TEHRAN: Israel sent messages to Tehran via Egypt that it would “compromise” in Gaza to try to avert an Iranian response to an attack in April on Iran’s embassy compound in Syria, Iran’s Tasnim news agency quoted a senior commander of the Revolutionary Guards as saying.
Tasnim, citing the head of the Guards’ Aerospace Force, Amirali Hajjizadeh, provided a detail what it said were efforts at the time by Israel to avert an escalation of hostilities after the Damascus attack.
In the event, Iran launched explosive drones and fired missiles at Israel in its first direct attack on Israeli territory. This was in retaliation for what it said was an Israeli strike on its Damascus consulate, in which seven officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed.
Israel has not confirmed or denied it was responsible for the attack. Israeli officials have, however, described the site hit as a Revolutionary Guards office near the embassy rather than a part of the diplomatic mission.
“Israel sent messages through Egypt’s foreign minister that it will compromise in the war in Gaza to avoid Iran’s retaliation,” Amirali Hajjizadeh said.
Contacted by Reuters, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office did not immediately give a comment.
Israel launched the war on Hamas in Gaza after a deadly attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 by the Palestinian Islamist group. Netanyahu has repeatedly said the aim is to eliminate Hamas, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction, and he has resisted calls from allies for restraint — for example in its current offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Egyptian officials were not immediately available for comment.
Describing Iran’s action, which Israel has said caused only light damage, Hajjizadeh was quoted by Tasnim as saying: “We had to use a great number of missiles and drones to get through Israel’s Iron Dome, we used 20 percent of our military capability in the operation.”
Israel’ military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said at the time that Iran had launched dozens of ground-to-ground missiles at Israel, most of them intercepted outside Israeli borders by Israel and its allies. They included more than 10 cruise missiles, he said.
The salvo of more than 200 drones and missiles caused light damage to one Israeli military facility, Hagari said.
The embassy attack and Iranian response prompted deep concern around the world over a potential crisis amid already volatile regional tensions over the Gaza conflict
Israel sent messages to Tehran to avoid Iranian response to embassy attack — agency
https://arab.news/j5d4w
Israel sent messages to Tehran to avoid Iranian response to embassy attack — agency
UN humanitarian chief’s fresh funding call as Sudan crisis passes 1,000 days amid famine, mass displacement
- ‘Today we are signaling that the international community will work together to bring this suffering to an end,’ Tom Fletcher tells fundraising event in Washington
- Sudan is a central pillar of the UN’s global humanitarian plan for 2026, which aims to save 87m lives worldwide, he adds
NEW YORK CITY: The UN on Tuesday launched a renewed appeal for funding and the political backing to address what it described as the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Sudan, which has now been locked in civil war for more than 1,000 days.
Speaking at a fundraising event for Sudan in Washington, organized by the US Institute for Peace, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Tom Fletcher, said the scale of the suffering in Sudan had reached intolerable levels marked by famine, mass displacement and widespread sexual violence against women and girls.
“The horrific humanitarian crisis in Sudan has endured more than 1,000 days — too long,” he said. “Too many days of famine, of brutal atrocities, of lives uprooted and destroyed.”
The global community was now united in its desire to halt the suffering and ensure life-saving aid reaches those most in need, Fletcher said.
“Today we are signaling that the international community will work together to bring this suffering to an end,” he added.
Sudan is a central pillar of the UN’s global humanitarian plan for 2026, which aims to save 87 million lives worldwide, Fletcher explained as he thanked donors, including the US, the EU and the UAE, for stepping forward.
“Sudan is the most important component of that plan,” he said, noting that humanitarian operations there have been chronically underfunded and plagued by danger. “We have lost hundreds of colleagues in Sudan, colleagues of incredible courage.”
The UN plans to provide food, medicine, water and sanitation services to more than 14 million people across Sudan this year, as well as protection for vulnerable groups, Fletcher said.
He stressed that funding alone would not be sufficient, however, and called for stronger measures to protect civilians and aid workers, secure humanitarian access and support a temporary truce between the warring factions.
“The money is not enough,” he said. “We need the air assets, the security, the medical support for our teams, and the mediation work that has to underpin the access.”
The UN will work, through the Sudan Humanitarian Initiative, with the so-called “Quad” group of international partners (the US, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) and others to identify priority areas for urgent action and remove obstacles to the delivery of aid, Fletcher said.
He added that the UN seeks visible progress toward a humanitarian truce in Sudan within the next few weeks, and called for those guilty of any violations in the country to be held accountable.
“We have set a target date of the beginning of Ramadan to make visible progress on this work,” Fletcher said. Ramadan is expected to begin on or around Feb. 17 this year.
Quoting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, he added that the urgency of ending the conflict was growing as the third anniversary of its outbreak on April 15, 2023, approaches.
“The guns must fall silent and a path to peace must be charted,” Fletcher said, adding that the UN fully supports efforts to secure a humanitarian truce and rapidly scale up aid across Sudan.
“Today, we’re saying, ‘Enough.’ Let today be the signal that the world is uniting in solidarity for practical impact.”
