LONDON: A religious school was attacked in Iran late Friday as public protests spread, in an uprising one policy expert said would continue “until the regime falls.”
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said Saturday that about 500 protesters attacked a seminary in the northern province of Alborz, hurling stones and leading to several arrests.
Protests have rocked major cities across Iran — including Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz and Mashhad — amid mounting anger over the country’s economy and political system.
Alireza Nader, an independent Iran scholar based in Washington, said the Iranian government was unlikely to listen to calls made by the protesters.
“Iran is experiencing a nationwide uprising which won’t end until the regime falls or makes fundamental reforms. History shows it won’t pursue the latter,” Nader told Arab News.
“Iranians simply have had enough of the misery inflicted on them over the past 40 years. The regime could resort to major violence, but that’s likely to create an even bigger rebellion.”
Videos shared on social media in recent days have shown crowds of protesters in several cities, chanting slogans such as “death to the dictator” and those demanding an end to Iran’s regional interventions in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
In the city of Mashhad, a cleric was seen in a video telling a sizeable crowd that “most of your representatives don’t care about people’s problems,” according to Qom News.
Nader said that the protests amount to the “most widespread anti-regime resistance movement” since the 1979 revolution in which Iran’s shah was overthrown.
The current protests follow unrest in December and January, when at least 25 people were killed in demonstrations that spread to dozens of towns and cities.
They come ahead of a new wave of US sanctions on Iran, the first phase of which will be introduced Tuesday, and involve blocks on financial transactions and imports of raw materials among other measures.
Iran protests ‘won’t end until regime falls’
Iran protests ‘won’t end until regime falls’
- About 500 protesters attacked a seminary in the northern province of Alborz
- Protests have rocked major cities across Iran amid mounting anger over the country’s economy and political system
Medical charity ‘may have to halt Gaza operations in March’
- MSF called this demand a “scandalous intrusion” but Israel says it was needed to stop extremists from infiltrating into humanitarian structures
PARIS: Banned from the Gaza Strip with 36 aid bodies, medical charity Doctors Without Borders said on Saturday it will have to end its operations there in March if Israel does not reverse its decision.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Friday for Israel to end a ban on humanitarian agencies that provided aid in Gaza, saying he was “deeply concerned” at the development.
Israel confirmed on Thursday that it was barring 37 major international humanitarian organizations from entering the Gaza Strip, accusing them
of failing to provide the list of their employees’ names, which is now officially required for “security” reasons.
FASTFACT
MSF has approximately 40 international staff in the Gaza Strip and employs 800 Palestinian staff across eight hospitals.
MSF called this demand a “scandalous intrusion” but Israel says it was needed to stop extremists from infiltrating into humanitarian structures.
“To work in Palestine, in the occupied Palestinian territories, we have to be registered ... That registration expired on Dec. 31, 2025,” said Isabelle Defourny, a physician and president of MSF France, on France Inter.
“Since July 2025, we have been involved in a re-registration process, and to date, we have not received a response. We still have 60 days during which we could work without being re-registered, and so we would have to end our activities in March,” if Israel maintains its decision, she said.
MSF has approximately 40 international staff in the Gaza Strip and employs 800 Palestinian staff across eight hospitals.
“We are the second-largest distributor of water (in the Gaza Strip). Last year, in 2025, we treated just over 100,000 people who were wounded, burned, or victims of various traumas. We are second in terms of the number of deliveries performed,” the president of MSF France said.
According to her, the Israeli decision is explained by the fact that NGOs “bear witness to the violence committed by the Israeli army” in Gaza.
The UN chief “calls for this measure to be reversed, stressing that international non-governmental organizations are indispensable to life-saving humanitarian work and that the suspension risks undermining the fragile progress made during the ceasefire,” his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in the statement.
“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” he added.
Several NGOS have said the requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence.
On Thursday, 18 Israel-based left-wing NGOs denounced the decision to ban their international peers, saying “the new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality.”
In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out.
Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to UN data, leaving infrastructure decimated.
About 1.5 million of Gaza’s more than 2 million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.
