Israel-Hamas war, Gaza genocide

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UN experts condemn Israel’s attacks on Iran, urge end to conflict

They say Israel’s attacks “represent a flagrant violation” of international law.

“Israel’s attack and Iran’s response – with successive waves of attacks against each other’s territory – have resulted in many civilian casualties, confirming our grave concerns about this destructive cycle of violence,” the experts said in a statement.

“We are particularly alarmed by reports of the deaths and injuries of women and children, who are among the most vulnerable in armed conflict and disproportionately bear the brunt of such violence.”

The experts also questioned the timing of Israel’s first attacks on Iran, shortly before US and Iranian representatives were set to take part in nuclear talks. “This aggravates the charges against Israel of posing a threat to peace and security in the region and beyond,” they said.

US Muslim group urges Trump to drop ‘poison pill’ of zero enrichment

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says Washington needs to make a deal with Tehran – and to do it, it needs to drop its demand that Iran agree to zero uranium enrichment.

“All the president needs to do to make a deal with Iran is drop the Israeli government’s poison pill demand that Iran completely give up its right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to enrich uranium at low levels only suitable for civilian nuclear energy,” the group said.

“Everyone knows that the Israeli government’s zero enrichment demand was meant to make a deal impossible. President Trump can easily make a deal with independent monitoring and civilian-level enrichment that verifiably prevents Iran from making a nuclear weapon. War is not necessary.”

As we’ve been reporting, Trump has insisted that Iran is close to having a nuclear weapon despite US intelligence, UN energy agency and other assessments concluding that is false.

“The manufactured hysteria about Iran echoes the false claims that Netanyahu and others made when pushing our nation to invade Iraq based on the weapons of mass destruction lie 20 years ago,” CAIR said.

“President Trump should drop the poison pill demand and make a nuclear deal that averts an unnecessary and disastrous US war with Iran.”

Iran’s foreign minister says ‘don’t know how we can trust’ US any more

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says it is up to the US administration “to show their determination” to reach a negotiated solution.

“Or they have something else in their mind, and they want to attack Iran anyway,” Araghchi said in an interview with NBC News in Geneva, where he took part in talks earlier today with his European counterparts.

“So they had perhaps this plan and they just needed negotiations perhaps to cover it up,” the minister said. “We don’t know how we can trust them any more,” Araghchi continued. “What they did was in fact a betrayal to diplomacy.”

For months, the Trump administration had engaged with talks to reach a nuclear deal with Iran. But that process was suspended after Israel launched its attacks against Iran, shortly before a new round of nuclear talks were scheduled in Oman.