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Erbil Demands Acquiring Air Defense System to Deter Attacks

A Kurdish man who was wounded after the bombing of the headquarters of an Iranian Kurdish party near Erbil on November 14. (Reuters) 
A Kurdish man who was wounded after the bombing of the headquarters of an Iranian Kurdish party near Erbil on November 14. (Reuters) 
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Erbil Demands Acquiring Air Defense System to Deter Attacks

A Kurdish man who was wounded after the bombing of the headquarters of an Iranian Kurdish party near Erbil on November 14. (Reuters) 
A Kurdish man who was wounded after the bombing of the headquarters of an Iranian Kurdish party near Erbil on November 14. (Reuters) 

Masoud Haider, an advisor to Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Iraq, has called on the international community to supply Iraqi Kurdistan and Baghdad with an air defense system.  

Haider made his demand in wake of Iran bombing Kurdish areas in Iraq in recent days. 

“Missile and drone attacks are an infringement on the sovereignty of the Iraqi state and endanger the lives of civilians in Kurdistan. Condemnation does not prevent their recurrence. The international community should help and sell Erbil and Baghdad an air defense system to deter these attacks,” said Haider.  

“Missiles are deterred by missiles, not by condemnations,” he added. 

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) had issued a statement on Monday strongly condemning the new attacks carried out by Iran. 

“The repeated Iranian violations affecting the sovereignty of Iraq and the Kurdistan region of Iraq are unjustified and constitute a flagrant violation of international norms and good neighborly relations,” the KRG said in a statement.  

It also urged Iran to “stop its campaign against the Kurdistan region.”  

“The repeated attacks carried out by Iranian with missiles and drones on the Kurdistan region are a violation of Iraq's sovereignty and an act that contravenes international covenants and laws that regulate relations between countries,” the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.  

The lands of Iraq “are not a base or a corridor to harm any of the neighboring countries,” it stressed. 

“Iraq is also not an arena for conflicts and settling scores for external parties,” the statement added.  

Also on Monday, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) called for the cessation of the “repeated attacks violating Iraqi sovereignty.”  

“Whatever external score a neighboring country is seeking to settle, the use of established diplomatic instruments is the only way forward,” UNAMI said in a statement.  

On Sunday night, Iran launched new strikes targeting Iranian Kurdish opposition factions stationed in Iraqi Kurdistan, killing one of their members, less than a week after similar strikes targeting these factions.  

Tehran accuses Kurdish opposition factions of provoking demonstrations in Iran.  

The counter-terrorism department of Iraqi Kurdistan had earlier said Iran’s “Revolutionary Guard Corps have again bombarded Iranian Kurdish parties” late Sunday, without mentioning if there were casualties.

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Arab World

Hundreds of Thousands Flee as Israel Seizes Rafah in New Gaza 'Security Zone'

A youth rides a bicycle as people commute along the al-Rashid road, the only route linking the northern and southern parts of the Palestinian territory, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)
A youth rides a bicycle as people commute along the al-Rashid road, the only route linking the northern and southern parts of the Palestinian territory, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)
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Hundreds of Thousands Flee as Israel Seizes Rafah in New Gaza 'Security Zone'

A youth rides a bicycle as people commute along the al-Rashid road, the only route linking the northern and southern parts of the Palestinian territory, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)
A youth rides a bicycle as people commute along the al-Rashid road, the only route linking the northern and southern parts of the Palestinian territory, on April 2, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)

Hundreds of thousands of fleeing Gazans sought shelter on Thursday in one of the biggest mass displacements of the war, as Israeli forces advanced into the ruins of the city of Rafah, part of a newly announced "security zone" they intend to seize.

A day after declaring their intention to capture large swathes of the crowded enclave, Israeli force pushed into the city on Gaza's southern edge which had served as a last refuge for people fleeing other areas for much of the war, reported Reuters.

Gaza's health ministry reported at least 97 people killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, including at least 20 killed in an airstrike around dawn in Shejaia suburb of Gaza City.

Rafah "is gone, it is being wiped out," a father of seven among the hundreds of thousands who had fled from Rafah to neighboring Khan Younis, told Reuters via a chat app.

"They are knocking down what is left standing of houses and property," said the man who declined to be identified for fear of repercussions.

After a strike killed several people in Khan Younis, Adel Abu Fakher was checking the damage to his tent.

"Is anything left for us? There’s nothing left for us. We’re being killed while asleep," he said.

The assault to capture Rafah is a major escalation in the war, which Israel restarted last month after effectively abandoning a ceasefire in place since January.

GAZANS FEAR PERMANENT DEPOPULATION

Israel has not spelled out its longterm aims for the security zone its troops are now seizing. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayahu said troops were taking an area he called the "Morag Axis", a reference to an abandoned former Israeli settlement once located between Rafah on Gaza's southern edge and the adjacent main southern city Khan Younis.

Gazans who had returned to homes in the ruins during the ceasefire have now been ordered to flee communities on the northern and southern edges of the strip.

They fear that Israel's intention is to depopulate those areas indefinitely, leaving many hundreds of thousands of people permanently homeless in one of the poorest and most crowded territories on earth. The security zone includes some of Gaza's last agricultural land and critical water infrastructure.

Since the first phase of the ceasefire expired at the start of March with no agreement to prolong it, Israel has imposed a total blockade on all goods reaching Gaza's 2.3 million residents, recreating what international organizations describe as a humanitarian catastrophe after weeks of relative calm.

Israel's stated goal since the start of the war has been the destruction of the Hamas group which ran Gaza for nearly two decades and led the attack on Israeli communities in October 2023 that precipitated the war.

But with no effort made to establish an alternative administration, Hamas-led police returned to the streets during the ceasefire. Fighters still hold 59 dead and living hostages which Israel says must be handed over to extend the truce; Hamas says it will free them only under a deal that ends the war.

Israeli leaders say they have been encouraged by signs of protest in Gaza against Hamas, with hundreds of people demonstrating in north Gaza's Beit Lahiya on Wednesday opposing the war and demanding Hamas quit power. Hamas calls the protesters collaborators and says Israel is behind them.

The war began with a Hamas attack on Israeli communities on October 7, 2023 with gunmen killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies. Israel's campaign has so far killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, Gaza health authorities say.

Rafah residents said most of the local population had followed Israel's order to leave, as Israeli strikes toppled buildings there. But a strike on the main road between Khan Younis and Rafah stopped most movement between the two cities.

Movement of people and traffic along the western coastal road near Morag was also limited by bombardment, said residents.

"Others stayed because they don't know where to go, or got fed up of being displaced several times. We are afraid they might be killed or at best detained," said Basem, a resident of Rafah who declined to give a second name.

Markets have emptied and prices for basic necessities have soared under Israel's total blockade of food, medicine and fuel.

The Palestinian Health Ministry, which is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank but has nominal authority over hospitals in Gaza, said Gaza's entire healthcare system was at risk of collapse.