Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attended a mourning ceremony on the eve of the Muslim holy day of Ashura.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has attended a religious ceremony in Tehran, making his first public appearance since the 12 days of conflict between Israel and Iran.
The 85-year-old leader appeared in a video aired by state media on Saturday, which showed dozens of people attending an event at a mosque to mark Ashura, the holiest day of the Shia Muslim calendar.
In the footage, Khamenei is seen waving and nodding to the chanting crowd, which rose to its feet as he entered the mosque.
State TV said the clip was filmed at the Imam Khomeini Mosque in central Tehran.
Khamenei has avoided public appearances since the start of the fighting on June 13, and his speeches have all been prerecorded.
The United States, which joined in the Israeli attacks by bombing three key nuclear sites in Iran on June 22, had sent warnings to Khamenei, with US President Donald Trump saying on social media that Washington knew where the Iranian leader was, but had no plans to kill him, “at least for now”.
On June 26, in prerecorded remarks aired on state television, Khamenei rejected Trump’s calls for Iran’s surrender, and said Tehran had delivered a “slap to America’s face” by striking a US airbase in Qatar
Trump replied, in remarks to reporters and on social media: “Look, you’re a man of great faith. A man who’s highly respected in his country. You have to tell the truth. You got beat to hell.”
Iran has acknowledged that more than 900 people were killed in the war, as well as thousands injured. Iran’s retaliatory missile attacks on Israel killed at least 28 people there.
Since then, Iran has confirmed serious damage to its nuclear facilities, and denied access to them for inspectors from the United Nations’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The IAEA’s inspectors had stayed in the Iranian capital throughout the fighting, even as Israel attacked Iranian military sites and killed several of the country’s most senior commanders and top scientists, as well as hundreds of civilians.
However, they left after Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a law suspending cooperation with the IAEA on Wednesday.
IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi on Friday stressed “the crucial importance” of dialogue with Iran to resume monitoring and verification work of its nuclear programme as soon as possible.
Iran was holding talks with the US on its nuclear programme when Israel launched its attacks. The US has been seeking a new agreement after Trump pulled the US out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Tehran signed with world powers in 2015.
Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi separately said on Thursday that the country remains committed to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), dismissing speculation that Iran would leave the international accord.
British foreign secretary pledges support for Syria’s new government after talks with interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
The United Kingdom has announced it is formally restoring diplomatic ties with Syria as British Foreign Secretary David Lammy travelled to the capital Damascus to meet with interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Al-Sharaa received Lammy on Saturday alongside Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani, according to photos of the meeting released by the presidency.
“After over a decade of conflict, there is renewed hope for the Syrian people,” Lammy said in a statement released by his office, noting that the visit was the first by a British minister to Syria in 14 years.
“The UK is re-establishing diplomatic relations because it is in our interests to support the new government to deliver their commitment to build a stable, more secure and prosperous future for all Syrians,” he said.
Syria has been improving relations with Western countries after longtime President Bashar al-Assad was removed from power in December 2024 in an offensive led by al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) armed group.
In April, the British government lifted sanctions against a dozen Syrian entities, including government departments and media outlets, to help the country rebuild after al-Assad’s fall.
Weeks earlier, the UK had dropped sanctions against two dozen Syrian businesses, mostly banks and oil companies.
On Monday, United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order to dismantle a web of sanctions against Syria that had crippled the country’s economy under al-Assad.
In a statement posted on X, al-Shaibani – the Syrian foreign minister – welcomed Trump’s decision, saying it would “open the door of long-awaited reconstruction and development”.
“It will lift the obstacle against economic recovery and open the country to the international community,” he said.
Syria’s new leaders have been struggling to rebuild the country’s decimated economy and infrastructure after nearly 14 years of civil war that killed half a million people.
More than 700 Palestinians have been killed trying to get food in the Gaza Strip over the past few weeks, according to new figures from the Gaza Health Ministry, spurring renewed condemnation of a contentious United States and Israeli-backed aid scheme.
The Health Ministry said on Saturday that at least 743 Palestinians were killed and more than 4,891 others were injured while seeking assistance at Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution sites.
The GHF, which began operating in the bombarded Palestinian enclave in late May, has drawn widespread criticism amid multiple reports that its contractors as well as Israeli forces have opened fire on aid seekers.
“The tragedy is that this is again a conservative reading of casualties who were at these distribution points, waiting for food parcels,” Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said of the ministry’s latest figures.
Reporting from Gaza City, Mahmoud said the attacks on aid seekers come as Palestinian families are desperate to feed their families amid dire shortages caused by Israel’s blockade of Gaza.
“People are going hungry. People are rationing supplies. A lot of families are not eating. Mothers here skip meals in order to provide for their children,” he said.
Earlier this week, a report by The Associated Press news agency quoted American contractors who said live ammunition and stun grenades have been fired at Palestinian civilians seeking aid at GHF distribution points.
Two unnamed US contractors told AP that heavily armed staff members appeared to be doing whatever they wanted.
The GHF denied the news agency’s reporting as “categorically false” and said it takes “the safety and security of [its] sites extremely seriously”.
The administration of US President Donald Trump also has stood by the GHF, with a State Department spokesperson telling reporters on Wednesday that the group is the “one entity that has gotten food and aid into the Gaza Strip”.
In late June, the Trump administration pledged $30m in direct funding for the organisation.
On Saturday, the GHF said two US workers at one of its sites in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis were injured when grenades were thrown at them at the end of food distribution. “The injured Americans are receiving medical treatment and are in stable condition,” the group said.
It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attack.
Leading humanitarian and human rights groups have demanded the immediate closure of the GHF, which they accused of “forcing two million people into overcrowded, militarized zones where they face daily gunfire and mass casualties”.
Amnesty International has described the group’s operations as an “inhumane and deadly militarized scheme”.
“All the evidence gathered, including testimonies which Amnesty International is receiving from victims and witnesses, suggest that the GHF was designed so as to placate international concerns while constituting another tool of Israel’s genocide,” Amnesty said.
Still, faced with dire shortages of food, water and other humanitarian supplies under Israel’s blockade, many Palestinians in Gaza say they have no choice but to seek assistance from the group, despite the risks.
“I was forced to go to the aid distribution centre simply because my kids had not eaten for three days in a row,” Majid Abu Laban, a Palestinian man who was wounded in an attack at a GHF site, told Al Jazeera.
“We try to fool our children by all means, but they are starving,” Abu Laban said.
“So I decided to risk my life and head to [an aid distribution point] at Netzarim,” he said, referring to an Israeli military-established corridor south of Gaza City.
“I took the road at midnight hoping to get some food. As crowds rushed in, Israeli forces fired artillery shells at us. In the chaos, everyone was just trying to survive.”
Three Israeli attacks hit Bint Jbeil, Shebaa and Chaqra.
Israel has carried out three drone attacks on towns in southern Lebanon, resulting in a death and several injured, in the latest wave of near-daily Israeli violations of the November ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah.
An “Israeli enemy drone attack on a vehicle” in the Saf al-Hawa area in the city of Bint Jbeil “killed one person and wounded two others”, Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health said in a statement on Saturday carried by the official National News Agency (NNA), noting the toll was expected to rise.
Earlier Saturday, the ministry also reported that a separate Israeli drone attack wounded one person in Shebaa, with the NNA saying that raid hit a house. Shebaa is located across two steep, rocky mountainsides that straddle Lebanon’s borders with Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Israel also launched a drone attack on the town of Chaqra, in the Bint Jbeil District. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said two people were wounded in the attack.
Translation: Video: Two injured due to the air raid on a car in the town of Chaqra.
Israel has kept up its bombardment of Lebanon on a near daily basis, despite a November 27 US-brokered ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, including an intensive period of the war that left the Iran-aligned group severely weakened.
Israel says its air raids are targeting officials and facilities of Hezbollah and other groups. Hezbollah has claimed only one strike fired across the border since the ceasefire.
Most of the Israeli strikes have been in southern Lebanon, but Israel has also struck Beirut’s southern suburbs several times since the ceasefire, destroying residential buildings and prompting panic and chaos among residents fleeing the area.
On Thursday, an Israeli strike on a vehicle at the southern entrance of Beirut, close to the country’s only commercial airport, killed one man and wounded three other people, Lebanon said, as the Israeli army claimed it hit a “terrorist” working for Iran.
Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back north of the Litani River, about 30km (20 miles) from the Israeli border, leaving the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the region.
Israel was required to fully withdraw its troops from the country but has kept them in five locations in southern Lebanon that it deems strategic.
Israel has warned that it will keep attacking Lebanon until Hezbollah has been disarmed.
Nearly 250 people have been killed and 609 wounded in Israeli attacks in Lebanon between November 28 – the day after the ceasefire took effect – and the end of June, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
A United States envoy is expected in Beirut early next week to discuss with Lebanon’s leadership efforts to pressure Hezbollah to relinquish its arms to the state. Hezbollah has rejected a US proposal to disarm by November, calling it “suicidal” amid daily Israeli attacks.
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun has repeatedly called on the US and France to rein in Israel’s attacks, noting that disarming Hezbollah is a “sensitive, delicate issue”.
The US president says he will not allow Tehran to resume its nuclear programme, adding Iranian officials want to meet with him.
United States President Donald Trump has said Iran has not agreed to inspections of its nuclear programme or to giving up enriching uranium.
He told reporters on board Air Force One on Friday that he believed Tehran’s nuclear programme had been “set back permanently”, although he conceded Iran could restart it at a different location.
Trump said he would discuss Iran with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visits the White House on Monday, where a potential Gaza ceasefire is expected to top the agenda.
Trump said, as he travelled to New Jersey after an Independence Day celebration at the White House, “I would think they’d have to start at a different location. And if they did start, it would be a problem.”
Trump said he would not allow Tehran to resume its nuclear programme, adding that Iranian officials wanted to meet with him.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Friday it had pulled out its inspectors from Iran as a standoff deepens over their return to the country’s nuclear facilities that were bombed by the US and Israel.
The US and Israel say Iran was enriching uranium to build nuclear weapons. Tehran denies wanting to produce a nuclear bomb, reiterating for years that its nuclear programme has been for civilian use only. Neither US intelligence nor the UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said they had found any proof that Tehran was building a nuclear weapon.
Israel launched its first military strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites in a 12-day war with the Islamic Republic three weeks ago, with the US intervening on the side of its staunch ally by launching massive strikes on the sites on June 22.
The IAEA’s inspectors have been unable to inspect Iran’s facilities since the beginning of the conflict, even though Grossi has said that it is his top priority.
Grossi stressed “the crucial importance” of holding talks with Iran to resume its monitoring and verification work as soon as possible.
Distrust of IAEA
In the aftermath of the US and Israeli attacks, Iran, which has said it is still committed to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), made painfully clear its burgeoning distrust of the IAEA.
Since the start of the conflict, Iranian officials have sharply criticised the IAEA, not only for failing to condemn the Israeli and US strikes, but also for passing a resolution on June 12 accusing Tehran of non-compliance with its nuclear obligations, the day before Israel attacked.
On Wednesday, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian ordered the country to cut ties with the nuclear watchdog. A bill to suspend cooperation had already been passed in the Iranian parliament and approved by the country’s Guardian Council.
Guardian Council spokesperson Hadi Tahan Nazif said the decision had been taken for the “full respect for the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran”.
The bill itself says the suspension “will remain in effect until certain conditions are met, including the guaranteed security of nuclear facilities and scientists”, according to Iranian state television.
While the IAEA says Iran has not yet formally informed it of any suspension, it is unclear when the agency’s inspectors will be able to return to Iran.
On Monday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi summarily dismissed Grossi’s request to visit nuclear facilities bombed by Israel and the US. “Grossi’s insistence on visiting the bombed sites under the pretext of safeguards is meaningless and possibly even malign in intent,” Araghchi said.
The US claims military strikes either destroyed or badly damaged Iran’s three uranium enrichment sites.
But it was less clear what had happened to much of Iran’s nine tonnes of enriched uranium, especially the more than 400kg (880 pounds) enriched to up to 60 percent purity, a closer step but not in the realm of weapons grade at 90 percent or more.
At least 50 Palestinian families from a Bedouin community in the occupied West Bank have fled their homes, following repeated assaults and harassment from Israeli settlers under the protection of Israeli forces, according to media reports and a local rights group.
Thirty Palestinian families were forcibly displaced on Friday morning from the Arab Mleihat Bedouin community, northwest of Jericho, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported, while 20 others were displaced on Thursday.
Before the forced displacement, the community was home to 85 families, numbering about 500 people.
A Palestinian rights group, the Al-Baidar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, said the families were forced to leave after years trying to defend themselves “without any support”. Attacks by Israeli forces and Israelis from illegal settlements have surged across the occupied West Bank since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023.
Alia Mleihat told Wafa that her family was forced to flee to the Aqbat Jabr refugee camp, south of Jericho, after armed settlers threatened her and other families at gunpoint.
Separately, Mahmoud Mleihat, a 50-year-old father of seven from the community, told the Reuters news agency that they could not take it any more, so they decided to leave.
“The settlers are armed and attack us, and the [Israeli] military protects them. We can’t do anything to stop them,” he said.
Hassan Mleihat, director of the Al-Baidar Organization, said families in the community began dismantling their tents, following sustained provocation and attacks by Israeli settlers and the army.
Footage posted on social media and verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad agency showed trucks loaded with possessions driving away from the area at night.
Hassan told Wafa that the attacks also threatened to erase the community, and “open the way for illegal colonial expansion”.
‘We want to protect our children’
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has documented repeated acts of violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in Mu’arrajat, near Jericho, where the Mleihat tribe lives.
In 2024, settlers armed with clubs stormed a Palestinian school, while in 2023, armed settlers blocked the path of vehicles carrying Palestinians, with some firing into the air and others hurling stones at the vehicles.
“We want to protect our children, and we’ve decided to leave,” Mahmoud said, describing it as a great injustice.
He had lived in the community since he was 10, Mahmoud said.
Alia Mleihat told Reuters the Bedouin community, which had lived there for 40 years, would now be scattered across different parts of the Jordan Valley, including nearby Jericho.
“People are demolishing their own homes with their own hands, leaving this village they’ve lived in for decades, the place where their dreams were built,” she said, describing the forced displacement of 30 families as a “new Nakba”.
The Nakba, meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic, refers to the mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes during 1948 at the birth of the state of Israel.
Israel’s military has not yet commented on the settler harassment faced by the Bedouin families or about the families leaving their community.
Asked about violence in the occupied West Bank, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters on Monday that any acts of violence by civilians were unacceptable and that individuals should not take the law into their own hands.
Activists say Israeli settlement expansion has accelerated in recent years, displacing Palestinians, who have remained on their land under military occupation since Israel captured the occupied West Bank in the 1967 war.
Most countries consider Israeli settlements illegal and a violation of the Geneva Conventions, which ban settling civilians on occupied land.
UN expert calls out global companies for being ‘complicit in genocide and profiting from occupation’ in Palestine.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur says some of the world’s largest companies are complicit in and profiting from Israel’s actions in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Francesca Albanese’s landmark report identified Microsoft, Amazon and Google as just some of the major United States tech firms helping Israel sustain its genocide in Gaza.
But UN reports like this have no legal power. And Israel has rejected Albanese’s findings as “groundless”, saying it would “join the dustbin of history”.
So, will big companies, despite their financial interests, start to question their ties with Israel?
And will consumers around the world bring commercial pressure on those implicated firms?
Presenter: Adrian Finighan
Guests:
Omar Barghouti – Cofounder of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement
Vaniya Agrawal – Former software engineer at Microsoft, who resigned earlier this year
Michael Lynk – Human rights lawyer and a former UN special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory
Palestinian group Hamas says it has given a “positive” response to a United States-brokered proposal for a Gaza ceasefire, raising hopes of a possible breakthrough in halting Israel’s deadly offensive.
US President Donald Trump earlier announced a “final proposal” for a 60-day truce in the nearly 21-month-old war, stating he anticipated a reply from the parties in the coming hours.
Hamas said late on Friday that the group had submitted its reply to Qatar and Egypt, who are mediating the talks.
“The movement [Hamas] has delivered its response to the brotherly mediators, which was characterised by a positive spirit. Hamas is fully prepared, with all seriousness, to immediately enter a new round of negotiations on the mechanism for implementing this framework,” a statement by the group said.
Trump said earlier this week that Israel had accepted the main conditions of a proposed 60-day truce, during which time negotiations would aim to permanently end the war. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to publicly endorse the plan.
Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over alleged war crimes in Gaza, is expected to meet Trump in Washington on Monday.
According to Israeli media reports early on Saturday, Israeli government officials had received Hamas’s official response to the latest ceasefire proposal framework and were reviewing its contents.
Details from the proposed deal
According to a translated copy of the framework shared with Al Jazeera, the deal would include a 60-day truce, guaranteed by Trump, with a phased release of Israeli captives and increased humanitarian aid.
The proposed exchange includes the release of 10 living and 18 deceased Israeli captives from the “List of 58”. Releases would occur on days one, seven, 30, 50, and 60 – beginning with eight live captives on the first day.
Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip stand in an area at a makeshift tent camp at dusk in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Wednesday, July 2, 2025[Abdel Kareem Hana/AP Photo]
Under the plan, aid would flow into Gaza immediately following Hamas’s approval, in quantities comparable to the January 2025 agreement. Distribution would be handled by agencies including the United Nations and the Palestine Red Crescent Society.
As part of the proposed Gaza ceasefire framework, all Israeli military operations would stop once the agreement takes effect, Al Jazeera has learned.
The deal includes a pause in military and surveillance flights over Gaza for 10 hours each day – or 12 hours on days when captives and prisoners are exchanged.
Negotiations for a permanent ceasefire would begin on day one under the supervision of mediators. Talks would cover a full exchange of captives for Palestinian prisoners, Israeli troop withdrawal, future security arrangements, and “day-after” plans for Gaza.
‘Much-awaited response’
Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said the Hamas response was “much-awaited, much-anticipated”, with anxious besieged Palestinians asking when it would come.
“We don’t know whether this response … is going to bring an end to the ongoing killings … or the presence of the [Israeli] drones,” he said.
Heavy shelling and gunfire continue near food distribution points, and uncertainty remains over whether serious negotiations will lead to relief.
“None of this is clear right now,” Mahmoud added, “but at least it’s a first step.”
Trump, speaking early on Friday, said he expected clarity from Hamas “over the next 24 hours”.
He added, “We hope it’s going to happen. And we’re looking forward to it happening sometime next week. We want to get the hostages out.”
Israel pushing for side deal with Trump
Despite Hamas’s endorsement, the group has reportedly sought guarantees that the proposed truce would lead to a permanent end to Israel’s war and prevent Tel Aviv from resuming attacks at will.
According to two Israeli officials quoted by the Reuters news agency, details of the proposal are still under negotiation. Meanwhile, Israel is said to be pressing Trump for written assurances that it can resume operations if its key demands – Hamas disarmament and the exile of its leadership – are not met.
Israeli broadcaster Channel 14, citing a senior political source, reported earlier this week that the deal includes a side letter from Trump granting Israel the authority to “renew the fire” should Hamas fail to comply. The document would allow Israel to determine whether the terms had been fulfilled.
Netanyahu has repeatedly insisted that any Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza must be dismantled as a precondition for peace – an issue that remains a major sticking point.
A previous two-month truce ended when Israeli strikes killed more than 400 Palestinians on March 18 and led to what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called “the cruellest phase of a cruel war”. More than 6,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel broke the truce.
Overall, Israeli forces have killed at least 57,268 Palestinians and wounded more than 130,000 since October 7, 2023.
Brazil’s Fluminense earn hard-fought 2-1 victory over Saudi Arabia’s Al Hilal to book place in semifinals.
Substitute Hercules scored his second goal in as many second-half appearances to send Fluminense into the FIFA Club World Cup semifinals with a 2-1 quarterfinal win over Al Hilal in Orlando, Florida.
The tournament underdogs struck first on Friday through Matheus Martinelli in the first half before Al Hilal hit back after the break when Marcus Leonardo found the net.
But Fluminense refused to be denied and regained their lead in the 70th minute through Hercules to secure a memorable win over Al Hilal in the first meeting between the two clubs.
The Brazilian side, who entered the tournament as one of the biggest long shots, will now face the winners of Friday’s other quarterfinal clash between fellow Brazilians Palmeiras and English Premier League side Chelsea.
Al Hilal exit despite a fourth tournament goal for striker Leonardo.
The Saudi side was the last from Asia remaining, having pulled off the tournament’s biggest upset with a 4-3, extra-time victory over Manchester City in the second round on Monday.
Martinelli put Fluminense in front in the 40th minute with a brilliant strike. His first touch took Gabriel Fuentes’s pass beyond a charging Al Hilal defender, and his second unleashed a ferocious left-footed shot that beat goalkeeper Yassine Bounou to the top right corner from about 15 yards (14 metres).
A minute into first-half stoppage time, Fluminense keeper Fabio sprawled to his left to push Kalidou Koulibaly’s powerful header beyond the post.
After nearly levelling before halftime, Koulibaly won another dangerous header six minutes into the second from a corner.
This time it landed at the feet of Leonardo, who balanced himself and scooped a finish from close range past Fabio and two defenders on the line.
It remained level four minutes later when Bounou sprawled to his right to take the ball off the feet of German Cano, who was trying to dribble round him after intercepting a pass deep in the attacking half.
Hercules put Fluminense in front for good in the 70th when he was rewarded for his own persistence.
After his first long-range shot was deflected high into the air, he continued his run forward as teammate Samuel Xavier won the next header.
It landed at the feet of Hercules, whose wonderful first touch put him in shooting position before his second sent a right-footed shot into the bottom left corner, prompting jubilation from yet another largely pro-Brazilian crowd at this tournament.
Al Hilal pressured Fluminense in the dying stages, but could not create a clear chance on Fabio’s goal.
Fluminense head coach Renato Portaluppi praised his players after the match.
“We knew it was going to be a difficult game, but I am so pleased with the way my players reacted,” Portaluppi told DAZN. “I am so happy that we have gone through to the semifinals.”
Asked about what he said to Hercules when he came off the bench for the second half, he replied: “I told him just to keep doing what he has to do. He would have the opportunity to score, and when it came, he took it.”
Meanwhile, it was a tough day for Al Hilal’s Portuguese players competing just a day after the Liverpool FC and Portugal national team star Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva died in a car accident in Spain.
They were honoured with a pregame moment of silence, and cameras showed Al Hilal starters and Portuguese compatriots Ruben Neves and Joao Cancelo in tears during the tribute.
Dutch prosecutors have dropped charges against Maccabi Tel Aviv fans after CCTV footage showing violence towards Muslim women last November was erased. Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen is in Amsterdam, where the decision has sparked controversy over alleged double standards.
Paul Kagame gives cautious welcome to US-brokered agreement, but says success depends on goodwill from warring parties.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame has cautiously welcomed a United States-brokered peace deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), while suggesting Kigali will retaliate if provoked.
Speaking at a news conference in Kigali on Friday, Kagame said Rwanda remained committed to the agreement but questioned whether Kinshasa would uphold its part of the deal.
“If the side that we are working with plays tricks and takes us back to the problem, then we deal with the problem like we have been dealing with it,” Kagame said.
The agreement, backed by the administration of US President Donald Trump, was signed last week and calls for Rwandan troops to withdraw from eastern DRC within 90 days.
The region has seen intense fighting this year, with M23 rebels seizing major towns. The United Nations has accused Rwanda of backing the group with thousands of troops – an allegation Kigali denies.
While the peace deal is seen as a turning point, analysts do not believe it will quickly end the fighting because M23 – a major belligerent in the conflict – says the agreement does not apply to it.
M23 rebels in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, after seizing the city in January 2025 [Moses Sawasawa/AP]
US ‘not to blame’ if deal fails
Rwanda insists its military presence in eastern DRC is a response to threats from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an armed group made up of ethnic Hutu fighters linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Kagame said Kinshasa must act to dismantle the FDLR if the deal is to succeed.
“We are grateful to the Trump administration for its efforts,” he said. “If it doesn’t work, they aren’t the ones to blame.”
There has been no official response from Kinshasa, which has consistently accused Rwanda of fuelling the conflict.
Rwanda-backed M23 is the most prominent armed group in the conflict in eastern DRC, and its major advance early this year left bodies on the streets. With 7 million people displaced in DRC, the UN has called it “one of the most protracted, complex, serious humanitarian crises on Earth”.
M23 has not been involved in the US-mediated efforts, although it has been part of other peace talks. On Thursday, both the Congolese government and M23 representatives agreed that they would return to Qatar for further discussions aimed at ending the conflict.
Meanwhile, Washington has proposed a separate investment plan that could allow Western companies to tap into the region’s rich deposits of tantalum, copper, and gold – resources that have long fuelled violence in eastern DRC.
Kagame’s appearance on Friday marked his first public remarks since June 6, prompting speculation during his absence about his health. Dissidents abroad, including former adviser David Himbara, claimed the president was seriously unwell.
Kagame dismissed the rumours with a joke. “Some of my personal health problems might originate from managing you people,” he said, sparking laughter.
“What is the problem? What would people want me to account for? That I am not human?” he added. The president appeared in good health throughout the briefing.
It was a normal Teams meeting at the end of a busy week. Colleagues were discussing the hospital weekend plans. I was there too, nodding, half-present. My mind was elsewhere – on a message I’d sent earlier that morning to a friend in Gaza.
I glanced at my phone.
One tick.
WhatsApp users know the signs: one tick means the message was sent. Two ticks mean it was received. Two blue ticks, it was read.
For most people, it’s a minor delay. But when you’re texting a Palestinian friend in Gaza during a war, one tick carries a sense of dread.
Maybe his phone’s out of charge – normal in a place where power was cut off 20 months ago. Maybe there’s no service – Israel often cuts communication during attacks. But there’s a third possibility I don’t allow myself to think about, even though it’s the most likely outcome if you are living through a genocide.
Still one tick.
Back in the meeting. We wrap up. Plans are made and people start to think about their own weekend plans.
I glance again. Still one tick.
This is the curse of being Palestinian. Carrying the weight of your homeland, its pain, its people – while being expected to function normally, politely, professionally.
Then, I was told my Teams background was “potentially anti-Semitic.”
It was a still-life image: figs, olives, grapes, oranges, watermelon, and a few glass bottles. A quiet nod to my culture and roots. But in today’s climate, even fruit is political. Any symbol of Palestinian identity can now be interpreted as a threat.
Suddenly, I was being questioned, accused, and possibly facing disciplinary action. For a background. For being Palestinian.
Still one tick.
I felt silenced, humiliated, and exposed. How was my love for my culture, for art, for my people being twisted into something hateful? Why is my choice of virtual background more controversial than the devastating violence unfolding in real time?
This is not isolated. Many of us – Palestinians, or anyone else who cares about Palestine – are being challenged on our humanity across organisations, all driven by external pressure.
And then it happened. Two blue ticks.
My friend was alive. He messaged: they fled their home in the early hours of the morning. He carried his children, walked for hours, left everything behind. No food, no shelter. But alive.
How could I explain to him what had happened to me that day? That while he ran for his life, I was threatened with disciplinary action about a painting of fruit? That I was accused of racism for an image, while he was witnessing the destruction of entire families?
This is what it means to be Palestinian today. To constantly navigate a world that erases your humanity, silences your voice, distorts your identity. To be told your pain is political. Your joy is provocation. Your symbols are offensive.
I’ve worked in the NHS for 25 years. It’s more than a job – it’s part of who I am. And now, along with two colleagues, I’m taking legal action. Not for ourselves, but to protect the NHS from external political lobbying. To say, firmly and clearly, that our National Health Service should belong to its patients and its staff – not to those who seek to silence, intimidate or twist it into serving a toxic agenda.
What happened to me is not just unjust – it is unlawful. Speaking up against genocide is not only my moral responsibility as a human being, but also my right as a British citizen in a democratic society.
I don’t write this to compare my experience with my friend’s suffering. I write it to expose the absurdity, the cruelty, of how Palestinians are treated across the world. Whether under bombs or under suspicion, we are made to justify our existence.
It shouldn’t be this way.
Being Palestinian is not a crime. But too often, it feels like the world treats it as one.
The author is currently pursuing legal action, alongside two NHS colleagues, challenging, among other things, allegations of antisemitism.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
The United Nations human rights office has said it recorded at least 613 killings of Palestinians both at controversial aid points run by the Israeli- and United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and near humanitarian convoys.
“This is a figure as of June 27. Since then … there have been further incidents,” Ravina Shamdasani, the spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), told reporters in Geneva on Friday.
The OHCHR said 509 of the 613 people were killed near GHF distribution points. The Gaza Health Ministry has put the number of deaths at more than 650 and those wounded as exceeding 4,000.
The GHF began distributing limited food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of deliveries which the UN says is neither impartial nor neutral, as killings continue around the organisation’s sites, which rights groups have slammed as “human slaughterhouses”.
Mahmoud Basal, a civil defence spokesperson in Gaza, said they “recorded evidence of civilians being deliberately killed by the Israeli military”.
“More than 600 Palestinian civilians were killed at these centres,” he said. “Some were shot by Israeli snipers, others were killed by drone attacks, air strikes or shootings targeting families seeking aid.”
‘I lost everything’
A mother, whose son was killed while trying to get food, told Al Jazeera that she “lost everything” after his death.
“My son was a provider, I depended totally on him,” she said, adding: “He was the pillar and foundation of our life.”
The woman called the GHF’s aid distribution centres “death traps”.
“We are forced to go there out of desperation for food; we go there out of hunger,” she said.
“Instead of coming back carrying a bag of flour, people themselves are being carried back as bodies,” she added.
The World Health Organization said on Friday that Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis is operating as “one massive trauma ward” due to an influx of patients injured around GHF sites.
Referring to medical staff at the hospital, Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, told reporters in Geneva: “They’ve seen already for weeks, daily injuries … (the) majority coming from the so-called safe non-UN food distribution sites.”
Peeperkorn said health workers at Nasser Hospital and testimonies from family members and friends of those wounded confirmed that the victims had been trying to access aid at sites run by the GHF.
He recounted the harrowing cases of a 13-year-old boy shot in the head, as well as a 21-year-old with a bullet lodged in his neck which rendered him paraplegic.
According to the UN, only 16 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially operational, their collective capacity merely above 1,800 beds – entirely insufficient for the overwhelming medical needs.
The Israeli army has targeted the health institutions and medical workers in the besieged enclave since the beginning of its war on Gaza in October 2023.
“The health sector is being systematically dismantled,” Peeperkorn said on Thursday in a separate statement, citing shortages of medical supplies, equipment, and personnel.
GHF condemned
The UN, humanitarian organisations and other NGOs have repeatedly slammed the GHF for its handling of aid distribution and the attacks around its distribution sites.
More than 130 humanitarian organisations, including Oxfam, Save the Children and Amnesty International, on Tuesday demanded the immediate closure of the GHF, accusing it of facilitating attacks on starving Palestinians.
The NGOs said Israeli forces and armed groups “routinely” open fire on civilians attempting to access food.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which was carrying out aid distribution for decades before the GHF, has called for investigations into the killings and wounding of Palestinians trying to access food through GHF.
UNRWA noted that while it operated about 400 sites across the territory, GHF has set up only four “mega-sites”, three in the south and one in central Gaza – none in the north, where conditions are most severe.
The GHF has denied that incidents surrounding people killed or wounded at its sites have occurred involving its contractors, without providing any evidence, rejecting an Associated Press investigation that said some of its United States staff fired indiscriminately at Palestinians.
A recent report from Israeli outlet Haaretz detailed Israeli troops, in their words, confirming that Israeli soldiers have deliberately shot at unarmed Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza after being “ordered” to do so by their commanders.
Medical sources have told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces killed 27 Palestinians in Gaza since dawn on Friday.
In Khan Younis, the Israeli military killed at least 15 Palestinians following a series of deadly attacks on makeshift tents in the al-Mawasi coastal area, which was once classified as a so-called humanitarian safe zone by Israel. Attacks there have been relentless.
Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry, while displacing most of the population of more than two million multiple times, triggering widespread hunger and leaving much of the territory in ruins.
The war began after Hamas-led fighters crossed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 captives back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
The catastrophe unfolding in Gaza cannot be understood solely through the lens of humanitarian crisis. What we are witnessing is not just a tragic consequence of war, but the deliberate use of starvation as a tool of political and demographic control. This strategy, designed to dismantle Palestinian society, amounts to a form of structural genocide.
The Israeli military and political leadership, in its pursuit of dominance and the erasure of Palestinian national aspirations, has moved beyond the tactics of bombardment and physical destruction. Today, its methods are more insidious: they target the core of Palestinian survival: food, water, and the means to endure.
Breaking the will of a people by denying them the ability to feed themselves is not collateral damage. It is policy. According to reports from independent international bodies, more than 95 percent of Gaza’s farmland has been destroyed or rendered unusable. That figure is not just an economic loss; it is the intentional dismantling of food sovereignty, and with it, any hope of future independence.
The destruction is systematic. Seed access has been blocked. Water infrastructure has been targeted. Fisherfolk and farmers – already operating under extreme siege conditions – have been repeatedly attacked. These are not random acts. They are part of a broader plan to re-engineer Gaza’s demographic and economic future in line with Israel’s long-term strategic goals: absolute control and political submission.
What makes this all the more alarming is the complicity of the international community. Whether through silence or vague diplomatic statements that describe the situation as a “humanitarian crisis”, global actors have helped normalise the use of starvation as a weapon of war. The refusal to name these actions for what they are – war crimes committed as part of a genocide – has given Israel the cover to continue them with impunity.
Even more disturbing is how food itself has become a bargaining chip. Access to essentials like flour, baby formula, and bottled water is now being tied to political and military negotiations. This reveals a grim logic of power. The goal is not stability or mutual security – it is to impose political conditions through the calculated manipulation of civilian suffering.
By making Gaza entirely dependent on outside aid while systematically dismantling local means of survival, Israel has created a trap in which Palestinians are stripped of all political and economic agency. They are being reduced to a population that can be managed, controlled, and bartered.
Every statistic coming out of Gaza must be read through this lens. That 100 percent of the population now suffers from food insecurity is not simply tragic; it is a marker of the strategy’s progress. This is not about feeding the hungry. It is about breaking the spirit of a people and forcing them to accept a new reality on the occupier’s terms.
And yet, Gaza’s resilience persists. That defiance, under siege and starvation, has exposed the moral collapse of an international order that prefers managed crises to political accountability. This is not a famine born of drought. This is not the chaos of a failed state. This is a crime in progress – carried out with eyes wide open, under the protective cover of global indifference.
Let me also add that international civil society organisations and global social movements – such as La Via Campesina – are not standing by in silence. In fact, this September, some of the world’s most prominent movements of farmers, fishers, and Indigenous Peoples – many of them from conflict-affected regions – will gather in Sri Lanka for the 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum. There, we aim to build a unified global response to the widespread indifference that turns a blind eye to the dispossession of entire communities. From the ground up, we are working to develop concrete proposals to ensure that food is never weaponised and that starvation is never used as a tactic of war. At the same time, countless acts of solidarity are unfolding across the globe, led by people of conscience who are demanding that their governments take action.
History will remember what is happening in Gaza. It will also remember those who chose to remain silent. Justice may be delayed, but it will come, and it will ask who stood by as starvation was used to try to break a people.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Spain has seen the most recent cases of the disease as experts say one activity ‘drastically increases’ the risk of catching it
One of the early symptoms of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever is a severe headache(Image: Getty)
New cases of a killer virus have been detected in holiday hotspots loved by British tourists – and experts have warned it could reach the UK. It’s been described as the current biggest threat to public health, after breaking out in Iraq and Namibia.
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF), has also caused two reported deaths in Pakistan – with several cases reported in Spain. Last week, insiders speaking to Parliament’s Science, Innovation and Technology Committee revealed it was “highly likely” there could soon be cases in the UK.
In its most recent report the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said a case of Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever was recetnyl reported in Spain with the illness ‘known to be circulating among animals in this region and human CCHF cases have been previously reported in the area.”
In the eight years to 2024 a total of 16 autochthonous CCHF cases have been reported in Spain with dates of disease onset between April and August. The province of Salamanca is a hotspot for CCHF, with 50% of the cases being exposed to ticks.
It adds that in certain conditions in Spain people are much more likely to catch Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever: “This risk drastically increases for people performing activities that expose them to tick bites (e.g. hunting, forestry work, hiking, animal surveillance).
The UK Heath Security Agency has said it is estimated that globally between 10,000 and 15,000 human infections, including approximately 500 fatalities, occur annually, although this is likely to be an underestimate as many cases.
Confirmed CCHF cases have been imported into the UK, including one fatal case in 2012 and one in 2014. In March 2022, a CCHF case was reported in the UK following an initial positive test result.
To prevent CCHF:
Use DEET-containing insect repellent to prevent tick bites.
Wear gloves, long sleeves, and pants when handling animals where CCHF is found.
Avoid contact with body fluids of potentially infected animals or people.
“As a general precaution against CCHF, but also against other tick-borne diseases, people who may potentially be exposed to ticks should apply personal protective measures against tick bites. In 2023 experts speaking to Parliament’s Science, Innovation and Technology Committee revealed it was “highly likely” there could soon be cases in the UK.
During the hearing, James Wood, head of veterinary medicine at Cambridge University, said CCHF could find its way to the UK “through our ticks, at some point”. The disease is caused by Nairovirus, a condition that is spread by ticks and according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and has a fatality rate of between 10 and 40 percent. Typically, the condition is found at small stages in Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East and in Asia, reports the Express. However, the disease could be expanding out of its usual territories and moving towards the likes of Britain and France due to climate change.
WHO noted CCHF was among its nine “priority diseases”, a system that lays bare the biggest public health risks. CCHF was first described in the Crimea in 1944, among soldiers and agricultural workers, and in 1969 it was recognised that the virus causing the disease was identical to a virus isolated from a child in the Congo in 1956. Humans (and possibly non-human primates) are the only animal species known to manifest severe clinical CCHF disease.
Symptoms of CCHF
Among the virus’ symptoms include headaches, high fever, back and joint pain, stomach ache, and vomiting. Red eyes, a flushed face, a red throat, and petechiae (red spots) on the palate are also common.
In severe cases, WHO warns, jaundice, mood swings and sensory perception are encountered. As the illness progresses, large areas of severe bruising, severe nosebleeds, and uncontrolled bleeding at injection sites can be seen, beginning on about the fourth day of illness and lasting for about two weeks.
In documented outbreaks of CCHF, fatality rates in hospitalised patients ranged from nine percent to as high as 50 percent. The long-term effects of CCHF infection have not been studied well enough in survivors to determine whether or not specific complications exist. However, recovery is slow.
Globally, there have been case reports, virological or serological evidence of human infection in at least 55 countries. In the European Region and its neighbouring countries, locally acquired human cases and/or outbreaks have been reported from Albania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Russia, Spain, Turkey and Ukraine. Spain officially reported its first autochthonous case in August 2016, the first in Western Europe, following their first detection of CCHFV infected ticks in 2010. At the end of October 2023, French officials reported the detection of CCHFV in H. marginatum ticks collected from cattle in the eastern Pyrénées, which was the first time the presence of the virus in tick populations had been confirmed in the country.
Hours before a ceasefire took effect between Israel and Iran on June 24, the son of Iran’s last shah, Reza Pahlavi, held a televised news conference in the French capital, Paris.
Dressed in a grey suit and blue tie with his hair combed back, the 64-year-old exiled (and self-styled) crown prince of the monarchy that Iranians overthrew in 1979 urged the United States not to give Iran’s government a “lifeline” by restarting diplomatic talks on its nuclear programme.
Pahlavi insisted that Iran’s Islamic Republic was collapsing. “This is our Berlin Wall moment,” he said, calling for ordinary Iranians to seize the opportunity afforded by Israel’s war and take to the streets, and for defections from the military and security forces.
But the mass protests Pahlavi encouraged never materialised.
Instead, many Iranians – including those opposed to the government – rallied around the flag in a moment of attack by a foreign force. It appears that Pahlavi, who said in his Paris speech that he was ready to replace Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and lead Iranians down a “road of peace and democratic transition”, had misread the room.
While he was willing to align with Israel in achieving what he perceives to be the greater goal of overthrowing the Islamic Republic, the majority of his compatriots were not.
If anything, Pahlavi may have squandered the little support he once had by choosing not to condemn Israel’s heavy bombardment of Iran, which killed more than 935 people, including many civilians, said Trita Parsi, an expert on Iran and the author of Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States.
“He has – in my estimation – destroyed much of the brand name [of the shah] … by going on TV and making excuses for Israel when it was targeting our apartment buildings and killing civilians,” he told Al Jazeera.
Pahlavi’s office did not respond to requests for comment from Al Jazeera.
A man holds an Iranian flag by an Iranian Red Crescent ambulance that was destroyed during an Israeli strike, displayed in Tehran [File: Atta Kenare/AFP]
Generational appeal
The level of support for Pahlavi is disputed, but many experts doubt it is extensive.
Still, what support he does have – particularly in the Iranian diaspora – often emanates from opposition to the Islamic Republic and nostalgia for the monarchy that predated it.
Yasmine*, a British-Iranian in her late 20s, said that members of her own family support Pahlavi for the symbolism of the pre-Islamic Republic era that he represents, as opposed to what he may actually stand for, adding that she believed that he lacked a clear political vision.
“He really symbolises what Iran was [a government that was secular and pro-West] prior to the Islamic Republic, and that’s what those who are asking for Reza Pahlavi want back,” she told Al Jazeera.
Her aunt, Yasna*, 64, left Iran just months before the 1979 revolution to attend university in the United Kingdom. While she supports Pahlavi for the reasons her niece mentioned, she also believes Iran will no longer be a pariah to the West if he returned to rule Iran.
“He’s somebody from my generation, and I have a clear memory of growing up in the days under the shah … he’s also so friendly with America, Europe and Israel, and we need somebody like that [in Iran],” Yasna said.
Analysts explained to Al Jazeera that the lack of a prominent alternative to Pahlavi – due to the Iranian government’s crackdown on political opposition – was part of Pahlavi’s appeal.
They also pointed out that support for Pahlavi is tied to the distorted memory that some have of his grandfather, Reza Khan, and his father, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Reza Khan was widely credited with creating an ethno-centralised state that curtailed the power of the religious clergy and violently cracked down on opponents and minorities. That repression continued under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
However, Yasna speaks fondly of the Pahlavi family and hopes Reza Pahlavi can soon carve out his own legacy.
“Reza’s grandfather brought security to the country, and his father helped us move forward. I now think Reza can unite us again,” she said.
Family history
The Pahlavis were not a dynasty with a long and storied past. Reza Khan was a military officer who seized power in the 1920s, before being replaced by Mohammad Reza in 1941.
Foreign powers had a role to play in that, as they did in 1953, when the US and the UK engineered a coup against Iran’s then-elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who had nationalised the assets of the Anglo-Persian oil company, now known as BP, in April 1951.
“The British thought it was their oil,” explained Assal Rad, a historian of Iran and the author of State of Resistance: Politics, Identity and Culture in Modern Iran.
“They had no recognition of the colonial past that allowed them to forcefully take the resource, nor recognition of Iran’s right to take the resource for itself,” she told Al Jazeera.
Prior to the coup, Rad explained that the shah was engaged in a power struggle with Mosaddegh, who openly criticised the shah for violating the constitution. The former wanted to maintain his control, especially over the military, while the latter was trying to mould Iran into a constitutional democracy with popular support.
The coup against Mosaddegh was ultimately successful, leading to another 26 years of progressively more repressive Pahlavi rule.
According to a 1976 report by Amnesty International, the shah’s feared intelligence agency (SAVAK) often beat political prisoners with electric cables, sodomised them and ripped off their finger and toenails to extract false confessions.
“At the end of the day, the shah’s regime was a brutal dictatorship and non-democracy,” Parsi told Al Jazeera.
Economic inequality between the rich urban classes and the rural poor also grew under the shah, according to a 2019 Brookings Institute report by Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, an economist at Virginia Tech University.
And yet, the shah appeared detached from the plight of his own people throughout his reign. Rad referenced a lavish party that the shah threw in 1971 to celebrate 2,500 years of the Persian Empire.
The luxurious party brought together foreign dignitaries from across the world, even as many Iranians struggled to make ends meet, highlighting the country’s economic disparities.
“He was celebrating Iran with nothing Iranian and no Iranians invited nor involved, and he even had student protesters arrested beforehand because he didn’t want incidents to occur while he was doing this,” Rad said. “The party was one of these monumental moments that led to the disconnect between him and his own people.”
The former shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, during a news conference in the house of the former Panamanian ambassador in Washington, Gabriel Lewis [File: Getty Images].
Coupled with state repression and rising poverty, the Persian Empire celebration was one of the factors that eventually led to the 1979 revolution.
Reza Pahlavi was in the US when the revolution erupted, training to be a fighter pilot.
He was just 17 years old and has never returned to Iran since. Instead, a life in exile began, with the ultimate goal always remaining a return to his home country – and power.
As the eldest of the shah’s two sons, loyalists to the monarchy recognised Reza Pahlavi as heir apparent after his father passed away from cancer in 1980.
He has since spent the majority of his life in the US, mostly in the suburbs of Washington, DC.
Initially focused on restoring the monarchy, Pahlavi has shifted his rhetoric in the last two decades to focus more on the idea of a secular democracy in Iran. He has said he does not seek power, and would only assume the throne if asked to do so by the Iranian people.
Opposition outreach
Pahlavi’s attempt to broaden his appeal came as he also reached out to other opponents of the Iranian government.
Some have outright refused to work with him, citing his royal background. And others who have worked with him have quickly distanced themselves.
One of the most important examples of this was the Alliance for Democracy and Freedom in Iran, formed in 2023, in the wake of antigovernment protests that began the previous year.
As well as Pahlavi, the coalition included Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad, human rights activist and actress Nazanin Boniadi, former footballer Ali Karimi, and the author Hamed Esmaeilion.
But problems emerged from the very meeting organised to form the coalition in February 2023.
According to Parsi and Sina Toossi, an expert on Iran with the Center for International Policy (CIP), Pahlavi rejected any proposal to collaborate with the other attendees at the meeting in Washington, DC’s Georgetown University, either by agreeing to make decisions based on a shared consensus or through some kind of majority vote.
He instead wanted all attendees to defer and rally behind him as a leader of the opposition.
Another issue that followed the Georgetown meeting was the behaviour of Pahlavi’s supporters, many of whom were against anyone associated with left-wing politics, and defenders of the actions of the shah’s regime.
“The monarchists [his supporters] were upset that Reza was put on par with these other people [at the meeting],” said Toossi.
The coalition soon collapsed, with Esmaeilion referring to “undemocratic methods” in what many perceived to be criticism of Pahlavi.
Israeli connections
Two months after the Georgetown meeting, and as the newly formed alliance quickly collapsed, Pahlavi made a choreographed visit to Israel with his wife Yasmine.
As Al Jazeera previously reported, the visit was arranged by Pahlavi’s official adviser Amir Temadi, and Saeed Ghasseminejad, who works at the US right-wing think tank the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), which frequently publishes analyses that call on the US to use military force to deter Iran’s regional influence and nuclear programme.
During the visit, Pahlavi and his wife took a photo with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara.
Yasmine and I were very pleased to meet with @IsraeliPM and Sara @netanyahu. We expressed appreciation for Israel’s continued support for the Iranian people’s democratic aspirations and emphasized that, as the children of Cyrus the Great, Iranians aspire to have a government that… pic.twitter.com/lInuy4lwdC
The trip highlighted Pahlavi’s close ties to Israel, a relationship that had been cultivated for years, even if it was less publicly acknowledged initially.
During George W Bush’s first term as US president in the early 2000s, Pahlavi approached the powerful American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – a powerful lobby – to speak at their annual conference, according to Parsi.
The offer was rejected, with AIPAC members explaining that he would hurt his own brand as an Iranian nationalist if he were to speak at their annual conference, Parsi explained.
“AIPAC had told him that perhaps it wasn’t a good idea because it could delegitimise him, which tells you something about how disconnected [Pahlavi] was from the realities of the Iranian diaspora,” he told Al Jazeera.
But, about 10 years ago, during US President Donald Trump’s first term, Pahlavi also began to surround himself with advisers who have long called for closer ties between Iran and Israel and for the US to continue its “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign against Iran’s government, according to Toossi.
Trump’s maximum pressure campaign hurt common people more than the Iranian government. It resulted in sharp inflation and major depreciation of its currency, making it difficult for many Iranians to afford basic commodities and life-saving medications, according to Human Rights Watch.
According to Toossi, Pahlavi appeared somewhat aware of the economic hardships brought on by sanctions, which may explain why he supported US President Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015.
The JCPOA ensured global monitoring of Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for much-needed sanctions relief.
However, Pahlavi quickly began to align with Trump when he came to power the following year, Toossi said. Trump scorned the JCPOA and finally pulled out in 2018 before beginning his maximum pressure policy.
The disconnect between Pahlavi and regular Iranians over this issue could also be seen in his actions during the 2023 trip to Israel.
Pahlavi made a well-publicised trip to the Western Wall, in occupied East Jerusalem, which holds considerable religious significance for Jewish people across the world.
The vast majority of Iranians are still Shia Muslims – even if many are secular– and Pahlavi did not visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. The Western Wall is part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound’s exterior wall.
Muslim worshippers gather next to the Dome of the Rock shrine at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, June 6, 2025 [Mahmoud Illean/AP Photo]
Out of touch
In hindsight, the 2023 trip to Israel and Pahlavi’s apparent friendly relations with Israeli officials have damaged his reputation, said Toossi.
“In short … what’s been going on with the Iran monarchy movement is a very clear, evident and above-the-table alliance with Israel,” he told Al Jazeera.
“He was really the only opposition figure that was supportive of [Israel’s war],” he added.
According to Barbara Slavin, an expert on Iran and a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Centre in Washington, DC, Pahlavi’s rhetoric was “counterproductive” during the 12-day war.
Slavin said Pahlavi has largely been disconnected from the feelings and perspectives inside Iran because he simply has not been there since he was a teenager, and his failure to condemn Israel’s bombardment of civilians has turned a lot of people off.
“After all the civilians Israel killed, [his relationship with Israel] really has a bad smell,” she told Al Jazeera.
Parsi agrees and adds that he doesn’t think Israel truly believes that Pahlavi can one day rule the country due to his lack of popular support both in and outside of Iran.
Parsi believes Israel is simply exploiting his brand to legitimise its own hostility towards Iran.
“He is … useful for the Israelis to parade around because it gives them a veneer of legitimacy for their own war of aggression against Iran” during the fighting, he said.
“[Israel] can point to [Pahlavi] and say, ‘Look. Iranians want to be bombed.’” Parsi said.
But that is a turn-off for many Iranians, including those against the government.
Yasmine, the British-Iranian, is one of them.
Pahlavi, in her view, was not charismatic and had cemented his unpopularity among Iranians, both inside Iran and outside, with his call for Iranians to take to the streets as Israel attacked Iran.
“He was asking Iranians to rise up against the government so that he will come [to take over],” Yasmine said. “He was basically asking Iranians to do his dirty work.”
*Some names have been changed to protect the safety of interviewees
![Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip, stand in an area at a makeshift tent camp at dusk in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Wednesday, July 2, 2025. [Abdel Kareem Hana/AP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/AP25183695042685-1751561754.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80)
![A man holds an Iranian flag by an Iranian Red Crescent ambulance that was destroyed during an Israeli strike, as seen here in Tehran on June 23, 2025. [Atta Kenare/AFP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/000_63G96JM-1750695871.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C524&quality=80)
