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Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered a thorough investigation Sunday into the causes of a major blast at a key southern port that killed at least 40 people and injured more than 1,000.His instructions came after President Masoud Pezeshkian visited the blast scene in Shahid Rajaee Port near the strategic Strait of Hormuz where a fire still blazed on Sunday more than 24 hours after the explosion.”Security and judicial officials are obliged to thoroughly investigate, uncover any negligence or intent, and follow up in accordance with regulations,” Khamenei said in a message carried by state television.With choking smoke and air pollution spreading throughout the area, all schools and offices in Bandar Abbas, the nearby capital of Hormozgan province, were ordered closed to allow authorities to focus on the emergency effort, state television said.The health ministry urged residents to avoid going outside “until further notice” and to use protective masks.Arriving in Bandar Abbas, the president expressed his appreciation to first responders, adding “we have come to see first-hand if there is anything or any issue that the government can follow up on”.”We will try to take care of the families who lost their loved ones, and we will definitely take care of the dear people who got injured,” he said.A photo released by Pezeshkian’s office later showed him at the bedside of a man hurt in the blast.The Russian embassy said Moscow was sending multiple “aircraft carrying specialists” to help fight the blaze.The New York Times quoted a person with ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss security matters, as saying that what exploded was sodium perchlorate — a major ingredient in solid fuel for missiles.Defence ministry spokesman Reza Talaei-Nik later told state TV that “there has been no imported or exported cargo for military fuel or military use in the area”.The port’s customs office said in a statement carried by state television that the explosion probably resulted from a fire that broke out at the hazardous and chemical materials storage depot. – Area sealed off -A regional emergency official said several containers had exploded.”For the moment, 40 people have lost their lives as a result of injuries caused by the explosion,” Hormozgan provincial official Mohammad Ashouri told state television.The ISNA news agency, citing the provincial judiciary, gave the number of injured as 1,242.Red Crescent chief Pirhossein Koolivand said some of the injured were airlifted for treatment in the capital Tehran.Aerial photos released by the Iranian presidency showed black smoke rising from the disaster zone on Sunday and drifting towards the sea.”The fire is under control but still not out,” a state TV correspondent reported.Also at the scene on Sunday, Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said “the situation has stabilised in the main areas” of the facility, Iran’s largest commercial port, and workers had resumed loading containers and customs clearance.Another official on site, Minister of Roads and Urban Development Farzaneh Sadegh, said only one zone of the port was impacted.An image from Iran’s Tasnim news agency on Sunday showed a helicopter dropping water on the disaster zone.Others showed firefighters working among toppled and blackened cargo containers, and carrying out the body of a victim.The authorities have closed off roads leading to the site, and footage from the area has been limited to Iranian media outlets.- Mourning -Beijing’s foreign ministry said in a statement to AFP on Sunday that three injured Chinese nationals were in a “stable” condition.The United Arab Emirates expressed “solidarity with Iran” over the explosion and Saudi Arabia sent condolences, as did Egypt, Pakistan, India, Turkey and the United Nations as well as Russia.The Tehran-backed Lebanese movement Hezbollah also offered condolences, saying Iran, with its “faith and solid will, can overcome this tragic accident”.In the first reaction from a major European country, the German embassy in Tehran said on Instagram: “Bandar Abbas, we grieve with you.”Authorities declared a day of national mourning on Monday, and three days of mourning in Hormozgan province from Sunday.The blast occurred as Iranian and US delegations were meeting in Oman for high-level talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme, with both sides reporting progress.While Iranian authorities so far appear to be treating the blast as an accident, it also comes against the backdrop of years of shadow war with regional foe Israel.According to the Washington Post, Israel launched a cyberattack targeting the Shahid Rajaee Port in 2020.

Israel struck south Beirut on Sunday for the third time since a fragile November 27 ceasefire, prompting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to call on its guarantors France and the United States to force a halt.But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the strike targeted a building used by Hezbollah to store “precision-guided missiles” and vowed to stop the Iran-backed militant group using Beirut’s southern suburbs as a “safe haven”.An AFP correspondent saw a plume of smoke rising over the building in the Hadath neighbourhood after the strike.Lebanese television channels broadcast images of a fire around the hangar-like building.The Israeli military had earlier issued a warning to civilians to evacuate the densely populated neighbourhood.”An urgent warning for those in the southern suburbs of Beirut, especially in the Hadath neighbourhood: Anyone present in the building marked in red on the attached map as well as the surrounding buildings, is near Hezbollah facilities,” said military spokesman Avichay Adraee on X, adding: “You must evacuate”.Netanyahu’s office said Israel “will not allow Hezbollah to grow stronger and create any threat against it — anywhere in Lebanon”.”The Dahiyeh neighbourhood in Beirut will not serve as a safe haven for the terrorist organisation Hezbollah,” it vowed, using the Arabic name for the southern suburbs.In a later statement, the military said that “the storage of missiles in this infrastructure site constitutes a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”But the Lebanese president condemned the strike as a new breach of the November 27 ceasefire and urged its guarantors to put a stop to Israel’s continual attacks.Aoun called on “the United States and France, as guarantors of the ceasefire agreement, to assume their responsibilities and compel Israel to halt its attacks immediately”.- ‘Fear of renewed violence’ -The United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, appealed to all sides to halt any actions that could further undermine the ceasefire.”Today’s strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut generated panic and fear of renewed violence among those desperate for a return to normalcy,” she said in a post.”We urge all sides to halt any actions that could further undermine the cessation of hostilities understanding.”The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon also has a seat on the ceasefire monitoring committee, alongside France and the United States and the Israeli and Lebanese governments.The south Beirut strike was not Israel’s only operation against targets inside Lebanon on Sunday.The Lebanese health ministry said an Israeli drone strike on the border town of Halta killed one person.Lebanese media reported that a man was killed while working on his chicken farm. The Israeli military said it killed a Hezbollah militant.Israel has continued to carry out repeated strikes in Lebanon despite the November truce that sought to halt more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, including two months of full-blown war.Under the November deal, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters north of Lebanon’s Litani River, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the Israeli border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure to its south.Israel was to withdraw all its forces from south Lebanon, but troops remain in five positions that it deems “strategic”.

Iran’s president visited on Sunday the scene of a massive port blast that killed 28 people and injured more than 1,000, as fires still blazed more than 24 hours after the explosion.The blast occurred on Saturday at Shahid Rajaee Port in southern Iran, near the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of world oil output passes.With choking smoke and air pollution spreading throughout the area, all schools and offices in Bandar Abbas, the nearby capital of Hormozgan province, were ordered closed on Sunday to allow authorities to focus on the emergency effort, state TV said.The health ministry urged residents to avoid going outside “until further notice” and to use protective masks.Arriving in Bandar Abbas, President Masoud Pezeshkian expressed his appreciation to first responders, adding “we have come to see first-hand if there is anything or any issue that the government can follow up on”.”We will try to take care of the families who lost their loved ones, and we will definitely take care of the dear people who got injured,” he said.Pezeshkian had previously ordered an investigation into the cause of the blast.Russia’s embassy said Moscow was sending multiple “aircraft carrying specialists” to help fight the blaze. According to Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations, one of the aircraft is a dedicated firefighting plane.The New York Times quoted a person with ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss security matters, as saying that what exploded was sodium perchlorate — a major ingredient in solid fuel for missiles.Defence ministry spokesman Reza Talaei-Nik later told state TV that “there has been no imported or exported cargo for military fuel or military use in the area”.The port’s customs office said in a statement carried by state television that the explosion probably resulted from a fire that broke out at the hazardous and chemical materials storage depot. – Area sealed off -A regional emergency official said several containers had exploded.Red Crescent chief Pirhossein Koolivand, in a video shared on the government’s official website, gave an updated toll on Sunday of 28 people killed and more than 1,000 injured.The ISNA news agency, citing the provincial judiciary, gave a higher toll of 1,242 injured and also put the number of dead at 28.Koolivand said some of the injured were airlifted for treatment in the capital Tehran.Thick black smoke was still visible in live footage from the scene aired by state TV on Sunday.”The fire is under control but still not out,” a state TV correspondent reported from the scene.The explosion was felt and heard about 50 kilometres away, Fars news agency reported.Also at the scene on Sunday, Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said “the situation has stabilised in the main areas” of the port, and workers had resumed loading containers and customs clearance.Another official on site, Minister of Roads and Urban Development Farzaneh Sadegh, said only one zone of the port was impacted, and cargo “operations are still continuing as normal in the several other zones”.An image from Iran’s Tasnim news agency on Sunday showed a helicopter flying through a sky blackened by smoke to drop water on the disaster-struck area.Others showed firefighters working among toppled and blackened cargo containers, and carrying out the body of a victim.The authorities have closed off the roads leading to the site, and footage from the area has been limited to Iranian media outlets.- Mourning -Beijing’s foreign ministry said in a statement to AFP on Sunday that three Chinese victims were in a “stable” condition.The United Arab Emirates expressed “solidarity with Iran” over the explosion and Saudi Arabia sent condolences, as did Pakistan, India, Turkey and the United Nations as well as Russia.The Tehran-backed Lebanese movement Hezbollah also offered condolences, saying Iran, with its “faith and solid will, can overcome this tragic accident”.In the first reaction from a major European country, the German embassy in Tehran said on Instagram: “Bandar Abbas we grieve with you.”Authorities declared a day of national mourning on Monday, and three days of mourning in Hormozgan province from Sunday.The explosion ripped through the port as Iranian and US delegations were meeting in Oman for high-level talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme, with both sides reporting progress afterwards.While Iranian authorities so far appear to be treating the blast as an accident, it also comes against the backdrop of years of shadow war with regional foe Israel.According to the Washington Post, Israel in 2020 launched a cyberattack targeting the Shahid Rajaee Port.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza announced Sunday that the death toll from the war had risen to more than 52,000 people, after hundreds previously listed as missing were confirmed dead.”An additional 697 martyrs have been added to the cumulative statistics after their data was completed and verified by the committee monitoring missing persons,” the health ministry said in a statement, giving the overall toll of 52,243.Several United Nations agencies that operate in Gaza have said the ministry’s data is credible and they are frequently cited by international organisations.One hospital in the Palestinian territory confirmed the data and elaborated on the process.”The families of those initially reported missing had informed authorities of their disappearance, but their bodies were subsequently recovered -— either from beneath the rubble or from areas previously inaccessible to medical teams due to the presence of the Israeli army,” said Khalil al-Daqran, spokesman for Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.He said the ministry’s release of the 697 figure came after a “judicial committee” that collects and checks data completed its documentation, “confirming their martyrdom and transferring their status from missing persons to martyrs.”When asked why such a large number was announced simultaneously, the Hamas government’s Media Office in Gaza explained that statistics are released periodically.It is not the first time the health ministry has made such a revision.”Because the judicial committee issues its report periodically rather than daily. They follow their own procedural protocols, and once their report was finalised, it was officially adopted,” Ismail al-Thawabta, director general of the Media Office, told AFP.With Gaza largely in ruins after more than 18 months of war, the health ministry has struggled to count the death toll.Israel has repeatedly questioned the credibility of the daily figures put out by the ministry, criticising the Gaza authorities for failing to distinguish between combatants and civilians.But neither the Israeli military nor top Israeli officials have denied the scale of the overall toll.Earlier this year, Israel and Hamas agreed to a truce, which began on January 19, but collapsed two months later on March 18 due to disagreements over the next phase of the deal.Since then, Israel has resumed its military campaign in Gaza, resulting in at least 2,151 additional deaths.

Fires were still blazing on Sunday after a massive explosion tore through Iran’s largest commercial port the day before, killing at least 25 people and leaving 1,000 others injured, according to state media.The blast occurred Saturday at Shahid Rajaee Port in southern Iran, near the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of world oil output passes.The port’s customs office said in a statement carried by state television that the explosion probably resulted from a fire that broke out at the hazardous and chemical materials storage depot. A regional emergency official said several containers had exploded.The New York Times quoted a person with ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss security matters, as saying that what exploded was sodium perchlorate — a major ingredient in solid fuel for missiles.Iranian state TV gave an updated toll on Sunday of 25 people killed and 1,000 injured, with thick black smoke still visible in live footage from the scene.”The fire is under control but still not out,” a state TV correspondent reported from the site around 20 hours after the blast.Citing local emergency services, state TV reported that hundreds of casualties “have been transferred to nearby medical centres”, while the provincial blood transfusion centre issued a call for donations.- Blood-stained car -The explosion was so powerful that it was felt and heard about 50 kilometres (30 miles) away, Fars news agency reported.Speaking Sunday at the scene, Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said that “the situation has stabilised in the main areas” of the port.He told state TV that workers had resumed loading containers and customs clearance.Images from news agency IRNA on Saturday showed rescuers and survivors walking along a wide boulevard carpeted with debris after the blast at Shahid Rajaee, more than 1,000 kilometres south of Tehran.Flames could be seen engulfing a truck trailer and blood stained the side of a crushed car, while a helicopter dropped water on massive black smoke clouds billowing from behind stacked shipping containers.”The shockwave was so strong that most of the port buildings were severely damaged,” Tasnim news agency reported.The authorities have closed off the roads leading to the site of the explosion, and footage from the area has been limited to Iranian media outlets.With choking smoke and air pollution spreading throughout the area, all schools and offices in Bandar Abbas, the nearby capital of Hormozgan province, have been ordered closed on Sunday to allow authorities to focus on the emergency effort, state TV said.The health ministry urged residents to avoid going outside “until further notice” and to use protective masks.- Mourning -Saturday is the start of the working week in Iran, meaning the port would have been busy with employees.Three Chinese nationals were “lightly injured”, China’s state broadcaster CCTV reported, citing its Bandar Abbas consulate.Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian expressed sympathy for the victims of the deadly blast, adding he had “issued an order to investigate the situation and the causes”.The United Arab Emirates expressed “solidarity with Iran” over the explosion and Saudi Arabia sent condolences, as did Pakistan, India, Turkey and the United Nations.Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his “deepest condolences for the loss of life and extensive damage”, and offered to send help in a message to Iran’s leaders.Authorities declared three days of public mourning across Hormozgan province.The explosion came as Iranian and US delegations met in Oman for high-level talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme, with both sides reporting progress.While Iranian authorities so far appear to be treating the blast as an accident, it also comes against the backdrop of years of shadow war with regional foe Israel.According to the Washington Post, Israel in 2020 launched a cyberattack targeting the Shahid Rajaee Port.

Fires were still blazing on Sunday after a massive explosion tore through Iran’s largest commercial port the day before, killing at least 25 people and leaving hundreds more injured, according to local media.The blast occurred Saturday at Shahid Rajaee Port in southern Iran, near the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of world oil output passes.The port’s customs office said in a statement carried by state television that the explosion probably resulted from a fire that broke out at the hazardous and chemical materials storage depot. A regional emergency official said several containers had exploded.The New York Times quoted a person with ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss security matters, as saying that what exploded was sodium perchlorate — a major ingredient in solid fuel for missiles.Iranian news agency Tasnim, citing the provincial judiciary chief, gave an updated toll on Sunday of 25 people killed. State TV said around 800 people were injured.Live footage on Sunday showed thick black smoke still visible at the scene.”The fire is under control but still not out,” a state TV correspondent reported from the site around 20 hours after the blast.The explosion was so powerful that it was felt and heard about 50 kilometres (30 miles) away, Fars news agency reported.Speaking Sunday at the scene, Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said that “the situation has stabilised in the main areas” of the port.He told state TV that workers had resumed loading containers and customs clearance.Images from news agency IRNA on Saturday showed rescuers and survivors walking along a wide boulevard carpeted with debris after the blast at Shahid Rajaee, more than 1,000 kilometres south of Tehran.Flames could be seen engulfing a truck trailer and blood stained the side of a crushed car, while a helicopter dropped water on massive black smoke clouds billowing from behind stacked shipping containers.”The shockwave was so strong that most of the port buildings were severely damaged,” Tasnim news agency reported.- Mourning -Citing local emergency services, state TV reported that hundreds of casualties “have been transferred to nearby medical centres”, while the provincial blood transfusion centre issued a call for donations.Saturday is the start of the working week in Iran, meaning the port would have been busy with employees.Three Chinese nationals were “lightly injured”, China’s state broadcaster CCTV reported, citing its Bandar Abbas consulate.Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian expressed sympathy for the victims of the deadly blast, adding he had “issued an order to investigate the situation and the causes”.The United Arab Emirates expressed “solidarity with Iran” over the explosion and Saudi Arabia sent condolences.With choking smoke and air pollution spreading throughout the area, all schools and offices in Bandar Abbas, the nearby capital of Hormozgan province, have been ordered closed on Sunday to allow authorities to focus on the emergency effort, state TV said.The health ministry urged residents to avoid going outside “until further notice” and to use protective masks.Authorities declared three days of public mourning across the province.The state-owned National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company said in a statement carried by local media that the explosion “has no connection” to its facilities, reporting no interruption to its work in Bandar Abbas.The explosion came as Iranian and US delegations met in Oman for high-level talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme, with both sides reporting progress.While Iranian authorities so far appear to be treating the blast as an accident, it also comes against the backdrop of years of shadow war with regional foe Israel.According to the Washington Post, Israel in 2020 launched a cyberattack targeting the Shahid Rajaee Port.