had withdrawn from Lebanon, making Hezbollah a hero to many Lebanese. In that war, Israel rained bombs on southern Lebanon and Beirut, the capital; the fighting killed more than 1,000 Lebanese. Even some of Hezbollah’s traditionally loyal Shiite Muslim constituents in southern Lebanon are questioning the price of the current fighting. Estimates vary about just how many missiles Hezbollah has and just how sophisticated its systems are.
Persons: Israel hasn’t, Israel, Hassan Nasrallah, Nasrallah, Diego Ibarra Sánchez, Bashar al, Assad, Euan Ward Organizations: Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestine Liberation Organization, Credit, The New York Times, Central Intelligence Locations: Beirut, Lebanon, Gaza, Israel, Iran, Lebanese, United States, Syria
Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, ran as a reformist candidate. But when he announced on Sunday that his cabinet nominees included several conservatives and only one woman, he faced a fierce backlash, with a high-profile vice president resigning and political allies accusing him of abandoning campaign promises to bring change. The resignation on Sunday of Mohammad Javad Zarif, who had been appointed vice president for strategy and had led a search committee for cabinet nominations, shocked Iran’s political circles. He had been a prominent face of Mr. Pezeshkian’s campaign, traveling across the country and telling voters to give change a chance. Now, he was abandoning the government in a public display of deep divisions before it was even formed.
Persons: Masoud Pezeshkian, Mohammad Javad Zarif, Pezeshkian’s, Zarif, ,
Top NewsA rocket attack targeting U.S. personnel housed at a base in Iraq’s western desert injured several American troops late on Monday, according to U.S. defense officials. Initial reports were that at least five people were injured in Monday’s attack and that the wounded included both U.S. troops and contractors. Those Iraqi militants have typically attacked U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria and targeted Israel using longer-range rockets. The chief goal of Iran-backed groups in Iraq is to force the U.S. troops to leave the country entirely. There are about 2,500 American troops in Iraq, as well as 900 in Syria, where the Islamic State has once again become active.
Persons: Ismail Haniyeh, Fuad Shukr, Israel, Haniyeh’s, Biden, Kamala D, Harris, Asad, Organizations: Asad, Asad Air Base, U.S, Hamas, Mr, Iraqi, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, Revolutionary Guard, Al Asad, Al Asad Air Base, Pentagon, Islamic Locations: Ain, Asad Air, Iran, Gaza, U.S, Syria, Israel, Tehran, Beirut, Yemen, Iraq, Damascus, Al Asad Air, Islamic State, Jurf al, Baghdad
Iran has arrested more than two dozen people, including senior intelligence officers, military officials and staff workers at a military-run guesthouse in Tehran, in response to a huge and humiliating security breach that enabled the assassination of a top leader of Hamas, according to two Iranians familiar with the investigation. The high-level arrests came after the killing in an explosion early Wednesday of Ismail Haniyeh, who had led Hamas’s political office in Qatar and was visiting Tehran for the inauguration of Iran’s new president and staying at the guesthouse in northern Tehran, Iran’s capital. The fervor of the response to the killing of Mr. Haniyeh underscores what a devastating security failure this was for Iran’s leadership, with the assassination occurring at a heavily guarded compound in the country’s capital within hours of the swearing-in ceremony of the country’s new president.
Persons: Ismail Haniyeh, Mr Locations: Iran, Tehran, Qatar, Iran’s
The Israeli announcement confirming the death of Mr. Deif, the leader of Hamas’s military wing, came as thousands of mourners attended the funerals of another Hamas leader and a Hezbollah commander whose assassinations this week have amplified fears of a wider regional war. Mr. Deif was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a compound in southern Gaza on July 13, according to the Israeli military. It said his death had been confirmed by an intelligence assessment, but did not provide further details. 2 Hamas leader in Gaza, he would be the group’s most senior military leader slain by Israeli forces during the offensive in Gaza that has also killed more than 38,000 people, according to the territory’s health officials. Israel began its campaign in the enclave after a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, during which 1,200 people were killed and about 250 abducted to Gaza.
Persons: Muhammad Deif, Deif, Israel Organizations: Hamas Locations: Israel, Iranian, Gaza
Ismail Haniyeh, a top leader of Hamas, was assassinated on Wednesday by an explosive device covertly smuggled into the Tehran guesthouse where he was staying, according to seven Middle Eastern officials, including two Iranians, and an American official. The bomb had been hidden approximately two months ago in the guesthouse, according to five of the Middle Eastern officials. The guesthouse is run and protected by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and is part of a large compound, known as Neshat, in an upscale neighborhood of northern Tehran. The bomb was detonated remotely, the five officials said, once it was confirmed that he was inside his room at the guesthouse. Such damage was also evident in a photograph of the building shared with The New York Times.
Persons: Ismail Haniyeh, Haniyeh Organizations: American, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Revolutionary Guards, The New York Times Locations: Tehran
The strike on Beirut was the first time during this war that Israel has targeted such an influential Hezbollah leader in Lebanon’s capital. Hours later, the killing in Iran of Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was considered the most brazen breach of Iran’s defenses in years. Image A protests in Tehran on Wednesday after Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas leader, was assassinated in Iran. Despite his title as Hamas’s political leader, Mr. Haniyeh is replaceable, said Joost Hiltermann, the Middle East and North Africa program director for the International Crisis Group. In January, Israeli strikes killed a senior Hamas leader in Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut, leading to fears that Hezbollah would mount a particularly fierce response on Hamas’s behalf.
Persons: Amira, Hassan Fadlallah, Fuad Shukr, Ismail Haniyeh, Diego Ibarra Sanchez, Iran —, Michael Stephens, Haniyeh’s, Stephens, Mr, Andreas Krieg, Arash Khamooshi, ” Mr, Krieg, , it’s, Haniyeh, Joost Hiltermann, , Israel, Israel Katz, Katz, Itamar Rabinovich, Israel’s, Rabinovich, Benjamin Netanyahu, Netanyahu, Vivian Yee Organizations: Israel’s, The New York Times Iranian, Foreign Policy Research Institute, King’s College ,, The New York Times, International Crisis, United Nations, Hezbollah Locations: Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Gaza, Israel, Iran, simultaneity, Yemen, Iraq, Credit, United States, Philadelphia, King’s College , London, Tehran, East, North Africa, Hezbollah’s, Syria, Bourj el Barajneh, U.S, Washington
Ismail Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend the inauguration of Iran’s new president. Credit... Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
Persons: Ismail Haniyeh, Arash Khamooshi Organizations: Credit, The New York Locations: Tehran
The predawn killing of a top Hamas leader in Tehran on Wednesday left the entire Middle East on edge, bringing vows of revenge from Iran’s leaders and threatening to derail fragile negotiations for a Gaza cease-fire. The Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, 62, a top negotiator in the cease-fire talks who had led the militant group’s political office in Qatar, was killed after he and other leaders of Iranian-backed militant groups had attended the inauguration of Iran’s new president. Israeli leaders would not confirm or deny whether their country was behind the brazen breach of Iran’s defenses. But Iranian leaders and Hamas officials immediately blamed Israel and vowed to avenge the death of Mr. Haniyeh, heightening fears of a broader regional war. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued an order for Iran to strike Israel directly, according to three Iranian officials briefed on the order.
Persons: Ismail Haniyeh, Israel, Haniyeh, heightening, Iran’s, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Organizations: Wednesday Locations: Tehran, Gaza, Qatar, Iran, Israel
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has issued an order for Iran to strike Israel directly, in retaliation for the killing in Tehran of Hamas’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, according to three Iranian officials briefed on the order. Mr. Khamenei gave the order at an emergency meeting of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council on Wednesday morning, shortly after Iran announced that Mr. Haniyeh had been killed, said the three Iranian officials, including two members of the Revolutionary Guards. Iran and Hamas have accused Israel of the assassination; Israel, which is at war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, has neither acknowledged nor denied killing Mr. Haniyeh, who was in Tehran for the inauguration of Iran’s new president. Israel has a long history of killing enemies abroad, including Iranian nuclear scientists and military commanders. But even that show of force was telegraphed well in advance, nearly all the weapons were shot down by Israel and its allies, and little damage was done.
Persons: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Ismail Haniyeh, Khamenei, Haniyeh, Israel Organizations: Iran’s, National Security, Revolutionary Guards, Hamas Locations: Iran, Israel, Tehran, Gaza, Damascus, Syria
As Hamas’s political leader, he was central to the group’s high-stakes negotiations and diplomacy, including the stalled cease-fire deal negotiations with Israel. Here is what we know:Leader of Hamas in GazaMr. Haniyeh was named the leader of Hamas in Gaza in 2006. Mr. Haniyeh led Hamas from Qatar and Turkey in recent years. He was arrested by the Israeli military and served several sentences in Israeli jails in the 1980s and 1990s. The two were targets of an attempted Israeli assassination attempt in 2003; the next year, Mr. Yassin was killed by the Israeli military.
Persons: Ismail Haniyeh, Haniyeh, Yemen —, Iran’s, Sheik Yassin, Yassin, Mr, Haniyeh’s, , ” Mr, he’d Organizations: United Nations, UNRWA, Islamic, of Gaza, Mr, International Locations: Qatar, Iran, Gaza, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Yemen, Israel, Palestinian, Turkey, Egypt, United States, Gaza City, Ashkelon, Shifa
Most new Iranian presidents have months to settle into the decades-old cadence of gradual nuclear escalation, attacks against adversaries and, episodically, secret talks with the West to relieve sanctions. Mr. Haniyeh had not only attended the swearing-in, but had also been embraced by the new president and met that day with the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, making the assassination a particularly brazen act. Now Mr. Pezeshkian — along with Ayatollah Khamenei and top military generals — will be immersed in critical choices that may determine whether war breaks out between two of the Mideast’s most potent militaries. He spent his first day in office in national security meetings. The final decision on how to retaliate rests with Mr. Khamenei and on Wednesday he where ordered Iranian forces to strike Israel directly for what appeared to be its role in killing Mr. Haniyeh.
Persons: Masoud Pezeshkian, Ismail Haniyeh, Haniyeh, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Pezeshkian, Ayatollah Khamenei, , Mr, Khamenei Organizations: Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Locations: Tehran, Israel
Israel’s strike on Beirut on Tuesday came as senior leaders of the regional militant groups backed by Iran, known as the “axis of resistance,” were in Tehran for the inauguration ceremony of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. Even before the Israeli attack targeting a Hezbollah commander, Iranian military leaders were expected to meet with the militant leaders on the looming threat of war between Israel and Hezbollah. In a statement on Tuesday, Iran’s embassy in Beirut condemned “the cowardly and criminal attack,” according to Iranian media. The threat of a regional war could present Mr. Pezeshkian with the first major crisis of his presidency. Iran has maintained a dual policy of averting direct engagement in all-out war while supporting a network of militant groups that have opened fronts on Israel from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria.
Persons: Masoud Pezeshkian, , Nasser Kanaani, Locations: Beirut, Iran, Tehran, Israel, Iran’s, Lebanon, U.S, Yemen, Iraq, Syria
Israel launched a deadly strike in a densely populated Beirut suburb on Tuesday in retaliation for a rocket attack in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights that it blamed Hezbollah for and that killed 12 children and teenagers on a soccer field. The target of the Israeli strike in a southern suburb of Lebanon’s capital was Fuad Shukr, a senior official who serves as a close adviser to Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, according to three Israeli security officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details. The Israel Defense Forces later said in a statement that its fighter jets had “eliminated” Mr. Shukr, but there was no confirmation from Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed group, and the claim could not be independently verified. Hezbollah has denied carrying out the attack in the Golan Heights on Saturday. The latest strikes were likely to fuel concerns that Israel’s long-running conflict with the group could escalate into a full-blown war even as Israel wages a military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip after that group led a deadly assault in Israel on Oct. 7.
Persons: Israel, Fuad Shukr, Hassan Nasrallah, ” Mr, Shukr Organizations: Israel Defense Forces, Hamas Locations: Beirut, Golan, Lebanon’s, Iran, Israel, Gaza
Iran’s president-elect, Masoud Pezeshkian, walked through a leafy cemetery, glanced at tombstones and sat by the one bearing his wife’s name. The scenes were captured in a campaign video addressed to his wife, Fatemeh. “I miss you more than ever,” the narrator says, speaking on behalf of Mr. Pezeshkian, “I wish you were here with me in these days when I have made this difficult pledge.”Public declaration of love is an anomaly among Iranian politicians. Crying on camera for a romantic partner is even rarer. But Mr. Pezeshkian, a 69-year-old cardiologist who won the election in an upset as a reformist, looks and sounds unconventional.
Persons: Masoud Pezeshkian, , Pezeshkian
In an election upset in Iran, the reformist candidate, Masoud Pezeshkian, who advocated for moderate policies at home and improved relations with the West, won the presidential runoff election, beating his hard-line rival, the Ministry of Interior said on Saturday morning. Mr. Pezeshkian, 69, a cardiac surgeon, got 16.3 million votes to defeat the hard-line candidate, Saeed Jalili, delivering a blow to the conservative faction and a major victory for the reformist faction that had been sidelined from politics for the past few years. Mr. Jalili received 13.5 million votes. After polls closed at midnight, turnout stood at 50 percent, about 10 percentage points higher than in the first round of the election with about 30.5 million ballots cast in total, according to Iran’s interior ministry. The first round saw a record-low turnout because many Iranians had boycotted the vote as an act of protest.
Persons: Masoud Pezeshkian, Pezeshkian, Saeed Jalili, Jalili Organizations: West, Ministry of Interior Locations: Iran
One pledged he would confront Iran’s enemies, the other vowed to make peace with the world. One intends to double down on social restrictions, the other promises to ease stifling rules for young people and women. One identifies as an Islamic ideologue, the other as a pragmatic reformist. The winner will be decided in a runoff on Friday after a general election the week before failed to produce a candidate with the required 50 percent of the vote. The result may hinge on how many Iranians who sat out the vote in the general election decide to participate in the runoff.
Persons: Iran’s
A second round of voting, which will pit the reformist, Masoud Pezeshkian, against Saeed Jalili, an ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator, will take place on July 5. The runoff was in part the result of low voter turnout and a crowded field of four candidates, three of whom competed for the conservative vote. Iranian law requires a winner to receive more than 50 percent of all votes cast. Iran’s economy is cratering under punishing Western sanctions, its citizens’ freedoms are increasingly curtailed and its foreign policy is largely shaped by hard-line leaders. In speeches, televised debates and round-table discussions, the candidates criticized government policies and ridiculed rosy official assessments of Iran’s economic prospects as harmful delusions.
Persons: Masoud Pezeshkian, Saeed Jalili,
After a testy campaign that featured strong attacks on the government by virtually all the candidates over the economy, internet restrictions and harsh enforcement of the hijab law on women, Iran was holding elections on Friday to pick a president. The vote comes at a perilous time for the country, with the incoming president facing a cascade of challenges, including discontent and divisions at home, an ailing economy and a volatile region that has taken Iran to the brink of war twice this year. With the race coming down to a three-way battle between two conservative candidates and a reformist, many analysts predict that none of them will achieve the necessary 50 percent of the votes, necessitating a runoff on July 5 between the reformist candidate and the leading conservative. That outcome may be avoided if one of the leading conservative candidates withdraws from the race, but in a bitter public feud, neither Gen. Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, a former commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and a pragmatic technocrat, nor Saeed Jalili, a hard-liner, has budged.
Persons: Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, Saeed Jalili Organizations: Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Locations: Iran
On Today’s Episode:Six Takeaways From the First Presidential Debate, by Shane Goldmacher and Jonathan SwanSchools Police Chief Indicted in Uvalde Shooting Response, by J. David Goodman and Edgar SandovalOklahoma’s State Superintendent Requires Public Schools to Teach the Bible, by Sarah Mervosh and Elizabeth DiasAfter a Testy Campaign in Tense Times, Iranians Vote for President, by Farnaz Fassihi and Alissa J. Rubin
Persons: Shane Goldmacher, Jonathan, J, David Goodman, Edgar Sandoval Oklahoma’s, Sarah Mervosh, Elizabeth Dias, Farnaz Fassihi, Rubin Organizations: Jonathan Swan Schools Police, Schools, Times
With the rest of the world distracted by wars in Gaza and Ukraine, Iran has moved closer than ever to the ability to produce several nuclear weapons, installing 1,400 next-generation centrifuges in recent weeks inside a facility buried so deep that it is all but impervious to bunker-busting bombs. The sharp technological upgrade goes hand in hand with another worrisome change: For the first time, some members of Iran’s ruling elite are dropping the country’s decades-old insistence that its nuclear program is entirely for peaceful purposes. Instead, they are publicly beginning to embrace the logic of possessing the bomb, arguing that recent missile exchanges with Israel underscore the need for a far more powerful deterrent. In interviews with a dozen American, European, Iranian and Israeli officials and with outside experts, the cumulative effect of this surge appears clear: Iran has cemented its role as a “threshold” nuclear state, walking right up to the line of building a weapon without stepping over it. American officials are divided on the question of whether Iran is preparing to take that final step or whether it will determine it is safer — and more effective — to stay just on the cusp of a weapons capability, without openly abandoning the last of its commitments as a signer of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Locations: Gaza, Ukraine, Iran, Israel
Throughout Iran’s presidential campaign, in debates, rallies and speeches, a singular presence has hovered: Donald J. Trump. To hear the six candidates tell it, the former president’s victory in the 2024 White House race is a foregone conclusion. The urgent question facing Iranian voters as they go to the polls on Friday, they say, is who is best suited to deal with him. “Wait and you will see what will happen when Trump comes,” one candidate, the cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi, said during a recent televised debate. “We have to get ready for negotiations.” Another candidate, Alireza Zakani, Tehran’s mayor, accused his rivals at a debate of having “Trump-phobia,” insisting that only he could manage him.
Persons: Donald J, Trump, Biden, , Mostafa Pourmohammadi, , Alireza, “ Trump Organizations: White Locations: Tehran’s
Iranian officials insisted for decades that the law requiring women to cover their hair and dress modestly was sacrosanct and not even worth discussion. They dismissed the struggle by women who challenged the law as a symptom of Western meddling. Now, as Iran holds a presidential election this week, the issue of mandatory hijab, as the hair covering is known, has become a hot campaign topic. He has also said that government officials should be punished over the hijab law because it was their duty to educate women about why they should wear hijab, not violently enforce it. And women have resisted the law, in different ways, ever since it went into effect after the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Persons: ” Mustafa Pourmohammadi Locations: Iran
A Brief History of Iran’s Hostage Swapping
  + stars: | 2024-06-16 | by ( Farnaz Fassihi | ) www.nytimes.com   time to read: +1 min
On Saturday, Iran and Sweden exchanged prisoners. The swap had the appearance of any two countries engaged in diplomatic negotiations to free their citizens. But the exchange was only the latest chapter in Iran’s long history of what is known in world affairs as hostage diplomacy. In exchange for releasing foreigners it has asked for prisoners, assassins, cash and frozen funds. And on Saturday Iran gained the release of its most prized target: the first Iranian official to be convicted of crimes against humanity.
Organizations: Iran Locations: Iran, Sweden, Iran’s
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