Trump rules out talks with Iran as Israel pounds Tehran, Lebanon

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Germany has pulled additional Bundeswehr troops out of the Middle East, a military spokesman told Reuters on Friday, the seventh day of a US–Israeli war on Iran that has convulsed the region.

Soldiers deployed with the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon are being withdrawn due to the security situation, the spokesperson said after the Bundeswehr already sharply reduced its presence in Erbil in northern Iraq.

The RND newspaper network, which first reported the news, said that German troops stationed in Bahrain had already returned home, and preparations for withdrawals from Kuwait were underway. The spokesperson declined to comment on this.

(Reuters)

President Donald Trump on Friday said the US is moving thousands of people out of various countries throughout the Middle East amid the military conflict between the US, Israel and Iran.

"It is being done quietly, but seamlessly," Trump said in a social media post without providing further details.

The State Department said later on Friday that it was continuing to reach out to Americans in the Middle East to offer charter flights or ground transport travel assistance.

(Reuters)

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Friday they had targeted a US base in the UAE that they alleged had been used as a launchpad for a strike on a school.

According to Iranian authorities, a strike had hit a girls' elementary school on Saturday in Minab county in the south of the country, killing more than 150 people including students.

AFP has neither been able to access the site in order to verify the incident, or to obtain independent confirmation of a toll.

"Al-Dhafra air base, belonging to American terrorists in the region, was targeted using drones and precision missiles," the Guards said in a statement broadcast on state TV.

Neither Israel nor the United States has claimed responsibility for the reported attack, which was close to sites controlled by Revolutionary Guards.

The Pentagon has confirmed it is investigating, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the US would "not deliberately target a school."

An investigation by The New York Times newspaper concluded Thursday that the US military was the "most likely to have carried out the strike".

An analysis of social media posts from the time of the attack, as well as photos and videos from witnesses, indicated that the school had been struck at the same time as a nearby Guards' naval base sites, the Times said.

(AFP)

France has sent a helicopter carrier to the Mediterranean in response to the Middle East war, the French military told AFP on Friday.

"An amphibious helicopter carrier has been deployed in the Mediterranean to reinforce the presence of the French armed forces in the context of the Middle East crisis," a spokeswoman said, after France decided to deploy its flagship aircraft carrier and a frigate earlier in the week.

A similar ship was sent off the shore of Lebanon as a precautionary measure to help with repatriations if needed during the 2024 war between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The current conflict has already drawn in Lebanon.

(AFP)

The Iraqi government and the autonomous Kurdistan region said Friday that Iraq must not be a launchpad for attacks against neighbouring countries, following reports that militants might attempt to cross into Iran.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and Kurdistan's regional president Nechirvan Barzani agreed in a phone call "that Iraqi territory must not be used as a launching point for attacks against neighbouring countries", the premier's media office said.

Tehran threatened Friday to target "all the facilities" of Iraq's autonomous region if exiled Kurdish Iranian militants were allowed to enter Iran.

(AFP)

Saudi Arabia's defence ministry on Friday said it had intercepted and destroyed a cruise missile near the central Al-Kharj area.

"A cruise missile was intercepted and destroyed east of Al-Kharj governorate," the ministry said in a post on X.

(AFP)

Humanitarian aid agency the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said Friday that 300,000 people in Lebanon had been forced to flee after Israel launched a wave of evacuation orders and airstrikes.

The Israeli mass-evacuation orders cover hundreds of villages in South Lebanon, as well as villages in the Bekaa region and the southern suburbs of Beirut, constituting a large area of Lebanese territory.

It added that the number of people who might be displaced could potentially exceed one million.

(AFP)

Israel's military said a projectile fired at its territory on Friday wounded eight soldiers near the Lebanese border.

"Earlier today, five IDF soldiers were severely injured as a result of projectile fire toward Israeli territory near the Lebanese border," the military said.

"Three additional soldiers were lightly injured in the same incident," it said, adding that all eight soldiers had been evacuated for medical treatment.

The joint US-Israel military campaign against Iran expanded to Lebanon after militant group Hezbollah launched missiles against Israel in support of its backer Iran.

On Thursday, Israel's military chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir said he had ordered troops to expand the area under his army's control in southern Lebanon.

(AFP)

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Friday US and Israel's war on Iran must not collapse the Iranian state, warning of the impact this would have on migration to Europe.

"An endless war is not in our interest. The same applies to a collapse of Iranian statehood or proxy conflicts fought on Iranian soil," he said in a statement.

"Such scenarios could have far-reaching consequences for Europe, including for security, energy supply and migration."

(AFP)

Israel struck Lebanon's ancient city of Tyre on Friday, killing at least one person, in an area adjacent to a UNESCO World Heritage site, according to state media and AFP.

An AFP photographer at the scene witnessed rescue workers recovering at least one body and collecting what appeared to be scattered human remains on the ground, near the city's ancient hippodrome.

The strike came on the fifth day of fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah.

"Enemy warplanes carried out a strike on the ruins district of Tyre city," near the Bass Palestinian refugee camp, the National News Agency said.

Bass is one of a dozen Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

(AFP)

The price of the benchmark US oil contract soared more than 10 percent Friday on fears of extended disruption to crude supplies after President Donald Trump demanded Iran's "unconditional surrender".

West Texas Intermediate surged 10.63 percent to $89.62 per barrel, while international benchmark Brent North Sea crude reached $91.89, the highest level in nearly two years.

(AFP)

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Friday their forces had targeted radar systems in the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Qatar.

"US THAAD radars deployed in the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, as well as the US FPS-132 over-the-horizon radar ('Desert Eye') stationed in Qatar, have been destroyed by the missile and drone units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)," said the Guards on their website Sepah News.

(AFP)

At least 217 people have been killed and 798 wounded in Lebanon since the start of a new war between Israel and Hezbollah on Monday, Lebanon's health ministry announced Friday.

The previous toll from the ministry, published Thursday evening, was 123 dead and 683 wounded.

Israeli airstrikes hit south and east Lebanon as well as Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday.

(AFP)

French oil major TotalEnergies evacuated its expatriate personnel from projects in Iraq's Basra on Thursday, Iraqi oil sources said on Friday.

The move came after Iranian strikes in the region following the start of the U.S. and Israeli military campaign against Tehran.

TotalEnergies declined to comment. It stated on Tuesday it would organise the return of families of employees in the region.

Several oil facilities and an airport came under attack in Basra province on Friday.

(Reuters)

Kuwait has begun cutting production at some oil fields after running out of room to store its bottled-up crude, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The country, which is a founding member of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, is discussing limiting its production and refining capacity to just what it needs to cover domestic consumption, the WSJ reported.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

(Reuters and TNA staff)

Fresh strikes hit Iranian Kurdish opposition group targets in northern Iraq on Friday, said an official from the exiled Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan.

"Our bases are under attack from the Iranian enemy," the PDKI official told AFP.

"After an attack this morning, our sites were targeted again 20 minutes ago with six drones," he said, adding that the "attack continues".

(AFP)

Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Friday said the US navy was preparing to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz "as soon as it's reasonable to do it," as traffic through the key trade route remains choked due to the US-Israel war on Iran.

"As soon as it's reasonable to do it, we'll escort ships through the straits and get the energy moving again," he told US broadcaster Fox News's "Fox and Friends" show.

US President Donald Trump had said on Tuesday that the US Navy would "begin escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, as soon as possible" in a bid to avoid disruption of global oil supplies.

(AFP)

Four drones struck Basra airport and two oil facilities in southern Iraq, a security official told AFP.

"One drone crashed into the cargo terminal at Basra airport," the official said, adding that two others hit a US company in the Burjesia oil complex, and a fourth struck the Rumaila oil field, where energy major BP operates.

(AFP)

 U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday there would be no deal struck with Iran except "unconditional surrender," a week after launching war with Israel against Tehran.

"After that, and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction," Trump said in a social media post, adding that they would work to boost Iran's economy.

Trump told Reuters on Thursday that he wants to be involved in choosing the next leader of Iran.

Hezbollah on Friday warned Israeli residents to evacuate areas within five kilometres (three miles) of the border with Lebanon, a day after Israel demanded residents of Beirut's southern suburbs to flee.

In a message in Hebrew in the group's Telegram channels, Hezbollah told Israelis to evacuate all localities "located within 5 kilometres of the border".

"This is due to the (Israeli) army's deployment of military vehicles and armoured personnel carriers in open areas, using these areas as military deployment points," it added.

The number of displaced people in Lebanon is expected to rapidly increase after unprecedented Israeli forced evacuation orders covering large parts of the country, with about 100,000 already cramming shelters, a senior U.N. official said on Friday.

With hostilities raging between Israel and Hezbollah amid a spreading U.S.-led war on Iran, the Israeli military on Thursday ordered residents out of Beirut's southern suburbs.

Israel has also ordered people out of areas of the eastern Bekaa Valley.

"What we saw in the last couple of days is, I would say ... unprecedented in terms of the scale here in Lebanon of the warnings, the displacement orders, and the reaction, the panic also, that this has all created," Imran Riza, the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Lebanon, told Reuters.

At least five tankers laden with crude oil have left Iranian ports since U.S.-led airstrikes on Iran began on 28 February, with liquefied petroleum gas supplies also moving on Friday, according to ship trackers and traders.

The Gulf region's key Strait of Hormuz chokepoint has been largely closed to international shipping since the conflict broke out, with at least nine vessels damaged due to the conflict. Supplies from Iran were moving, albeit at a slower pace.

At least five crude tankers loaded and left from Iran’s major Kharg Island oil terminal between 28 February and 2 March, according to analysis from U.S. advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran, which monitors Iran-related tanker traffic through ship and satellite tracking.

Sri Lanka on Friday denounced the toll of the Mideast fighting, as the nation opened its arms to over 200 Iranian sailors who sought help after a deadly torpedo strike on another of Iran's ships.

The crew were brought ashore Thursday and were being accommodated at a military camp near the capital Colombo and their ship, IRIS Bushehr, was under Sri Lankan control.

The vessel reported engine trouble and sought port entry after another Iranian vessel, IRIS Dena, was hit by a US torpedo off Sri Lanka's southern coast on Wednesday.

Washington later announced it carried out the attack, which killed at least 84 Iranian sailors aboard and left 64 more missing.

"Our approach is that every life is as precious as our own," Sri Lanka's President Anura Kumara Dissanayake wrote on X, and urged peace after the Israeli-US campaign led to Iranian retaliatory strikes.

Thirty-two sailors were rescued by the Sri Lanka Navy and were being treated at a hospital in the southern port city of Galle.

Around 50,000 Syrians living in Lebanon have fled back over the border into Syria in the past week, the United Nations' migration agency said Friday.

Tensions in the Middle East have escalated following the joint US and Israeli strikes on Iran. Hezbollah responded with rocket attacks on Israel, which has resulted in heavy bombardment of Lebanon's south. 

Israel has also ordered the evacuation of hundreds of square kilometres of southern Lebanon and sent ground forces across the border.

"Large-scale cross-border movements" have been taking place in recent days, said Mathieu Luciano, the Lebanon mission chief for the International Organization for Migration.

"Nearly 50,000 Syrians have crossed from Lebanon into Syria over the past week, not including those who may have crossed yesterday following the evacuation orders," he added in a statement.

IOM spokesman Mohammedali Abunajela said the escalating violence in the Middle East was raising serious concerns about further civilian suffering and displacement in a region "already facing immense challenges."

Oil-poor Philippines is to shift to a four-day work week with fuel prices set to rocket up amid the Iran war, President Ferdinand Marcos said Friday.

Marcos announced the shift, set to start at all government offices on Monday, among measures aimed at easing the economic impact of the joint US and Israeli strikes on Iran.  

He warned the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil supply transits, would increase local pump prices next week by 7.48 pesos per litre for gasoline, 17.28 pesos for diesel, and 32.35 pesos for kerosene (13-55 US cents).

"We are victims of a war that is not of our choosing," Marcos said in a statement, adding it was uncertain when it would end.

"But we control how we will protect the Filipino."

The World Health Organisation said on Friday that medical supplies in Gaza were running critically low despite Israel's reopening of a key crossing this week.

Supplies of some items such as gauze and needles have already run out, said WHO's regional director Hanan Balkhy, citing information from the Health Ministry in Gaza, devastated by Israel's two-year genocidal offensive.

"Stocks of essential medicines, trauma supplies and surgical consumables are critically low, and fuel shortages continue to limit hospital operations," she said.

"The situation is difficult, and we will be running out of whatever is remaining." On Tuesday, the Israeli military agency that controls access to Gaza said it had reopened the Kerem Shalom border crossing "for the gradual entry of humanitarian aid". It had closed entry points earlier citing missile threats from Iran amid an escalating air war after ​Israeli ⁠and U.S. forces attacked Iran on Saturday.

The Rafah crossing into Egypt, the main exit point for most people in Gaza, has remained shut and medical evacuations suspended, WHO said.

(Reuters and TNA staff)

Several explosions were heard in the Bahraini capital Manama on Friday, an AFP correspondent said, with authorities sounding sirens as Iran pressed its retaliation campaign in the Gulf.

"The siren has been sounded. Citizens and residents are urged to remain calm and head to the nearest safe place," the interior ministry said in a statement on X.

(AFP)

Iranian media said on Friday that explosions had rocked the key port city of Bandar Abbas on its Gulf coast amid US and Israeli strikes on Iran.

"Several explosions were heard in the city of Bandar Abbas," the Etemad online website reported. Other media including Shargh daily carried similar reports.

(AFP)

Hundreds of minority Shiites rallied Friday in Pakistan’s capital and elsewhere in the country to denounce the killing of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in US-Israeli strikes, as the US Embassy In Islamabad issued a security alert warning Americans of possible violence.

Amid heavy police presence, about 300 protesters staged a sit-in in Islamabad, holding posters of Khamenei and chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Israel." Islamabad police had parked shipping containers on roads leading to the US Embassy in Islamabad to prevent any potential escalation.

Pakistani authorities said the protesters had agreed not to march toward the embassy in Islamabad, located about 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from the sit-in. The protesters planned to end their sit-in later Friday.

Security was also been beefed up in the port city of Karachi, where hundreds of Shiites stormed the US Consulate on Sunday, smashing windows and attempting to set the building on fire. Police used batons, tear gas, and live fire to disperse the crowd. The violence left 10 protesters dead in Karachi, and at least 13 were killed in northern cities, including Skardu and Gilgit.

In Karachi, Shiite protesters gathered on Friday some 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the consulate.

(The Associated Press)

Turkish flights to Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan have been stopped until 9 March over the conflict in Iran, Transport Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said on Friday, adding flights to Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates would not take place on Friday.

In a statement, Uraloglu said Turkish Airlines and Pegasus Airlines had removed Iran flights from their programmes until 12 March and 20 March respectively. He added that a total of seven Iraqi Airways flights were in Turkish airports, while two Turkish aircraft remained in Tehran's airport.

Two flights by Azerbaijan Airways were rerouted to the Igdir province and passengers were transported to Nakhchivan by land after Iranian drone attacks there, he said. 

(Reuters)

An explosion sounded Friday near Erbil airport, which hosts US-led coalition troops in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, AFP journalists said.

An AFP journalist reported seeing grey smoke rising from near the airport area.

Since the start of the war in the Middle East, drones have repeatedly been intercepted over the city of Erbil, which is also home to a major US consulate complex.

(AFP)

Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Friday that some countries had begun mediation efforts to end the war with the United States and Israel, but said any talks should address those who started the war.

"Some countries have begun mediation efforts. Let's be clear: we are committed to lasting peace in the region yet we have no hesitation in defending our nation's dignity and sovereignty," said Pezeshkian in a post on X.

"Mediation should address those who underestimated the Iranian people and ignited this conflict."

(AFP)

Iran's army said on Friday it had attacked US bases in Kuwait and vowed that it would press on with further strikes.

"Over the past few hours, various types of destructive drones of the Army's ground forces have targeted American military bases in Kuwait in large numbers," the army said, according to Iranian state TV.

"These attacks will continue in the coming hours."

(AFP)

The United Nations rights chief stressed Friday the need for "impartial investigations" into a strike on a school in Iran, urging the US to move "very quickly" with its announced probe.

Iran has blamed Israel and the United States for the strike on the school in the Iranian city of Minab on the first day of the war last Saturday, giving a toll of more than 160 dead.

Neither the US nor Israel has said it was behind the strike, although US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday that the Pentagon was investigating.

AFP has been unable to independently verify the toll or visit the site.

UN rights chief Volker Turk condemned "this absolutely tragic incident".

"What we have asked for is obviously prompt, transparent and impartial investigations, which we understand has been announced by the United States," he told reporters in Geneva.

"We need this to happen very quickly and we need to also make sure that there is accountability as well as redress for the victims," he insisted.

(AFP)

International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol sought Friday to tamp down fears of a global oil crisis after prices spiked because of the war in the Middle East, saying there was "plenty of oil in the market."

Addressing reporters in Brussels, Birol said "logistical disruption" from the conflict was "creating challenges for many countries," but insisted: "There is no shortage of oil globally."

(AFP)

Iraqi Kurdish authorities said on Friday that oil production at an oil field operated by US firm HKN Energy has been halted following an attack.

A security source told AFP the attack was carried out with two drones the previous day.

The natural resources ministry in the northern Kurdistan region said in a statement that an "outlaw group in Iraq launched a terrorist attack on the HKN oil field in the Sarsang area" in Dohuk province, damaging the field and "halting production".

Qatar on Friday said its naval forces were inside buildings targeted by Iran in Bahrain overnight, though they were unharmed, after Manama reported attacks on residential buildings and a hotel.

"The State of Qatar strongly condemns the Iranian attack targeting buildings in various parts of the Kingdom of Bahrain, housing members of the Qatari Emiri Naval Forces participating in the Unified Maritime Operations Center of the Gulf Cooperation Council's Unified Military Command," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"The Qatari Emiri Naval Forces personnel present in the targeted buildings are safe and unharmed," it added.

Earlier on Friday, Bahrain said Iran had struck a hotel and two residential buildings in the capital Manama, correcting a previous announcement that two hotels and one residential building were hit.

Iran threatened on Friday to target "all the facilities" of the Kurdistan region in Iraq if militants were allowed to enter the Islamic republic.

"So far only the bases of the United States and Israel and separatist groups in the region have been targeted," the Mehr news agency reported, quoting a letter by Iran's defence council.

It warned that if "the continued presence, plotting and entry" of militants into Iran is allowed, "all facilities of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq ... will be widely targeted."

Trump officials have signalled plans to destabilise western Iran by arming anti-government Iranian Kurdish factions.

Crowds of Iranians gathered in central Tehran and elsewhere for the first Friday prayers since the start of the war with the United States and Israel.

Online footage shared by Iranian media showed crowds of men and women dressed in black, some carrying Iranian flags, streaming to an open space outside the Grand Mosque of Imam Khomeini in the capital.

This week's Friday prayers were also the first since the killing of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the wave of US and Israeli strikes that triggered the Middle East war.

In the background of one video, a man speaking through a loudspeaker mourned the late supreme leader.

"We bear witness that he was the embodiment of piety and guardianship in our time," he said as some worshippers seated on prayer rugs wept.

(AFP)

The United Nations on Friday demanded swift investigations into fatal Israel strikes across Lebanon, to determine if they complied with international law.

"The devastating impact of this renewed conflict is already before our eyes, with civilians paying a painfully heavy price," said UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani.

"Prompt and thorough investigations must be conducted, particularly to determine whether such attacks complied with the principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions," Shamdasani said.

(AFP)

Azerbaijan is evacuating its diplomats from Iran for their own safety, Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said on Friday, a day after Baku said four Iranian drones had crossed its border and injured four people in the Nakhchivan exclave.

Speaking at a news conference in Baku, Bayramov said that Azerbaijan was evacuating employees from its embassy in Tehran and its consulate general in Tabriz, the largest city in Iran's northwest, where many ethnic Azerbaijanis live.

Israel struck a building on a main thoroughfare of the southern Lebanese city of Sidon on Friday, state media said, without prior warning.

The strike targeted the tenth floor of an office building near two shelters for displaced people, an AFP photographer said.

Rescuers removed at least one body and were gathering human remains, the photographer said.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam warned on Friday that "a humanitarian disaster is looming" as a result of Israeli evacuation orders that are causing a massive displacement of the population.

"The humanitarian and political consequences of this displacement could be unprecedented," the premier told foreign ambassadors.

Residents of the southern suburbs of Beirut and of the south of the country, both Hezbollah strongholds, have fled in large numbers following unprecedentedly wide evacuation orders from the Israeli military.

(AFP)

Qatar expects all Gulf energy producers to shut down exports within weeks and drive oil to $150 a barrel, the country's Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi told the Financial Times in an interview published on Friday.

"Everybody that has not called for force majeure we expect will do so in the next few days that this continues. All exporters in the Gulf region will have to call force majeure," Kaabi told the FT.

Kaabi said even if the war ended immediately it would take Qatar "weeks to months" to return to a normal cycle of deliveries.

Qatar halted its production of liquefied natural gas on Monday, as Iran continued to strike Gulf countries in retaliation for Israeli and US. strikes. The country's LNG production is equivalent to about 20% of global supply and plays a major role in balancing both Asian and European markets' demand for the fuel.

While there had been no damage to Qatar's offshore operations, the aftermath onshore was still being reviewed, Kaabi told the newspaper.

(Reuters)

The Israeli military on Friday said it had started a new "wave of strikes"  in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Israel ordered hundreds of thousands of people to flee the area on Wednesday as the military prepared to escalate its bombardment of the Hezbollah stronghold.

At least 1,332 people have been killed in Iran since Israel and the US launched their war on Saturday, according to the Iranian Red Crescent.

Among the dead are at least 181 children, UNICEF said.

Several blasts were heard over Israel's commercial hub of Tel Aviv on Friday morning, AFP journalists reported, after the military said it had detected new missiles launched from Iran towards the country.

(AFP and TNA staff)

An Iranian official said on Friday that at least 20 people have been killed in US and Israeli strikes in the southern city of Shiraz.

AFP could not independently verify the toll.

"Twenty innocent citizens have been martyred and 30 others have been injured in this terrorist attack," said Jalil Hasani, deputy governor of Fars province, the official IRNA news agency reported.

He said the attack took place in a "residential area in the town of Zibashahr in Shiraz."

(AFP)

The Israeli military said on Friday it had hit a Hezbollah command centre and drone depot in a "broad-scale wave of strikes" overnight in Beirut's southern suburbs.

The strikes came after the Israeli army ordered hundreds of thousands of people in the area to flee ahead of the strikes.

Lebanon was dragged into the war on Monday, when Iran-backed Hezbollah attacked Israel to avenge the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the US-Israeli strikes that launched the war.

Overall, the Israeli army said it had carried out 26 waves of strikes in the suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, since the start of its campaign in the country this week.

Following the evacuation order, Israel's Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich threatened to raze the area to the ground, saying that Dahiyeh would soon look "like Khan Younis".

(AFP and TNA staff)