TEHRAN: A Princeton scholar held for three years in Iran on widely criticized espionage charges was freed Saturday as part of a prisoner exchange that saw America release a detained Iranian scientist, a rare diplomatic breakthrough between Tehran and Washington after months of tensions.
The trade on the tarmac of a Swiss airport saw Iranian officials hand over Chinese-American graduate student Xiyue Wang for scientist Massoud Soleimani, who had faced a federal trial in Georgia over charges he violated sanctions by trying to have biological material brought to Iran.
The swap, however, had clear limits. Crushing US sanctions on Iran blocking it from selling crude oil abroad remain in place, part of President Donald Trump’s maximum pressure campaign imposed following his unilateral withdraw from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers last year. Those sanctions in part fueled the anger seen in nationwide protests last month that Iranian security forces violently put down, unrest that reportedly killed over 200 people.
Meanwhile, Western detainees from the US and elsewhere remain held by Tehran, likely to be used as bargaining chips for future negotiations. At least two American families of detainees, while praising Wang’s release, questioned why their loved ones didn’t come home as well.
Wang’s release had been rumored over recent days. One lawyer involved in his case tweeted out a Bible verse about an angel freeing the apostle Peter just hours before Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif broke the news in his own tweet. He posted pictures of himself with Soleimani at the Zurich airport before quickly whisking him back to Tehran by jet.
Trump shortly after acknowledged Wang was free in a statement from the White House, thanking Switzerland for its help. The Swiss Embassy in Tehran looks out for America’s interests in the country as the US Embassy there has been closed since the 1979 student takeover and 444-day hostage crisis.
“Thank you to Iran on a very fair negotiation,” Trump later tweeted. “See, we can make a deal together!”
Brian Hook, the US special representative for Iran, accompanied the Soleimani to Switzerland to make the exchange. He later posed for a photograph with Wang, who carried a folded American flag in his arms while wearing gray workout clothes.
Hook and Wang traveled to Landstuhl hospital near Ramstein Air Base in Germany where Wang likely will be examined by doctors for several days.
Wang’s wife, Hua Qu, released a statement saying “our family is complete once again.”
“Our son Shaofan and I have waited three long years for this day and it’s hard to express in words how excited we are to be reunited with Xiyue,” she said. “We are thankful to everyone who helped make this happen.”
Soleimani arrived at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport with Zarif, where his wife and family wrapped garlands of yellow and purple carnations around his neck. He briefly spoke to journalists from state-run media, his voice shaking and a tear running down his face under a portrait of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Wang was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Iran for allegedly “infiltrating” the country and sending confidential material abroad. Wang was arrested in 2016 while conducting research on the Qajar dynasty that once ruled Iran for his doctorate in late 19th- and early 20th-century Eurasian history, according to Princeton.
Wang’s family and Princeton strongly denied the claims. The United Nations’ Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said “there was no legal basis for the arrest and detention.”
Westerners and Iranian dual nationals with ties to the West often find themselves tried and convicted in closed-door trials, only later to be used as bargaining chips in negotiations.
Soleimani works in stem cell research, hematology and regenerative medicine. He and his lawyers maintained his innocence, saying he seized on a former student’s plans to travel from the US to Iran in September 2016 as a chance to get recombinant proteins used in his research for a fraction of the price he’d pay at home.
Zarif in September said in an interview with NPR that he had pushed for an exchange of Wang for Soleimani. Speaking in Tehran on Saturday night, Zarif referred to Wang as a “spy” who received his release due to “Islamic mercy.”
It remains unclear whether this exchange will have a wider effect on Iranian-US relations. Iran has accused the US without evidence of being behind the mid-November protests over gasoline prices. The demonstrations and the crackdown reportedly killed at least 208 people, though Iran has refused to release nationwide statistics over the unrest.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ruled out direct talks between the nations.
A US official, speaking to journalists on condition of anonymity to discuss negotiations with Iran, suggested the maximum pressure campaign targeting Tehran would continue.
“There’s been absolutely no payment of cash or lifting of sanctions or any sort of concessions or ransom in any of these cases, and certainly not with respect to Mr. Wang,” the official said.
There had been signs a swap could be coming. In June, Iran released Nizar Zakka, a US permanent resident from Lebanon who advocated for Internet freedom and has done work for the US government. The US then deported Iranian Negar Ghodskani in September, who had been brought from Australia and later sentenced to time served for conspiracy to illegally export restricted technology to Iran.
Others held in Iran include US Navy veteran Michael White, who is serving a 10-year espionage sentence, as well as environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, an Iranian with US and British citizenship also initially sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Also in Iran are 83-year-old Baquer Namazi and his son, Siamak Namazi, dual Iranian-American nationals facing 10-year sentences after they were convicted of collaborating with a hostile power. Baquer Namazi now is on a prison furlough, said Alireza Miryousefi, a spokesman at Iran’s mission to the United Nations. However, the Namazis say he remains unable to leave Iran.
Babak Namazi, Baquer’s son and Siamak’s brother, issued a statement saying he was “beyond devastated that a second president” had left the two behind. An earlier 2016 prisoner swap as the nuclear deal took effect saw prisoners including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian released but not the Namazis.
Former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who vanished in Iran in 2007 while on an unauthorized CIA mission, remains missing as well. Iran says that Levinson is not in the country and that it has no further information about him, but his family holds Tehran responsible for his disappearance.
“We can’t help but be extremely disappointed that, despite all its efforts, the United States government was unable to secure his release, especially after such a painful week for our family,” the Levinson family said in a statement. “Iranian authorities continue to play a cruel game with our father’s life, and with our family. But the world knows the truth, and Iranian leadership must come clean.”
Iran frees Chinese-American scholar for US-held scientist
Iran frees Chinese-American scholar for US-held scientist
- President Donald Trump separately acknowledged Wang was free in a statement from the White House, saying he “is returning to the United States”
- Tensions have been high between Iran and the US since President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers in May 2018
Israel government shaken by ultra-Orthodox conscription row
- Military service is obligatory for all young Israelis – 32 months for men, and two years for women
- But almost all the ultra-Orthodox have been able to escape it
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara sent shock waves through the government — which is reliant on ultra-Orthodox parties — declaring Wednesday there was no legal framework to the continuing exemptions.
This means that ultra-Orthodox will be liable to be called up from April 1, as Israel’s war against Hamas militants rages in the Gaza Strip.
The government has set itself a Thursday deadline to strike a deal.
With the war in Gaza, pressure has increased on the country’s large and growing ultra-orthodox community who have long been spared military service which is compulsory for everyone else.
After several legal challenges to the exemptions, the Supreme Court gave the government until Wednesday to draw up a new conscription bill.
But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been unable to get agreement on the deeply divisive issue, with his ultra-Orthodox allies fiercely opposed to conscription for their community.
The government has asked for a short extension to the Supreme Court deadline in the hope of formulating a deal.
The coalition depends on two large ultra-Orthodox parties.
Last year the government voted through unprecedented funding equivalent to just over $1 billion for orthodox religious schools, or yeshivas.
Netanyahu is working, at any cost, on “avoiding an early election” that would benefit Benny Gantz, a centrist member of his war cabinet, Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute think tank, has said.
Recent polls suggest that if there were an election, Gantz’s party would win the largest number of seats.
Before the war in Gaza, the religious parties had also supported Netanyahu’s controversial judicial reforms, in the hopes of further extending military exemptions.
The judicial revamp sparked months of protests, often by tens of thousands of Israelis.
But Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in February announced a reform of military service that would include the ultra-Orthodox. Some Israeli media perceived Gallant’s move as a challenge to Netanyahu. Both men belong to the same Likud party.
Military service is obligatory for all young Israelis — 32 months for men, and two years for women.
But almost all the ultra-Orthodox have been able to escape it, with 66,000 members of the community excused from military service last year alone.
Jewish men who study the Torah full-time in religious schools have long been granted an annual deferment from military service until the age of 26, at which point they become exempt.
Young ultra-Orthodox women are automatically exempt.
The exemptions date from Israel’s founding in 1948, and were meant to allow a group of 400 young people to study sacred texts and preserve Jewish traditions, much of which had been lost during the Holocaust.
But today’s ultra-Orthodox number 1.3 million people, according to the Israel Democracy Institute — bolstered by a fertility rate of more than six children per woman, compared with the national average of 2.5.
Most ultra-Orthodox want the exemptions to be extended to all religious students, saying serving in the military is incompatible with their values.
US says it downed four Yemen rebel drones in Red Sea
- US military says the unmanned aerial systems presented threat to merchant vessels
- It says the action was taken to protect freedom of navigation in international waters
WASHINGTON: The United States military said Wednesday it had downed four drones launched by Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen aimed at a US warship in the Red Sea.
US Central Command said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter, that its forces had “engaged and destroyed four long-range unmanned aerial systems” at around 2 am Sanaa time (2300 GMT), adding there were no injuries or damage reported to US or coalition ships.
“It was determined these weapons presented an imminent threat to merchant vessels and US Navy ships in the region,” the statement said.
“These actions are taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for US Navy and merchant vessels,” it added.
In November, the Houthis launched a campaign of drone and missile strikes against vessels in the Red Sea, an area vital for world trade, in professed solidarity with Palestinians during Israel’s war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
US and British forces have responded with strikes against the Houthis, who have since declared American and British interests to be legitimate targets as well.
Outpouring of anger as thousands of Jordanians protest at Israeli embassy
- Surge in protests sparked by claims of Israeli soldiers raping, executing Palestinian women
- Many of Jordan’s 12m citizens are descendants of displaced Palestinians
AMMAN: Thousands of Jordanians marched to the Israeli embassy in Amman on Wednesday for the fourth consecutive day in an outpouring of anger at Israel’s brutal war on Gaza.
“The people demand the end of Wadi Araba,” some chanted, referring to Jordan’s 1994 peace treaty with Israel.
Protestors, who began gathering at the Kaloti mosque around 10 p.m., were met by hundreds of security personal and military tanks in anticipation of the planned march to the heavily fortified Israeli embassy nearby.
Ambulances and medical teams were stationed as a precaution in the wake of days marked by violent confrontations between protestors and riot police.
Jordan has had some of the largest peaceful protests in the region since October, with regular marches in downtown Amman drawing hundreds of thousands of people on consecutive Fridays.
However, several demonstrators on Wednesday told Arab News the recent surge of daily gatherings near the Israel embassy were triggered by claims by Jamila Al-Hissi, a Palestinian woman, who told Al Jazeera Arabic of Israeli soldiers torturing, raping and executing women inside Al-Shifa hospital.
There have been reports that Al-Hissa’s claimed were denied on March 25 by a former Al Jazeera executive, who referenced a purported Hamas investigation.
Jordanians have felt the impact of the war in Gaza deeply, where Israel’s relentless bombing has killed over 32,000 Palestinians.
Many of Jordan’s 12 million citizens are descendants of Palestinians who fled or were expelled during the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict.
“I’m devastated that we haven’t been able to help Gaza. The least that we can do is to be here so that our brothers and sisters in Palestine know that we’re standing with them,” 29-year-old Haneen Ashour told Arab News.
Popular chants like “No Zionist embassy on Jordanian soil” reflect the widespread public opposition to diplomatic normalization with Israel, seen as a betrayal of the Palestinians suffering under occupation.
Despite the large turnout and passionate demonstrations, some protesters have expressed doubt about the impact of their actions.
“This is our duty and it’s the least that we can do, but to be honest with you I don’t (know if) these protests are making any difference. If they were, we wouldn’t be 171 days into the war in Gaza,” 24-year-old Ammar Najar said.
Several protesters were beaten in previous days, and dozens were arrested as they attempted to break a heavy police cordon around the embassy, witnesses said.
Jordan’s authorities allow protests but say they cannot tolerate any attempt to storm the embassy, instigate civic unrest or try to reach borders with the occupied West Bank or Israel.
Gun attack on school bus in West Bank wounds 3 Israelis: army
- Soldiers were pursuing the suspect
JERUSALEM: Medics and the army said three people including a boy were wounded in a gun attack Thursday that targeted a school bus near the city of Jericho in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
After reports that a militant fired toward “a number of vehicles,” soldiers were sent to the scene near the town of Al-Auja, the military said, adding that soldiers were pursuing the suspect.
The military confirmed a school bus had been targeted.
A 30-year-old man was in serious condition with gunshot wounds, while a 21-year-old man was less seriously wounded and a 13-year-old boy suffered shrapnel injuries, emergency services said.
Israeli public radio said the masked gunman started shooting at Israeli cars at around 7:00 a.m. local time, hitting a car and a school bus.
Violence has surged in the West Bank since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip in October. The war began with Hamas’s unprecedented attack against Israel on October 7 that left about 1,160 people dead.
More than 440 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops or settlers in the West Bank since the war broke out, according to the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the West Bank.
At least 17 Israeli soldiers and civilians have been killed in attacks there over the same period, say the Israeli authorities.
Israeli strikes on Rafah raise fear ground assault could begin
- Israeli forces just north of Rafah kept the two main hospitals in Khan Younis, Al-Amal and Nasser Hospital, under a blockade imposed late last week
- In the north, they were still operating inside Al Shifa Hospital, which they stormed more than a week ago
GAZA STRIP: Israel bombed at least four homes in Rafah on Wednesday, raising new fear among the more than a million Palestinians sheltering in the last refuge on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip that a long-threatened ground assault could be coming.
One of the airstrikes killed 11 people from a single family, health officials said.
Mussa Dhaheer, looking on from below as neighbors helped an emergency worker lower a victim in a black body bag from an upper story, said he had awakened to the blast, kissed his terrified daughter, and rushed outside to find the destruction. His father, 75, and mother, 62, were among the dead.
“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. I can’t make sense of what happened. My parents. My father with his displaced friends who came from Gaza City,” he told Reuters.
“They were all together, when suddenly they were all gone like dust.”
At another bomb site, Jamil Abu Houri said the intensification of air strikes was Israel’s way of showing its disdain for a UN Security Council resolution last week demanding an immediate Israel-Hamas ceasefire.
Next up, he fears a ground assault on Rafah, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to carry out despite warnings from closest ally Washington that this would wreak a humanitarian disaster.
“The bombing has increased, and they have threatened us with an incursion, and they say that have been given the green light for the Rafah incursion. Where is the Security Council?” Abu Houri said.
A US official said on Wednesday Israel had asked to reschedule a meeting in Washington to discuss its plans for Rafah, days after Netanyahu abruptly canceled the talks over the passage of a Gaza ceasefire resolution by the UN Security Council that the US decided not to veto.
The US abstention from the vote pointed to frustration with Netanyahu, who rebuked Washington over the move.
More deadly airstrikes
Another Israeli airstrike in Rafah on Wednesday afternoon killed four Palestinians including a woman and a child and injured other residents, Gaza health authorities said.
Just west of Gaza City in the enclave’s north, seven people were killed in an airstrike on a house, health officials said.
The Israeli military says it is targeting armed Hamas militants who use civilian buildings, including apartment blocks and hospitals, for cover. Hamas denies doing so.
Separately, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where bloodshed has worsened in parallel with the Gaza war, three Palestinians were killed and four wounded by Israeli fire during a raid in Jenin overnight, the Palestinian health ministry said.
At least 32,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s air and ground offensive into Hamas-run Gaza, according to the health ministry there, with thousands of other dead believed buried under rubble and over 80 percent of the 2.3 million population displaced, many at risk of famine.
The war erupted after Islamist Hamas militants broke through the border on Oct. 7 and rampaged through nearby communities, killing 1,200 people and abducting 253 hostages according to Israeli tallies.
Israeli forces just north of Rafah kept the two main hospitals in Khan Younis, Al-Amal and Nasser Hospital, under a blockade imposed late last week. In the north, they were still operating inside Al Shifa, the enclave’s largest hospital, which they stormed more than a week ago.
Israel says the hospitals have been lairs for Hamas gunmen, which Hamas and medical staff deny. The Israeli military has said it killed and captured hundreds of fighters in a battle in Al Shifa. Hamas says civilians and medics were rounded up.
Gaza’s health ministry said wounded people and patients were being held inside Al Shifa’s human resources department that was not equipped to provide them with health care.
Residents living nearby have reported hearing constant explosions in and around Al Shifa and columns of smoke coming from buildings inside the premises.
International mediation has failed to secure a ceasefire and exchange of prisoners so far as the two sides stick to irreconcilable demands. Hamas wants an end to the war and total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza while Israel has vowed to keep fighting until the group is eradicated.