TEHRAN: A wildfire on the outskirts of Iran’s capital triggered Friday an explosion of mines that had been planted around a high-security prison that houses political prisoners, but there were no injuries, state media reported.
The official IRNA news agency said the incident happened around noon at the Evin prison on the northern outskirts of Tehran, but that it caused no damage or casualties and that firefighters extinguished the blaze.
The report blamed the fire on the country’s current heatwave. Temperatures in Tehran around noon Friday were about 38 C (100 F).
Iranian media in the past have mentioned the mines, which apparently are anti-personnel mines planted to deter escape attempts.
In October a blaze in the prison led to death and injuries of several inmates. In online videos that circulated at the time, gunshots and explosions could be heard in the area of the prison.
State media said at the time that there were clashes in one of the wards between inmates and prison personnel, and authorities blamed the fire on rioters. It came as the country was rattled by a nationwide anti-government protest, triggered by the death of a young woman in police custody.
A wildfire near Iran’s capital triggers an explosion of mines planted around a high-security prison
https://arab.news/nc4yb
A wildfire near Iran’s capital triggers an explosion of mines planted around a high-security prison
- The official IRNA news agency said the incident happened around noon at the Evin prison
- The report blamed the fire on the country’s current heatwave
Top Hamas leader rejects disarmament or ‘foreign rule’
- “As long as there is occupation, there is resistance. Resistance is a right of peoples under occupation” said Meshal
DOHA: A senior Hamas leader said Sunday that the Palestinian Islamist movement would not surrender its weapons nor accept foreign intervention in Gaza, pushing back against US and Israeli demands.
“Criminalizing the resistance, its weapons, and those who carried it out is something we should not accept,” Khaled Meshal said at a conference in Doha.
“As long as there is occupation, there is resistance. Resistance is a right of peoples under occupation ... something nations take pride in,” said Meshal, who previously headed the group.
Hamas, an Islamist movement, has waged an armed struggle against what it sees as Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. It launched a deadly cross-border raid into Israel from Gaza on October 7, 2023, which triggered the latest war.
A US-brokered ceasefire in Gaza is in its second phase, which foresees that demilitarization of the territory — including the disarmament of Hamas — along with a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces.
Hamas has repeatedly said that disarmament is a red line, although it has indicated it could consider handing over its weapons to a future Palestinian governing authority.
Israeli officials say that Hamas still has around 20,000 fighters and about 60,000 Kalashnikovs in Gaza.
A Palestinian technocratic committee has been set up with a goal of taking over the day-to-day governance in the battered Gaza Strip, but it remains unclear whether, or how, it will address the issue of demilitarization.
The committee operates under the so-called “Board of Peace,” an initiative launched by US President Donald Trump.
Originally conceived to oversee the Gaza truce and post-war reconstruction, the board’s mandate has since expanded, prompting concerns among critics that it could evolve into a rival to the United Nations.
Trump unveiled the board at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos last month, where leaders and officials from nearly two dozen countries joined him in signing its founding charter.
Alongside the Board of Peace, Trump also created a Gaza Executive Board — an advisory panel to the Palestinian technocratic committee — comprising international figures including US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, as well as former British prime minister Tony Blair.
On Sunday, Meshal urged the Board of Peace to adopt what he called a “balanced approach” that would allow for Gaza’s reconstruction and the flow of aid to its roughly 2.2 million residents, while warning that Hamas would “not accept foreign rule” over Palestinian territory.
“We adhere to our national principles and reject the logic of guardianship, external intervention, or the return of a mandate in any form,” Meshal said.
“Palestinians are to govern Palestinians. Gaza belongs to the people of Gaza and to Palestine. We will not accept foreign rule,” he added.
