TEHRAN: A heat wave blanketing Iran has forced authorities to cut operating hours at various facilities Saturday and order all government and commercial institutions to shutter on Sunday.
The temperature ranged from 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 degrees Fahrenheit) to 42 C (about 107 F) in the capital, Tehran on Saturday, according to weather reports.
State-run IRNA news agency said banks, offices, and public institutions across the country would close on Sunday to protect people’s health and conserve energy, due to extreme temperatures and that only emergency services and medical agencies would be excluded.
Authorities also cut working hours on Saturday in many provinces due to the sweltering heat, IRNA reported, adding that high temperatures, over 40 C (104 F), have been registered in Tehran since Friday.
Iranian media warned people to stay indoors until 5 p.m. local time.
Authorities also said electricity consumption reached record levels of 78,106 megawatts on Tuesday.
Nournews, close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reported Wednesday that Iran’s temperature is rising at twice the pace of the global temperature which has increased by more than one degree compared to the long-term average. Meanwhile, Iran has become warmer by 2 degrees over the past 50 years, the agency said.
Last year, Iran ordered a two-day nationwide holiday due to increasing temperatures.

KHAN YOUNIS: Israel’s military ordered the evacuation Saturday of a crowded part of Gaza designated as a humanitarian zone, saying it is planning an operation against Hamas militants in Khan Younis, including parts of Muwasi, a makeshift tent camp where thousands are seeking refuge.
The order comes in response to rocket fire that Israel says originates from the area. It’s the second evacuation issued in a week in an area designated for Palestinians fleeing other parts of Gaza. Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel’s punishing air and ground campaign.
On Monday, after the evacuation order, multiple Israeli airstrikes hit around Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, citing figures from Nasser Hospital.
The area is part of a 60-square-kilometer (roughly 20-square-mile) “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been telling Palestinians to flee to throughout the war. Much of the area is blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, United Nations and humanitarian groups say. About 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering there, according to Israel’s estimates. That’s more than half Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million.
The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,100 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The UN estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.
The war began with an assault by Hamas militants on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. About 115 are still in Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.