International
Iran promises to punish Israel for destroying its consulate in Syria and killing a general
Tehran promised on Monday a harsh response against Israel for bombing and destroying its consulate in Damascus, where the Iranian ambassador resided, who came out unharmed, but who caused at least eight deaths, including an important brigade general of the Revolutionary Guard.
In one of the hardest blows to Iran in recent years in Syria, Iran’s ambassador to this country, Hossein Akbari, said on Iranian state television from Damascus that “the Zionist regime (Israel) acts against international laws, so he will receive a harsh response from us.”
“The Islamic Republic of Iran reserves its right to take countermeasures, and will decide on the type of reaction and punishment of the aggressor,” said, for his part, the spokesman of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Naser Kanani.
The Syrian authorities accused the “Israeli enemy” of launching a bombing “around 5:00 p.m. today (14.00 GMT),” from the Golan Heights occupied by Israel against the “Iranian consulate building in Damascus,” according to an unidentified military source, which pointed out that the air defenses shot down “some” of the launched missiles.
Akbari witnessed from the embassy window of the attack on the consulate, which, according to him, was carried out with F-35 fighters that fired six missiles at Iranian facilities.
So far, Israel has not claimed this action, as is usual in its attacks on the Syrian territory.
On the battlefield, the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, the largest in the entire Strip, has been completely out of service after two weeks of military operation by the Israeli Army, which ended this morning.
“The destruction of the complex makes it impossible to resume work and the hospital has been completely out of service,” the director of Shifa, Marwan Abu Saada, told the media.
For its part, the Civil Defense of the Gaza Strip denounced on Monday that, after the departure of Israeli troops from the hospital, they have found corpses with signs of having been executed, others burned and also in a state of decomposition.
“Most of the bodies are decomposing and we reach bodies that are skeletons burned inside the medical complex,” Civil Defense spokesman Mahmud Busal said in a statement.
“It is difficult to count the number of martyrs, since the occupation raised the roads and buried the bodies in and near the Shifa complex,” Busal said.
According to the Civil Defense, there are dozens of bodies in the residential apartments in the vicinity of the medical complex for “the massacres committed by the occupation.”
The Israeli troops, who launched the operation on Shifa on March 18, claim to have killed about 200 alleged militiamen and identified 500 members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, after interrogating about 800 suspects.
The Army insists that its military operations have not been directed against “patients, health personnel or medical equipment,” although the Gazaz Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas, yesterday denounced that this incursion of the troops has left at least 400 dead throughout the area and the destruction of more than a thousand houses.
For Israel, this is one of the most “success” operations they have carried out since the beginning of the war, on October 7, due to the high number of alleged “terrorists” they have managed to capture in the hospital, where they assure that the militias of the Strip were regrouping.
Meanwhile, in Israel, a drone attack hit a building near the port of Eilat, in the south of the country, without injuries being reported.
According to the Israeli Army, the aggression came “from the east,” apparently from Iraq.
“After the sirens that sounded in the city of Eilat and in the Hevel Eilot area over an infiltration of hostile planes, the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces identified a suspicious air target that crossed from the east to Israeli territory,” said a military statement.
“The target fell in the area of the Gulf of Eilat. No injuries were reported and there was minor damage to a building,” he added.
The reference to the projectile coincides with the claim, this morning, by the Islamic Resistance of Iraq of an attack “towards our occupied lands in solidarity with the Palestinian people of Gaza.”
Israeli media suggest that the target of the attack would be the frigate Saar 6, moored in the port of Eilat, since the impact occurred in a nearby building.
Eilat has been the target of launching several ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones in parallel to the war, but most of them came from the Houthis of Yemen, a group related to Iran.
International
Paris prosecutors alert U.S. over alleged deepfake strategy linked to Elon Musk
The Paris Prosecutor’s Office said on Saturday that it had alerted authorities in the United States over suspicions that tech entrepreneur Elon Musk may have encouraged the spread of sexualized deepfake content on the social platform X to artificially boost the company’s valuation.
According to prosecutors, the controversy surrounding explicit AI-generated videos—reportedly linked to Grok, the platform’s artificial intelligence system—may have been deliberately triggered to increase the market value of X and X AI.
The office added that the alleged strategy could be tied to the planned June 2026 public listing of a new entity formed through the merger of SpaceX and X AI.
French authorities said they contacted the U.S. Department of Justice as well as legal representatives at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier this week to share their concerns.
Responding on X in French to a report about the case, Musk referred to French prosecutors using an offensive term.
When contacted, X’s legal representative in France did not immediately comment.
Grok, the platform’s AI system, has its own account on X, allowing users to interact with it or request content generation. For a period, users were able to tag the bot in posts to generate or edit images, a feature that may have facilitated the spread of such material.
International
Netanyahu vows to target Iran’s leadership after missile strikes in southern Israel
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Sunday to target Iran’s leadership directly, escalating rhetoric amid ongoing hostilities between Israel and Iran.
Speaking during a visit to the southern city of Arad, which was struck by an Iranian missile a day earlier, Netanyahu said Israel would intensify its response against Tehran.
“We are going after the regime. We are going after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, that gang of criminals,” he told reporters while standing among the debris left by the தாக்க.
He added that Israel intends to strike “personally” at Iran’s leadership, as well as its facilities and economic assets.
In addition to Arad, Iranian missiles also hit the city of Dimona on Saturday. The area is widely believed to host Israel’s undeclared nuclear facilities. The strike caused significant damage following a direct impact.
Netanyahu also visited Dimona, where he urged residents to strictly follow military instructions and seek shelter whenever warning sirens are activated.
“The entire nation is a front line, and the home front is also a front line. And when we are on the front line, we follow these instructions,” he said.
International
US panel backs Trump-themed coin amid controversy
The United States Department of the Treasury confirmed to AFP that the Commission of Fine Arts approved the design of a new collectible coin featuring Donald Trump, with members of the commission appointed by the current administration.
According to the proposal, the coin will feature an image of Trump standing with clenched fists over a desk on the obverse, while the reverse will display an eagle, a traditional symbol of the United States.
The sale price of the collectible has not yet been disclosed, although the United States Mint typically offers similar items for more than $1,000.
“There is no more iconic portrait for the front of these coins than that of our president Donald Trump,” U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach said in a statement sent to AFP. He added that two additional coins — a $1 piece and a one-ounce gold coin — are also under consideration.
However, the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee (CCAC), another body responsible for reviewing new coin proposals, declined to discuss the Trump design in late February.
“Only nations governed by kings or dictators place the image of a sitting leader on their currency,” said Donald Scarinciat the time. “No country in the world has minted coins featuring a democratically elected leader during their term in office,” he added.
When contacted by AFP, the Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for further comment.
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