Trump calls for Iran regime change as US plans possible weeks-long military action

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The Israeli military has said it has conducted a wave of airstrikes on south Lebanon targeting Hezbollah infrastructure, including weapons depots and rocket launchers.

Israeli forces have raided the village of Al-Mughayyir, north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa, which added that Israeli forces assaulted several residents during the assault.

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed at a White House meeting on Wednesday that the US would work to reduce Iran's oil exports to China, Axios reported, citing two US officials briefed on the issue.

"We agreed that we will go full force with maximum pressure against Iran, for example, regarding Iranian oil sales to China," Axios reported on Saturday, quoting a senior US official.

China accounts for more than 80 percent of Iran's oil exports. Any reduction in that trade would mean lower oil revenue for Iran.

US and Iranian diplomats held nuclear talks through Omani mediators last week in an effort to revive diplomacy, after the US president positioned a naval flotilla in the region as the American military prepares for the possibility of sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran. 

A Palestinian NGO has denounced what it called an Israeli act of revenge after a video showed far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir overseeing the abuse of detainees in a military prison.

Just days before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Ben Gvir held a tour of Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank, Israel's Channel 7 reported.

In footage filmed on Friday and broadcast by the channel, around 20 police officers are seen storming a hallway leading to prison cells, brandishing their weapons and firing stun grenades.

They then pull five detainees from their cells, their hands tied behind their backs, forcing them face-down onto the floor.

The operation took place as a bill proposing the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners convicted of terrorism awaited a final vote in the Israeli parliament.

"This is all part of ongoing displays meant to take revenge on Palestinian detainees," Abdallah al-Zaghari, head of the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, told AFP on Saturday.

"Everything Ben Gvir and the far-right government are doing affects not only the Palestinian people and prisoners in detention camps - it also impacts the global legal and human rights system," he added.

The US military is preparing for the possibility of sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran if President Donald Trump orders an attack, two US officials told Reuters, in what could become a far more serious conflict than previously seen between the countries.

The disclosure by the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the planning, raises the stakes for the diplomacy underway between the United States and Iran.

The planning under way this time is more complex, the officials said.

In a sustained campaign, the US military could hit Iranian state and security facilities, not just nuclear infrastructure, one of the officials said. The official declined to provide specific details.

Experts say the risks to US forces would be far greater in such an operation against Iran, which boasts a formidable arsenal of missiles. Retaliatory Iranian strikes also increase the risk of a regional conflict.

The same official said the United States fully expected Iran to retaliate, leading to back-and-forth strikes and reprisals over time.

Associates of Israeli President Isaac Herzog have described US President Donald Trump's pressure for granting a pardon to Benjamin Netanyahu as "crossing a line", according to Haaretz.

Netanyahu has sought a pardon from Herzog over corruption trials that are currently underway.

Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians shepards in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has said conditions on the ground contradict repeated attacks from Israeli politicians seeking to dismantle the organisation.

Philippe Lazzarini told Al Jazeera that shutting down the UNRWA would deprive thousands of Palestinians of essential daily services.

“UNRWA is under a lot of pressure. We have been under a lot of political attacks; there are a number of politicians in Israel who want to get rid of the agency,” he said on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

Lazzarini said there is no alternative body capable of meeting the scale of need among Palestinians after two years of Israel’s war on Gaza.

“The reality is completely different. We have 12,000 staff, we have the workforce, the expertise, the community trust to provide daily critical services,” he said.

Israel has repeatedly accused UNRWA of being lenient towards, or complicit with, Palestinian armed groups, without providing verifiable evidence.

The agency has strongly rejected these allegations, stressing that disciplinary action is taken against any staff member found to be involved in wrongdoing.

Switzerland said Saturday that Oman would host talks between the United States and Iran in Geneva next week, with Washington pushing Tehran to make a deal to limit its nuclear programme.

"Switzerland stands ready at all times to offer its good offices to facilitate dialogue between the United States and Iran," a Swiss foreign ministry spokesman told AFP news agency.

On February 6, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held talks in Oman with US envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump's influential son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The talks were indirect, with the Omanis acting as mediators.

Trump has recently focused his military threats on Tehran's nuclear programme, which US forces struck last July during Israel's unprecedented 12-day war with Iran.

Trump said Friday that a change of government in Iran would be the "best thing that could happen", as he sent a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East, ratcheting up military pressure on the Islamic republic.

Gideon Sa'ar is expected to represent Israel at a meeting of the Board of Peace, which is due to take place in Washington later this week.

According to Haaretz, the meeting is set to focus on plans for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, citing a source familiar with the discussions.

A man was shot dead in the northern city of Nazareth on Saturday, according to Israeli police.

Police said the victim has not yet been identified and confirmed that an investigation is under way. Officers are searching for suspects as part of a probe into the killing, which comes amid a wider surge in violent crime.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health said hospitals in the Gaza Strip received the bodies of two Palestinians over the past 48 hours, after they were recovered from beneath the rubble.

In its daily statistical report, the ministry said a further 15 people were treated for injuries caused by ongoing Israeli attacks. It added that a number of victims remain trapped under debris or lying in the streets, as ambulance and civil defence crews have been unable to reach them.

The ministry said that since the ceasefire took effect on 11 October, at least 591 Palestinians have been killed, with 1,598 injured and 726 bodies recovered.

According to cumulative figures since the start of the war on 7 October 2023, the total number of Palestinians killed has risen to 72,051, while 171,706 others have been wounded.

Award-winning Indian writer Arundhati Roy said Friday she was withdrawing from the Berlin Film Festival over jury president Wim Wenders's comments that he wanted to "stay out of politics" after being asked about Gaza.

Roy said in a statement that she was "shocked and disgusted" by Wenders' response to a question on Gaza at a press conference on Thursday. "With deep regret, I must say that I will not be attending the Berlinale," she said.

Roy, whose novel "The God of Small Things" won the 1997 Booker Prize, had been announced as a festival guest to present a restored version of the 1989 film "In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones", in which she starred and wrote the screenplay.

However, she said that the "unconscionable" statements by Wenders and other jury members had led her to reconsider.

"To hear them say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping," she said.

When asked about Germany's support for Israel at the press conference on Thursday, Wenders said: "We cannot really enter the field of politics", describing filmmakers as "the counterweight to politics".

In her statement, Roy described Israel's actions in Gaza as "a genocide of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel".

"If the greatest film makers and artists of our time cannot stand up and say so, they should know that history will judge them," she said.

Such arrests have been happening for weeks following the government crackdown last month that crushed the protests calling for the end of the country’s theocratic rule.

Reports of raids on homes and workplaces have come from major cities and rural towns alike, revealing a dragnet that has touched large swaths of Iranian society.

University students, doctors, lawyers, teachers, actors, business owners, athletes and filmmakers have been swept up, as well as reformist figures close to President Masoud Pezeshkian.

They are often held incommunicado for days or weeks and prevented from contacting family members or lawyers, according to activists monitoring the arrests. That has left desperate relatives searching for their loved ones.

The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency has put the number of arrests at more than 50,000. 

 Tracking the detainees has been difficult since Iranian authorities imposed an internet blackout, and reports leak out only with difficulty.

Other activist groups outside Iran have also been working to document the sweeps.

“Authorities continue to identify people and detain them,” said Shiva Nazarahari, an organizer with one of those groups, the Committee for Monitoring the Status of Detained Protesters.

So far, the committee has verified the names of more than 2,200 people who were arrested, using direct reports from families and a network of contacts on the ground. The arrestees include 107 university students, 82 children as young as 13, as well as 19 lawyers and 106 doctors.

(AP)

US Democratic lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said Washington should reconsider its unconditional military support for Israel, pointing to the scale of civilian deaths in Gaza Strip.

In an interview with Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Ocasio-Cortez was asked whether a future Democratic presidential candidate in 2028 should reassess US military assistance to Israel.

She said: "The idea of completely unconditional aid no matter what one does doesn't make sense. I think it enabled a genocide in Gaza and we have thousands of women and children dead – that was completely avoidable.

Ocasio-Cortez added: "So I believe that enforcement of our own laws through the Leahy Laws, which requires conditioning aid in any circumstance when you see gross human rights violations, is appropriate."

About 200,000 people joined a demonstration against the Iranian government in Munich on Saturday, police said, as world leaders gathered nearby for a security conference.

The protesters rallied on Munich's Theresienwiese fairgrounds, denouncing the leadership of Iran's Islamic Republic following the deadly repression of nationwide protests in January.

Some waved flags with a lion and a sun against horizontal green, white and red stripes, the emblem of the monarchy overthrown in 1979.

Human rights groups have reported that thousands of protesters have been killed in Iran.

Rallies calling for international action against Tehran are also planned in Toronto and Los Angeles on Saturday.

The exiled son of the former shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, spoke at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday and called on US President Donald Trump to "help" the Iranian people.

Pahlavi, who has lived in exile since his father was overthrown in the 1979 revolution, urged an outside "humanitarian intervention to prevent more innocent lives being killed" in Iran.

The Theresienwiese, which hosts the huge annual Oktoberfest folk gathering, is located less than three kilometres (1.8 miles) from the security conference venue.

Last week, an estimated 10,000 people gathered in Berlin in response to a call from the MEK, an exiled opposition group considered "terrorist" by Tehran.

 The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Saturday that it conducted 10 strikes against more than 30 Islamic State targets in Syria between February 3 and February 12.

The U.S. struck ISIS infrastructure and weapons storage targets, it said. 

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas called on Saturday for the removal of "all obstacles" he said Israel has imposed on implementing phase two of the Gaza ceasefire.

"We emphasise the need to lift all obstacles imposed by the Israeli occupation on the implementation of the provisions related to the second phase of the agreement," Abbas said, in a speech read by his prime minister Mohammed Mustafa at an African Union summit in Ethiopia.

This included the work of a technocratic committee established to oversee the daily governance of Gaza, he added.

Removal of the obstacles was needed to "ensure continuity of services, coordinate humanitarian efforts and enable a swift recovery", the president said.

Abbas accused Israel of "continuing to violate" the ceasefire agreement with Palestinian militant group Hamas that took effect in October and was backed by the United States.

"From the announcement of the ceasefire until today, more than 500 Palestinians have been killed (in Gaza), which threatens the durability of the truce and the full implementation of its second phase," he added.

Israeli forces shelled several areas of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, according to reports.

Israeli artillery targeted neighbourhoods in the city, TNA’s Arabic-language sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported.

The exiled son of Iran's last shah called on US President Donald Trump on Saturday to help the Iranian people and said it was "time to end the Islamic republic".

"To President Trump... The Iranian people heard you say help is on the way, and they have faith in you. Help them," the US-based Reza Pahlavi told reporters at the Munich Security Conference.

Trump had said Friday that a change of government in Iran would be the "best thing that could happen", as he sent a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East to ratchet up military pressure on the Islamic republic.

He had earlier threatened military intervention to support a wave of street protests in Iran that peaked in January and were met by a violent crackdown that rights groups say killed thousands.

Pahlavi, who has not returned to Iran since before the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the monarchy, said in Munich: "It is time to end the Islamic republic."

"This is the demand echoing from the bloodshed of my compatriots who are not asking us to fix the regime but to help them bury it," he added.

The United Arab Emirates and the United States have each committed more than $1 billion to Donald Trump’s proposed Gaza Peace Council, according to officials cited by The New York Times.

The pledges, reported by the New York Times, signal significant financial backing from Washington and Abu Dhabi for the initiative, which is being presented as part of Trump’s plans for post-war governance and reconstruction in Gaza.

More than 100 prominent figures from the arts and entertainment world have signed an open letter supporting UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese, amid pro-Israel pressure for her to step down over comments critical of Israel’s genocidal conduct during the war on Gaza.

Calls for Albanese’s resignation have come from France and Germany, following remarks last weekend in which she described a “common enemy of humanity” and accused “most of the world” and the media of enabling Israel’s actions in Gaza. 

The letter, organised by the Artists for Palestine group, is backed by figures including actors Mark Ruffalo and Javier Bardem, Nobel Prize–winning author Annie Ernaux, and British musician Annie Lennox.

The signatories state that they “offer our full support to Francesca Albanese, a defender of human rights and therefore also of the Palestinian people’s right to exist”.

The letter concludes: “There are infinitely more of us, in every corner of the Earth, who want force no longer to be the law. Who know what the word ‘law’ truly means.”

Other figures backing Albanese include actresses Rosa Salazar and Asia Argento, filmmakers Yorgos Lanthimos and Kaouther Ben Hania, as well as Latin music artist Residente.

The "extermination" of the Palestinian people must end, the chairman of the African Union Commission Mahmoud Ali Youssouf said on Saturday as he launched the organisation's 39th summit.

"In the Middle East, Palestine and the suffering of its people also challenge our consciences. The extermination of this people must stop," said Youssouf, who was elected to head the institution a year ago.

That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to Israel figures.

Since then, at least 71,667 Palestinians have been killed in the small coastal territory by Israel's retaliatory military campaign, according to Gaza's health ministry.

He also touched on the multiple conflicts raging in Africa.

"From Sudan to the Sahel, to eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, in Somalia and elsewhere, our people continue to pay the heavy price of instability," Youssouf said.

The summit brings together heads of state from the 55 member states of the African Union over two days.

This year's theme is water sanitation.

The top diplomat overseeing the US-brokered ceasefire deal in Gaza said Friday that continued violations of the agreement pose major obstacles to the Palestinian committee expected to oversee postwar governance and reconstruction.

Nickolay Mladenov, who serves as high representative for Gaza for the US-established Board of Peace, spoke during a panel discussion at the Munich Security Conference. The international board, established by U.S. President Donald Trump, is set to meet next week.

The transitional committee, made up of Palestinian administrators, has met in Egypt but has not yet entered Gaza. Mladenov said it won't be able to do its work unless Hamas, the group that has governed Gaza since 2007, hands over institutional control.

He also called for more aid and improved security.

The agreement calls for Hamas to lay down its arms and for an international security force to be deployed, but there has been no visible progress on either. Israel has continued to carry out strikes in response to what it says are violations of the truce.

Palestinian fighters have also attacked Israeli forces.

“We need to make sure that what is happening now with the violations of the ceasefire stops,” Mladenov said. “We’re only embarrassing the committee and ultimately making it ineffective.”

Mladenov didn't lay out a specific timeline but said “all of this needs to move very fast.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a phone call with Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan on Friday, the ministry said.

The two ministers discussed the situation around Iran and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it said.

Two sets of diplomatic negotiations, on Ukraine and Iran, are set to take place in Geneva on Tuesday, a source briefed on the matter told Reuters news agency on Friday.

A US delegation including envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will meet with the Iranians on Tuesday morning, the source said. Witkoff and Kushner will then participate in trilateral talks with representatives from Russia and Ukraine in the afternoon, the source said.