War Is A Blessing For Iran, Political Prisoners Warn
Nine Iranian political prisoners denounced both Hamas and Israel actions in Gaza, warning that potential Iranian involvement would benefit the Islamic Republic.
Nine Iranian political prisoners denounced both Hamas and Israel actions in Gaza, warning that potential Iranian involvement would benefit the Islamic Republic.
In a statement released from the Evin Prison, the political prisoners took to task Tehran’s “proxy and devastating policies” in the region, stressing that the war is a “blessing” for reactionary rulers.
“The eight-year Iran-Iraq war helped stabilize the regime and the killing of thousands of political prisoners” at that time, the statement added.
They warned that in the event of the expansion of the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict, the Iranian regime would intensify its crackdown against civil and political activists, women and student movements, and religious minorities such as the Baha'i community.
Anisha Asadollahi, Golrokh Iraee, Reza Shahabi, Keyvan Mohtadi, and Arash Johari are among the signatories of this statement.
Earlier in the month, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, warned that the Israel-Gaza War bolsters repression inside Iran by deflecting attention from internal criticism of the regime.
The political prisoners also questioned the sincerity of Tehran’s claims regarding its support of the Palestinian cause.
“The government, responsible for the deaths of thousands of children and teenagers in the past year and beyond, is now attempting to mask its reactionary nature under the guise of defending the Palestinian people,” read the statement.
Iran witnessed massive protests last year after Mahsa Jina Amini, a 22-year-old girl, lost her life in morality police custody for not observing mandatory hijab codes. According to reports, more than 500 people, including children and teenagers, were killed by the regime’s security forces last year.
The reporter's observations substantiate that the terrorist group utilized the hospital as cover for both tunnels and operational centers. "Hamas has turned hospitals into command-and-control centers and hideouts for Hamas terrorists and commanders," Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, Israel's chief military spokesman, said last month.
Exploring the tunnel, Itzhaki was joined by Hagari, who showcased the weaponry and ammunition seized from inside the Shifa Hospital after Israeli forces assumed control of the place. According to Hagari, the majority of the weapons were discovered in the plastic surgery ward and also inside a caravan near the emergency room.
Iran International correspondent noted that the tunnels beneath the hospital spanned hundreds of meters, featuring amenities such as a bathroom and a kitchen. Some of these passageways were intentionally blocked in the middle by concrete walls, raising concerns that Hamas fighters might have planted explosives in certain sections of the tunnels, emphasized Itzhaki.
Reporters from Reuters, CNN, AFP, AP, and Fox News also visited the tunnel under the Shifa Hospital as Israel tries to show the world that Hamas is embedded in civilian facilities. Last month, a misfired rocket from Islamic Jihad, another Iran-backed militant group in Gaza, hit al-Ahli Baptist Hospital -- a Christian-run medical facility in central Gaza City --resulting in the deaths of at least 200 to 300 people, as reported by the Palestinian Health Ministry. However, other Palestinian sources cite numbers as high as 1,000.
Backed by Iran’s hefty financial and logistic support, Hamas Islamist militants attacked Israel from air and ground in a surprise attack on October 7, killing more than 1,400 Israelis and taking hostage over 220 others. Israel has recently extended its retaliatory bombing of the city to ground operation. The Israeli retaliatory campaign, which has led to the death of thousands of Palestinians, seems inevitable as Hamas has created an underground network of tunnels to move forces, smuggle weapons, infiltrate into Israel, and perhaps keep the hostages. This extends to hiding its key infrastructure under the likes of schools and hospitals.
The Palestinian Islamist group has different kinds of tunnels running beneath the sandy 360 sq km coastal strip and its borders -- including attack, smuggling, storage and operational burrows, Western and Middle East sources familiar with the matter said.
What lies in wait for Israeli ground troops in Gaza, security sources say, is a Hamas tunnel network hundreds of kilometers long and up to 80 meters deep, described by one freed hostage as "a spider's web" and by one expert as the "Viet Cong times 10".
One of the Palestinians who was leaving the hospital for southern Gaza told Iran International that he does not care about what has happened or what is going to happen to Hamas.“The only thing that matters to me is my own life and my children’s lives. We are really fed up.”
According to our reporter, heavy clashes still continue around the hospital.
With Israel in control of Gaza's air and sea access and 59 km of its 72 km land borders - with Egypt 13 km to the south -- tunnels provide one of the few ways for Hamas to bring in weapons, equipment and people. Its capability for smuggling has earned the Hamas leaders in exile a fortune running into billions as everything that goes in and out is subject to Hamas taxation.
In a press briefing on the sidelines of the International Atomic Energy Agency's Board of Governors session, Director-General Rafael Grossi told Iran International that "Iran has ceased to implement lots of aspects and nuclear related obligations under the JCPOA (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) and it's not implementing mutually agreed additional measures under the joint statement of March 4th.”
On Wednesday, Grossi presented his latest report on verification and monitoring in the Islamic Republic of Iran in light of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015), saying that “Iran’s stockpiles of uranium enriched up to 5%, enriched up to 20% and enriched up to 60% – high enriched uranium – have all increased since we met in September with the increase of the 60% continuing at the same rate as I reported at the time of the last Board."
The European Union’s representative told the IAEA Board of Governors that “the EU remains committed to the JCPOA... to ensure that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon.” The bloc also implicitly called on the US to return, saying, “The EU calls on all countries to support the implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015)," the UN document that is the foundation of the JCPOA.
Expressing deep concerns by the successive IAEA reports documenting the alarming acceleration of Iran’s nuclear program “that gravely departs from its JCPOA commitments," the EU said that Iran’s actions have “no credible civilian justification” and “carry very significant proliferation-related risks and raise grave concerns about Iran’s intentions.”
The recent IAEA report documented a substantial accumulation of the enriched uranium stockpile and an expansion of nuclear enrichment infrastructure “far beyond JCPOA thresholds for quantity and level of enrichment.”
In June 2022, Iran removed all IAEA JCPOA-related surveillance and monitoring equipment and since March it agreed to put them back on operation, but it has been stonewalling the process ever since. Additionally, Tehran withdrew the designation of several inspectors assigned to conduct verification activities in Iran under the Non-Proliferation Treaty Safeguards Agreement a few days after securing a prisoner swap with the US that included unfreezing of about $6 billion of its oil revenues blocked in South Korea.
Tehran's move, which the IAEA called "disproportionate and unprecedented", was in response to a call by the United States, France, Britain and Germany at another round of IAEA Board of Governors to give credible explanations on the uranium particles and let the IAEA install more surveillance cameras. So far, the IAEA has had no progress in getting Iran to reverse its so-called "de-designation" in September of the IAEA inspectors. The move effectively barred some inspectors, who diplomats said were from France and Germany and the IAEA said were among its most experienced experts, from working in Iran.
After the US withdrawal from the JCPOA and reimposition of sanctions in 2018, Iran has accelerated its enrichment pace and stockpiling load, using them as bargaining chips to get concessions from the West. Iran did not agree to a compromise plan proposed by the European Union in 2022 to revive the agreement, despite the Biden administration’s stated goal of finding a diplomatic solution.Washington has informally relaxed sanctions on Iran’s oil exports and allowed blocked funds in Iraq and South Korea to be released, but Tehran has shown no willingness to resolve the nuclear issue.
When it comes to nuclear commitments, Iran does not abide by rules but when a sunset clause of the same 2015 accord comes, Iran is there to reap the harvest. In October, the United Nations’ checks and balances on Iran’s missile program expired, enabling a newly emboldened Iran to legally supply Russia with arms for the invasion of Ukraine as its global reign of terror continues even less abated.
Hundreds of police participated in the operations which were carried out in Berlin, Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, and North Rhine-Westphalia on Thursday.
Earlier this month, the German government officially banned any activity in support of Hamas, which had already been designated as a terrorist group in the country.
Following the ban, the activities of Samidoun, an international pro-Palestinian network, was also declared illegal after its celebrations in the streets of Berlin after Hamas’s deadly onslaught on Israel on October 7 which killed 1,200 mostly civilians and saw 240 more taken to Gaza.
“With the bans on Hamas and Samidoun in Germany, we have sent a clear signal that we will not tolerate any glorification or support of the barbaric terror of Hamas against Israel,” said German interior minister Nancy Faeser in a statement.
"We continue our consistent action against radical Islamists," she vowed, adding that “Islamists and antisemites cannot and must not feel safe anywhere here.”
According to Germany’s intelligence sources, around 450 Hamas members live in the country, helping finance the terror group.
Germany has beefed up security measures to protect its Jewish citizens who have been the targets of antisemitic attacks since October 7 as global antisemitism soars amidst the war.
Hamas has been designated a terrorist group by the European Union, the US, and many other Western countries.