Gaza: 14 dead, including five children, in IDF attacks. Iran protests: 45 dead and internet blackout

In order to defend what has become a symbolic space of freedom in the Palestinian open-air prison, the boys directly address Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, and Aleksander Čeferin, president of UEFA: 'We ask you to intervene urgently to prevent the demolition of the football pitch in the Aida refugee camp and protect the right of Palestinian children to play. Football is for everyone,' they write. Hundreds of youngsters from the football school of the Aida Children's Centre train on the field every day. "It is one of the very few places where we feel safe, between one and another of the frequent Israeli military incursions, amidst tear gas, live and rubber bullets," the document reads, "but now the Israeli authorities want to take that away from us too, and the demolition could begin at any time.

Fearful of going unheard, the Aida boys ask for the support of the network, not only of those who care about the Palestinian cause, but also 'football fans, players and other athletes' who they hope will come forward.

From Istanbul come accusations against Tel Aviv. "Israel continues to violate the ceasefire in Gaza in the new year and restricts humanitarian aid in the region by revoking the licenses of many humanitarian organisations under various pretexts, said the spokesman for the Defence Ministry in Ankara, as reported by state-run Trt TV. "It is the common expectation of the international community that Israel fully respects the ceasefire and allows the uninterrupted delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza," the official added.

The death count in Iran continues after the violent crackdown of protests, which started in late December, by security forces. Triggering the anger was the rising cost of living, then the spread to other sectors of civil society with university students at the forefront. The demonstrations are the largest in the country since the case of Masha Amini in 2022, the young woman arrested for not wearing her headscarf properly and who died while in custody.

According to the Norwegian NGOIran Human Rights (Ihr) at least 45 protesters, including eight minors, were killed. The organisation also speaks of hundreds of people injured and over two thousand arrested. Yesterday, in particular, was the bloodiest day, with 13 confirmed dead. "The evidence shows that the extent of the repression is becoming more violent and more extensive every day, said the director of Irh, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam. Iranian media and official sources have so far reported at least 21 casualties, including members of the security forces, according to Afp calculations.

But the protests show no sign of abating. Images posted on social media show manifestors knocking down a statue of Qassem Soleimani, the powerful high commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards killed in a US raid in Iraq in 2020, recently mentioned by Donald Trump after the US intervention in Venezuela, which fell on the very sixth anniversary of his killing. In another viral video on social media, protesters are seen shouting in chorus "Long live the Shah!" The anti-government movement, on its 12th day of demonstrations, is in fact supported by exiled opposition figures, such as Reza Pahlavi, son of the former Shah.

On Wednesday, Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian called on security forces to "take no action" against protesters, distinguishing them from "rioters", while police did not hesitate to open fire or use tear gas to disperse the crowd. Since the start of the movement on 28 December in Tehran, demonstrations have been held in at least 50 cities, mostly in the west of the country, with 25 out of 31 provinces affected, according to Afp. Donald Trump himself warns Iran will be 'hit hard' if it kills protesters.

Iran is 'currently affected by a nationwide internet outage'. This was reported by Netblocks, an independent organisation that globally monitors internet freedom and digital communication disruptions, based on "real-time data". "This incident follows a series of increasingly severe digital censorship measures against demonstrations across the country and hinders people's right to communicate at a critical time," Netblocks wrote on the social network X.

"Right now, Khamenei's worst nightmare", Iran's supreme leader, is that of "going the way of Maduro", the deposed Venezuelan president captured in a blltz by the US and brought to a Brooklyn jail to be tried in Manhattan. But what is "highly unlikely" is that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will make "the same choice as Assad", the former Syrian president removed in December 2024, and "have the plane ready to go to Russia as he did". This was explained to Adnkronos by Farian Sabahi, an associate professor in contemporary history at the University of Insubria, emphasising that "Khamenei is 86 years old, has spent his entire life defending the Islamic Republic" and "would prefer death by martyrdom and to go down in history as the one who sacrificed himself as Imam Hossein in 680 A.D." rather than flee.

Moreover, 'unlike Maduro, Khamenei can still count on the support of the circle of his loyalists and the Pasdaran', although 'there is also Mossad infiltration in Iran, otherwise there would not have been the Pasdaran massacre last June'. That the US "will make an attempt is not to be ruled out, this is Khamenei's worst nightmare at the moment". Sabahi recalls that "even in the 12-day war" with Israel in June, Khamenei "was locked up in a bunker, he was out of the limelight" and today's is also "a situation that he certainly perceives as delicate". However, Iran 'is not the same country' as Venezuela, 'Iran is not in the US backyard, for the Americans getting to Tehran is not as immediate as getting to Caracas'. Among other things, the twelve days of the June war with Israel 'made Iranians in Iran dislike foreign military intervention'.

As for the demonstrations, according to Sabahi 'the square has no leader'. Author of 'In the Court of the Shah' and 'We the Women of Tehran', Sabahi emphasises that "there is no western journalist in Iran right now" and the reports that "we read in the opposition media" about "slogans in favour of the last shah and his son we do not know how often they really exist". Sabahi reflects on the fact that 'Reza Pahlavi is a prince, eldest son of the last shah, born in 1960 who left Iran when he was 16 for military training in the United States and has not been able to return since'. Pahlavi "said he is ready to lead the transition to democracy" but also made it clear that he "does not want to move permanently to Iran for the rest of his life" because "he has all his affections in the United States". Moreover, 'the name of Reza Pahlavi does evoke the splendour of the ancient Persian kingdom, but it also evokes the social inequalities that existed in Iran during the Shah's time and the torture of the Savak, the Shah's secret police, and Iran's subservience to the United States and Great Britain,' he explained.

Iran then faces "the risk of further Israeli bombing", already threatened during a joint press conference in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "In June, after the Israeli bombing, Iranian public opinion had compacted with the regime," Sabahi says, recalling that "entire residential neighbourhoods in Tehran had been bombed, the population of the capital had been told to leave because there was an intention to conduct blanket raids." The effect of Trump and Netanyahu's threats, therefore, is partly to unite the Iranians, but "it depends".

"Seen from the Iranian diaspora, Trump's threats against the regime" are "aid" because the US president said he was prepared to intervene if protesters were killed as in previous demonstrations. "But intervene how? With bombs? From those in Iran this intervention is obviously not viewed favourably', also because 'recently the bombing gutted entire residential neighbourhoods' as well as 'the huge fuel depot' for which 'at one point you could no longer escape' and also 'my father was stuck there'. Furthermore 'Israel had announced that it would bomb the Evin prison to let the detainees escape, but they bombed the buildings where political prisoners were held, causing deaths'.