Iran calls on UN to recognize Israeli, US 'aggression'

Posting on X, a spokesman for the IDF told Palestinians in northern Gaza to head south, where dozens of people have been killed in weekend airstrikes. But Shaina Low of the Norwegian Refugee Council told DW that people can't travel the route ordered by the Israeli army.

Germany on Sunday called on Iran to stop making threats against the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog after Tehran rejected a request to inspect nuclear sites bombed by Israel and the United States.

"I commend Director General Rafael Grossi and his team for their efforts and their unrelenting professionalism. Threats against them from within Iran are deeply troubling and must stop," German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said on X, without elaborating.

Iran previously accused Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), of "betrayal of his duties" for not condemning the strikes.

Separately, the Tehran-based Kayhan daily, widely seen as a government mouthpiece, also called for Grossi to face the death penalty, accusing him of being a spy.

But Iran's UN envoy, Amir Saeid Iravani, denied Tehran ever threatened Grossi or IAEA inspectors.

"No, there is not any threat," Iravani told CBS News when asked about the newspaper’s remarks.

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt voiced strong support for Israel following its attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

"Israel has made a significant contribution to the security of Israel and Europe by destroying Iran’s nuclear and missile program," Dobrindt said after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday.

He is the first senior foreign politician to visit Israel since its dayslong war with Iran ended Tuesday.

"The world has become safer without an Iranian nuclear program; that is why we support this action," he said.

Earlier in the day, Dobrindt visited Bat Yam, a suburb of Tel Aviv where an Iranian strike killed nine people. He was accompanied by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.

"We see that this is a war being waged against the civilian population," he said.

"We must deepen our support for Israel," Dobrindt added.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz, speaking on the sidelines of a G7 summit in Canada in mid-June, said Israel was doing the "dirty work ... for all of us" by targeting Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

Iran has called on the UN Security Council to label Israel and the United States as the aggressors in the recent 12-day war.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi made the request in a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Security Council President Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett.

He called for the Security Council to recognize Israel and its main ally "as the initiators of the act of aggression and acknowledge their subsequent responsibility, including the payment of compensation and reparations."

Araghchi went on to say that tolerating acts of aggression "seriously undermines the credibility of the United Nations system" and "engenders lawlessness in the future of international relations in our region as well as the international community at large."

Israel and the United States justified their strikes on Iran as necessary in order to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon. Iran maintains that its nuclear program is only for civilian purposes.

Iran's parliament has voted to ban the unauthorized use of telecommunications equipment, including Elon Musk's Starlink, local news agencies reported on Sunday.

Under the new law, violations could be punished with fines, flogging, or up to two years in prison.

Starlink, which uses satellites to provide internet service, is one of the few tools available to Iranians during state-imposed internet blackouts. 

However, it is unclear how widely used the service is within Iran. Users also need a satellite dish to access Starlink, and the cost of the service is likely beyond the reach of most households.

The Jerusalem District Court has delayed upcoming hearings in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's long-running corruption trial.

Netanyahu's lawyers had initially asked the court to excuse him from testifying over two weeks due to "the national need for the prime minister to devote all his time and energy to the political, national and security issues at hand."

Although the court initially rejected the request, it said it changed its judgment on Sunday after hearing arguments from Netanyahu, the head of military intelligence and the chief of the Mossad spy agency.

"Following the explanations given ... we partially accept the request and cancel at this stage Mr. Netanyahu's hearings scheduled" for this week, the Jerusalem district court said in its ruling.

The move comes days after US President Donald Trump took to social media to call the case against Netanyahu a "witch hunt," adding that the trial "should be CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY, or a pardon given to a great hero."

Iran on Sunday said it was not convinced that Israel would abide by the truce that ended a 12-day war between the countries.

Iran had "serious doubts over the enemy's compliance with its commitments including the ceasefire," the Iranian armed forces chief of staff, Abdolrahim Mousavi told the Saudi defense minister, according to the semiofficial Tasnim news agency.

Because of those doubts, "we are prepared to give it a strong response if it repeats the aggression," Mousavi reportedly said.

Fighting broke out between Israel and Iran on June 13 when Israel launched aerial attacks that targeted and killed Iran's top military commanders and scientists involved in Tehran's disputed nuclear program.

Israel said its aim was to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons. Tehran has consistently denied wanting to build a nuclear bomb and is insisting that its nuclear facilities are devoted to civilian purposes.

A ceasefire went into effect six days ago.

The British government said Sunday that both broadcaster BBC and the Glastonbury Festival needed to face scrutiny after musicians at the prestigious event voiced criticism of Israel in footage shown on television.

Among other things, rapper Bob Vylan led the crowd in chants of "Death, death to the IDF" — the acronym for Israel Defense Forces — during his set on Saturday.

Police are investigating both those chants and comments made by the Irish rap trio Kneecap, one of whose members wore a T-shirt dedicated to the Palestine Action Group, which, controversially, is soon to be banned under UK terror laws.

"I thought it's appalling, to be honest, and I think the BBC and Glastonbury have got questions to answer about how we saw such a spectacle on our screens," Health Secretary Wes Streeting told Sky News.

The Israeli Embassy has also said "it was "deeply disturbed by the inflammatory and hateful rhetoric expressed on stage at the Glastonbury Festival."

But Streeting also criticized the embassy, telling it to "get your own house in order."

"I think there's a serious point there by the Israeli Embassy. I wish they'd take the violence of their own citizens towards Palestinians more seriously," he said, referring to recent violence fomented by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.

The festival on Sunday said that it was "appalled by the statements" made by Bob Vylan, saying they "very much crossed a line."

In an Instagram post, it said "there is no place at Glastonbury for antisemitism, hate speech or incitement to violence."
 

US President Donald Trump on Sunday repeated calls for results from ceasefire talks between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

"MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!" Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

Trump said on Friday that he believed it was possible that a ceasefire could be reached within a week.

Indirect talks between the two sides have faltered since Israel in March broke a previous ceasefire that had come into effect in January.

Trump's remarks come as Arab mediators Egypt and Qatar, backed by the US, begin a new effort to stop the conflict and gain the release of Israeli and foreign hostages still held by Hamas since its October 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel.

A Hamas official told the Reuters news agency the group had told the mediators it was ready to resume ceasefire talks. But the official reaffirmed the group's demands that any deal must end the war and secure an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Israel has said, however, that it will agree to end the war only if Hamas surrenders, disarms and goes into exile, something the group has rejected.

During an unexpected visit to Tel Aviv on Sunday, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt offered unqualified support for Israel's attack on Iran's nuclear weapons program.

"Iran has been destabilizing this region for years, for decades, one has to say, with its support for terrorist groups to the north, to the south, to the east of Israel," he said.

Dobrindt added that the Iranian nuclear program is "a real threat to Israel's right to exist and a threat to Europe as well."

The German minster said that Tehran had received a clear message that Israel, the United States, and other allies like Germany could not tolerate research on or construction of nuclear weapons.

Tehran insists that its nuclear program is for purely civilian purposes.

Dobrindt made these comments while visiting the site of a deadly Iranian missile attack in Bat Yam with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.

He described the attack as an assault on the civilian population and expressed his belief that Iran would use any nuclear bomb it developed against Israel.

Dobrindt said that Germany would continue to do all it could to secure Israel's existence.

On Saturday, thousands of people attended a state ceremony in Tehran held to commemorate some 60 people, including top generals, journalists and nuclear scientists, who died in Israeli attacks during the 12-day Israel-Iran war that began on June 13.

DW has this video with scenes from the ceremony:

The evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military on Sunday to residents of northern Gaza ordering them to seek safety in the south are "not feasible" given the situation of many people in the Palestinian territory, Norwegian Refugee Council spokeswoman Shaina Low has told DW.

"Well, there is no safe place in Gaza. After more than 20 months of bombardment and hostilities, to expect a population that is starved, exhausted and has already been displaced multiple times to pick up what little they have left and make a journey that is kilometers long — it's just not possible. It's not feasible," she said.

Low said the situation in southern Gaza, where people were being told to go, was also highly insecure, with the same lack of food, humanitarian supplies and medical treatment — conditions she called "simply unimaginable."

She called on Israel to open up access to her group and others providing aid.

"The biggest tragedy of all of this is that not only does the Norwegian Refugee Council, but other humanitarian agencies and the UN, have thousands of truckloads of aid just waiting to enter Gaza. If only Israel would open those things and allow us access and the ability to do our jobs right," she said.

"We know that we have the ability to scale up and serve people's needs and start meaningfully addressing this humanitarian catastrophe," she added.

Tehran could resume enriching uranium within months, despite damage to several nuclear facilities from US and Israeli attacks, the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, has told US broadcaster CBS News.

"The capacities they have are there. They can have — in a matter of months, I would say — a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium," Grossi said, in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday.

Grossi's remarks are in strong contrast to claims by President Donald Trump that the recent US attacks on three nuclear sites in Iran had set back the country's nuclear program by years.

The extent of the damage caused by the strikes last week remains unclear, though Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi recently said it had been "serious."

Grossi said his International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was mostly concerned about the whereabouts of some 400 kilograms (882 pounds) of uranium that it says has already been enriched to 60%, just under the 90% needed for a nuclear bomb.

"We don't know where this material could be," Grossi said. "Some could have been destroyed as part of the attack, but some could have been moved. So there has to be at some point a clarification." 

Iranian lawmakers recently voted to suspend cooperation with the IAEA in the wake of the US and Israeli attacks.

Israel's military has issued an evacuation order for the northern Gaza Strip, calling on residents to leave parts of Gaza City and nearby areas.

Israeli forces "will operate with intense force in these areas, and these military operations will intensify and expand ... to destroy the capabilities of the terrorist organisations," military spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a statement posted on X.

His post included a map of northern Gaza and a warning to residents to "evacuate immediately south to Al-Mawasi" for safety.

The evacuation order comes as Israel continues its offensive against the Palestinian militant group Hamas, in response to the Hamas attacks in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed.

An Israeli strike on Tehran's Evin prison on Monday killed at least 71 people, Iran's judiciary said Sunday.

"According to official figures, 71 people were killed in the attack on Evin prison," said judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir.

Jahangir said the victims included administrative staff, guards, prisoners and visiting relatives, as well as people living nearby.

Evin prison, situated in the north of Tehran, is Iran's most notorious jail for political prisoners.

The inmates at Evin have included Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi as well as several French nationals and other foreigners.