IsraelIran

Israel attacked Iran just days before Tehran and Washington were to meet for a new round of nuclear talks.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said he believes Tehran can resolve its differences with the United States through dialogue, but trust would be an issue after US and Israeli attacks on his country.

“I am of the belief that we could very much easily resolve our differences and conflicts with the United States through dialogue and talks,” Pezeshkian told US right-wing podcaster Tucker Carlson in an interview conducted on Saturday and released on Monday.

His remarks came less than a month after Israel launched its unprecedented June 13 bombing campaign against Iran, killing top military commanders and nuclear scientists.

The Israeli attacks took place two days before Tehran and Washington were set to meet for a new round of nuclear talks, stalling negotiations that were aimed at reaching a deal over Iran’s atomic programme.

A week later, in separate attacks on June 21, the US also bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.

Iranian state media said on Monday that the death toll from the 12-day war had risen to at least 1,060.

Pezeshkian blamed Israel, Iran’s archenemy, for the collapse of talks with the US.

“How are we going to trust the United States again?” he asked.

“How can we know for sure that in the middle of the talks, the Israeli regime will not be given the permission again to attack us?”

Iran’s president also accused Israel of attempting to assassinate him during the June attacks.

“They did try, yes. They acted accordingly, but they failed,” Pezeshkian told Carlson in response to a question on whether he believed Israel had tried to kill him.

“It was not the United States that was behind the attempt on my life. It was Israel. I was in a meeting … they tried to bombard the area in which we were holding that meeting,” he said, according to a translation of his remarks from Persian into English.

On June 16, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also did not rule out plans to assassinate Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying it would “end the conflict” after reports emerged at the time that US President Donald Trump had vetoed the move.

While a ceasefire between Iran and Israel has been in place since June 24, during the interview with Carlson, Pezeshkian accused Netanyahu of pursuing his “own agenda” of “forever wars” in the Middle East and urged Trump not to be drawn into war with Iran by the Israeli leader.

Netanyahu is visiting Washington on Monday for talks at the White House.

“The United States’ president, Mr. Trump, he is capable enough to guide the region towards peace and a brighter future and put Israel in its place. Or get into a pit, an endless pit, or a swamp,” Pezeshkian said.

“So it is up to the United States president to choose which path.”

Trump said he expected to discuss Iran and its nuclear ambitions with Netanyahu, praising the US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites as a tremendous success.

On Friday, he told reporters that he believed Tehran’s nuclear programme had been set back permanently, although Iran could restart efforts elsewhere.

The international legal order loses its effectiveness when faced with the unilateralism of hegemonic powers as well as acts that flout universally accepted norms. If such practices remain unaddressed, there is a risk that the order will lose its foundational purpose: the protection of justice, peace, and the sovereignty of nations.

The attack by the United States and Israel on Iran, including the targeted killings of scientists and intellectuals, bombing of IAEA-approved nuclear facilities, and strikes against residential, medical, media, and public infrastructure, is a prime example of illegal, unilateral action that must not remain unaddressed. It is a wrongful act and a clear violation of fundamental norms of international law.

In this context, the principle of state responsibility, which dictates that states are held accountable for wrongful acts, must be applied. This principle was codified by the International Law Commission ILC in its 2001 Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, which have since been widely recognised and cited by international courts and tribunals.

Per their provisions, the commission of a wrongful act – such as the unlawful use of force – constitutes a violation of an international obligation and imposes a binding duty on the responsible state to provide full and effective reparation for the harm caused.

In the case of the illegal acts committed by the United States and Israel, the scope of legal responsibility goes far beyond ordinary violations. These acts not only contravened customary international law, but also breached peremptory norms, the highest-ranking norms within the international legal hierarchy. Among these, the principle of the prohibition of aggression is a core and universally binding rule. No state is permitted to derogate from this norm, and violations trigger obligations, requiring all members of the international community to respond collectively to uphold the law.

There are at least two relevant legal precedents that can guide the application of the principle of state responsibility and the obligation for reparations in the case of Iran.

In 1981, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 487 in response to Israel’s attack on Iraq’s nuclear facilities. It unequivocally characterised this act of aggression as a “serious threat to the entire safeguard regime of the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA]”, which is the foundation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The resolution also fully recognised the inalienable sovereign right of all states to establish programmes of technological and nuclear development to develop their economy and industry for peaceful purposes.

Article 6 stipulates that “Iraq is entitled to appropriate redress for the destruction it has suffered, responsibility for which has been acknowledged by Israel”. By mandating that the aggressor compensate the victim for the resulting damages, the resolution provides a clear legal precedent for pursuing redress in similar cases.

Thus, given the fact that the attacks by the US and Israel were carried out with public declarations confirming the operations and are well-documented, the application of the principles and provisions of Resolution 487 to the Iranian case is not only appropriate and necessary but also firmly grounded in international law.

Another relevant document is UN Security Council Resolution 692, which was adopted in 1991 and established the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. The commission was tasked with processing claims for compensation of losses and damages incurred as a result of the invasion.

The creation of UNCC demonstrated the capacity of international mechanisms to identify victims, evaluate damage, and implement practical compensation – setting a clear model for state responsibility in cases of unlawful aggression.

This precedent provides a strong legal and institutional basis for asserting the rights of the Iranian people. It is therefore both appropriate and necessary for the UN to establish a rule-based mechanism, such as an international commission on compensation, to redress Iran.

Such a commission, initiated and endorsed by the UN General Assembly or other competent UN bodies, should undertake a comprehensive assessment of the damages inflicted by the unlawful and aggressive acts of the US and the Zionist regime against Iran.

The establishment of reparative mechanisms – whether through independent commissions, fact-finding bodies, or compensation funds operating under international oversight – would contribute meaningfully to restoring trust in the global legal system and provide a principled response to the ongoing normalisation of impunity.

Iran also has another avenue for pursuing justice for the illegal attacks it was subjected to. In the lead-up to them, the IAEA published biased and politically motivated reports about the Iranian nuclear programme, which facilitated the commission of aggression by the US and Israel and breached the principle of neutrality.

This places Iran in a position to seek redress and claim damages from the agency under Article 17 of the IAEA Safeguards Agreement. As a state harmed by the agency’s manifest negligence, Iran is entitled to full reparation for all material and moral damages inflicted upon its peaceful nuclear facilities and scientific personnel.

In this context, pursuing accountability for the IAEA, alongside the aggressor states, is a vital element of Iran’s broader strategy to uphold accountability within the international legal order. By relying on recognised, legitimate, and binding international mechanisms, Iran will steadfastly defend the rights of its people at every forum.

Ultimately, responsibility for the recent crimes of this war of aggression does not lie solely with the direct perpetrators, the US and Israel, and those who aided them, the IAEA. All states and international organisations bear an undeniable obligation to implement effective legal measures to prevent such crimes.

The international community as a whole must respond decisively. Silence, delay, or any form of complicity in the face of aggression and atrocities would reduce the principle of state accountability under international law to an empty slogan.

In its pursuit of accountability, Iran will exhaust all available resources and will not relent until the rights of its people are fully recognised and they receive adequate redress. It will continue to seek the prosecution and accountability of those responsible for these crimes, both domestically and internationally, until justice is fully achieved.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attended a mourning ceremony on the eve of the Muslim holy day of Ashura.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has attended a religious ceremony in Tehran, making his first public appearance since the 12 days of conflict between Israel and Iran.

The 85-year-old leader appeared in a video aired by state media on Saturday, which showed dozens of people attending an event at a mosque to mark Ashura, the holiest day of the Shia Muslim calendar.

In the footage, Khamenei is seen waving and nodding to the chanting crowd, which rose to its feet as he entered the mosque.

State TV said the clip was filmed at the Imam Khomeini Mosque in central Tehran.

Khamenei has avoided public appearances since the start of the fighting on June 13, and his speeches have all been prerecorded.

The United States, which joined in the Israeli attacks by bombing three key nuclear sites in Iran on June 22, had sent warnings to Khamenei, with US President Donald Trump saying on social media that Washington knew where the Iranian leader was, but had no plans to kill him, “at least for now”.

On June 26, in prerecorded remarks aired on state television, Khamenei rejected Trump’s calls for Iran’s surrender, and said Tehran had delivered a “slap to America’s face” by striking a US airbase in Qatar

Trump replied, in remarks to reporters and on social media: “Look, you’re a man of great faith. A man who’s highly respected in his country. You have to tell the truth. You got beat to hell.”

Iran has acknowledged that more than 900 people were killed in the war, as well as thousands injured. Iran’s retaliatory missile attacks on Israel killed at least 28 people there.

The ceasefire between the two countries took hold on June 24.

Since then, Iran has confirmed serious damage to its nuclear facilities, and denied access to them for inspectors from the United Nations’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The IAEA’s inspectors had stayed in the Iranian capital throughout the fighting, even as Israel attacked Iranian military sites and killed several of the country’s most senior commanders and top scientists, as well as hundreds of civilians.

However, they left after Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a law suspending cooperation with the IAEA on Wednesday.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi on Friday stressed “the crucial importance” of dialogue with Iran to resume monitoring and verification work of its nuclear programme as soon as possible.

Iran was holding talks with the US on its nuclear programme when Israel launched its attacks. The US has been seeking a new agreement after Trump pulled the US out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Tehran signed with world powers in 2015.

Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi separately said on Thursday that the country remains committed to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), dismissing speculation that Iran would leave the international accord.

The US president says he will not allow Tehran to resume its nuclear programme, adding Iranian officials want to meet with him.

United States President Donald Trump has said Iran has not agreed to inspections of its nuclear programme or to giving up enriching uranium.

He told reporters on board Air Force One on Friday that he believed Tehran’s nuclear programme had been “set back permanently”, although he conceded Iran could restart it at a different location.

Trump said he would discuss Iran with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visits the White House on Monday, where a potential Gaza ceasefire is expected to top the agenda.

Trump said, as he travelled to New Jersey after an Independence Day celebration at the White House, “I would think they’d have to start at a different location. And if they did start, it would be a problem.”

Trump said he would not allow Tehran to resume its nuclear programme, adding that Iranian officials wanted to meet with him.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Friday it had pulled out its inspectors from Iran as a standoff deepens over their return to the country’s nuclear facilities that were bombed by the US and Israel.

The US and Israel say Iran was enriching uranium to build nuclear weapons. Tehran denies wanting to produce a nuclear bomb, reiterating for years that its nuclear programme has been for civilian use only. Neither US intelligence nor the UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said they had found any proof that Tehran was building a nuclear weapon.

Israel launched its first military strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites in a 12-day war with the Islamic Republic three weeks ago, with the US intervening on the side of its staunch ally by launching massive strikes on the sites on June 22.

The IAEA’s inspectors have been unable to inspect Iran’s facilities since the beginning of the conflict, even though Grossi has said that it is his top priority.

Grossi stressed “the crucial importance” of holding talks with Iran to resume its monitoring and verification work as soon as possible.

Distrust of IAEA

In the aftermath of the US and Israeli attacks, Iran, which has said it is still committed to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), made painfully clear its burgeoning distrust of the IAEA.

Since the start of the conflict, Iranian officials have sharply criticised the IAEA, not only for failing to condemn the Israeli and US strikes, but also for passing a resolution on June 12 accusing Tehran of non-compliance with its nuclear obligations, the day before Israel attacked.

On Wednesday, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian ordered the country to cut ties with the nuclear watchdog. A bill to suspend cooperation had already been passed in the Iranian parliament and approved by the country’s Guardian Council.

Guardian Council spokesperson Hadi Tahan Nazif said the decision had been taken for the “full respect for the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran”.

The bill itself says the suspension “will remain in effect until certain conditions are met, including the guaranteed security of nuclear facilities and scientists”, according to Iranian state television.

While the IAEA says Iran has not yet formally informed it of any suspension, it is unclear when the agency’s inspectors will be able to return to Iran.

On Monday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi summarily dismissed Grossi’s request to visit nuclear facilities bombed by Israel and the US. “Grossi’s insistence on visiting the bombed sites under the pretext of safeguards is meaningless and possibly even malign in intent,” Araghchi said.

The US claims military strikes either destroyed or badly damaged Iran’s three uranium enrichment sites.

But it was less clear what had happened to much of Iran’s nine tonnes of enriched uranium, especially the more than 400kg (880 pounds) enriched to up to 60 percent purity, a closer step but not in the realm of weapons grade at 90 percent or more.

Hours before a ceasefire took effect between Israel and Iran on June 24, the son of Iran’s last shah, Reza Pahlavi, held a televised news conference in the French capital, Paris.

Dressed in a grey suit and blue tie with his hair combed back, the 64-year-old exiled (and self-styled) crown prince of the monarchy that Iranians overthrew in 1979 urged the United States not to give Iran’s government a “lifeline” by restarting diplomatic talks on its nuclear programme.

Pahlavi insisted that Iran’s Islamic Republic was collapsing. “This is our Berlin Wall moment,” he said, calling for ordinary Iranians to seize the opportunity afforded by Israel’s war and take to the streets, and for defections from the military and security forces.

But the mass protests Pahlavi encouraged never materialised.

Instead, many Iranians – including those opposed to the government – rallied around the flag in a moment of attack by a foreign force. It appears that Pahlavi, who said in his Paris speech that he was ready to replace Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and lead Iranians down a “road of peace and democratic transition”, had misread the room.

While he was willing to align with Israel in achieving what he perceives to be the greater goal of overthrowing the Islamic Republic, the majority of his compatriots were not.

If anything, Pahlavi may have squandered the little support he once had by choosing not to condemn Israel’s heavy bombardment of Iran, which killed more than 935 people, including many civilians, said Trita Parsi, an expert on Iran and the author of Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States.

“He has – in my estimation – destroyed much of the brand name [of the shah] … by going on TV and making excuses for Israel when it was targeting our apartment buildings and killing civilians,” he told Al Jazeera.

Pahlavi’s office did not respond to requests for comment from Al Jazeera.

Generational appeal

The level of support for Pahlavi is disputed, but many experts doubt it is extensive.

Still, what support he does have – particularly in the Iranian diaspora – often emanates from opposition to the Islamic Republic and nostalgia for the monarchy that predated it.

Yasmine*, a British-Iranian in her late 20s, said that members of her own family support Pahlavi for the symbolism of the pre-Islamic Republic era that he represents, as opposed to what he may actually stand for, adding that she believed that he lacked a clear political vision.

“He really symbolises what Iran was [a government that was secular and pro-West] prior to the Islamic Republic, and that’s what those who are asking for Reza Pahlavi want back,” she told Al Jazeera.

Her aunt, Yasna*, 64, left Iran just months before the 1979 revolution to attend university in the United Kingdom. While she supports Pahlavi for the reasons her niece mentioned, she also believes Iran will no longer be a pariah to the West if he returned to rule Iran.

“He’s somebody from my generation, and I have a clear memory of growing up in the days under the shah … he’s also so friendly with America, Europe and Israel, and we need somebody like that [in Iran],” Yasna said.

Analysts explained to Al Jazeera that the lack of a prominent alternative to Pahlavi – due to the Iranian government’s crackdown on political opposition – was part of Pahlavi’s appeal.

They also pointed out that support for Pahlavi is tied to the distorted memory that some have of his grandfather, Reza Khan, and his father, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Reza Khan was widely credited with creating an ethno-centralised state that curtailed the power of the religious clergy and violently cracked down on opponents and minorities. That repression continued under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

However, Yasna speaks fondly of the Pahlavi family and hopes Reza Pahlavi can soon carve out his own legacy.

“Reza’s grandfather brought security to the country, and his father helped us move forward. I now think Reza can unite us again,” she said.

Family history

The Pahlavis were not a dynasty with a long and storied past. Reza Khan was a military officer who seized power in the 1920s, before being replaced by Mohammad Reza in 1941.

Foreign powers had a role to play in that, as they did in 1953, when the US and the UK engineered a coup against Iran’s then-elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who had nationalised the assets of the Anglo-Persian oil company, now known as BP, in April 1951.

“The British thought it was their oil,” explained Assal Rad, a historian of Iran and the author of State of Resistance: Politics, Identity and Culture in Modern Iran.

“They had no recognition of the colonial past that allowed them to forcefully take the resource, nor recognition of Iran’s right to take the resource for itself,” she told Al Jazeera.

Prior to the coup, Rad explained that the shah was engaged in a power struggle with Mosaddegh, who openly criticised the shah for violating the constitution. The former wanted to maintain his control, especially over the military, while the latter was trying to mould Iran into a constitutional democracy with popular support.

The coup against Mosaddegh was ultimately successful, leading to another 26 years of progressively more repressive Pahlavi rule.

According to a 1976 report by Amnesty International, the shah’s feared intelligence agency (SAVAK) often beat political prisoners with electric cables, sodomised them and ripped off their finger and toenails to extract false confessions.

“At the end of the day, the shah’s regime was a brutal dictatorship and non-democracy,” Parsi told Al Jazeera.

Economic inequality between the rich urban classes and the rural poor also grew under the shah, according to a 2019 Brookings Institute report by Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, an economist at Virginia Tech University.

And yet, the shah appeared detached from the plight of his own people throughout his reign. Rad referenced a lavish party that the shah threw in 1971 to celebrate 2,500 years of the Persian Empire.

The luxurious party brought together foreign dignitaries from across the world, even as many Iranians struggled to make ends meet, highlighting the country’s economic disparities.

“He was celebrating Iran with nothing Iranian and no Iranians invited nor involved, and he even had student protesters arrested beforehand because he didn’t want incidents to occur while he was doing this,” Rad said. “The party was one of these monumental moments that led to the disconnect between him and his own people.”

Coupled with state repression and rising poverty, the Persian Empire celebration was one of the factors that eventually led to the 1979 revolution.

Reza Pahlavi was in the US when the revolution erupted, training to be a fighter pilot.

He was just 17 years old and has never returned to Iran since. Instead, a life in exile began, with the ultimate goal always remaining a return to his home country – and power.

As the eldest of the shah’s two sons, loyalists to the monarchy recognised Reza Pahlavi as heir apparent after his father passed away from cancer in 1980.

He has since spent the majority of his life in the US, mostly in the suburbs of Washington, DC.

Initially focused on restoring the monarchy, Pahlavi has shifted his rhetoric in the last two decades to focus more on the idea of a secular democracy in Iran. He has said he does not seek power, and would only assume the throne if asked to do so by the Iranian people.

Opposition outreach

Pahlavi’s attempt to broaden his appeal came as he also reached out to other opponents of the Iranian government.

Some have outright refused to work with him, citing his royal background. And others who have worked with him have quickly distanced themselves.

One of the most important examples of this was the Alliance for Democracy and Freedom in Iran, formed in 2023, in the wake of antigovernment protests that began the previous year.

As well as Pahlavi, the coalition included Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad, human rights activist and actress Nazanin Boniadi, former footballer Ali Karimi, and the author Hamed Esmaeilion.

But problems emerged from the very meeting organised to form the coalition in February 2023.

According to Parsi and Sina Toossi, an expert on Iran with the Center for International Policy (CIP), Pahlavi rejected any proposal to collaborate with the other attendees at the meeting in Washington, DC’s Georgetown University, either by agreeing to make decisions based on a shared consensus or through some kind of majority vote.

He instead wanted all attendees to defer and rally behind him as a leader of the opposition.

Another issue that followed the Georgetown meeting was the behaviour of Pahlavi’s supporters, many of whom were against anyone associated with left-wing politics, and defenders of the actions of the shah’s regime.

“The monarchists [his supporters] were upset that Reza was put on par with these other people [at the meeting],” said Toossi.

The coalition soon collapsed, with Esmaeilion referring to “undemocratic methods” in what many perceived to be criticism of Pahlavi.

Israeli connections

Two months after the Georgetown meeting, and as the newly formed alliance quickly collapsed, Pahlavi made a choreographed visit to Israel with his wife Yasmine.

As Al Jazeera previously reported, the visit was arranged by Pahlavi’s official adviser Amir Temadi, and Saeed Ghasseminejad, who works at the US right-wing think tank the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), which frequently publishes analyses that call on the US to use military force to deter Iran’s regional influence and nuclear programme.

During the visit, Pahlavi and his wife took a photo with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara.

Yasmine and I were very pleased to meet with @IsraeliPM and Sara @netanyahu. We expressed appreciation for Israel’s continued support for the Iranian people’s democratic aspirations and emphasized that, as the children of Cyrus the Great, Iranians aspire to have a government that… pic.twitter.com/lInuy4lwdC

— Reza Pahlavi (@PahlaviReza) April 19, 2023

The trip highlighted Pahlavi’s close ties to Israel, a relationship that had been cultivated for years, even if it was less publicly acknowledged initially.

During George W Bush’s first term as US president in the early 2000s, Pahlavi approached the powerful American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – a powerful lobby – to speak at their annual conference, according to Parsi.

The offer was rejected, with AIPAC members explaining that he would hurt his own brand as an Iranian nationalist if he were to speak at their annual conference, Parsi explained.

“AIPAC had told him that perhaps it wasn’t a good idea because it could delegitimise him, which tells you something about how disconnected [Pahlavi] was from the realities of the Iranian diaspora,” he told Al Jazeera.

But, about 10 years ago, during US President Donald Trump’s first term, Pahlavi also began to surround himself with advisers who have long called for closer ties between Iran and Israel and for the US to continue its “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign against Iran’s government, according to Toossi.

Trump’s maximum pressure campaign hurt common people more than the Iranian government. It resulted in sharp inflation and major depreciation of its currency, making it difficult for many Iranians to afford basic commodities and life-saving medications, according to Human Rights Watch.

According to Toossi, Pahlavi appeared somewhat aware of the economic hardships brought on by sanctions, which may explain why he supported US President Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015.

The JCPOA ensured global monitoring of Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for much-needed sanctions relief.

However, Pahlavi quickly began to align with Trump when he came to power the following year, Toossi said. Trump scorned the JCPOA and finally pulled out in 2018 before beginning his maximum pressure policy.

The disconnect between Pahlavi and regular Iranians over this issue could also be seen in his actions during the 2023 trip to Israel.

Pahlavi made a well-publicised trip to the Western Wall, in occupied East Jerusalem, which holds considerable religious significance for Jewish people across the world.

The vast majority of Iranians are still Shia Muslims – even if many are secular– and Pahlavi did not visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. The Western Wall is part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound’s exterior wall.

Out of touch

In hindsight, the 2023 trip to Israel and Pahlavi’s apparent friendly relations with Israeli officials have damaged his reputation, said Toossi.

“In short … what’s been going on with the Iran monarchy movement is a very clear, evident and above-the-table alliance with Israel,” he told Al Jazeera.

“He was really the only opposition figure that was supportive of [Israel’s war],” he added.

According to Barbara Slavin, an expert on Iran and a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Centre in Washington, DC, Pahlavi’s rhetoric was “counterproductive” during the 12-day war.

Slavin said Pahlavi has largely been disconnected from the feelings and perspectives inside Iran because he simply has not been there since he was a teenager, and his failure to condemn Israel’s bombardment of civilians has turned a lot of people off.

“After all the civilians Israel killed, [his relationship with Israel] really has a bad smell,” she told Al Jazeera.

Parsi agrees and adds that he doesn’t think Israel truly believes that Pahlavi can one day rule the country due to his lack of popular support both in and outside of Iran.

Parsi believes Israel is simply exploiting his brand to legitimise its own hostility towards Iran.

“He is … useful for the Israelis to parade around because it gives them a veneer of legitimacy for their own war of aggression against Iran” during the fighting, he said.

“[Israel] can point to [Pahlavi] and say, ‘Look. Iranians want to be bombed.’” Parsi said.

But that is a turn-off for many Iranians, including those against the government.

Yasmine, the British-Iranian, is one of them.

Pahlavi, in her view, was not charismatic and had cemented his unpopularity among Iranians, both inside Iran and outside, with his call for Iranians to take to the streets as Israel attacked Iran.

“He was asking Iranians to rise up against the government so that he will come [to take over],” Yasmine said. “He was basically asking Iranians to do his dirty work.”

*Some names have been changed to protect the safety of interviewees

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says Tehran is committed to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), dismissing speculation that Iran would leave the accord in response to major attacks by Israel and the United States on its nuclear and other sites.

Araghchi also said on Thursday that Iran will honour its safeguards agreement with the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), despite recently passing a law to suspend cooperation with the agency.

Safeguards agreements between the IAEA and NPT signatories allow the UN agency to ensure that the countries’ nuclear programmes remain peaceful.

“Iran remains committed to the NPT and its Safeguards Agreement,” Araghchi wrote in a social media post.

“In accordance with the new legislation by Majlis [parliament], sparked by the unlawful attacks against our nuclear facilities by Israel and the US, our cooperation with [the IAEA] will be channelled through Iran’s Supreme National Security Council for obvious safety and security reasons.”

It is not clear how that cooperation will proceed or when and how IAEA inspectors will be granted access to Iran’s nuclear sites.

Araghchi’s comment was made in response to a German Federal Foreign Office statement decrying the Iranian legislation against the IAEA as a “devastating message”.

The Iranian foreign minister hit out at the criticism by Germany – one of Israel’s most committed allies that backed the attacks against Iran last month.

At the height of Israel’s strikes, which were launched without direct provocation, Chancellor Friedrich Merz suggested Germany and the West are benefitting from the war.

“This is dirty work that Israel is doing for all of us,” he said. The remarks earned him praise from Israeli officials and caused outrage in some other quarters.

On Thursday, Araghchi rebuked “Germany’s explicit support for Israel’s unlawful attack on Iran, including safeguarded nuclear sites, as ‘dirty work’ carried out on behalf of the West”.

He also accused Berlin of repudiating its commitments under the 2015 multilateral nuclear deal with Tehran by demanding zero enrichment by Iran.

The pact – which US President Donald Trump torpedoed during his first term in 2018 – allows Iran to enrich uranium at a low grade under a strict monitoring regime.

“‘Iranians were already put off by Germany’s Nazi-style backing of Genocide in Gaza, and its support for Saddam’s war on Iran by providing materials for chemical weapons,” Araghchi said in a post on X.

“The explicit German support for the bombing of Iran has obliterated the notion that the German regime harbours anything but malice towards Iranians.”

Companies from the former West Germany have long been accused by Iran of helping late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein develop chemical weapons, which he used against Iranian forces during the war between the two countries in the 1980s.

Iran has been calling on Germany to investigate its ties to Iraq’s chemical weapons, but Berlin has not publicly acknowledged any role in the programme.

Germany and other European countries came out in support of Israel in its recent 12-day war with Iran, which killed hundreds of Iranian civilians, including nuclear scientists and their family members, as well as top military officials.

The US joined the Israeli campaign last month, bombing three Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran retaliated against the US attack with a missile strike against an airbase in Qatar where US soldiers are stationed. Hours later, a ceasefire was reached.

Iranian officials have sharply criticised the IAEA not only for failing to condemn the Israeli and US strikes but also for passing a resolution on June 12 accusing Tehran of noncompliance with its nuclear obligations, the day before Israel attacked.

International law offers special protection to nuclear sites due to the high risk of an environmental disaster if attacks result in the leak of radioactive material.

The state of the Iranian nuclear programme after the US and Israeli strikes remains unclear.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon said the US bombing operation set back Iran’s nuclear programme by one to two years.

But IAEA chief Rafael Grossi recently said Iran could be enriching uranium again in a “matter of months”. Enrichment is the process of enhancing the purity of radioactive uranium atoms to produce nuclear fuel.

Iran has repeatedly denied seeking a nuclear weapon while Israel is widely believed to possess an undeclared nuclear arsenal of dozens of atomic bombs.

After ordering the United States military to bomb Iran last month, US President Donald Trump made a brief address at the White House to laud the “massive precision strike” that had allegedly put a “stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror”.

The speech, which lasted less than four minutes, ended with the invocation of God’s name no fewer than five times in a span of seven seconds: “And I wanna just thank everybody and in particular, God. I wanna just say, ‘We love you God, and we love our great military – protect them.’ God bless the Middle East, God bless Israel, and God bless America.”

Of course, the terminology deployed in the speech was problematic before we even got to the rapid-fire mention of the Almighty by a man who has never been particularly religious. For one thing, Iran simply lacks the credentials to qualify as the world’s “number one state sponsor of terror”; that position is already occupied by the US itself, which, unlike Iran, has spent the entirety of its contemporary history bombing and otherwise antagonising folks in every last corner of the Earth.

The US has also continued to serve as the number one state sponsor of Israel, whose longstanding policy of terrorising Palestinians and other Arabs has now culminated in an all-out genocide in the Gaza Strip, as Israel seeks to annihilate the territory and its inhabitants along with it.

But anyway, “God bless Israel.”

This, to be sure, was not the first time that Trump relied on God to sign off on worldly events. Back in 2017, during the man’s first stint as president, the deity made various appearances in Trump’s official statement following a US military strike on Syria. God, it seems, just can’t get enough of war.

God made a prominent return in January 2025, taking centre stage in Trump’s inauguration speech – yet another reminder that the separation of church and state remains one of the more transparently disingenuous pillars of American “democracy.” In his address, the president revealed the true reason he had survived the widely publicised assassination attempt in Pennsylvania in July 2024: “I was saved by God to make America great again.”

Part of making America great again was supposed to be focusing on ourselves instead of, you know, getting wrapped up in other people’s wars abroad. But the beauty of having God on your side means you really don’t have to explain too much in the end; after all, it’s all divine will.

Indeed, Trump’s increasing reliance on the Almighty can hardly be interpreted as a come-to-Jesus moment or a sudden embrace of the faith. Rather, God-talk comes in handy in the business of courting white evangelical Christians, many of whom already see Trump himself as a saviour in his own right based on his valiant worldwide war on abortion, among other campaigns to inflict earthly suffering on poor and vulnerable people.

The evangelical obsession with Israel means Trump has earned big saviour points in that realm, as well. In 2019, for example, the president took to Twitter to thank Wayne Allyn Root – an American Jewish-turned-evangelical conservative radio host and established conspiracy theorist – for his “very nice words,” including that Trump was the “best President for Israel in the history of the world” and that Israeli Jews “love him like he’s the King of Israel”.

And not only that: Israelis also “love him like he is the second coming of God”.

Obviously, anyone with an ego as big as Trump’s has no problem playing God – especially when he already believes that his every proclamation should spontaneously be made reality, biblical creation story-style.

Former Arkansas governor and zealous evangelical Mike Huckabee, who once declared that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian” and who is now serving as Trump’s ambassador to Israel, has done his own part to encourage the president’s messiah complex, writing in a text message to Trump that “I believe you hear from heaven … You did not seek this moment. This moment sought YOU!”

So it was only fitting that Trump should thank and profess love for God after bombing Iran in accordance with Israel’s wishes – not that US and Israeli interests don’t align when it comes to sowing regional havoc and ensuring the flow of capital into arms industry coffers.

And yet, Trump is not the only US head of state to have enjoyed wartime communications with God. Recall the time in 2003 that then-President and “war on terror” chief George W Bush informed Palestinian ministers of his “mission from God”.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath would go on to quote snippets from Bush’s side of the conversation: “God would tell me, ‘George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.’ And I did, and then God would tell me, ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq.’ And I did.”

Now, Trump doesn’t like to take orders from anyone, even if they’re from on high. However, he’s made it clear that he’s not opposed to ingratiating himself with God in the interest of political expediency.

Some evangelical adherents see the current upheaval in the Middle East as potentially expediting the so-called “end times” and the second coming of Jesus – which means the more war, the better. And the more that God can be portrayed as an ally in US and Israeli-inflicted devastation, the better for Trump’s delusions of deification.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

In the predawn darkness of June 13, Israel launched a “preemptive” attack on Iran. Explosions rocked various parts of the country. Among the targets were nuclear sites at Natanz and Fordo, military bases, research labs, and senior military residences. By the end of the operation, Israel had killed at least 974 people while Iranian missile strikes in retaliation had killed 28 people in Israel.

Israel described its actions as anticipatory self-defence, claiming Iran was mere weeks away from producing a functional nuclear weapon. Yet intelligence assessment, including by Israeli ally, the United States, and reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) showed no evidence of Tehran pursuing a nuclear weapon. At the same time, Iranian diplomats were in talks with US counterparts for a possible new nuclear deal.

But beyond the military and geopolitical analysis, a serious ethical question looms: is it morally justifiable to launch such a devastating strike based not on what a state has done, but on what it might do in the future? What precedent does this set for the rest of the world? And who gets to decide when fear is enough to justify war?

A dangerous moral gamble

Ethicists and international lawyers draw a critical line between preemptive and preventive war. Pre-emption responds to an imminent threat – an immediate assault. Preventive war strikes against a possible future threat.

Only the former meets moral criteria rooted in the philosophical works of thinkers like Augustine and Aquinas, and reaffirmed by modern theorists like Michael Walzer — echoing the so-called Caroline formula, which permits preemptive force only when a threat is “instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation”.

Israel’s raid, however, fails this test. Iran’s nuclear capability was not weeks from completion. Diplomacy had not been exhausted. And the devastation risked — including radioactive fallout from centrifuge halls — far exceeded military necessity.

The law mirrors moral constraints. The UN Charter Article 2(4) bans the use of force, with the sole exception in Article 51, which permits self-defence after an armed attack. Israel’s invocation of anticipatory self-defence relies on contested legal custom, not accepted treaty law. UN experts have called Israel’s strike “a blatant act of aggression” violating jus cogens norms.

Such costly exceptions risk fracturing the international legal order. If one state can credibly claim pre-emption, others will too — from China reacting to patrols near Taiwan, to Pakistan reacting to perceived Indian posturing — undermining global stability.

Israel’s defenders respond that existential threats justify drastic action. Iran’s leaders have a history of hostile rhetoric towards Israel and have consistently backed armed groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently argued that when a state’s existence is under threat, international law struggles to provide clear, actionable answers.

The historical scars are real. But philosophers warn that words, however hateful, do not equate to act. Rhetoric stands apart from action. If speech alone justified war, any nation could wage preemptive war based on hateful rhetoric. We risk entering a global “state of nature”, where every tense moment becomes cause for war.

Technology rewrites the rules

Technology tightens the squeeze on moral caution. The drones and F‑35s used in Rising Lion combined to paralyse Iran’s defences within minutes. Nations once could rely on time to debate, persuade, and document. Hypersonic missiles and AI-powered drones have eroded that window — delivering a stark choice: act fast or lose your chance.

These systems don’t just shorten decision time — they dissolve the traditional boundary between wartime and peacetime. As drone surveillance and autonomous systems become embedded in everyday geopolitics, war risks becoming the default condition, and peace the exception.

We begin to live not in a world of temporary crisis, but in what philosopher Giorgio Agamben calls a permanent state of exception — a condition where emergency justifies the suspension of norms, not occasionally but perpetually.

In such a world, the very idea that states must publicly justify acts of violence begins to erode. Tactical advantage, coined as “relative superiority”, leverages this compressed timeframe — but gains ground at a cost.

In an era where classified intelligence triggers near-instant reaction, ethical scrutiny retreats. Future first-move doctrines will reward speed over law, and surprise over proportion. If we lose the distinction between peace and war, we risk losing the principle that violence must always be justified — not assumed.

The path back to restraint

Without immediate course correction, the world risks a new norm: war before reason, fear before fact. The UN Charter depends on mutual trust that force remains exceptional. Every televised strike chips away at that trust, leading to arms races and reflexive attacks. To prevent this cascade of fear-driven conflict, several steps are essential.

There has to be transparent verification: Claims of “imminent threat” must be assessed by impartial entities — IAEA monitors, independent inquiry commissions — not buried inside secret dossiers.

Diplomacy must take precedence: Talks, backchannels, sabotage, sanctions — all must be demonstrably exhausted pre-strike. Not optionally, not retroactively.

There must be public assessment of civilian risk: Environmental and health experts must weigh in before military planners pull the trigger.

The media, academia, and public must insist that these thresholds are met — and keep governments accountable.

Preemptive war may, in rare cases, be morally justified — for instance, missiles poised on launchpads, fleets crossing redlines. But that bar is high by design. Israel’s strike on Iran wasn’t preventive, it was launched not against an unfolding attack but against a feared possibility.  Institutionalising that fear as grounds for war is an invitation to perpetual conflict.

If we abandon caution in the name of fear, we abandon the shared moral and legal boundaries that hold humanity together. Just war tradition demands we never view those who may harm us as mere threats — but rather as human beings, each worthy of careful consideration.

The Iran–Israel war is more than military drama. It is a test: will the world still hold the line between justified self-defence and unbridled aggression? If the answer is no, then fear will not just kill soldiers. It will kill the fragile hope that restraint can keep us alive.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Iran’s embassy in Berlin swiftly rejects allegation after man is arrested in neighbouring Denmark.

A Danish man has been arrested on suspicion of spying in Germany on behalf of Iran, an allegation swiftly denied by the Iranian embassy in Berlin.

German prosecutors on Tuesday said the man, identified only as Ali S under German privacy law, was suspected of conducting the surveillance “in preparation of further intelligence activities in Germany, possibly including terrorist attacks on Jewish targets”.

It added that the individual was suspected of receiving the espionage orders from “an Iranian intelligence service”.

German and Danish authorities said the man had been arrested in Denmark but would be extradited to Germany.

The Iranian embassy in Berlin decried what it called “unfounded and dangerous accusations”.

“Previous discussions with relevant German authorities have already highlighted that certain third parties are attempting to divert public perceptions from the actual events through artificial staging,” the embassy said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Germany’s foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, said Iran’s ambassador had been summoned after the arrest.

“If this suspicion were confirmed, it would be an outrageous incident that would once again demonstrate that Iran is a threat to Jews all over the world,” Wadephul said during a visit to Odesa, Ukraine, shortly after visiting a synagogue there.

Alleged spying

According to Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, the suspect took photos of at least three buildings in Berlin in June.

They included the headquarters of the German-Israeli Society, which has lobbied the European Union to list Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a “terrorist” organisation, and a building where the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, was said to occasionally stay.

Der Spiegel reported that investigators believe the suspect was working on behalf of the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the IRGC.

He was arrested in the Danish city of Aarhus by local police last week and was awaiting extradition to Germany.

During the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said his country was preparing “in case Iran targets Israeli or Jewish institutions”.

He did not provide further details at the time.

Berlin has been a key ally of Israel and vocally supported the attacks on Iran, which began with surprise strikes on June 13.

Video shows the aftermath of a deadly Israeli strike on Evin Prison in Tehran, that killed at least 71 people, including visiting women and children. The prison, known for holding political prisoners, was hit just a day before a ceasefire ended 12 days of fighting initiated by Israeli strikes.

Direct US involvement in Israel’s unprovoked attack on Iran was a dangerous decision, argues Vali Nasr, professor of international affairs and Middle East history at Johns Hopkins University.

Hours before a ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran was announced, Nasr told host Steve Clemons that “the US doesn’t have a regime change option in Iran” and should be wary of humiliating Tehran, which would lead to long-term consequences.

Nasr argues that the 12-Day War was meant to establish Israel’s dominance as the premier Middle East power, backed by Washington, with no room for challengers.

United States President Donald Trump can force Israel to end the war on Gaza if he shows the same gumption as he did with Iran, argues Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

Parsi discusses the wider implications of the 12-day war on Iran with host Steve Clemons, including:

• Will Iran double down on its nuclear weapons programme?
• Will improved Iran-US relations lead to sanctions relief?
• Why did European leaders legitimise the unprovoked US and Israeli attacks, instead of calling for the “rules-based order” as they do in Ukraine?
• Does Iran have allies?

An Israeli air attack on Tehran’s Evin Prison during this month’s 12-day war has killed at least 71 people, Iran’s judiciary says, days after a ceasefire ended hostilities between the two arch foes.

The strike on Monday, the day before the ceasefire between Israel and Iran took hold, destroyed part of the administrative building at Evin, a large, heavily fortified complex in northern Tehran that rights groups said holds political prisoners and foreign nationals.

“According to official figures, 71 people were killed in the attack on Evin Prison,” judiciary spokesman Asghar Jahangir said on Sunday of an attack that was part of the bombardment campaign Israel launched on June 13.

According to Jahangir, the victims at Evin included administrative staff, guards, prisoners and visiting relatives as well as people living nearby.

The judiciary said Evin’s medical centre and visiting rooms were targeted.

A day after the strike, the judiciary said Iran’s prison authority had transferred inmates out of Evin Prison without specifying their number or identifying them.

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

At least 66 children have died of malnutrition in Gaza over the course of Israel’s war, authorities in the Palestinian enclave said, condemning a tightened Israeli siege that has prevented the entry of milk, nutritional supplements and other food aid.

The statement from Gaza’s Government Media Office on Saturday comes as Israeli forces intensified their attacks on the territory, killing at least 60 Palestinians, including 20 people in the Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City.

The media office said Israel’s deadly blockade constitutes a “war crime” and reveals its “deliberate use of starvation as a weapon to exterminate civilians”.

The office denounced what it called “this ongoing crime against childhood in the Gaza Strip” as well as “the shameful international silence regarding the suffering of children who are left to fall prey to hunger, disease, and slow death”.

It also said it holds Israel, as well as its allies, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, responsible for “this catastrophe”, and urged the United Nations to intervene and open the crossings into Gaza immediately.

The statement came days after the UN agency for children (UNICEF) warned that the number of malnourished children in the Gaza Strip was rising at an “alarming rate”. It said that at least 5,119 children, between 6 months and 5 years of age, had been admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition in May alone.

UNICEF said the figure represents a nearly 50 percent increase from the 3,444 children admitted in April, and a 150 percent increase from February when a ceasefire was in effect and aid was entering Gaza in significant quantities.

“In just 150 days, from the start of the year until the end of May, 16,736 children – an average of 112 children a day – have been admitted for treatment for malnutrition in the Gaza Strip,” said the agency’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, Edouard Beigbeder.

“Every one of these cases is preventable. The food, water, and nutrition treatments they desperately need are being blocked from reaching them,” he added. “Man-made decisions that are costing lives. Israel must urgently allow the large-scale delivery of life-saving aid through all border crossings.”

Israel intensifies attacks on north Gaza

The warnings came as Palestinians mourned the 60 people killed in Israeli attacks on Saturday. In Gaza City’s Tuffah neighbourhood, rescuers continued the search for survivors after two consecutive Israeli strikes flattened several residential buildings, killing at least 20 people.

Some nine children were among the victims.

“We were sitting peacefully when we received a call from a private number telling us to evacuate the entire block immediately – a residential area belonging to the al-Nakhalah family. As you can see, the whole block is nearly wiped out,” one resident, Mahmoud al-Nakhala, told Al Jazeera.

“We still don’t know why two three-storey homes were targeted… It’s heartbreaking that people watch what’s happening in Gaza – the suffering, the massacres – and stay silent. At this point, we can’t even comprehend what’s happening here any more,” he said.

The bombings in Tuffah followed another air raid on tents sheltering displaced people in Gaza City.

At least 13 people were killed, including several children.

Other victims included a person who was shot and killed near an aid distribution point run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in southern Rafah.

According to officials in Gaza, Israeli forces have killed more than 550 people at and near the GHF sites, since the controversial group began operations on May 19.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, said that the GHF remains the only source of food in the Strip as Israel continues to place severe restrictions on the entry of supplies by other groups.

“A lot of people here are trying to stay away from the GHF’s centres because of the danger involved in going to them, because of the ongoing and deliberate shootings of aid seekers there,” Mahmoud said. “But again, staying away is not an answer, because if there are no food parcels, it means that children are going to go to bed hungry.”

Aid groups have condemned the GHF’s “militarised” operations, with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres saying on Friday that the US-backed operation in Gaza was “inherently unsafe” and “killing people”.

Israel’s Haaretz newspaper has, meanwhile, reported that Israeli troops in Gaza were ordered to shoot at unarmed Palestinians at the GHF sites, with one soldier describing the scenes as a “killing field”.

The Israeli military denied the claim.

Chris Doyle, the director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, said the GHF’s aid distribution system in Gaza is an “abomination and utter disgrace”.

“It is an inversion of all the global humanitarian principles about independence, impartiality and neutrality,” he told Al Jazeera.

“As we’ve seen, around about 550 Palestinians have been killed in trying to get food there, to travel by foot, long journeys, and then the families worry whether they’ll ever come back again,” Doyle said.

He went on to describe the situation as another example of how “Israel enjoys complete and utter impunity from any of the norms of war, of international law”.

“This has to be dismantled now, and the proper systems of delivery and distribution of aid set back up,” he added.

The United States and Israel attacked Iran, saying it could not have a nuclear weapon, which Tehran denied it was trying to build.

The US and Israel are among nine countries armed with nuclear weapons.

So who decides who can have nuclear arms? And have the actions of Israel and the US increased the risks that more countries will want them?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests: 

• Tariq Rauf, former head of verification and security policy coordination at the International Atomic Energy Agency.
• Laicie Heeley, a nuclear arms control and non-proliferation specialist, and editor-in-chief of Inkstick Media in Washington, DC.
• Tariq Ali, a historian and editor at the New Left Review journal in London.

On Friday, June 13, when Israeli missiles began raining down on Tehran, Shamsi was reminded once again just how vulnerable she and her family are.

The 34-year-old Afghan mother of two was working at her sewing job in north Tehran. In a state of panic and fear, she rushed back home to find her daughters, aged five and seven, huddled beneath a table in horror.

Shamsi fled Taliban rule in Afghanistan just a year ago, hoping Iran would offer safety. Now, undocumented and terrified, she finds herself caught in yet another dangerous situation – this time with no shelter, no status, and no way out.

“I escaped the Taliban but bombs were raining over our heads here,” Shamsi told Al Jazeera from her home in northern Tehran, asking to be referred to by her first name only, for security reasons. “We came here for safety, but we didn’t know where to go.”

Shamsi, a former activist in Afghanistan, and her husband, a former soldier in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan before the Taliban returned to power in 2021, fled to Iran on a temporary visa, fearful of reprisals from the Taliban over their work. But they have been unable to renew their visas because of the cost and the requirement to exit Iran and re-enter through Taliban-controlled Afghanistan – a journey that would likely be too dangerous.

Life in Iran has not been easy. Without legal residency, Shamsi has no protection at work, no bank account, and no access to aid. “There was no help from Iranians, or from any international organisation,” she said.

Internet blackouts in Tehran have made it hard to find information or contact family.

“Without a driver’s licence, we can’t move around. Every crossroad in Tehran is heavily inspected by police,” she said, noting that they managed to get around restrictions to buy food before Israel began bombing, but once that started it became much harder.

Iran hosts an estimated 3.5 million refugees and people in refugee-like situations, including some 750,000 registered Afghans. But more than 2.6 million are undocumented individuals. Since the Taliban’s return to power and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, thousands of Afghans, including activists, journalists, former soldiers, and other vulnerable people, have crossed into Iran seeking refuge.

Tehran province alone reportedly hosts 1.5 million Afghan refugees – the majority of them undocumented – and as Israel targeted sites in and around the capital, attacking civilian and military locations during the 12-day conflict, many Afghans were starkly reminded of their extreme vulnerability – unprotected and unable to access emergency assistance, or even reliable information during air raids as the internet was shut down for large periods of time.

While many fled Tehran for the north of Iran, Afghan refugees like Shamsi and her family had nowhere to go.

On the night of June 22, an explosion shook her neighbourhood, breaking the windows of the family’s apartment. “I was awake until 3am, and just an hour after I fell asleep, another blast woke me up,” she said.

An entire residential apartment was levelled near her building. “I prepared a bag with my children’s main items to be ready if something happens to our building.”

The June 23 ceasefire brokered by Qatar and the US came as a huge relief, but now there are other problems: Shamsi’s family is almost out of money. Her employer, who used to pay her in cash, has left the city and won’t answer her calls. “He’s disappeared,” she said. “When I [previously] asked for my unpaid wages, he just said: ‘You’re an Afghan migrant, get out, out, out.’”

The human cost of conflict

For all Afghans trapped in Iran – both those forced to flee and those who stayed in their homes – the 12-day conflict with Israel has sharply reawakened feelings of trauma and displacement.

Furthermore, according to the Iranian health authorities, three Afghan migrants – identified as Hafiz Bostani, Abdulwali and Habibullah Jamshidi – were among the 610 people killed in the recent strikes.

On June 18, 18-year-old Afghan labourer Abdulwali was killed and several others were injured in an Israeli strike on their construction site in the Tehranpars area of Tehran. According to the victim’s father, Abdulwali left his studies in Afghanistan about six months ago to work in Iran to feed his family. In a video widely shared by Abdulwali’s friends, his colleagues at the construction site can be heard calling to him to leave the building as loud explosions echo in the background.

Other Afghans are still missing since the Israeli strikes. Hakimi, an elderly Afghan man from Takhar province in Afghanistan, told Al Jazeera that he hadn’t heard from three of his grandsons in Iran for four days. “They were stuck inside a construction site in central Tehran with no food,” he said.

All he knows is that they retreated to the basement of the unfinished apartment building they were working on when they heard the sound of bombs, he explained. The shops nearby were closed, and their Iranian employer has fled the city without paying wages.

Even if they have survived, he added, they are undocumented. “If they get out, they will get deported by police,” Hakimi said.

From one danger zone to another

During the conflict, UN Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett urged all parties to protect Afghan migrants in Iran, warning of serious risks to their safety and calling for immediate humanitarian safeguards.

Afghan activist Laila Forugh Mohammadi, who now lives outside the country, is using social media to raise awareness about the dire conditions Afghans are facing in Iran. “People can’t move, can’t speak,” she said. “Most have no legal documents, and that puts them in a dangerous position where they can’t even retrieve unpaid wages from fleeing employers.”

She also flagged that amid the Iran-Israel conflict, there is no government body supporting Afghans. “There’s no bureaucracy to process their situation. We dreaded an escalation in the violence between Iran and Israel for the safety of our people,” she said.

In the end, those who did manage to evacuate from the most dangerous areas in Iran mostly did so with the help of Afghan organisations.

The Afghan Women Activists’ Coordinating Body (AWACB), part of the European Organisation for Integration, helped hundreds of women – many of whom fled the Taliban because of their activist work – and their families to flee. They relocated from high-risk areas like Tehran, Isfahan and Qom – the sites of key nuclear facilities which Israel and the US both targeted – to safer cities such as Mashhad in the northeast of the country. The group also helped with communicating with families in Afghanistan during the ongoing internet blackouts in Iran.

“Our capacity is limited. We can only support official members of AWACB,” said Dr Patoni Teichmann, the group’s founder, speaking to Al Jazeera before the ceasefire. “We have evacuated 103 women out of our existing 450 members, most of whom are Afghan women’s rights activists and protesters who rallied against the women’s education ban and fled Afghanistan.”

‘I can’t go back to the Taliban’

Iran recently announced plans to deport up to two million undocumented Afghans, but during the 12-day conflict, some took the decision to move back anyway despite the dangers and hardships they may face there.

World Vision Afghanistan reported that, throughout the 12-day war, approximately 7,000 Afghans were crossing daily from Iran into Afghanistan via the Islam Qala border in Herat. “People are arriving with only the clothes on their backs,” said Mark Cal, a field representative. “They’re traumatised, confused, and returning to a homeland still in economic and social freefall.”

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has voiced grave concerns about the deteriorating humanitarian situation for Afghans in Iran, adding that it is monitoring reports that people are on the move within Iran and that some are leaving for neighbouring countries.

Even as Israeli strikes came to a halt, tensions remain high, and the number of Afghans fleeing Iran is expected to rise.

But for many, there is nowhere left to go.

Back in northern Tehran, Shamsi sits beside her daughter watching an Iranian news channel. “We came here for safety,” she says softly. Asked what she would do if the situation worsens, Shamsi doesn’t hesitate: “I will stay here with my family. I can’t go back to the Taliban.”

This piece was published in collaboration with Egab.

A state funeral service is under way in Iran for about 60 people, including military commanders, killed in Israeli attacks, with thousands joining the ceremony in the capital, Tehran.

State TV showed footage of people donning black clothes, waving Iranian flags and holding pictures of the slain head of the Revolutionary Guard, other top commanders and nuclear scientists in the ceremony that started at 8am (04:30 GMT) on Saturday.

Images from central Tehran showed coffins draped in Iranian flags and bearing portraits of the deceased commanders in uniform.

The United States had carried out strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites last weekend, joining its ally Israel’s bombardments of Iran in the 12-day war launched on June 13.

Both Israel and Iran claimed victory in the war that ended with a ceasefire on Tuesday, with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei downplaying the US strikes, claiming Trump had “exaggerated events in unusual ways”, and rejecting US claims that Iran’s nuclear programme had been set back by decades.

The coffins of the Guard’s chief General Hossein Salami, the head of the Guard’s ballistic missile programme, General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, and others were driven on trucks along the capital’s Azadi Street as people in the crowds chanted: “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.

Salami and Hajizadeh were both killed on the first day of the war, which Israel said was meant to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme.

Mohammad Bagheri, a major-general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, as well as top nuclear scientist Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi were also killed in Israeli attacks.

Saturday’s ceremonies were the first public funerals for top commanders since the ceasefire, and Iranian state television reported that they were for 60 people in total, including four women and four children.

Authorities closed government offices to allow public servants to attend the ceremonies.

War of words

The state funeral comes a day after US President Donald Trump launched a tirade on his Truth Social platform, blasting Khamenei for claiming in a video address that Iran had won the war.

Trump also claimed to have known “EXACTLY where he (Khamenei) was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the US Armed Forces… terminate his life”.

He claimed he had been working in recent days on the possible removal of sanctions against Iran, but he dropped it after Khamenei’s remarks.

Hitting back at Trump on Saturday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on X: “If President Trump is genuine about wanting a deal, he should put aside the disrespectful and unacceptable tone towards Iran’s Supreme Leader.”

Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar, reporting from Tehran, said Araghchi’s remarks were “a most expected reaction” to Trump’s social media posts.

“Many Iranian people regard him [Khamenei] as chiefly a religious leader, but according to the constitution, he’s not only that – he’s the political leader, he’s the military leader – he’s simply the head of state in Iran,” he said.

Serdar also said Khamenei’s position is not just the top of a hierarchy, but a divine role in Shia political theology.

“Not only in Iran, but across the world, we know there are a significant number of Shia who look for his guidance,” Serdar said. “Anyone who knows that would be meticulously careful not to publicly criticise him, and particularly not to accuse him of lying.”

No nuclear talks planned

There was no immediate sign of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the state broadcast of the funeral.

Khamenei, who has not made a public appearance since before the outbreak of the war, has in past funerals held prayers for fallen commanders over their coffins before the open ceremonies, later aired on state television.

During the 12 days before the ceasefire, Israel claimed it killed about 30 Iranian commanders and 11 nuclear scientists, while hitting eight nuclear-related facilities and more than 720 military infrastructure sites.

Iran fired more than 550 ballistic missiles at Israel, most of which were intercepted, but those that got through caused damage in many areas and killed 28 people, according to Israeli figures.

The Israeli attacks on Iran killed at least 627 civilians, Tehran’s Ministry of Health and Medical Education said.

After the US strikes, Trump said negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme for a new deal were set to restart next week, but Tehran denied there were plans for a resumption.

US president says Iranian Supreme Leader’s alleged ‘anger, hatred, disgust’ led him to drop work on sanctions relief.

President Donald Trump has hit out at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s claim that Iran won its recent 12-day war with Israel, also saying the United States will “absolutely” bomb the country again if it pursues nuclear weapons.

The US president launched a torrent of abuse at Iran’s Supreme Leader on his Truth Social platform on Friday, claiming he had saved Khamenei from “A VERY UGLY AND IGNOMINIOUS DEATH” and accusing him of “blatantly and foolishly” lying when he claimed “victory” in the war the previous day.

In his first sortie since the Israel-Iran war ended with a ceasefire earlier this week, Khamenei had also said Iran “slapped America in the face” by launching missiles at a major US base in Qatar following US attacks on Iranian nuclear sites at Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz.

In Friday’s post, Trump said he had demanded Israel pull back from “the final knockout”.

“His Country was decimated, his three evil Nuclear Sites were OBLITERATED, and I knew EXACTLY where he was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the U.S. Armed Forces, by far the Greatest and Most Powerful in the World, terminate his life,” he said.

The question of whether US attacks destroyed Iran’s nuclear capabilities is moot – a leaked intelligence report contradicted Trump’s account of events, suggesting the military’s strikes had set the country back by mere months.

The US president said that Khamenei’s comments, which he described as “a statement of anger, hatred, and disgust”, had led him to drop work on “the possible removal of sanctions, and other things, which would have given a much better chance to Iran at a full, fast, and complete recovery”.

Future of nuclear programme

Trump’s rant against Khamenei came on the back of bellicose comments earlier that day at a White House news conference. Asked whether he would consider new air strikes if the recent attacks had not succeeded in ending Iran’s nuclear weapons programme, Trump said, “Sure, without question, absolutely.”

He said he would like inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or another respected source to be able to inspect Iran’s nuclear sites.

But Iran has approved a bill to suspend cooperation with the IAEA, a move widely seen as a direct response to the strikes.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi indicated on Friday that Tehran may reject any request by the agency for visits to Iranian nuclear sites.

“[IAEA Director General] Grossi’s insistence on visiting the bombed sites under the pretext of safeguards is meaningless and possibly even malign in intent,” Araghchi said on X. “Iran reserves the right to take any steps in defence of its interests, its people and its sovereignty.”

Grossi said on Wednesday that ensuring the resumption of IAEA inspections was his top priority, as none had taken place since Israel began bombing on June 13.

Meanwhile, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz indicated on Friday that his country might still be on a war footing with Iran, saying he had instructed the military to prepare an enforcement plan against the country.

The plan “includes maintaining Israel’s air superiority, preventing nuclear advancement and missile production, and responses to Iran for supporting terrorist activities against Israel”, Katz said.

Katz said on Thursday that Israel had wanted to “eliminate” Khamenei and would not have required US permission to do so.

Katz says Israel has ‘green light’ from US to attack Iran again if Tehran makes ‘progress’ with its nuclear programme.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has said that his country wanted to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during the recent 12-day war between the two sides that ended this week with a ceasefire.

Katz said on Thursday that Israel would not have needed permission from the United States to kill Khamenei, appearing to refute previous media reports that Washington vetoed the assassination.

“We wanted to eliminate Khamenei, but there was no operational opportunity,” said Katz in an interview with Israel’s Channel 13.

Katz claimed that Khamenei knew an attempt on his life was on the cards, and went “underground to very great depths”, breaking off contact with commanders who replaced Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders assassinated in the first wave of Israeli strikes.

Khamenei released video messages during the war, and there is no evidence to confirm that he was cut off from his generals.

Killing Khamenei would have been a major escalation in the conflict. Besides being the de facto head of state in Iran, the supreme leader is a top spiritual authority for millions of Shia Muslims across the world.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump had both suggested at various times that the war could spark regime change, the latter posting on social media last Sunday that the conflict could “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN”.

Katz’s comments came amid conflicting reports on the extent of destruction wrought on Iran’s nuclear capability, primarily as a result of the US bombing of sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. Khamenei said on Thursday that the US had “exaggerated” the impact of strikes.

The Israeli defence minister said that his country has a “green light” from Trump to launch another attack on Iran if it were deemed to be making “progress” with its nuclear programme.

“I do not see a situation where Iran will restore the nuclear facilities after the attack,” he said.

For his part, Netanyahu said on Thursday that the outcome of the war presented a “window of opportunity” for further formal diplomatic agreements with Arab states.

The conflict ended with a US-brokered ceasefire after Iran responded to the US strikes with a missile attack on Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base, which houses US troops.

“We have fought with determination against Iran and achieved a great victory. This victory opens the path to dramatically enlarge the peace accords,” Netanyahu said in a video address, in an apparent reference to the Abraham Accords, which established official ties between Israel and several Arab countries in 2020.

Iran also declared victory after the war, saying that it thwarted the Israeli objectives – namely ending Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes – and managed to force Netanyahu to end the assault with the missile strikes that left widespread destruction in Israel.