For Iran’s youth, legacy of 2022 clashes shapes presidential race

For Iran’s youth, legacy of 2022 clashes shapes presidential race
All six candidates have been wooing youthful voters in speeches and campaign messages, using social media to reach the 60 percent of the 85 million population aged under 30. (AFP)
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Updated 24 June 2024
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For Iran’s youth, legacy of 2022 clashes shapes presidential race

For Iran’s youth, legacy of 2022 clashes shapes presidential race
  • All six candidates have been wooing youthful Iranian voters in speeches and campaign messages
  • Hashtag #ElectionCircus has been widely posted on social media platform X by Iranians

DUBAI: Atousa joined angry protests against Iran’s rulers in 2022 that loyalists like Reza helped crush. Two years on, the two young Iranians’ political views remain at odds, reflecting a rift that will shape the outcome of presidential elections this week. Now 22, Atousa says she will abstain from voting in Friday’s ballot to choose a successor to Ebrahim Raisi after his death in a helicopter crash, regarding the exercise with derision. But Reza, 26, a religiously devout member of the hardline Basij militia, intends to vote, a contrasting view of the worth of the election that underscores the division in Iran between supporters and opponents of the 45-year-old Islamic Republic.
All six candidates — five hard-liners and a low-key moderate approved by a hardline watchdog body — have been wooing youthful voters in speeches and campaign messages, using social media to reach the 60 percent of the 85 million population aged under 30.
“This election, like all elections in Iran, is a circus. Why should I vote when I want the regime to be toppled?” Atousa said. She declined to be identified by her full name for security reasons.
“Even if it was a free and fair election and if all candidates could enter the race, the president in Iran has no power,” she said.
The hashtag #ElectionCircus has been widely posted on social media platform X by Iranians in the past few weeks, while some Iranians at home and abroad have called for an election boycott.
Under Iran’s clerical system, the elected president runs the government day-to-day but his powers are circumscribed by those of the hardline supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last word on top issues such as nuclear and foreign policy.
‘RELIGIOUS DUTY TO VOTE’
Like many women and young Iranians, Atousa joined protests in 2022 sparked by the death of a young Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, in police custody, following her arrest for allegedly violating Iran’s mandatory Islamic dress code.
The unrest spiraled into the biggest show of opposition to Iran’s clerical rulers in years.
Atousa, then a student, was arrested during the protests and her dream of becoming an architect was shattered when she was expelled from university as a punishment for participating in the demonstrations.
The Basij, a plain-clothes arm of the elite Revolutionary Guards, deployed alongside uniformed security during the 2022 unrest and helped suppress demonstrations with deadly force.
Over 500 people including 71 minors were killed in the protests, hundreds injured and thousands arrested in unrest that was eventually crushed by security forces, rights groups said.
Iran carried out seven executions linked to the unrest. Authorities have not given any official estimated death toll, but said dozens of security forces were killed in “riots.”
“I will sacrifice my life for the leader and the Islamic Republic. It is my religious duty to vote. My participation will strengthen the Nezam (system),” said Reza, from the low-income Nazi Abad district in south Tehran.
Reza said he will support a hardline candidate who champions Khamenei’s “resistance economy,” a phrase meaning economic self-sufficiency, strengthening trade ties with regional neighbors and improving economic interaction with China and Russia.
The economy is beset by mismanagement, state corruption and sanctions reimposed since 2018 after the US ditched Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six world powers.
Reza and Atousa, both born after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, have regrets about the 2022 demonstrations, albeit for different reasons.
Reza blames the protests for bringing mounting pressure on Iran from Western countries, which imposed sanctions on Iranian security forces and officials for alleged human rights abuses. Iran accused Western powers of fomenting the unrest.
“I wish the protests had not taken place ... our enemies used it as a pretext to mount pressure on our country,” he said.
Atousa looks back on that period with sadness.
“I was hopeful,” she said. “I thought finally the change will come and I will be able to live a life with no suppression in a free country ... I paid a heavy price, but the regime is still here.”


Two Israeli strikes hit south Beirut: Lebanon state media

Two Israeli strikes hit south Beirut: Lebanon state media
Updated 7 sec ago
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Two Israeli strikes hit south Beirut: Lebanon state media

Two Israeli strikes hit south Beirut: Lebanon state media
BEIRUT: Lebanese state media reported two Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday, about an hour after the Israeli military posted evacuation calls online for parts of the Hezbollah bastion.
“Israeli warplanes launched two violent strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in the Kafaat area,” the official National News Agency said.
The southern Beirut area has been repeatedly struck since September 23 when Israel intensified its air campaign also targeting Hezbollah bastions in Lebanon’s east and south. It later sent in ground troops to southern Lebanon.
AFPTV footage showed grey smoke billowing over south Beirut.
The raids “caused massive destruction over a large geographical area” of the Kafaat district, NNA said.
Earlier Sunday, Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee warned on social media platform X that the military would strike “Hezbollah facilities and interests” in the Hadath and Burj Al-Barajneh districts, also sharing maps of the areas to be evacuated.
Full-on war erupted following nearly a year of limited exchanges of fire initiated by Iran-backed Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas, after the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack sparked the Gaza war.

Israel records 160 launches fom Lebanon as Hezbollah targets Tel Aviv, south

Israeli security forces and people inspect a damaged house at a site hit by rockets fired from Lebanon in Rinatya village.
Israeli security forces and people inspect a damaged house at a site hit by rockets fired from Lebanon in Rinatya village.
Updated 24 November 2024
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Israel records 160 launches fom Lebanon as Hezbollah targets Tel Aviv, south

Israeli security forces and people inspect a damaged house at a site hit by rockets fired from Lebanon in Rinatya village.
  • Medical agencies reported that at least 11 people were wounded, including a man in a “moderate to serious” condition

JERUSALEM: Israel’s army said Hezbollah fired around 160 projectiles into its territory from Lebanon on Sunday, with the group saying its attacks had targeted the Tel Aviv area and Israel’s south.
The Iran-backed group said in a statement that it had “launched, for the first time, an aerial attack using a swarm of attack drones on the Ashdod naval base” in southern Israel.
Later, it said it fired “a barrage of advanced missiles and a swarm of attack drones” at a “military target” in Tel Aviv, and had also launched a volley of missiles at the Glilot army intelligence base in the city’s suburbs.
The Israeli military did not comment on the specific attack claims when contacted by AFP.
But it said earlier that air raid sirens had sounded in several locations in central and northern Israel, including in the greater Tel Aviv suburbs.
It later reported that “approximately 160 projectiles that were fired by the Hezbollah terrorist organization have crossed from Lebanon into Israel.”
Some of the projectiles were shot down.
Medical agencies reported that at least 11 people were wounded, including a man in a “moderate to serious” condition.
AFP images from Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv, showed several damaged and burned-out cars, and a house pockmarked by shrapnel.
The wave of projectiles follows at least four deadly Israeli strikes in central Beirut in the past week, including one that killed Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif.
In a speech on Wednesday, Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem had said the response to the recent strikes on the capital “must be expected on central Tel Aviv.”
The Lebanese army, meanwhile, said that a soldier was killed on Sunday and 18 others injured, “including some with severe wounds, as a result of an Israeli attack targeting a Lebanese army center in Amriyeh.”
Though the Lebanese army is not a party to the war between Israel and Hezbollah, Israeli strikes have killed 19 Lebanese soldiers in the last two months, authorities have said.
Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign, later sending in ground troops after nearly a year of limited exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas after the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack, which sparked the Gaza war.
Lebanon’s health ministry says at least 3,670 people have been killed in the country since October 2023, most of them since September this year.


Israeli strike on Lebanese army center kills soldier, wounds 18 others

Israeli strike on Lebanese army center kills soldier, wounds 18 others
Updated 24 November 2024
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Israeli strike on Lebanese army center kills soldier, wounds 18 others

Israeli strike on Lebanese army center kills soldier, wounds 18 others
  • It was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes that have killed over 40 Lebanese troops
  • Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister condemned it as an assault on US-led ceasefire efforts

BEIRUT: An Israeli strike on a Lebanese army center on Sunday killed one soldier and wounded 18 others, the Lebanese military said.

It was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes that have killed over 40 Lebanese troops, even as the military has largely kept to the sidelines in the war between Israel and Hezbollah militants.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has said previous strikes on Lebanese troops were accidental and that they are not a target of its campaign against Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned it as an assault on US-led ceasefire efforts, calling it a “direct, bloody message rejecting all efforts and ongoing contacts” to end the war.

“(Israel is) again writing in Lebanese blood a brazen rejection of the solution that is being discussed,” a statement from his office read.

The strike occurred in southwestern Lebanon on the coastal road between Tyre and Naqoura, where there has been heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of the Gaza Strip ignited the war there. Hezbollah has portrayed the attacks as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians and Hamas. Iran supports both armed groups.

Israel has launched retaliatory airstrikes since the rocket fire began, and in September the low-level conflict erupted into all-out war, as Israel launched waves of airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon and killed Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several of his top commanders.

Israeli airstrikes early Saturday pounded central Beirut, killing at least 20 people and wounding 66, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Hezbollah has continued to fire regular barrages into Israel, forcing people to race for shelters and occasionally killing or wounding them.

Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The fighting has displaced about 1.2 million people, or a quarter of Lebanon’s population.

On the Israeli side, about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed by bombardments in northern Israel and in battle following Israel’s ground invasion in early October. Around 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from the country’s north.

The Biden administration has spent months trying to broker a ceasefire, and US envoy Amos Hochstein was back in the region last week.

The emerging agreement would pave the way for the withdrawal of Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops from southern Lebanon below the Litani River in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war. Lebanese troops would patrol the area, with the presence of UN peacekeepers.

Lebanon’s army reflects the religious diversity of the country and is respected as a national institution, but it does not have the military capability to impose its will on Hezbollah or resist Israel’s invasion.


EU’s Borrell urges pressure on Israel, Hezbollah to accept US ceasefire proposal

EU’s Borrell urges pressure on Israel, Hezbollah to accept US ceasefire proposal
Updated 24 November 2024
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EU’s Borrell urges pressure on Israel, Hezbollah to accept US ceasefire proposal

EU’s Borrell urges pressure on Israel, Hezbollah to accept US ceasefire proposal
  • The EU’s foreign policy chief warned that Lebanon was “on the brink of collapse”

BEIRUT: The European Union’s foreign policy chief called on Sunday during a visit to Beirut for pressure to be exerted on both the Israeli government and on Lebanon’s Hezbollah to accept a US ceasefire proposal.
Speaking at a news conference in Beirut, Josep Borell also urged Lebanese leaders to pick a president to end a two-year power vacuum in the country, and he pledged 200 million euros in support for Lebanon’s armed forces. 

Lebanon on 'brink of collapse'

The EU’s foreign policy chief warned that Lebanon was “on the brink of collapse” after Israel launched an intense air campaign two months ago following nearly a year of clashes with Hezbollah.
“Back in September I came and was still hoping we could prevent a full-fledged war of Israel attacking Lebanon. Two months later Lebanon is on the brink of collapse,” Josep Borrell told reporters in Beirut.


Israeli army orders Gaza City suburb evacuated, spurring new displacement wave

Israeli army orders Gaza City suburb evacuated, spurring new displacement wave
Updated 24 November 2024
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Israeli army orders Gaza City suburb evacuated, spurring new displacement wave

Israeli army orders Gaza City suburb evacuated, spurring new displacement wave
  • Israeli military blames Hamas rocket fire for renewed evacuation directive
  • Palestinians say hospitals in north Gaza barely functioning

CAIRO: The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders to residents in areas of an eastern Gaza City suburb, setting off a new wave of displacement on Sunday, and a Gaza hospital director was injured in an Israeli drone attack, Palestinian medics said.
The new orders for the Shejaia suburb posted by the Israeli army spokesperson on X on Saturday night were blamed on Palestinian militants firing rockets from that heavily built-up district in the north of the Gaza Strip.
“For your safety, you must evacuate immediately to the south,” the military’s post said. The rocket volley on Saturday was claimed by Hamas’ armed wing, which said it had targeted an Israeli army base over the border.
Footage circulated on social and Palestinian media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed residents leaving Shejaia on donkey carts and rickshaws, with others, including children carrying backpacks, walking.
Families living in the targeted areas began fleeing their homes after nightfall on Saturday and into Sunday’s early hours, residents and Palestinian media said — the latest in multiple waves of displacement since the war began 13 months ago.
In central Gaza, health officials said at least 10 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the urban camps of Al-Maghazi and Al-Bureij since Saturday night.
Hospital director wounded by gunfire
In north Gaza, where Israeli forces have been operating against regrouping Hamas militants since early last month, health officials said an Israeli drone dropped bombs on Kamal Adwan Hospital, injuring its director Hussam Abu Safiya.
“This will not stop us from completing our humanitarian mission and we will continue to do this job at any cost,” Abu Safiya said in a video statement circulated by the health ministry on Sunday.
“We are being targeted daily. They targeted me a while ago but this will not deter us...,” he said from his hospital bed.
Israeli forces say armed militants use civilian buildings including housing blocks, hospitals and schools for operational cover. Hamas denies this, accusing Israeli forces of indiscriminately targeting populated areas.
Kamal Adwan is one of three hospitals in north Gaza that are barely operational as the health ministry said the Israeli forces have detained and expelled medical staff and prevented emergency medical, food and fuel supplies from reaching them.
In the past few weeks, Israel said it had facilitated the delivery of medical and fuel supplies and the transfer of patients from north Gaza hospitals in collaboration with international agencies such as the World Health Organization.
Residents in three embattled north Gaza towns — Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun — said Israeli forces had blown up hundreds of houses since renewing operations in an area that Israel said months ago had been cleared of militants.
Palestinians say Israel appears determined to depopulate the area permanently to create a buffer zone along the northern edge of Gaza, an accusation Israel denies.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 44,000 people, uprooted nearly all the enclave’s 2.3 million population at least once, according to Gaza officials, while reducing wide swathes of the narrow coastal territory to rubble.
The war erupted in response to a cross-border attack by Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, 2023 in which gunmen killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.