Reactions to the death of Iran’s president in a helicopter crash

Update Reactions to the death of Iran’s president in a helicopter crash
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, above, the country’s foreign minister and others have been found dead at the site of a helicopter crash Monday. (AP)
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Updated 20 May 2024
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Reactions to the death of Iran’s president in a helicopter crash

Reactions to the death of Iran’s president in a helicopter crash
  • Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman offer their condolences
  • Pakistan to observe a day of mourning and Pakistani flags to fly at half mast as a mark of respect

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman offered their condolences to Iran after the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash which also killed Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, Saudi Press Agency reported on Monday. 

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed on X said: “I extend my deepest condolences to the Iranian government and people over the passing of President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and those accompanying them following a tragic accident. We pray that God grants them eternal rest and we extend our heartfelt sympathies to their families. The UAE stands in solidarity with Iran at this difficult time.”

UAE Prime Minister and Dubai Ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid also posted on X: “Our condolences and sincere sympathies to the brotherly Iranian people and their leadership on the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his Foreign Minister in a painful accident. Our hearts are with you in this difficult time. Our prayers are that God will cover them with His vast mercy and dwell them in His spacious Paradise.”

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei expressed on Monday his condolences, state media said.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, in a statement said: “Raisi and Abdollahian were known as “true, reliable friends of our country”.

“Their role in strengthening mutually beneficial Russian-Iranian cooperation and trusting partnership is invaluable.

“We sincerely extend our condolences to the families and friends of the victims, as well as to the entire friendly people of Iran. Our thoughts and hearts are with you in this sad hour.”

Russia’s embassy in Tehran also offered condolences over Raisi’s death, state news agency TASS reported.

China’s President Xi Jinping has expressed condolences over Raisi’s death, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Monday.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Monday expressed his condolences for the death of Raisi and Amirabdollahian, saying Raisi was a “valuable colleague and brother”.

“As a colleague who personally witnessed his efforts for the peace of the Iranian people and our region during his time in power, I remember Mr. Raisi with respect and gratitude,” Erdogan said on social media platform X, adding Turkey stood by Iran in this difficult time.

Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan also extended condolences to the Iranian people on the death of Raisi and Amirabdollahian.

The Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad on X said: “Sincere condolences to the government and people of the Islamic Republic of Iran on the death of President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdullahian, and the accompanying officials in the painful helicopter accident, asking God Almighty for mercy and forgiveness for them and for their families with patience and solace. We belong to Allah and to Him we shall return.”

Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on Monday extended his condolences for the deaths of Raisi and Amirabdollahian in a helicopter crash.

“Egypt mourns, with great sadness and grief” the Iranian president and Tehran’s top diplomat, “who passed away on Sunday following a painful accident,” the presidency said in a statement.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said in a statement: “With great sadness and sorrow, we have received the news of the death of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, along with their companions, in the unfortunate plane crash in northern Iran.”

He added, “We extend our sincere condolences and sympathy to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Mr. Ali Khamenei, and to the government and people of Iran. We express our solidarity with the brotherly Iranian people and the responsible officials in the Islamic Republic during this painful tragedy.

“We ask God to have mercy on the departed, and may He grant patience and solace to their families and loved ones.”

Syrian President Bashar Assad in a statement also offered condolences to Iran’s Supreme Leader over death of the president and the foreign minister.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Monday he was “deeply saddened and shocked by the tragic demise” of Raisi after Iranian media reported he had died in a helicopter crash.

“My heartfelt condolences to his family and the people of Iran,” Modi posted on X, formerly Twitter. “India stands with Iran in this time of sorrow.”

Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif posted on X: “I along with the government and people of Pakistan extend our deepest condolences and sympathies to the Iranian nation on this terrible loss. May the martyred souls rest in heavenly peace. The great Iranian nation will overcome this tragedy with customary courage.

“Pakistan had the pleasure of hosting President Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian on a historic visit, less than a month ago. They were good friends of Pakistan. Pakistan will observe a day of mourning and the flag will fly at half mast as a mark of respect for President Raisi and his companions and in solidarity with Brotherly Iran.”

European Council president Charles Michel posted on X: “The EU expresses its sincere condolences for the death of President Raisi and Foreign Minister Abdollahian, as well as other members of their delegation and crew in a helicopter accident. Our thoughts go to the families.”

A Hamas statement conveyed Hamas’ “deepest condolences and solidarity” to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the Iranian government, and the Iranian people for “this immense loss.”

It praised the deceased Iranian leaders for supporting the Palestinian cause and resistance against Israel and expressed confidence that Iran’s “deep-rooted institutions” will enable it to overcome “the repercussions of this great loss.”

Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi, head of Yemen’s Houthi Supreme Revolutionary Committee, posted on X: “Our deepest condolences to the Iranian people, the Iranian leadership, and the families of President Raisi and the accompanying delegation on their reported martyrdom. We ask God to grant their families patience and solace. Verily we belong to Allah and to Him we shall return. The Iranian people will remain adhering to the loyal leaders of their people, by God’s will.”

Lebanon’s Hezbollah expressed condolences to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei for the death of President Raisi, a statement said.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said he was “deeply saddened” by the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and other officials in a helicopter crash, noting their shared commitment to bolstering ties.

“I am deeply saddened by the tragic deaths of President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and several other officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said in a statement on social media.


Hamas frees three Israeli hostages in latest Gaza exchange

Hamas frees three Israeli hostages in latest Gaza exchange
Updated 58 sec ago
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Hamas frees three Israeli hostages in latest Gaza exchange

Hamas frees three Israeli hostages in latest Gaza exchange
  • Israel to transfer 182 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, Hamas says
  • Negotiations to start by Tuesday for a deal for release of remaining hostages

GAZA/CAIRO: Palestinian militant group Hamas handed over three Israeli hostages on Saturday, in the latest stage of a truce aimed at ending the 15-month war in Gaza.

Ofer Kalderon, a French-Israeli dual national and Yarden Bibas were handed over to Red Cross officials in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis before being transferred to Israel. Israeli-American Keith Siegel was handed over separately a few hours later at the Gaza City seaport.

Meanwhile, a bus carrying Palestinian prisoners left Ofer Prison in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to an AFP journalist. The inmates departed from the Israeli prison after the three Israeli hostages were handed over by Hamas.

Bibas is the father of the two youngest hostages, baby Kfir, only 9 months old when he was kidnapped by Hamas-led gunmen on Oct. 7, 2023, and Ariel, who was 4 at the time of the cross-border attack.

Hamas said in November 2023 that the boys and their mother Shiri, who was taken at the same time, were killed in an Israeli airstrike. There has been no word on them since.

Israel is expected to transfer 182 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, Hamas said.

Ofer Kalderon, center, is released by Hamas militants in this still image taken from a video in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip on Feb. 1, 2025. (Reuters/Reuters TV)

At the newly reopened Rafah crossing on the southern border, the first Palestinian patients to be allowed to leave Gaza, including children suffering from cancer and heart conditions, were expected to cross over to Egypt in a bus provided by the World Health Organization.

Saturday’s handover saw none of the chaotic scenes that overshadowed an earlier transfer on Thursday, when Hamas guards struggled to shield hostages from a surging crowd in Gaza.

But it was once again an occasion for a show of force by uniformed Hamas fighters who paraded in the area where the handovers took place in a sign of their re-established dominance in Gaza despite the heavy losses suffered in the war.

Kalderon, whose two children Erez and Sahar were released in the first hostage exchange in November 2023, and Bibas both briefly mounted a stage in Khan Younis, in front of a poster of Hamas figures including Mohammad Deif, the former military commander whose death was confirmed by Hamas this week, before being handed over to the Red Cross officials.

“Ofer Kalderon is free! We share the immense relief and joy of his loved ones after 483 days of unimaginable hell,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement.

Israeli hostage Yarden Bibas waves on a stage before being handed over to members of the Red Cross in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Feb. 1, 2025. (AFPTV/ AFP)

Negotiations on release of remaining hostages

Eighteen hostages, including five Thais freed on Thursday, have now been released in exchange for 400 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

Negotiations are due to start by Tuesday on agreements for the release of the remaining hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza in a second phase of the deal.

During the first phase of the ceasefire, 33 children, women and older male hostages as well as sick and injured, were due to be released, with more than 60 men of military age left for a second phase which must still be negotiated.

The initial six-week ceasefire, agreed with Egyptian and Qatari mediators and backed by the United States, has so far stayed on track despite a number of incidents that have led both sides to accuse the other of violating the deal.

The Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023 killed some 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostage, according to Israeli figures.

Israel’s campaign in response has destroyed much of the densely populated Gaza Strip and killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health authorities.


Gunmen kill 10 in Alawite village in Syria: monitor

Gunmen kill 10 in Alawite village in Syria: monitor
Updated 01 February 2025
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Gunmen kill 10 in Alawite village in Syria: monitor

Gunmen kill 10 in Alawite village in Syria: monitor

DAMASCUS: Gunmen have shot dead 10 people in an Alawite-majority village in central Syria, a war monitor said on Saturday.
“Armed men committed a massacre” on Friday that killed “10 citizens in Arza village in the northern Hama countryside that is inhabited by citizens of the Alawite sect” of ousted leader Bashar Assad, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.


Facing flak, Red Cross defends its role in Israel-Hamas war

Facing flak, Red Cross defends its role in Israel-Hamas war
Updated 01 February 2025
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Facing flak, Red Cross defends its role in Israel-Hamas war

Facing flak, Red Cross defends its role in Israel-Hamas war
  • The Geneva-based organization had been accused of not doing enough to help hostages in Gaza or Palestinian detainees in Israel
  • ICRC officials said the organization could only do so much as it is reliant on the goodwill of the belligerents

GENEVA: The Red Cross, accused of not doing enough to help hostages in Gaza or Palestinian detainees in Israel, has defended itself in a rare statement outlining the limits of its role.
Insisting on its neutrality, the International Committee of the Red Cross said the escalation of violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories has triggered “a proliferation of dehumanizing language and of false and misleading information about the ICRC and our work in the current conflict.”

In recent days, ICRC vehicles have facilitated the transfer of Palestinians out of Israeli detention, and hostages held in the Gaza Strip since Hamas’s attack in Israel on October 7, 2023.
But the transfer of hostages to the ICRC has been sharply criticized following chaotic scenes on Thursday as masked fighters from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, carrying automatic weapons, struggled to hold back a surging crowd.
ICRC officials “did nothing to interfere with this intimidating display of indignity and public humiliation,” Gerald Steinberg, president of the right-wing Israeli organization NGO Monitor, wrote in the Australian-based online magazine Quillette.
The ICRC said: “Ensuring the safety and security of the handover operations is the responsibility of the parties to the agreement.”
Furthermore, “Interfering with armed security personnel could compromise the safety of ICRC staff, and more importantly that of the hostages.”
The Geneva-based organization also said it had not given permission for “people carrying Hamas flags to get on top of our buses in Ramallah” during the release of Palestinian detainees, “nor did we have the capacity to prevent people from doing so.”

In late 2023, Israel’s then foreign minister Eli Cohen said the Red Cross had “no right to exist” if it did not visit the hostages in Gaza.
However, the organization is reliant on the goodwill of the belligerents.
“From day one, we have called for the immediate release of all the hostages, and for access to them,” it says.
In World War II, the ICRC visited prisoners of war but its mandate did not explicitly extend to civilians unless governments allowed it.
The ICRC acknowledges that during World War II, it “failed to speak out and more importantly act on behalf of the millions of people who suffered and perished in the death camps, especially the Jewish people targeted, persecuted, and murdered under the Nazi regime.”
In its statement, the ICRC reaffirmed that it was the “greatest failure” in the organization’s history, and said it unequivocally rejects anti-Semitism in all its forms.

The ICRC has been accused, particularly on social media, of not putting pressure on Israel to secure visits to Palestinian detainees since October 7, 2023, and also of not doing enough to help the wounded in the Gaza Strip.
The humanitarian organization says it has been actively engaging with the Israeli authorities “to allow for the resumption of ICRC visits and family contacts for these detainees.”
As for the wounded in Gaza, the ICRC said it had received requests to evacuate hospitals in the north, but could not regularly safely access the area due the “extremely difficult security situation — together with roads blocked and unreliable communications.”
Following the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that came into effect on January 19, the ICRC, which already had 130 staff in Gaza, is deploying more personnel, including doctors.

In 1968, Leopold Boissier, a former ICRC president, noted that the criticism most frequently levelled at the organization “is the silence with which it surrounds some of its activities.”
Nearly 60 years later, the ICRC is facing similar accusations, notably since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Founded in Geneva in 1863, the organization, which has more than 18,000 staff in over 90 countries, denies being “complicit” and says it establishes trust through “confidential dialogue with all parties to the conflict.”
“Our neutrality and impartiality are critical to our ability to operate in any context.”
 


Egyptians protest at Rafah border crossing against Trump’s plan to displace Palestinians

Egyptians protest at Rafah border crossing against Trump’s plan to displace Palestinians
Updated 01 February 2025
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Egyptians protest at Rafah border crossing against Trump’s plan to displace Palestinians

Egyptians protest at Rafah border crossing against Trump’s plan to displace Palestinians
  • Trump said on Saturday that Egypt and Jordan should take in Palestinians from Gaza, which he called a “demolition site” following 15 months of Israeli bombardment
  • Critics warned that Trump's suggestion was exactly what Israel's Zionist extremists have been trying to do, to kick out Palestinians from their homeland

CAIRO: Thousands of people demonstrated at the Rafah border crossing on Friday, an eyewitness told Reuters, in a rare state-sanctioned protest against a proposal earlier this week by US President Donald Trump for Egypt and Jordan to accept Gazan refugees.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on Wednesday rejected the idea that Egypt would facilitate the displacement of Gazans and said Egyptians would take to the streets to express their disapproval.
Protesters could be heard chanting “Long Live Egypt” and waving Egyptian and Palestinian flags.
“We say no to any displacement of Palestine or Gaza at the expense of Egypt, on the land of Sinai,” said Sinai resident Gazy Saeed.
Trump said on Saturday that Egypt and Jordan should take in Palestinians from Gaza, which he called a “demolition site” following 15 months of Israeli bombardment that rendered most of its 2.3 million people homeless.
On Thursday, Trump forcefully reiterated the idea, saying “We do a lot for them, and they are going to do it,” in apparent reference to abundant US aid, including military assistance, to both Egypt and Jordan.
Any suggestion that Palestinians leave Gaza — territory they hope will become part of an independent state — has been anathema to the Palestinian leadership for generations and repeatedly rejected by neighboring Arab states since the Gaza war began in October 2023.
Jordan is already home to several million Palestinians, while tens of thousands live in Egypt.


Egypt’s president El-Sisi congratulates Syria’s new president Sharaa, statement says

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. (REUTERS)
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. (REUTERS)
Updated 01 February 2025
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Egypt’s president El-Sisi congratulates Syria’s new president Sharaa, statement says

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. (REUTERS)

CAIRO: Egypt President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi congratulated Syria’s new President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, who was appointed on Wednesday by armed factions, and wished him success in achieving the Syrian people’s aspirations, El-Sisi said in a statement on Friday.
Sharaa, an Islamist who was once an affiliate of Al-Qaeda, has been trying to gain support from Arab and Western leaders since he led a rebel offensive that toppled former Syrian President Bashar Assad last year.