Thousands gathered at Barcelona’s port as the largest ever Global Sumud Flotilla prepared to depart for Gaza, aiming to break Israel’s blockade. Al Jazeera’s @Mohammadfff_ reports, as organisers and volunteers insist they will sail to Gaza despite the risks.
Published On 12 Apr 202612 Apr 2026
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Israeli forces raided the Muslim Youth Association in Hebron, firing tear gas at Palestinians and shutting down the group’s headquarters. Troops confiscated and destroyed equipment during the raid.
Published On 6 Apr 20266 Apr 2026
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The United States and Israel have carried out multiple attacks on medical facilities in the course of their war on Iran.
On Thursday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian appealed to international health organisations to respond to attacks on medical facilities in Iran, including the Pasteur Institute in capital Tehran, a key centre that Iranian officials said had been targeted that day.
At least 2,076 people have been killed and 26,500 have been wounded in Iran since the US and Israel first launched strikes on the country on February 28.
Here is a closer look at how the US and Israel have hit healthcare facilities in Iran.
On Thursday, Pezeshkian wrote in an X post: “What message does attacking hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and the Pasteur Institute as a medical research center in Iran convey?”
The Iranian president, 71, a heart surgeon by profession, continued: “As a specialist physician, I urge WHO [the World Health Organization], the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and physicians worldwide to respond to this crime against humanity.”
On Thursday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei wrote in an X post: “The American-Israeli aggressors have attacked the Pasteur Institute of Iran – the oldest and most prestigious research and public health centre in Iran and the entire Middle East, founded in 1920 through an agreement between the Pasteur Institute of Paris and the Iranian government.”
Baghaei deemed the attack “heartbreaking, cruel, despicable, and utterly outrageous”.
He did not specify whether there were casualties from the attack.
The institute was founded more than 100 years ago in collaboration with the Institut Pasteur in Paris, an internationally renowned centre for biomedical research, which itself was founded in 1887.
The institute in Iran conducts research on infectious diseases, produces vaccines and biological products and provides advanced diagnostics.
The centre has played a central role in fighting endemic diseases such as smallpox and cholera. It also supports Iran’s national immunisation programme by developing and producing vaccines and related biologicals – including those used against diseases such as tetanus, hepatitis B and measles.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the WHO, wrote in an X post on Friday that two departments of the Pasteur Institute of Iran have also been working closely with the WHO.
“The conflict in Iran, and the region, is impacting the delivery of health services and the safety of health workers, patients, and civilians present at health facilities,” Ghebreyesus wrote.
“Since 1 March, WHO has verified over 20 attacks on health care in Iran, resulting in at least nine deaths, including that of an infectious diseases health worker and a member of the Iranian Red Crescent Society,” Ghebreyesus wrote in his X post.
Some of the facilities hit include:
On Friday morning, a drone strike hit a Red Crescent relief warehouse in Iran’s Bushehr province.
While no casualties were reported, the attack destroyed two relief containers, two buses and emergency vehicles, Fars news agency reported.
On March 31, Israeli-US strikes hit one of Iran’s largest pharmaceutical companies in Tehran, the Iranian government said in a post on X.
The company was later identified as Tofigh Daru Research and Engineering Company, which is owned by the Social Security Investment Company, a state-run holding firm. On LinkedIn, Tofigh Daru states that it develops and produces active pharmaceutical ingredients “in the anticancer, narcotics, cardiovascular to immunomodulatory segments”.
No confirmed casualty numbers were reported from that strike.
This newly constructed hospital in Tehran was significantly damaged during an attack on the capital on March 29, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).
About 30 patients were in the hospital at the time of the strike late on Monday, the hospital’s director told IRNA. No specific casualty figures for the hospital have been reported.
The hospital in Andimeshk in Iran’s Khuzestan province sustained damage from an explosion on March 21, according to the Mehr and Fars news agencies.
In his post on Friday, Ghebreyesus confirmed this attack and said the facility had been forced to evacuate staff and cease services.
Reports about the attack do not mention casualties at the hospital.
On March 2, Gandhi Hospital in Tehran was damaged during attacks on a television communications tower nearby.
No confirmed casualty figures were reported for the hospital itself.
International humanitarian law states that health establishments and units, including hospitals, should not be attacked, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
These protections also apply to the sick and wounded, to medical staff and to means of transport such as ambulances.
In 2016, the United Nations Security Council resolution 2286 was adopted unanimously. This condemns attacks on healthcare and calls on nations to respect international law.
However, last year record attacks on healthcare during armed conflict were recorded, according to the WHO’s Surveillance System for Attacks on Health Care (SSA).
The SSA said that in armed conflicts worldwide, 1,348 attacks on medical facilities resulted in the killing of 1,981 people. The majority of these deaths were in Sudan, where 1,620 people were killed, followed by Myanmar, where 148 people were killed.
This was a sharp uptick from 2024, when 944 patients and medical personnel were killed in armed conflict.
Besides Iran, Israeli attacks have also targeted healthcare facilities in Lebanon.
A month into its latest bombardment of Lebanon, Israel has killed 53 medical workers, destroyed 87 ambulances or medical centres, and forced the closure of five hospitals, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.
“Israeli strikes and blanket evacuation orders are cutting people off from care and shrinking the space for health services to function,” Luna Hammad, the Lebanon medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders (MSF), told Al Jazeera, adding that MSF has seen “a documented pattern of attacks affecting healthcare”.
Throughout its genocidal war in Gaza, Israel has also attacked healthcare facilities in the Palestinian enclave.
In October 2023, hundreds of people sheltering in the car park of Gaza’s al-Ahli Hospital were killed in an Israeli attack, according to Palestinian health officials.
Israel attributed the explosion at the facility to a misfired rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an allegation denied by the armed group.
In March 2024, the Israeli military said it killed 90 people in its raid on al-Shifa Hospital during a siege, as displaced Palestinians sheltering in the facility described long detentions and abuse.
In December 2024, the Israeli army arrested Dr Hussam Abu Safia, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, after refusing to follow orders to abandon one of the last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza. His arrest came a day after the military killed approximately 20 Palestinians and apprehended about 240 in a raid inside the hospital, which was one of the “largest operations” conducted in the territory until that time.
In March 2025, Israeli forces reportedly shot dead 15 Palestinian medics for the Palestine Red Crescent Society and inside clearly identifiable PRCS ambulances, during a rescue mission in Rafah’s Tal as-Sultan neighbourhood.
UK pro-Palestine activist Qesser Zuhrah has been arrested on terrorism charges after being released on bail last month. Video shows masked officers taking her from her home at dawn over what supporters say was an Instagram story.
Published On 31 Mar 202631 Mar 2026
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United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has offered wide-ranging remarks upon his departure from the latest Group of Seven (G7) ministers’ meeting in France, denouncing Iran’s continued chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz as well as settler violence in the occupied West Bank.
Standing on an airport tarmac on Friday, Rubio fielded questions from journalists about reports that Iran plans to implement a tolling system in the strait, a vital waterway for the world’s oil supply.
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Rubio used the topic to double down on pressure for countries to participate in securing the Strait of Hormuz, a demand US President Donald Trump has repeatedly made.
“One of the immediate challenges we’re going to face is in Iran, when they decide that they want to set up a tolling system in the Strait of Hormuz,” Rubio said.
“Not only is this illegal, it’s unacceptable. It’s dangerous for the world, and it’s important that the world have a plan to confront it. The United States is prepared to be a part of that plan. We don’t have to lead that plan, but we are happy to be a part of it.”
He called on the G7 members — among them, Japan, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and the European Union — as well as countries in Asia to “contribute greatly to that effort”.
The Strait of Hormuz is a key artery for the global transport of oil and natural gas, and prior to the start of the US and Israel’s war against Iran on February 28, an average of 20 million barrels of oil per day passed through the waterway.
That amounted to roughly 20 percent of the world’s liquid petroleum supply.
But since the outbreak of war, Iran has pledged to close the Strait of Hormuz, which borders its shores. The threat of attacks has ground most of the local tanker traffic to a standstill, though a few vessels, some linked to Iran or China, have been allowed to pass through.
Media reports suggest that Iran is setting up a “tollbooth system” that would require passing ships to put in a request through Iran’s armed forces, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). There would also be a fee to secure passage.
“ They want to make it permanent. That’s unacceptable. The whole world should be outraged by it,” Rubio said on Friday.
He added that he conveyed a warning about the polling scheme to his colleagues at the G7.
“All we’ve said is, ‘You guys need to do something about it. We’ll help you, but you guys are going to need to be ready to do something about it,’” Rubio said.
“Because when this conflict and when this operation ends, if the Iranians decide, ‘Well, now we control the Strait of Hormuz and you can only go through here if you pay us and if we allow you to, that’s not only is it illegal under international law and maritime law. It’s unacceptable, and that can’t be allowed to exist.”
The Trump administration, however, has struggled to rally allies and world powers to join the US in its offensive against Iran.
Legal experts have criticised the initial strikes against Iran as an unprovoked act of aggression, though the Trump administration has cited a range of rationales for launching the attack, including the prospect that Iran may develop a nuclear weapon.
Many of the US allies in Europe have maintained that they would limit their involvement to defensive actions. Trump, meanwhile, has accused members of the NATO alliance of being “cowards”, adding in a social media post, “We will REMEMBER.”
In a statement following the G7 meeting, member countries reiterated their stance that there should be an “immediate cessation of attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure”.
They also underscored the “absolute necessity to permanently restore safe and toll-free freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz”. But the statement fell short of pledging any resources or aid to the US and Israeli war effort.
It is unclear when the war might end. On Saturday, it reaches its one-month anniversary, having stretched for four weeks.
Rubio on Friday echoed Trump’s assessment that the war was going as planned and that the US was achieving its objectives, including to destroy Iran’s navy, missile stockpiles and uranium enrichment programme.
“ We are ahead of schedule on most of them, and we can achieve them without any ground troops, without any,” he said, addressing an oft-raised concern about the prospect of US troops being deployed to Iran.
Rubio also briefly addressed the increasing levels of Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Footage has shown settlers this month torching Palestinian homes and vehicles, as well as assaulting residents.
On March 19, the United Nations estimated that more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since Israel began its genocidal war in Gaza in October 2023. The international body underscored that a quarter of the victims were youths.
“ Well, we’re concerned about that, and we’ve expressed it. And I think there’s concern in the Israeli government about it, as well,” Rubio responded, adding that it was a “topic we follow very closely”.
He suggested that the Israeli government may take action to stop the violence, though critics argue that Israel has largely turned a blind eye to settler violence.
“Maybe they’re settlers, maybe they’re just street thugs, but they’ve attacked security forces, Israelis, as well. So, I think you’ll see the government going to do something about it,” Rubio said.
Upon taking office for a second term in January 2025, President Trump also moved to cancel sanctions against Israeli settlers accused of grave abuses in the West Bank.
Rescue teams from the Iranian Red Crescent Society have been searching the rubble of residential buildings hit in US-Israeli attacks in Iran, where officials say around 2,000 people have been killed.
Published On 27 Mar 202627 Mar 2026
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Settler attacks, restrictions on aid, and land seizures marked a week that was supposed to be one of celebration for Palestinians. Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim and Tareq Abu Azzoum explain what’s been going on in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
Published On 25 Mar 202625 Mar 2026
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Former prosecutor at the International Criminal Court Geoffrey Nice says that the US-Israel war on Iran was not based on imminent threat and warns that holding powerful states accountable is ‘unrealistic.’
Published On 24 Mar 202624 Mar 2026
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A blast occurred in an apartment above a restaurant in Gaza City, causing a blaze. Rescue teams headed to the site to put off the fires. The cause of the blast is suspected to be an Israeli drone attack, several people had died in the blast.
Published On 23 Mar 202623 Mar 2026
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