terrorist

The prosecutor general of the United Arab Emirates has said a Flydubai co-pilot “attempted to carry out a terrorist act” during a flight earlier this week, using a crash axe against the pilot inside the cockpit.

State news agency WAM quoted Hamad Saif al-Shamsi as saying on Saturday that the attacker of Wednesday’s flight FZ1073 tried to take control of the aircraft’s flight controls.

He said the investigation is under way “to uncover all the circumstances of the incident, its motives, and related connections, in addition to completing technical examinations and examining physical and digital evidence”.

The final results will be announced as soon as the necessary procedures are completed, Al Shamsi said.

A crash axe is a tool kept in a cockpit to help pilots cut through the plane in emergencies.

More to come…

In a defiant speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has delivered a sharp rebuke to a threat by US President Donald Trump from the same rostrum the previous day to annihilate the country, but left the door open for diplomacy to end nearly seven months of war.

“The US president called us terrorists but we are the victims of terrorists,” Pezeshkian said on Wednesday.

During his speech, Pezeshkian held up a picture of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – assassinated in a joint US-Israeli strike at the start of the war in February – as well as photos of schoolgirls killed in an alleged US air attack on their school in the southern city of Minab.

“They hit us, but we did not bow our heads or bend the knee,” Pezeshkian added.

As the Iranian president began his speech, an official from the US delegation walked out of the vast hall. The Israeli delegation also boycotted the address.

“[Trump] must know that the resistance of the Iranian people will only grow in the face of sanctions and increased pressure and bullying,” Pezeshkian said.

But Pezeshkian, a relative centrist in the Iranian ruling system, also left the door open for negotiations, saying, “Iran extends its hands towards the world.”

“We invite the world and call to it, not out of weakness, but out of a deep belief in our own power and steadfastness to cooperate and collaborate out of a deep understanding that no one in this region will have security alone,” he said.

‘Very good meeting’

On Tuesday, Trump said his son-in-law Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, who are both leading negotiations with Tehran, had held a three-hour meeting with Iranian officials.

“They had a very good meeting, a very productive meeting,” Trump told reporters at the UN, adding that he believed there was “a lot of momentum” towards an agreement. Trump later said talks were continuing and that he believed a settlement would eventually be reached.

The remarks came after Trump used his speech before UN delegates to again threaten Iran’s destruction.

“Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before?” Trump said. “Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?”

Strait of Hormuz

Addressing the US naval blockade of Iran and Tehran’s campaign to choke off trade in the Strait of Hormuz, Pezeshkian said Iran would resist what he called US efforts to use the critical sea lane to expand its war on the country.

“In the Strait of Hormuz, we cannot have some free access and gain their independence from that waterway while at the same time use that waterway to impose their aggressions upon us and to impose insecurity upon us; to forbid us access to our own waterways,” he said.

Negar Mortazavi, a senior fellow at the US-based Center for International Policy, said the Iranian president’s speech showed usual flashes of defiance, but notably signalled an appetite for a diplomatic off-ramp.

“Iran wants a way out of this war. They’ve kept the door to diplomacy open,” she told Al Jazeera.

“Reading between the lines of the Iranian president’s speech, it seems Iran may even show some flexibility as far as a return to some sort of agreement that may not be exactly along the lines of the June Memorandum of Understanding that US President Trump doesn’t seem interested in returning to,” she said. The memorandum, which has expired, called for a halt to fighting, lifting the US naval blockade and opening the Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic.

Compromise still a possibility

Drawing parallels between the US and Israel bombing of Iran and Israel’s attacks in Gaza, Pezeskhian said Israel’s genocide in Gaza “revealed the double standards to which Iran is held by the international community”.

“They kill and we are sanctioned and we are punished,” Pezeshkian added.

Joey Hood, a former US diplomat and ambassador to Tunisia, said the speech leaned heavily into familiar Iranian official rhetoric and represented a lost opportunity to seek compromise.

“Instead of coming to the United Nations with something new and bold, we heard the same things that we’ve heard before,” Hood said, adding that a concrete peace offer or proposal posed to the US in the speech might have focused Washington’s attention.

“That would actually put Donald Trump on the backfoot, and he would have to respond. The Iranian president didn’t do any of that,” Hood said.

DUBAI: Medecins Sans Frontieres has rejected claims by Israeli authorities that it employed individuals with links to Hamas in Gaza, saying the allegations were only brought to the organization after the accused were killed.

“Medecins Sans Frontieres unequivocally refutes the allegations made by the Israeli authorities that we knowingly hired people with ‘ties to terrorism,’” MSF told Arab News in a statement.

“MSF would never knowingly employ anyone involved in military activities, which contradicts our core values and ethics. The MSF staff members whom Israel has alleged to have ‘ties to terrorism’ were only reported as such to our organization after they had been killed.”

On Friday, British newspaper The Telegraph revealed that Israeli lobby group UK Lawyers for Israel had written to British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, urging that the humanitarian organization be banned for its links to terrorism.

A report, produced by UKLFI, alleged links between MSF employees and militant groups, including Fadi Jihad Mohammed Al-Wadiya, an accused Palestinian Islamic Jihad member who was killed in Gaza City last year.

Al-Wadiya, a physiotherapist employed by MSF from 2018 to 2022 and again from Oct. 7, 2023, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on June 25, 2024. MSF condemned the strike at the time.

MSF initially rejected claims linking Al-Wadiya to the group. However, on Feb. 24 this year, Palestinian Islamic Jihad published a poster naming him as a “martyr commander” and identifying him as deputy head of its military manufacturing unit.

The charity later updated its post about Al-Wadiya, who remained listed as an employee on its website, to note that Palestinian Islamic Jihad had publicly stated on Feb. 24, 2026, that he had been a member of the group.

The report also accused Nasser Hamdi Abdelatif Al-Shalfouh, an MSF driver, of being a sniper for the Hamas Jabaliya battalion.

MSF questioned the reliability as well as the intention of Israeli authorities, who failed to consult with the organization prior to killing the supposed members.

“If Israeli authorities had reliable information about any MSF staff involvement in military activity, they never shared it with us before their deaths.”

The organization told Arab News that the latest allegations were part of a broader disinformation and smear campaign seeking to discredit it.

“For months, MSF has been the target of a disinformation campaign, and we strongly condemn the intentional spread of false allegations.”

Founded in 1971, MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, is an international medical humanitarian organization that provides emergency healthcare in conflict zones, disease outbreaks and other crises.

In Gaza, MSF’s teams provide surgical care, wound and burn treatment, maternal and pediatric services, physiotherapy, vaccinations, mental health support, water and sanitation assistance, and treatment for chronic diseases through hospitals, field hospitals and clinics.