Iran, Russia Call for Immediate Ceasefire in Gaza

Smoke billows following an Israeli air strike on Gaza City, 09 October 2023. (EPA)
Smoke billows following an Israeli air strike on Gaza City, 09 October 2023. (EPA)
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Iran, Russia Call for Immediate Ceasefire in Gaza

Smoke billows following an Israeli air strike on Gaza City, 09 October 2023. (EPA)
Smoke billows following an Israeli air strike on Gaza City, 09 October 2023. (EPA)

Iran and Russia on Friday called for an immediate ceasefire in the ongoing Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza.

The Russian foreign ministry said that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, discussed the current situation pertaining to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict during a telephone call.

“The two sides stressed the need for an immediate ceasefire and urgent humanitarian aid to the civilian population,” the Ministry statement said.

Meanwhile, a veteran Thai politician said on Friday that he held direct talks with the Palestinian group Hamas seeking the safe release of Thai hostages it is holding, amid a flurry of diplomatic activity by Thailand’s government.

Areepen Uttarasin, a veteran Thai politician and former education minister, said the back-channel talks that lasted for about two hours were conducted in person in the Iranian capital Tehran, on Oct. 26, and that Hamas officials said Thai hostages were safe and well-looked after.

“I told them that I am here not to negotiate but simply to ask for their release,” said Areepen, who declined to name the Hamas officials he met with.

Thailand's Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara Pranpree said on Thursday that his country was in touch with Iran and other regional governments that can contact Hamas, including Qatar and Egypt.

Parnpree, who was in the Middle East earlier this week, said Iran was close to Hamas and has promised to help with negotiations.

At least 23 Thai nationals were among more than 240 people taken hostage when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

Of the more than 1,400 people Israel says were killed in the rampage, at least 32 were Thai.

 

 



Amnesty Accuses Israel of 'Live-streamed Genocide' against Gaza Palestinians

TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
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Amnesty Accuses Israel of 'Live-streamed Genocide' against Gaza Palestinians

TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Israel of committing a "live-streamed genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza by forcibly displacing most of the population and deliberately creating a humanitarian catastrophe.

In its annual report, Amnesty charged that Israel had acted with "specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide".

Israel has rejected accusations of "genocide" from Amnesty, other rights groups and some states in its war in Gaza.

The conflict erupted after the Palestinian group Hamas's deadly October 7, 2023 attacks inside Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Hamas also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel in response launched a relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip and a ground operation that according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory has left at least 52,243 dead.

"Since 7 October 2023, when Hamas perpetrated horrific crimes against Israeli citizens and others and captured more than 250 hostages, the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide," Amnesty's secretary general Agnes Callamard said in the introduction to the report.

"States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals and schools," she added.

'Extreme levels of suffering'

Gaza's civil defense agency said early Tuesday that four people were killed and others injured in an Israeli air strike on displaced persons' tents near the Al-Iqleem area in Southern Gaza.

The agency earlier warned fuel shortages meant it had been forced to suspend eight out of 12 emergency vehicles in Southern Gaza, including ambulances.

The lack of fuel "threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens and displaced persons in shelter centers," it said in a statement.

Amnesty's report said the Israeli campaign had left most of the Palestinians of Gaza "displaced, homeless, hungry, at risk of life-threatening diseases and unable to access medical care, power or clean water".

Amnesty said that throughout 2024 it had "documented multiple war crimes by Israel, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, and indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks".

It said Israel's actions forcibly displaced 1.9 million Palestinians, around 90 percent of Gaza's population, and "deliberately engineered an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe".

Even as protesters hit the streets in Western capitals, "the world's governments individually and multilaterally failed repeatedly to take meaningful action to end the atrocities and were slow even in calling for a ceasefire".

Meanwhile, Amnesty also sounded alarm over Israeli actions in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, and repeated an accusation that Israel was employing a system of "apartheid".

"Israel's system of apartheid became increasingly violent in the occupied West Bank, marked by a sharp increase in unlawful killings and state-backed attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian civilians," it said.

Heba Morayef, Amnesty director for the Middle East and North Africa region, denounced "the extreme levels of suffering that Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to endure on a daily basis over the past year" as well as "the world's complete inability or lack of political will to put a stop to it".