Iraq denies any role in sanctioned Iran oil smuggling
Iraq denies any role in sanctioned Iran oil smuggling/node/2611115/middle-east
Iraq denies any role in sanctioned Iran oil smuggling
In early July, the US State Department sanctioned six entities and identified four vessels as having “knowingly engaged in a significant transaction for the purchase, acquisition, sale, transport, or marketing” of Iranian petroleum products. (FILE/AFP)
Short Url
https://arab.news/z7tvn
Updated 7 sec ago
AFP
Iraq denies any role in sanctioned Iran oil smuggling
Iraqi authorities denied on Friday that the country had played any part in Iranian efforts to evade US sanctions on oil exports after Washington last month linked a local businessman to the practice
Updated 7 sec ago
AFP
BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities denied on Friday that the country had played any part in Iranian efforts to evade US sanctions on oil exports after Washington last month linked a local businessman to the practice.
In early July, the US State Department sanctioned six entities and identified four vessels as having “knowingly engaged in a significant transaction for the purchase, acquisition, sale, transport, or marketing” of Iranian petroleum products.
Among the sanctioned entities was a network of companies run by Iraqi businessman Salim Ahmed Said accused of having “profited from smuggling Iranian oil disguised as, or blended with, Iraqi oil.”
On Friday, the director of Iraq’s state oil marketing company SOMO denied any Iraqi role in such sanctions evasion.
“There are no smuggling or (petroleum) blending operations at Iraqi ports or in its territorial waters,” Ali Nizar told the official INA press agency.
“It is totally false to speak of the existence of sites allowing the smuggling of Iraqi oil and mixture with oil from neighboring countries.”
On Tuesday, an AFP journalist, at the invitation of authorities, accompanied naval personnel on an operation to inspect the paperwork of oil vessels in territorial waters off southern Iraq.
Iran has denounced US sanctions on its oil sector, calling a subsequent round of restrictions in late July a “a malicious act aimed at undermining the economic development and welfare of the Iranian people.”
Deaf Palestinian uses social media to highlight Gaza’s struggles through sign language
Basem Alhabel describes himself as a ‘deaf journalist in Gaza’ on his Instagram account
He wants to raise more awareness of the conflict by informing Palestinians and people abroad with special needs
Updated 16 sec ago
Reuters
GAZA: Basem Alhabel stood among the ruins of Gaza, with people flat on the floor all around him as bullets flew, and filmed himself using sign language to explain the dangers of the war to fellow deaf Palestinians and his followers on social media. Alhabel, 30, who describes himself as a “deaf journalist in Gaza” on his Instagram account, says he wants to raise more awareness of the conflict – from devastating Israeli air strikes to the starvation now affecting most of the population – by informing Palestinians and people abroad with special needs. Bombarded by Israel for nearly two years, many Gazans complain the world does not hear their voices despite mass suffering with a death toll that exceeds 60,000 people, according to Gaza health authorities in the demolished enclave. “I wished to get my voice out to the world and the voices of the deaf people who cannot speak or hear, to get their voice out there, so that someone can help us,” he said through his friend and interpreter Mohammed Moshtaha, who he met during the war. “I tried to help, to film and do a video from here and there, and publish them so that we can make our voices heard in the world.” Alhabel has an Instagram following of 141,000. His page, which shows him in a flak jacket and helmet, features images of starving, emaciated children and other suffering. He films a video then returns to a tent to edit – one of the many where Palestinians have sought shelter and safety during the war, which erupted when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel in October 2023, drawing massive retaliation. Alhabel produced images of people collecting flour from the ground while he used sign language to explain the plight of Gazans, reinforcing the view of a global hunger monitor that has warned a famine scenario is unfolding. “As you can see, people are collecting flour mixed with sand,” he communicated. Alhabel and his family were displaced when the war started. They stayed in a school with tents. “There was no space for a person to even rest a little. I stayed in that school for a year and a half,” he explained. Alhabel is likely to be busy for some time. There are no signs of a ceasefire on the horizon despite mediation efforts. Israel’s political security cabinet approved a plan early on Friday to take control of Gaza City, as the country expands its military operations despite intensifying criticism at home and abroad over the war. “We want this situation to be resolved so that we can all be happy, so I can feed my children, and life can be beautiful,” said Alhabel.
UN asks Israel to immediately halt plan to control Gaza/node/2611091/middle-east
UN asks Israel to immediately halt plan to control Gaza
Australia, Britain also urge Israel to reconsider its decision to take over Gaza City
The Turkish foreign ministry strongly condemns Israel's decision saying it dealt a heavy blow to global peace
Updated 45 min 43 sec ago
Agencies
SYDNEY/GENEVA: UN human rights chief Volker Turk on Friday said that “the Israeli Government’s plan for a complete military takeover of the occupied Gaza Strip must be immediately halted.”
“It runs contrary to the ruling of the International Court of Justice that Israel must bring its occupation to an end as soon as possible, to the realization of the agreed two-State solution and to the right of Palestinians to self-determination,” he said in a statement.
The Turkish foreign ministry also strongly condemned Israel’s decision to take control of Gaza City, saying every step taken by the “fundamentalist Netanyahu government” to continue its genocide and expand its occupation dealt a heavy blow to global peace and security.
Australia earlier urged Israel “not to go down this path,” after Prime Minister Netanyahu said Israel intended to take military control of Gaza.
“Australia calls on Israel to not go down this path, which will only worsen the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in a statement on Friday.
Wong said permanent forced displacement was a violation of international law and repeated calls for a ceasefire, aid to flow unimpeded and for militant group Hamas to return the hostages taken in October 2023.
“A two-state solution is the only pathway to secure an enduring peace – a Palestinian state and the State of Israel, living side-by-side in peace and security within internationally-recognized borders,” she added.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday also said Israel’s decision to take control of Gaza City was wrong and urged the government in Jerusalem to reconsider.
“The Israeli Government’s decision to further escalate its offensive in Gaza is wrong, and we urge it to reconsider immediately,” he said in a statement.
“This action will do nothing to bring an end to this conflict or to help secure the release of the hostages. It will only bring more bloodshed.”
Australia has not yet joined Western allies such as the UK, Canada and France in announcing it would recognize Palestinian statehood but has said it would make a decision “at an appropriate time,” while escalating its criticism of Israel’s actions.
Wong’s comments come in response to Netanyahu saying Israel intended to take military control of all of Gaza during an interview with Fox News.
He said Israel wanted to hand over the territory to Arab forces that would govern it, without elaborating on the governance arrangements or which Arab countries could be involved.
After a security cabinet meeting on Friday, Netanyahu’s office confirmed a plan to take over Gaza City had been approved.
A statement said the Israeli Defense Forces would prepare to take control of Gaza City while providing humanitarian aid to the civilian population outside the combat zones.
China also expressed “serious concerns” over Israel’s plan to take control of Gaza City, urging it to “immediately cease its dangerous actions”.
“Gaza belongs to the Palestinian people and is an inseparable part of Palestinian territory,” a foreign ministry spokesperson said in a message.
“The correct way to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and to secure the release of hostages is an immediate ceasefire,” they added.
“A complete resolution to the Gaza conflict hinges on a ceasefire; only then can a path to de-escalation be paved and regional security ensured,” the spokesperson said.
Palestinian ex-footballer killed by Israeli forces in Gaza
Former Palestine national team player Suleiman Al-Obeid, known as the “Palestinian Pele,” has been killed by Israeli gunfire in the Gaza Strip, the sport’s local governing body said
Updated 08 August 2025
AFP
JERUSALEM: Former Palestine national team player Suleiman Al-Obeid, known as the “Palestinian Pele,” has been killed by Israeli gunfire in the Gaza Strip, the sport’s local governing body said.
Obeid, 41, was killed Wednesday when Israeli forces “targeted people waiting for humanitarian aid in the southern Gaza Strip,” the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) said in a statement.
With Gaza in the throes of a hunger crisis, the UN rights office said last month that Israeli forces had killed more than 1,300 Palestinians trying to get food aid in the territory since late May.
An ex-star of the Khadamat Al-Shati club in Gaza, Obeid played 24 international matches for team Palestine, the PFA said.
“During his long career, Al-Obeid scored more than 100 goals, making him one of the brightest stars of Palestinian football,” it added.
The midfielder also played for the Al-Amari Youth Center Club in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
While living there in 2010, Obeid was among six players on the national team from Gaza who were turned back at the Jordanian border for “security reasons” on their way to a friendly in Mauritania.
An Israeli security official said at the time that the players had failed to renew special permits allowing them to play in the West Bank.
“When I heard that we would be forbidden from traveling I was very upset, because any athlete dreams of wearing his national jersey in international forums,” Obeid told AFP in 2010.
“We want to be able to travel freely with our families, just like athletes anywhere else in the world.”
Israel had previously allowed the six players to travel with the team.
Born in Gaza City, Obeid was married and had five children.
Since the start of the Gaza war, triggered by Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, 662 people from the sport and scouting sector have been killed, including 321 in the football community, according to the PFA.
Israel’s offensive has killed at least 61,258 in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
The 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israeli Security Cabinet approves plan to take over Gaza City in escalation of war
Netanyahu earlier said Israel planned to retake control over the entire territory and eventually hand it off to friendly Arab forces opposed to Hamas
Israel has repeatedly bombarded Gaza City and carried out numerous raids there, only to return to different neighborhoods again and again as militants regrouped
Updated 08 August 2025
AP
TEL AVIV: Israel’s Security Cabinet has approved a plan to take over Gaza City, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said. The decision taken early Friday marks another escalation of Israel’s 22-month offensive launched in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
The war has already killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, destroyed much of Gaza and pushed the territory of some 2 million Palestinians toward famine.
Ahead of the Security Cabinet meeting, which began Thursday and ran through the night, Netanyahu said Israel planned to retake control over the entire territory and eventually hand it off to friendly Arab forces opposed to Hamas.
The announced plans stop short of that, perhaps reflecting the reservations of Israel’s top general, who reportedly warned that it would endanger the remaining 20 or so living hostages held by Hamas and further strain Israel’s army after nearly two years of regional wars. Many families of hostages are also opposed, fearing further escalation will doom their loved ones.
Israel has repeatedly bombarded Gaza City and carried out numerous raids there, only to return to different neighborhoods again and again as militants regrouped. Today it is one of the few areas of Gaza that hasn’t been turned into an Israeli buffer zone or placed under evacuation orders.
A major ground operation there could displace tens of thousands of people and further disrupt efforts to deliver food to the territory.
It’s unclear how many people reside in the city, which was Gaza’s largest before the war. Hundreds of thousands fled Gaza City under evacuation orders in the opening weeks of the war but many returned during a ceasefire at the start of this year.
Expanding war risks countless lives and could further isolate Israel
Expanding military operations in Gaza would put the lives of countless Palestinians and the roughly 20 remaining Israeli hostages at risk while further isolating Israel internationally. Israel already controls around three quarters of the devastated territory.
Families of hostages held in Gaza fear an escalation could doom their loved ones, and some protested outside the Security Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. Former top Israeli security officials have also come out against the plan, warning of a quagmire with little added military benefit.
An Israeli official had earlier said the Security Cabinet would discuss plans to conquer all or parts of Gaza not yet under Israeli control. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity pending a formal decision, said that whatever is approved would be implemented gradually to increase pressure on Hamas.
Israel’s air and ground war has killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza, displaced most of the population, destroyed vast areas and caused severe and widespread hunger. Palestinians are braced for further misery.
“There is nothing left to occupy,” said Maysaa Al-Heila, who is living in a displacement camp. “There is no Gaza left.”
At least 42 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes and shootings across southern Gaza on Thursday, according to local hospitals.
‘We don’t want to keep it’
Asked in an interview with Fox News ahead of the Security Cabinet meeting if Israel would “take control of all of Gaza,” Netanyahu replied: “We intend to, in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free of Gaza.”
“We don’t want to keep it. We want to have a security perimeter,” Netanyahu said in the interview. “We want to hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us and giving Gazans a good life.”
The Security Cabinet, which would need to approve such a decision, began meeting Thursday evening, according to Israeli media, and it was expected to stretch into the night.
Israel’s military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, warned against occupying Gaza, saying it would endanger the hostages and put further strain on the military after nearly two years of war, according to Israeli media reports.
Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200 in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals but 50 remain inside Gaza, around 20 of them believed by Israel to be alive.
Almost two dozen relatives of hostages set sail from southern Israel toward the maritime border with Gaza on Thursday, where they broadcast messages from loudspeakers.
Yehuda Cohen, the father of Nimrod Cohen, an Israeli soldier held in Gaza, said from the boat that Netanyahu is prolonging the war to satisfy extremists in his governing coalition. Netanyahu’s far-right allies want to escalate the war, relocate most of Gaza’s population to other countries and reestablish Jewish settlements that were dismantled in 2005.
“Netanyahu is working only for himself,” Cohen said.
Palestinians killed and wounded as they seek food
Israel’s military offensive has killed over 61,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals who keep and share detailed records.
The United Nations and independent experts view the ministry’s figures as the most reliable estimate of casualties. Israel has disputed them without offering a toll of its own.
Of the 42 people killed on Thursday, at least 13 were seeking aid in an Israeli military zone in southern Gaza where UN aid convoys are regularly overwhelmed by looters and desperate crowds. Another two were killed on roads leading to nearby sites run by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an American contractor, according to Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies.
GHF said there were no violent incidents at or near its sites on Thursday. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. The military zone, known as the Morag Corridor, is off limits to independent media.
Hundreds of people have been killed in recent weeks while heading to GHF sites and in chaotic scenes around UN convoys, most of which are overwhelmed by looters and crowds of hungry people. The UN human rights office, witnesses and health officials say Israeli forces have regularly opened fire toward the crowds going back to May, when Israel lifted a complete 2 1/2 month blockade.
The military says it has only fired warning shots when crowds approach its forces. GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired into the air on some occasions to prevent deadly stampedes. Israel and GHF face mounting criticism
Doctors Without Borders, a medical charity known by its French acronym MSF, published a blistering report denouncing the GHF distribution system. “This is not aid. It is orchestrated killing, ” it said.
MSF runs two health centers very close to GHF sites in southern Gaza and said it had treated 1,380 people injured near the sites between June 7 and July 20, including 28 people who were dead upon arrival. Of those, at least 147 had suffered gunshot wounds — including at least 41 children.
MSF said hundreds more suffered physical assault injuries from chaotic scrambles for food at the sites, including head injuries, suffocation, and multiple patients with severely aggravated eyes after being sprayed at close range with pepper spray. It said the cases it saw were only a fraction of the overall casualties connected to GHF sites; a nearby Red Cross field hospital has independently reported receiving thousands of people wounded by gunshots as they sought aid.
“The level of mismanagement, chaos and violence at GHF distribution sites amounts to either reckless negligence or a deliberately designed death trap,” the report said.
GHF said the “accusations are both false and disgraceful” and accused MSF of “amplifying a disinformation campaign” orchestrated by Hamas.
The US and Israel helped set up the GHF system as an alternative to the UN-run aid delivery system that has sustained Gaza for decades, accusing Hamas of siphoning off assistance. The UN denies any mass diversion by Hamas. It accuses GHF of forcing Palestinians to risk their lives to get food and say it advances Israel’s plans for further mass displacement.
Israeli minister vows ‘return’ to evacuated West Bank settlement
Updated 08 August 2025
AFP
SANUR, Palestinian Territories: An Israeli minister has announced plans to rebuild Sa-Nur, a settlement in the occupied West Bank that was evacuated two decades ago, as the far right spearheads a major settlement expansion push.
Sa-Nur’s settlers were evicted in 2005 as part of Israel’s so-called disengagement policy that also saw the country withdraw troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip.
Many in the Israeli settler movement have since called to return to Sa-Nur and other evacuated settlements in the northern West Bank.
During a visit to the area on Thursday, accompanied by families who claim they are preparing to move there, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stated that “we are correcting the mistake of the expulsion” in 2005.
“Even back then, we knew that ... we would one day return to all the places we were driven out of,” said the far-right minister who lives in a settlement. “That applies to Gaza, and it’s even more true here.”
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority issued a strong condemnation for Thursday’s visit, which it regards as part of Israel’s “plans to entrench the gradual annexation of the West Bank, posing a direct threat to the possibility of implementing the two-state solution.”
In a statement, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said the push “to revive settlements that were evacuated 20 years ago” would lead to further confiscation of Palestinian lands. Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, are illegal under international law and seen by the international community as a major obstacle to lasting peace, undermining the territorial integrity of any future Palestinian state.
In May, Israel announced the creation of 22 settlements, including Sa-Nur and Homesh — two of the four northern West Bank settlements that were evacuated in 2005.
Israeli NGO Peace Now, which monitors settlement activity in the West Bank, said some of the 22 settlements the government announced as new had in fact already existed on the ground.
Some are neighborhoods that were upgraded to independent settlements, and others are unrecognized outposts given formal status under Israeli law, according to Peace New.
The West Bank is home to some three million Palestinians as well as about 500,000 Israeli settlers.
Settlement expansion in the West Bank has continued under all Israeli governments since 1967, but it has intensified significantly under the current government alongside the displacement of Palestinian farming communities, particularly since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023.
