Iranian women players snookered for ‘un-Islamic’ acts

Hopes are fading that Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his foreign minister have survived a helicopter crash in mountainous terrain and icy weather, an Iranian official said on Monday after search teams located the wreckage.

"President Raisi's helicopter was completely burned in the crash ... unfortunately, all passengers are feared dead," the official told Reuters.

Rescue teams fought blizzards and difficult terrain through the night to reach the wreckage in East Azerbaijan province in the early hours of Monday.

“We can see the wreckage and the situation does not look good,” the head of Iran’s Red Crescent, Pirhossein Kolivand, told state TV.

Raisi, 63, was elected president in 2021, and since taking office has ordered a tightening of morality laws, overseen a crackdown US-Israel backed anti-government protests and pushed hard in nuclear talks with world powers.

A Turkish drone identified a source of heat suspected to be the helicopter's wreckage and had shared the coordinates of the possible crash site with Iranian authorities, Anadolu news agency said earlier on X.

State news agency IRNA said Raisi was flying in a US-made Bell 212 helicopter.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who holds ultimate power with a final say on foreign policy and Iran's nuclear programme, sought to reassure Iranians, saying there would be no disruption to state affairs.

The chief of staff of Iran's army ordered all resources of the army and the elite Revolutionary Guards to be put to use in search and rescue operations.

Earlier, the national broadcaster had stopped all regular programming to show prayers being held for Raisi across the country.

In the early hours of Monday, it showed a rescue team, wearing bright jackets and head torches, huddled around a GPS device as they searched a pitch-black mountainside on foot in a blizzard.

“We are thoroughly searching every inch of the general area of the crash," state media quoted a regional army commander as saying. "The area has very cold, rainy, and foggy weather conditions. The rain is gradually turning into snow."

Several countries expressed concern and offered assistance in any rescue.

The White House said U.S. President Joe Biden had been briefed on reports about the crash. China said it was deeply concerned. The European Union offered emergency satellite mapping technology.

Possible successor to Khamenei

The crash comes at a time of growing dissent within Iran over an array of political, social and economic crises. Iran's clerical rulers face international pressure over Tehran's disputed nuclear programme and its deepening military ties with Russia during the war in Ukraine.

Since Iran’s open support to Hamas’ resistance against Israeli aggression, US and Israel have harshly criticised the President Raisi. 

In Iran's dual political system, split between the clerical establishment and the government, it is Raisi's 85-year-old mentor Khamenei, supreme leader since 1989, who holds decision-making power on all major policies.

For years many have seen Raisi as a strong contender to succeed Khamenei, who has endorsed Raisi's main policies. Raisi's victory in 2021 elections brought all branches of power under the control of revolutionaries, after eight years when the presidency had been held by pragmatist Hassan Rouhani and a nuclear deal negotiated with powers including Washington.

Raisi had been at the Azerbaijani border on Sunday to inaugurate the Qiz-Qalasi Dam, a joint project. Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, who said he had bid a "friendly farewell" to Raisi earlier in the day, offered assistance in the rescue.

The chopper that was transporting President Raeisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and their companions encountered some difficulties and was forced to make a "hard landing".

Israeli military tanks have started to go deeper into the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza as part of a ground offensive months after claiming Hamas had been “dismantled” in the area.

Israeli forces are “carpet-bombing” the eastern areas of Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, killing and wounding several Palestinians, Al-Jazeara reported citing local sources on Sunday.

Israeli military tanks have advanced further into the Jabalia refugee camp, crossing Salah al-Din Street amidst ongoing battles with Hamas fighters, reports added.

Media quoted eyewitnesses as saying that the tanks are surrounding evacuation centers and residential buildings in the densely populated area, leading to mass evacuations and displacement towards the western part of Gaza City.

Also, Israeli drones targeted ambulances near the clinic run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Jabalia, according to Mahmoud Basal, the spokesperson for the civil defense directorate in Gaza.

Basal stated that emergency crews in Rafah, al-Zaytounm, al-Sabra, and Jabalia have been inundated with distress calls, confirming that these areas were subjected to overnight bombardment.

Shortage of oxygen for patients

Imad Abu Zayda, an emergency doctor in Jabalia, warned of the critical conditions prevailing there due to the recent Israeli aggression in the area.  

“No light due to the lack of fuel and there’s no medical supplement available as Israel has expanded their operation in the area. We have no oxygen to give to patients,” he said.

He added that the majority of those injured are children and women, and the medical team is grappling with limited resources to provide essential care.

All hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip are now out of service, following a warning from the UN about the risk of running out of fuel in hospitals across the region.

Israel’s closure of the Rafah crossing has also prevented aid trucks from entering the area since May 5.

The Jabalia refugee camp, established in 1948 to accommodate Palestinians who were displaced after the Nakba, or catastrophe, which refers to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, has become the most densely populated refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.

With over 750,000 Palestinians forcefully displaced, this camp stands as a testament to the birth of Israel in 1948.

Since the start of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, Israeli forces carried out several attacks on Jabilia camp, leaving it in ruins by intense bombardment.

In early February, Israeli forces withdrew from the camp claiming it had destroyed Hamas as a fighting force in the northern areas.

On Saturday, the Israeli military ordered residents of the Jabalia Refugee Camp to evacuate “immediately”, as it prepares to launch military operations against Hamas.

However, the displaced residents have no place to seek refuge, as the UN reports a severe famine in the region.

Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed more than 34,971 Palestinians and injured more than 78,641 others, mostly women and children.

The Israeli regime is forcibly evacuating Palestinians from the eastern part of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip amid the prospect of its widely-discouraged ground invasion.

“The estimate is around 100,000 people,” an Israeli military spokesman told journalists on Monday when asked how many people were being evacuated.

International organizations, including the United Nations, have repeatedly warned the regime against invading the city, citing its hosting around 1.5 million Palestinian refugees.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said a ground assault on Rafah would “put the final nail in the coffin” for humanitarian aid operations in the Gaza Strip.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs also said, “Any ground operation would mean more suffering and death,” with an official saying “It could be a slaughter of civilians.”

Multiple aid agencies, including the Norwegian Refugee Council, have likewise warned against a Rafah offensive.

The NRC said such an invasion “would profoundly exacerbate the already catastrophic levels of need and the humanitarian emergency for millions of civilians with nowhere left to go.”

The official alleged Hamas had killed three Israeli forces on Sunday, attacking them from Rafah.

The evacuation order came a sat least 22 people lost their lives in the regime’s airstrikes killed in Rafah earlier on Monday.

Rafah’s evacuation “is part of our plans to dismantle Hamas,” the Israeli spokesman added, referring to the Palestinian resistance movement that has been defending Gaza in the face of the war.

The Palestinians have fled there from the ravages of a war that the regime began waging against Gaza on October 7, following a retaliatory operation by the coastal sliver’s resistance groups.

At least 34,683 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 78,018 others injured so far during the brutal military onslaught.

On Friday, Hossam Badran, a member of Hamas’ Political Bureau, said Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on carrying out a ground invasion of Rafah was a key stumbling block in negotiations aimed at a truce agreement.

The Israeli premier has said the regime would go ahead with invading the city “with or without” a truce.

Hamas has, however, asserted that the regime has failed to defeat the resistance during the war.