What We Know About Israel’s Attack On Iran

Raisi described the recent attack on Israel as a “unifying” event that was supported across all Iranian political factions.

"All groups and political streams believe that the attack on Israel was a necessary action, unifying and a great honor for the country," Raisi stated during a visit to Damghan in central Iran.

His comments come as the Islamic Revolutionary Guards has put pressure on media and journalists not to write or publish anything critical of Tehran’s attack on Israel last weekend.

The IRGC-linked Tasnim News Agency published a statement on X earlier this week that said the Guards were about to start "to deal with Israel's supporters on social media."

The statement called on citizens to turn in those who support Israel on social media.

While multiple reports confirmed that Israel had carried out an airstrike – the Iranian government quickly downplayed the claims, suggesting instead that the explosions were caused by the interception of microdrones by Iran's air defenses, attributing the incident to "infiltrators".

Tehran appeared to indicate that it has no plans for retaliation, in a likely bid to avoid a full-scale war with Israel.

That stance was echoed by a senior Iranian official who spoke to Reuters, who said "the foreign source of the incident has not been confirmed. We have not received any external attack, and the discussion leans more towards infiltration than attack".

Israel has not yet confirmed its role in the attack on Iran, although it had previously announced intentions to retaliate.

Iran’s attack on Israel last weekend saw over 300 drones and missiles launched, with 99% of them intercepted by Tel Aviv and its allies.

The G7 pledged to bolster Ukraine's air defenses to counter increasingly deadly Russian attacks, partly supported by thousands of kamikaze drones supplied by Iran. The United States and the European Union major powers this week pledged to impose more sanctions on entities involved in Iranian weapons proliferation.

Foreign ministers from the G7, comprising the United States, Italy, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and Britain, wrapped up three days of talks on the island of Capri that were dominated by wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

They acknowledged they had to do more to help Ukraine, which is struggling to hold off stronger Russian forces, and urged de-escalation in the Middle East, where the deep enmity between Israel and Iran risks triggering a wider regional conflict.

DE-ESCALATION

The foreign ministers' summit ended shortly after what sources described as an Israeli attack on Iran in retaliation for a recent Iranian drone and missile assault on Israel.

The G7 ministers said they would work to prevent conflict between Israel and Iran spiralling out of control, while simultaneously seeking to end the war in Gaza.

"The political objective of the G7 is de-escalation. We have worked and continue to work to be active players in securing de-escalation throughout the Middle East," Tajani said.

But the ministers also said the multitude of global crises was pulling leading democracies closer together.

"We emerge from this meeting of the foreign ministers more united than ever," said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

An informal alliance has emerged between Iran, Russia, China and North Korea since 2022 when the Russian invasion of Ukraine hit a snag, with Kyiv’s forces pushing back the initial Russian advance. However, a delay in US aid, triggered by some Republicans in the US Congress, and Europe running low on military hardware, has starved Ukraine of critical weapons systems.

The US House of Representatives might, however, finally get to vote on a $61 billion package for Kyiv this weekend.

Alarmed by growing Russian momentum on the battlefield, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba came to Capri in person to tell G7 allies that they needed to send more aid, saying wars in his home country and the Middle East were linked.

Iran supplies Russia with the same type of armed drones that were used last week as part of its large-scale attack on Israel.

"The narrative that the West has to choose between supporting Israel or Ukraine is wrong because these are two theatres of the same war," Kuleba told reporters.

The G7 said in a statement it would increase security assistance for Kyiv, specifically bolstering "Ukraine's air defence capabilities to save lives and protect critical infrastructure".

Two years after launching its invasion, Russia has been targeting key Ukrainian energy infrastructure, killing hundreds of civilians in its strikes. Russia says the energy system is a legitimate target and denies targeting civilians.

CHINA

Blinken said that, while North Korea and Iran were the main suppliers of weapons to Russia, China was the "primary contributor" to Moscow's defence industry.

"If China purports on the one hand to want good relations with Europe and other countries, it can't, on the other hand, be fuelling what is the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War," he said.

Echoing that sentiment, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told reporters that Berlin could not tolerate seeing China forging closer ties with Russia.

"If China openly pursues an ever-closer partnership with Russia, which is waging an illegal war against Ukraine, ... we cannot accept this," she said at the end of the Capri meeting.

With reporting by Reuters

Iranian media Thursday widely reported that the number of Persian tweets about tensions with Israel rose to nearly 6,000 on Tuesday when less than 2,000 users tweeted about the hijab crackdown.

On Wednesday, however, after a host of videos of harsh treatment of women and violent arrests by the morality police emerged on social media, tweets about hijab rose to around 7,000 and those addressing the tension with Israel dropped to a little over 2,000.

The violence used against women, in the past few days has angered many Iranians from every walk of life including those who support or praise Iran's missile attack against Israel last weekend as retaliation for Israel’s strike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus on April 1.

“Israel says it wants to attack but hardliners in Tehran have deployed the morality police battalions and are shutting down coffee shops like a dominos,” Mostafa Faghihi, chief editor of the conservative Asr-e Iran news website tweeted. Calling those responsible for the crackdown against women “ignorami” who fight Iranian women instead of Israel.

In the hours leading up to Saturday's missile and drone strike on Israel by the IRGC, Iran's morality police intensified their efforts against unveiled women. Additionally, Iranian authorities initiated crackdowns on media and social media activists.

The police force’s infamous “guidance patrols”, often referred to as the “morality police”, have returned to the streets, Tehran’s metro stations, and other cities across the country in full force, to enforce the Islamic dress code.

The patrols consisting of male and female uniformed police personnel as well as plainclothes agents have arrested hundreds of women and in at least dozens of cases women the arrests, as videos and reports on social media attest, were very violent.

Iran International has spoken to several women who say they were assaulted, verbally abused, and sexually harassed by arresting morality police officers and plainclothesmen who helped them.

One of the detainees, a 17-year-old girl, recounted to Iran International her violent arrest at Tehran's Daneshjoo Park. She described police officers pulling her hair, striking her arms and thighs with a baton, and directing sexual slurs at her. Moreover, she stated that women who resisted arrest, mostly very young, were assaulted by an officer while in the police van.

A 19-year-old woman who was also arrested violently told Iran International that at a detention center plainclothes officers tased her in the stomach and genitals, hurled sexual profanities at her and her family members.

Both females were forced to provide full details about themselves and their family members, including their phone numbers before being released.

Citizen reports on social media also allege that many girls detained by the morality police were minors as young as twelve years old.

During his election campaign, President Ebrahim Raisi had promised to clampdown on government officials for inefficiency and corruption instead of the so-called “[Moral] Guidance Patrols” for hijab.

"Khamenei acknowledges the increasing courage of Iranians in challenging the ruling establishment's beliefs and imposed red lines," said Iman Aghayari, a journalist and political analyst based in Turkey. "He refers to the 'imposed challenge of hijab' and, in a play on words, disguises his aggressive stance towards society as a form of defense," Aghayari told Iran International.

Authorities say they are fighting against behavior that is "against the society’s norms" but what they refer to as abnormality is in fact the lifestyle that people have chosen and is completely normal for most Iranians, Aghayari added.

“With the summer approaching, when more women shed their long headscarves, and the anniversary of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement drawing near, the hijab challenge is likely to intensify in the coming months, too,” he said.

A police source had told Reuters the man was seen at about 11 a.m. (0900 GMT) entering the consulate, carrying what appeared to be a grenade and explosive vest. Police cordoned off the area.

The man later left the consulate and on being searched was found not to be carrying any explosives, a police source said.

Le Parisien newspaper said on its website that, according to several witnesses, the man had dragged flags on the floor of the consulate and said he wanted to avenge the death of his brother.

It was unclear whether the incident had any link to current tensions between Iran and Israel.

Earlier on Friday, explosions echoed over the Iranian city of Isfahan in what sources described as an Israeli attack, but Tehran played down the incident and indicated it had no plans for retaliation - a response that appeared gauged towards averting region-wide war.

(Report by Reuters)

As the country’s currency, the rial (IRR), continues to depreciate, reports surfaced suggesting the government may bring in a 5 million rial banknote, approximately valued at $7.

Valued at 2 million Rials, the country’s highest banknote in circulation, is barely sufficient to purchase goods worth slightly over three dollars.

For years, inflation and currency fluctuations have eroded the purchasing power of the Rial when compared to other major currencies.

The rial has undergone dramatic devaluation over the decades. Before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, for instance, one US dollar could buy 70 rials.

By early 2018, this surged to about 40,000, and it has since skyrocketed to 670,000.

This depreciation accelerated following the US exit of the nuclear deal in May 2018 and the reimposition of economic sanctions, including on oil exports and international banking activity.

As of August, the country’s monetary base has grown at a rate of 41%, resulting in the government printing about $460 million monthly.

Since taking office in 2021, President Ebrahim Raisi has increased the growth of the monetary base by about 10%.

The monetary base refers to the amount of money in circulation plus the reserves by the Central Bank. Its expansion can lead to inflation.

The introduction of larger banknotes would have social implications, particularly for foreigners exchanging money in Iran who often receive large quantities of rial banknotes for relatively small amounts in dollars or euros, which can be inconvenient or cumbersome to manage.