DUBAI: Iran has expelled four Azerbaijani diplomats a month after a similar move by Baku highlighted a deterioration of relations between the neighbors, the Iranian state news agency IRNA reported on Friday.
IRNA did not give further details of the action, which came after Azerbaijan said in April that it was expelling four Iranian diplomats over “provocative actions.”
Tensions have been triggered in part by Baku’s improving relations with Tehran’s arch-enemy Israel. The dispute came to a head when Baku opened an embassy in Israel in late March.
During the row, Azerbaijan suggested that Iran may have been connected to an attempted assassination of an anti-Tehran Azerbaijani lawmaker. Tehran has denied the accusation.
Iran, which has a large population of ethnic Azeris in its northwest, has strongly criticized Azerbaijan for moving closer to Israel, with its foreign ministry saying it sees the relationship between Azerbaijan and Israel as “anti-Iranian.”
Iran expels four Azerbaijan diplomats in tit-for-tat move
https://arab.news/yrmqx
Iran expels four Azerbaijan diplomats in tit-for-tat move
- Azerbaijan said in April that it was expelling four Iranian diplomats over "provocative actions"
- Tensions have been triggered in part by Baku's improving relations with Tehran's arch-enemy Israel
Israel army kills West Bank attacker who tried to run over troops
- The Palestinian civil affairs authority named the man as 20-year-old Qais Sami Jaser Allan, adding that he “was shot by the occupation forces between the towns of Einabus and Awarta”
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said its troops shot dead a man who tried to run over a group of soldiers in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday.
The incident occurred in Einabus in the northern West Bank, the military said.
“A short while ago, a report was received regarding a terrorist who attempted to run over IDF (Israeli army) soldiers operating in the area of Einabus,” the military said.
“In response, the soldiers fired at the terrorist and eliminated him.”
The Palestinian Red Crescent said it rescued three people after the Israeli army opened fire near Einabus on a vehicle with Palestinian license plates.
“Two of the wounded were shot, and one of them is in critical condition. The third was injured as a result of being beaten,” the Red Crescent said.
The Palestinian civil affairs authority named the man as 20-year-old Qais Sami Jaser Allan, adding that he “was shot by the occupation forces between the towns of Einabus and Awarta.”
The incident came just days after a Palestinian from the West Bank ran over an Israeli in his sixties with his vehicle and later stabbed an 18-year-old girl to death in northern Israel.
The perpetrator was killed during the attack.
Following that incident on Friday, the military conducted a two-day operation in the West Bank town of Qabatiya from where the attacker came, detaining several residents including his father and brothers.
Since the start of the war in Gaza following Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023, violence has also surged in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
Israeli troops and settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the territory, including many militants as well as dozens of civilians, according to an AFP tally based on figures from the Palestinian health ministry.
According to official Israeli figures, at least 44 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have also been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations in the same period in the West Bank.
