Region

TEHRAN — Iran on Wednesday warned the United States not to threaten it, after Washington said it decided on a response to an attack that killed three American troops in an outpost  near the northeastern borders with Syria.

"America must stop using the language of threat and projection and focus on a political solution," Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said, according to the official IRNA news agency.

"Iran's response to threats is decisive and immediate," he added.

The killing of American troops in a drone strike on Sunday marked the first US military losses to hostile fire in the region since the Israeli war on Gaza war broke out on October 7.

US President Joe Biden, who blamed “radical Iran-backed militant groups”, said he had decided on a response but insisted that he was not seeking a wider war in the Middle East.

The White House warned that “multiple actions” could be taken in retaliation for the attack but gave no further details.

On Wednesday, Gen. Hossein Salami, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said threats by American officials “will not go unanswered”, IRNA reported.

“We are not looking for war, but we are not afraid of war,” said Salami.

Iran has denied any links to the attack on the US troops and said it was not seeking an “expansion” of conflict in the Middle East.

Regional tensions have intensified since the Hamas-Israel war, drawing in Iran-backed groups in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.

The Islamic republic has previously said it sees a “duty” to support what it calls “resistance groups” in the region but insists they are “independent” in decision and action.

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — Artillery fire pounded southern Gaza early on Wednesday as Israel said it has begun flooding Hamas tunnels and mediators sought a halt to the nearly four-month war.

The focus of the fighting in recent weeks has been Khan Yunis, the southern Gaza Strip's main city, where an AFP correspondent reported constant air strikes and shelling overnight.

The health ministry recorded at least 125 deaths across the territory in the latest Israeli strikes.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called his organisation's Palestinian refugee agency the "backbone" of Gaza aid on Wednesday after several countries suspended funding over Israeli claims 12 UNRWA staffers participated in the October 7 surprise attacks.

"Yesterday, I met with donors to listen to their concerns and to outline the steps we are taking to address them... UNRWA is the backbone of all humanitarian response in Gaza," Guterres told a UN committee on Palestinian rights.

UN agency chiefs said a bitter row over the main aid agency for Palestinians could "have catastrophic consequences for the people of Gaza".

Major donors, including Israel’s top ally the United States and Germany, have suspended funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, over accusations that several staff members were involved in the October 7 surprise attack that sparked the war.

Withholding the funds was “perilous and would result in the collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza”, the heads of the UN agencies said in a joint statement.

Meanwhile mediation efforts gathered pace following a Sunday meeting of top US, Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials that produced a proposed framework for a new truce and hostage release.

A Hamas official told AFP that a delegation headed by the group’s leader Ismail Haniyeh “will be in Cairo today or tomorrow [Wednesday or Thursday]” to discuss the proposal.

Following Hamas’s October 7 surprise attack, the Israeli military launched a withering air, land and sea offensive that has killed at least 26,900 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.

‘Constant fear’ 

In Khan Yunis, the Hamas government media office said there were “dozens of air raids” overnight and vast areas have been reduced to a muddy wasteland of bombed-out buildings.

According to witnesses, artillery shells hit the area of Nasser Hospital, the city’s largest, where the UN humanitarian agency OCHA has said thousands of displaced Palestinians are sheltering.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said on social media platform X that “Israeli shelling and gunfire continue” around another hospital in Khan Yunis.

Staff and patients at the Red Crescent’s Al Amal Hospital “and thousands of displaced people, primarily children and women, live in constant fear and anxiety”, it said.

Israel accuses Hamas of operating from tunnels under hospitals in Gaza and of using medical facilities as command centres, a charge denied by the Palestinian group, designated a “terrorist” organisation by the European Union and the United States.

The Israeli military said it had begun flooding the tunnels with water in a bid to “neutralise the threat of Hamas’ subterranean network”.

An AFP journalist witnessed people fleeing Khan Yunis on Tuesday as explosions sounded nearby.

“We left Nasser Hospital... under tank fire and air strikes. We didn’t know where to go,” said one woman.

“We’re out in the cold, left to fend for ourselves.”

Negotiations 

Qatar, which helped broker a previous truce and hostage release in November, voiced hope an initial deal now being negotiated might lead to a permanent ceasefire.

The Hamas official said the group is “open to discussing all issues, including prisoner exchange and reconstruction of the Gaza Strip”, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the talks.

The official reiterated Hamas’s demand for “a comprehensive and complete cessation of [Israel’s] aggression” and the withdrawal of its troops from Gaza.

Violence involving Iran-backed allies of Hamas across the Middle East has surged during the Hamas-Israel war, also drawing in US forces in the region.

President Joe Biden said Tuesday, without offering details, that he had decided on a response to a recent drone strike that killed three US troops in Jordan.

But “I don’t think we need a wider war in the Middle East,” Biden said. “That’s not what I’m looking for.”

A pro-Iran group in Iraq, Kataeb Hizbollah, said it would halt attacks on US “occupation forces, in order to prevent embarrassment to the Iraqi government”.

The United States and Britain have also launched a campaign of air strikes against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who have carried out repeated attacks on shipping in the Red Sea in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

The Houthis on Wednesday said they had fired “several” missiles at a US warship, hours after the US military said it had shot down another anti-ship missile over the vital trade route.

BEIRUT/GENEVA — Dozens demonstrated on Tuesday outside the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in Beirut against several countries' decision to suspend funding for the body after Israel charged some staff participated in Hamas's October 7 sudden attack.

At least 12 key donor countries have said they will halt funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency following the accusations, while UNRWA has fired several employees and promised a thorough investigation into the claims.

"We are afraid for the future of UNRWA," said Palestinian refugee Abu Mohammed, 65, who attended the protest organised by Hamas in Lebanon.

"All our children study in UNRWA schools and most of our medical care is covered by the agency," he said, urging countries "to reverse their decision".

"The suspension of aid would be catastrophic from a social and humanitarian perspective," he added.

UNRWA is charged with providing humanitarian aid and protection for Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem.

Tiny Lebanon hosts an estimated 250,000 Palestinian refugees, according to UNRWA, while almost double that number are registered for the organisation's services.

Most live in poverty.

"Even though I have a job, UNRWA helps me pay my rent and buy food," said Dima Dahouk, 40, a Palestinian and the sole breadwinner for her four children.

"My son who dreams of becoming an engineer had to temporarily drop out of school" to help support the family, she said.

“The situation is terrible,” she added, amid a four-year economic crisis in Lebanon that has plunged most of the population into poverty.

Aid groups on Tuesday condemned the countries that suspended funding to UNRWA, pointing to a “worsening humanitarian catastrophe” and “looming famine” in Gaza.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday the row over funding for the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency was distracting from the humanitarian disaster in Gaza.

It urged governments to keep backing UNRWA, which has seen several key donors suspend funding over Israel’s accusations that several staff were involved in the October 7 Hamas  surprise attack.

“Criminal activity can never go unpunished,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told a media briefing in Geneva.

“But the discussion... [is] a distraction from what’s really going on every day, every hour, every minute in Gaza.”

Israel’s bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza, now in their fourth month, have left much of the besieged Palestinian territory in ruins and many of its people on the verge of starving.

“We appeal to donors not to suspend their funding to UNRWA at this very critical moment. [It] will only hurt the people of Gaza who desperately need support,” said Lindmeier.

“As important as this discussion is, let’s not forget what the real issues are on the ground.”

At least 12 countries have stopped funding UNRWA in recent days.

The agency has fired several employees over Israel’s accusations and promised to investigate the claims, which were not specified.

 ‘Border of famine’ 

Lindmeier said UNRWA ran 22 health centres before the war but only six were still operating by mid-January.

“The population is really at the border of famine... It’s getting worse by the day,” he said.

“A malnourished population is very prone to catching diseases and infections.”

Israel’s relentless retaliation following Hamas’s October 7 surprise attack has killed at least 26,751 in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to health ministry in the besieged enclave.

Lindmeier said the UNRWA row diverted the world’s attention from the Gaza death toll and a siege “preventing an entire population from access to clean water, food and shelter”.

“It’s a distraction from preventing electricity to come into Gaza,” he said.

“It’s also a distraction from the continuous shelling of an entire population, even in areas that just moments before have been designated as safe areas.

“It’s a distraction from attacking shelters, schools, hospitals.”

On Tuesday, leading NGOs condemned the halt to UNRWA funding.

“The population faces starvation, looming famine and an outbreak of disease under Israel’s continued indiscriminate bombardment and deliberate deprivation of aid in Gaza,” they said.

TEHRAN — Iran on Tuesday summoned the British ambassador to Tehran to protest against London's "accusations" against the Islamic republic, state media reported.

"Following the continuation of the British regime's accusations against the Islamic Republic of Iran, Simon Shercliff, the British ambassador in Tehran, was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs... and was informed of our country's strong protest", IRNA state news agency said.

The statement did not elaborate on the accusations, but it comes after Britain accused Iran-aligned groups of being behind a deadly attack on US troops and, along with the United States, imposed sanctions on a network that they allege targets Iranian dissidents.

Iran, however, denied any links to the drone strike that killed three US military personnel and said it was not seeking an “expansion” of conflict in the Middle East.

The killing of three American troops on Sunday in a strike on an outpost near the Syrian border marked the first US military losses in the region since the Israel-Hamas war began.

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron condemned the “attacks by Iran-aligned militia groups against US forces”, while urging “Iran to de-escalate in the region”.

Iran slammed what it described as “baseless accusations” and said they were a “projection” and part of a “conspiracy of those who see their interests in dragging America’s foot into a new battle”.

Iran has previously said it sees it as “duty” to support what it calls “resistance groups” in the region but insists they are “independent” in decision and action.

The United States and Britain also on Monday announced a new wave of sanctions against Tehran over its alleged links with a network that targets Iranian dissidents in several countries.

London and Washington say the network, known as Zindashti’s network by the US Treasury, is run “at the behest of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security”.

Britain said it would “sanction seven individuals and one organisation, including senior Iranian officials and members of origanised criminal gangs who collaborate with the regime”.

TRIPOLI — Libyan authorities on Tuesday began sending more than 320 irregular migrants to their home country Nigeria, an immigration official told AFP.

War-torn Libya has become as a key departure point on North Africa’s Mediterranean coast for migrants, mainly from other parts of Africa, risking dangerous sea voyages in hopes of reaching Europe.

Libya’s rival administrations last year agreed on a Tripoli-based anti-immigration body tasked with coordinating deportations of foreigners who are in the country illegally.

“We carried out on Tuesday the expulsion of 163 irregular migrants of Nigerian nationality from the Mitiga airport, including 107 women, 51 men and five children,” said the migration agency’s head of security, Mohamad Baredaa.

In a move coordinated with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Baredaa added that “160 Nigerians will be sent back to their country from Benina airport in Benghazi” later on Tuesday.

An AFP correspondent saw the first group at Tripoli’s Mitiga airport early Tuesday, where they were given a laissez-passer before boarding shuttles to the plane.

According to the IOM, there are more than 700,000 migrants in Libya.

More than a decade of violence and instability since the 2011 overthrow and killing of dictator Muammar Qadhafi in a NATO-backed uprising helped turn the country into a fertile ground for human traffickers.

Smugglers and traffickers have long been accused of abuses.

In 2015, the UN-affiliated organisation established a “voluntary humanitarian return” scheme, arranging and financing travel for migrants and asylum seekers in Libya wishing to leave for their respective origin countries.

Last year, 9,370 people left under the programme, down from 11,200 in 2022, according to IOM figures.