This is great news. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said the new deal is a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done.
He said, “We hope it can lead to a ceasefire,” while sitting with Arab foreign ministers in a London hotel.
He said at a press conference that they were told to tell the world that the fighting in Gaza needs to stop right away.
They were very angry with how the Western powers had responded. Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said that the lack of response from the Western countries is letting Israel keep committing war crimes. Just so you remember, Israel says they are attacking Hamas buildings and trying to not hurt regular people since October 7th.
Many ministers said the best way to stop a bad idea is to come up with a better one. They believe that the only way to respond to Hamas’s attacks is to work towards a two-state solution through a political process. They also stated that they strongly condemn the attacks.
When Aya Najame was a young girl in Haifa, Israel, she would visit Jewish schools to learn about Jewish culture. Jewish kids would also visit Najame’s school to learn about her life.
Around one-fifth of the people living in Israel are Arab citizens or permanent residents. The around 2 million individuals are different from Palestinians who live in the occupied areas of the West Bank and Gaza, but they are not all the same.
Most of the people living in this area follow the Muslim religion, but there is also a significant group of Christian Arabs. Around 15 million people hold Israeli citizenship, but many who live in Jerusalem only have permanent residency and are not full citizens. Some people say they are Arabs, some say they are Palestinians, and some say they are Druze, which is a religious group found in Israel, Lebanon, and Syria.
Some people can speak Hebrew well and live in communities where people from different backgrounds live together, like Haifa. But there are also people who live in towns where only certain types of people live and they feel like they are treated as less important than others because Israeli authorities discriminate against them. Every year, hundreds of people decide to join the Israeli military even though they don’t have to. A lot of people have relatives in the West Bank and Gaza.
According to Najame, Haifa is different from the rest of Israel.
We all live together here, Arabs and Jews. “We collaborate and visit the same locations,” she said to CNN.
“Najame said that Haifa is the most comfortable place. ” When you leave Haifa, you begin to feel uncomfortable. It’s difficult to explain, but it’s just a feeling of discomfort.
Ashraf Ashkar is a 35-year-old Arab Israeli. He has a job at a restaurant in the Arab Wadi Nisnas neighborhood in Haifa. He mentioned that he knows people who are part of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and people who were in the places in Israel that were violently attacked by the Palestinian militant group Hamas recently. “I talk to them a lot. I have a friend who is Arab and just joined the reserves last week,” said Ashkar. He also mentioned that Israel is where he lives.
However, he is also very conscious of his own family background. His family had to leave their village, called Iqrit, which is located north of Haifa. The Israeli army made them go away during the war in 1948. They were promised they could return in a few weeks, but in the end they weren’t allowed to, according to Ashkar. Israel’s highest court decided that the eviction of the families from Igrit was against the law and stated that they should be able to go back to their land. However, before they could go back, the Israeli Defense Forces destroyed the entire village in the 1950s.
“It’s confusing when you feel unsure about where you fit in. ” I try not to think about it too much, Ashkar said.
The Hamas attacks in Israel and the Israeli bombings in Gaza have made tensions worse between different groups. Israeli officials claim that over 1,400 people were killed in the attacks, while Palestinian officials say that more than 4,100 people have been killed in the bombings.
Israel has had a very conservative government since December, which is the most conservative government it has ever had. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some opposition leaders formed an emergency war cabinet to handle the war. The person in charge of national security, Itamar Ben Gvir, is someone who supports terrorism and encourages racism against Arabs. The finance minister is Bezalel Smotrich. He wants to get rid of the Palestinian Authority and take over the West Bank, but he’s not part of the war cabinet. However, he is still performing his duties as a minister.
B’Tselem, an organization in Israel that advocates for human rights in the occupied territories, stated that the strong words used by Gvir and Smotrich have encouraged radical individuals and caused more violence towards Palestinians. This violence is mainly carried out by right-wing groups and Israeli settlers. In September, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that Israeli settlers harmed Palestinians in the West Bank in 216 attacks, causing injuries. There were also 582 incidents where their belongings were damaged.
CNN has requested a response from the IDF about the increase in violence, but they have not been given a reply.
The people who came to live here are showing that they want to harm us. The overall setting is one where we always feel like we will be targeted next. Diane Buttu, a Palestinian-Canadian lawyer residing in Haifa, shared that she believes Palestinians are the next group that could be harmed. She has worked as a legal advisor for the Palestinian side in peace negotiations.
She said that after the Hamas attacks, people started talking very badly about Palestinians. She said that people say things like “people are like animals and they should be killed. ”
Buttu explained that as a Palestinian living in Israel, she often feels like people automatically think she is dangerous. The only way I’m not part of the group of human beings is if I first denounce terrorism. I need to show them that I am a human, but I never ask Jewish people to speak out against the settlers’ violence and those attacks, she said. I never tell them to show proof that they are not settlers.
Naim Khoury knows what it feels like to be constantly watched and not trusted by others. The lawyer, who is 39 years old and lives in Haifa, said that even in their city, which is usually seen as a good example of people living together well, they are feeling the negative effects of the violence that happened in October.
Some people are suspicious of us now because we are Arabs. He told CNN that being an Arab often gets associated with being a terrorist. “We strongly dislike terrorists, we strongly dislike all the things they have done, and we feel sad for every life that has been lost. ”
Khoury said he knows lots of people in the military and the police who are his friends. But, they also sometimes experience the same distrust.
“In Haifa, we make an effort to maintain positive relationships and live peacefully together. It’s unfortunate that whenever there’s a security issue, Jews assume that as an Arab, I must have a specific opinion about it. This makes me feel saddened. ”
Abu Nader has been running a small cafe in the ancient part of Jerusalem for almost 50 years. He was born and still lives in the same building where his cafe is located.
Like many Palestinians who live here, he has the right to stay in Israel permanently, but he is not considered a citizen. He said to CNN that he never wanted to become a citizen. “Why do we need rights. ” he said to CNN.
Nader has seven kids – five girls and two boys – and 24 grandkids. Some of the grandkids live in different areas of the city so they can’t always visit him. Sometimes, when there are a lot of problems and disagreements in Jerusalem, the Israeli police limit people from going to the Old City. They only let Palestinians in if they live there or are older than a certain age.
Buttu said that limiting the movements of people who live in a place permanently is one form of unfair treatment. She also mentioned that even individuals who have citizenship can be singled out and mistreated.
She said that there are laws that discriminate against Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. These laws include ones that prevent her and others from moving into certain towns. This is because of an Israeli law that allows admission committees in certain regions to decide who can move into the community. They can reject people if they are seen as not fitting in with the community.
This year, the law was changed to include more households. Now, it applies to settlements with 700 households, instead of the previous 400 households. Adalah, an organization that cares about the rights of the Arab minority in Israel, stated that the new version of the law applies to 41% of all areas and 80% of the state’s land.
If you are a Palestinian living in this country, you have two options: either find a safe place to live and work where you feel protected, can speak Arabic, express your political views freely, and don’t have to be careful with what you say, or completely blend in with the other side. “Buttu said that the space where there is complete discomfort can be found anywhere. ” “But even if you fully blend in, there is still uncertainty. ”
In Nader’s cafe, the coffee he serves is really strong and has a lot of sugar. He makes it in special copper pots that have a long neck, called cezve.
He said that some people call it Turkish coffee, Jerusalem coffee, Palestinian coffee, or Israeli coffee. He personally likes to call it Palestinian coffee when he feels like it. He watched a spoonful of sugar go up from the bottom of the pot. “When I don’t feel like talking about politics, I jokingly refer to it as Jerusalem coffee. ”
Some Arab countries that are usually friendly to the United States were not very receptive to President Joe Biden and his diplomats when they traveled to the Middle East to try and stop the conflict between Israel and Hamas from spreading to other countries.
Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority decided not to meet with Biden just a day before they were supposed to have a meeting together in the city of Amman, Jordan. The cancellation happened after a big explosion at a hospital in Gaza called Al-Ahli Baptist. It was said that this explosion caused the death of many Palestinians. Palestinian officials said Israel caused the explosion in the hospital, but Israeli officials said it happened because an Islamic Jihad rocket went off accidentally.
“The meeting cannot end the war, which is our goal,” said Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi in an interview with Al Jazeera on Wednesday. He referred to the explosion at the hospital as a war crime. “So, we chose not to have it,” he said.
Biden came to Tel Aviv on Wednesday. He met with Benjamin Netanyahu, who is the Prime Minister of Israel, and also with some people from the Israeli war cabinet. The president promised to support Israel and told Netanyahu that the explosion at the hospital seems like it was caused by someone else, not Israel. The National Security Council said on Wednesday that the government currently thinks that Israel is not responsible for the blast.
CNN is unable to confirm on its own what caused the explosion and how many people were hurt.
Arab leaders are worried and upset because the United States is heavily supporting Israel in the war. They are now trying to distance themselves from the Biden administration because people in the Arab countries are getting angrier at Israel. More than 3,478 people have died in Gaza since the attack on Israel by Hamas. The attack in Israel caused the deaths of at least 1,400 people.
After the explosion in the hospital was reported on Tuesday, people in Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Iran, and Turkey, as well as in Ramallah in the West Bank, started protesting against Israel.
Arab leaders might be cautious about protests happening in their own countries as they see constant coverage of the Gaza war on Arabic news channels, including distressing images of Palestinians who have died. Protests in Jordan are more likely to happen because many of its people have Palestinian roots.
Egypt announced that it will mourn the victims of the Gaza hospital for three days.
Abdul Khaleq Abdulla, a commentator from the United Arab Emirates, who knows about official opinions, said that Biden has shown a unique emotional connection to Israel, unlike any past US president. Arab countries are very surprised and unhappy that Biden is not criticizing Israel or stopping the violence.
“He told CNN that people now believe he is equally responsible for the crime against Palestinians. Arab countries are now avoiding him and not giving him attention. ”
Egypt and Jordan, countries next to Israel and the Palestinian territories, are against a plan by the US to create a safe path for Palestinians escaping Gaza into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, which is next to Gaza.
Jordan’s King Abdullah said on Tuesday that it is not acceptable for Palestinians to be forced to leave their homes and move to Jordan or Egypt. He also made it clear that neither Jordan nor Egypt will allow refugees from Gaza to come into their countries. He said that suggesting that the two countries should accept Gazan refugees is a plan “by some people who always do this to cause problems on the ground. ” This suggests that the refugees may not be allowed to go back to their homes.
The proposal from the US has made people in the Arab world very angry. The media in the Arab world believes that the suggestion would benefit Israel by removing Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, and possibly even taking control of it again. This would leave the Palestinians without homes and with no chance of returning. Israel controlled Gaza from 1967 to 2005 and moved Jewish people to live there during that time.
Egyptian newspapers have strongly criticized the idea of forcing Palestinians to leave their homes. They believe that this would be a devastating event similar to the 1948 Nakba, which resulted in around 700,000 Palestinians being forced to flee or leave their homes during the Arab-Israeli war that led to the establishment of Israel. Many people living in Gaza were forced to leave their homes and became refugees because their families originally came from parts of Israel.
During a press conference, the Egyptian President strongly expressed his opinion that Israel, not Egypt, should be responsible for accepting Palestinian refugees.
Sisi said that if Israel has a plan to force out Gazans, they can move them to the Naqab desert in Israel until Israel finishes their operation to destroy the resistance groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza.
He said that if people from Gaza go to Sinai, it could become a place for people trying to harm Israel. This could make Israel attack Egypt.
Timothy Kaldas, who works at a policy institute in Washington, DC, said that Arab leaders don’t want to appear like they are helping in removing people from Gaza.
Sisi is trying very hard to put some distance between himself and his Western partners on this matter. He wants to protect himself from the possibility of facing a lot of public criticism and anger.
Sisi said this after his foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, talked about how Europe and the US worry about many refugees coming in, and Egypt feels the same way.
Egypt is already home to nine million refugees. Should we expect them to welcome another one or two million people. That’s what Shoukry, an Egyptian official, asked during an interview with CNN on Tuesday. He said he didn’t know why the Palestinians were being moved, and he thought it might be on purpose.
Kaldas said that Western governments, who have become friends with Arab rulers, often see it as an advantage to ignore what the general public thinks. He said it might not be true, especially at this time.
Kaldas said that even in autocracies, the people living there still have their own thoughts, feelings, and limits which should be recognized. “And this is definitely something that has made everyone in Egypt very angry. ”
There were protests against Israel in the Middle East and North Africa because Arab leaders are upset about an explosion at a hospital in Gaza City that killed many people.
Palestinian officials said that Israel caused the explosion at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, but the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) denied this. The IDF claimed that Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants tried to launch a rocket, but it failed, and there was no damage to the structure, which means it was not an airstrike.
Islamic Jihad said that the Israeli accusations are not true and have no evidence. They also said that they do not use hospitals or other public buildings for their military activities.
Some countries in the Arab region, such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Iraq, expressed their disapproval of Israel and blamed its military for bombing the hospital.
At the same time, many people in Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt, and Tunisia came together to protest against Israel. They were chanting slogans against Israel. Protests also happened in the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
The explosion at the hospital made people in the area very angry about the violence in Gaza. Gaza is a place near the coast with 2. 2 million people living there. It has been blocked by Israel for over a week as a punishment for a big attack by Hamas in Israel on October 7.
On Tuesday night, many people came together near the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan to protest. A group tried to go close to something, but a person who knows about security said that security forces stopped them and made them leave. According to two people involved in the protests and videos shared on social media, the security forces in Jordan also used tear gas to scatter the protesters.
In Lebanon, many protestors got together in a square near the US embassy in Beirut on Tuesday. They attempted to go past security barriers to enter the embassy. A CNN team was present to witness this event. By early Wednesday morning, the busy and disorderly situations became more peaceful, as reported by CNN’s Ben Wedeman. Before, the US State Department said on Tuesday that American citizens should not go to Lebanon.
Protesters in Baghdad, Iraq, also shouted slogans against Israel. Security officials in Baghdad have said that many people protesting tried to go across a bridge that goes to the Green Zone. The Green Zone is where the Iraqi government works and where many embassies, including the US embassy, are located. But the security forces stopped the protesters from crossing the bridge.
In Iran, people gathered at the French and British embassies in Tehran, the capital of the country. Protesters shouted angrily and said harmful things about France, England, America, and the Zionists, as shown in a video released by Iranian state-run RNA news on Wednesday. There were also gatherings in other cities like Esfahan and Qom.
According to the official TAP news agency, many people gathered in different parts of Tunis, Tunisia. TAP reported that there were large protests on Tuesday night in many places. The protests were a show of support for the Palestinian people and a way to oppose the bombing happening in Gaza by Israel.
In Istanbul, the police in Turkey sprayed water and used a liquid called pepper spray to break up a group of protesters who had entered a building where the Israeli consulate is.
On Tuesday, the President of Turkey, Tayyip Erdogan, said on a social media platform called X that everyone in the world should do something to stop the very cruel actions happening in Gaza. He also mentioned that the recent attack on a hospital shows how Israel is attacking without any respect for human values.
The explosion caused Jordan to cancel a meeting on Wednesday. The meeting was going to be between US President Joe Biden and the leaders of Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority is a group that has some control over the West Bank, but it is limited.
The Foreign Affairs Minister of Jordan, Ayman Safadi, wrote on X, “Why does Israel continue to attack Gaza, causing the death of innocent Palestinians. ”
Safadi wants peace and thinks that international law should apply to everyone, not just some people. He also believes that the world needs to speak up and take immediate action against this war.
While the IDF claims that it does not intentionally attack hospitals, the UN and Doctors Without Borders have reported that Israeli airstrikes have hit medical facilities, including hospitals and ambulances.
The hospitals were having a hard time taking care of the injured people because they didn’t have enough electricity and water.
The Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, which is in charge of the Al Ahli Baptist Hospital and provides money for it, expressed strong disapproval of the explosion, as mentioned in a statement from the church released on Tuesday.
The diocese said that Gaza does not have any safe places to hide and called the explosion a terrible crime against all people.
The text means that hospitals are supposed to be safe places according to international laws about helping people during times of conflict. However, this attack on the hospital has gone against those rules and is very wrong.
On Wednesday, the IDF showed pictures that they believe prove that the Al-Ahli Baptist hospital was not destroyed by an airstrike.
Standing at a protest in Haifa against the increasing crime in Arab communities in Israel, Abu Salah yells “Enough. Enough” in Hebrew with an Arabic accent.
We desire to have a tranquil and calm life. She wants to know who is responsible for all of this and why they would kill these children.
Abu Salah’s son Ali was killed last week while he was going to work. This happened one year after he was in prison. He is one of the recent people who were killed in a growing number of murders that specifically target Arab Israelis. Over 170 Arab Israelis have been killed this year, which is a much higher number compared to previous years (111 were killed in total in 2022).
Abu Salah says she was supposed to get ready for her son’s wedding. Instead, she went to a protest where many Israelis – both Jews and Arabs – came together to demand fairness and equality.
I am holding the police, government, law, and members of the Israeli Parliament responsible. “We need to find and catch all the people who are doing these awful things,” she explains. Why won’t they let my child live for a longer time. Why won’t they give him the chance for a future.
The family is from Israel and they are Arabs. Arabs make up about 20% of the population in Israel. Many people are able to speak Hebrew very well and consider themselves to be Palestinian. However, they express that they feel like they are not valued as much as Jewish Israelis, and they believe that Israeli authorities are not taking their situations as seriously.
Israeli officials say that the increase in violence is being driven by organized crime. Activists say that gangs take advantage of the fact that many young Arab-Israeli men are unemployed. These gangs act like loan providers and make shop owners and others pay money to them for protection. Arab towns in Israel are facing a problem of illegal guns. This is making people fearful of helping the police because they are afraid of retaliation.
Thabet Abu Rass, who helps run Abraham Initiatives, an organization that works for equal rights between Israeli Arabs and Jews, believes that a shortage of proper policing has caused a problem in the Arab community in Israel. Criminal organizations are taking over this space. And they are really doing everything, the criminal groups are guarding, they are collecting money for protection, they are harming people, they are lending money to people if they need it, but they are also bringing peace, harmony, and talking with people to resolve problems. Only criminal organizations are doing this job and no one else is doing it, Abu Rass says.
Abu Rass believes that the Israeli police are currently not strong because they are busy with political issues, protests against changes in the judicial system, and the increasing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in the last year and a half. According to information from the Abraham Initiatives, not many of the recent murders have resulted in charges being made.
We feel like we are in different places than Jewish Israelis. We are not a part of Israel. But we are people who live in Israel and have the rights and responsibilities of being citizens. We want police to be fair and treat everyone equally,” Abu Rass says.
Lots of people who were hurt were chosen on purpose, either because they are in gangs that fight each other or for different reasons. But people who were not involved, even young children and toddlers, have also been killed, according to local authorities.
At the protest in Haifa last week, people carried white coffins for each of the victims up until now. Beside the victims were notes saying what they were doing when they were killed. “I went to get a pizza,” says someone. Another person says, “It was my special day when I was born. ” Many women wearing white robes held signs in three languages, Hebrew, Arabic, and English. The signs had messages like “Arab Blood Matters” and “Startup nation. More like innovation in discrimination. ”
Johara, the daughter of Badee’a Khnifes, was a person who worked against violence and fought for the rights of women. She took part in programs supported by the US State Department. She was only 28 years old when she died last year because a bomb went off under her car.
Khnifes, who is an Arab-Druze Israeli citizen, is wearing a white shirt with her daughter’s picture on it. She says that the police haven’t made much progress in solving her daughter’s murder, except for suggesting that it might have been a mix-up.
“I feel like a forgotten outsider in a very forgotten, controlling country,” she says. “I don’t feel like I fit in anywhere. ”
In the early 2000s, officials in Israel started a large-scale plan to address a high number of murders caused by organized Jewish criminal groups. In some situations, people were transported from the United States to Israel to be tried.
Arab Israelis like Khnifes want equal attention and effort to be given to this situation.
Khnifes says that in our Arab society right now, something similar to what happened 20 years ago is occurring in Israel. The police did a great job back then in dealing with criminal activities involving Jewish people. We all belong to the same group, we all live in the same place, but it doesn’t have any value. We are people who live in this country and are part of its government. I want them to treat me and my community the way they treat the Jewish community, because we are all like family.
Lots of people in this community, including Ahmad Tibi who is a member of parliament and Arab-Israeli, think that the current government is to blame. They say that it is the most right-wing government in the history of Israel. Israel’s police force is overseen by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who was previously found guilty of expressing hatred towards Arabs.
“He is the wrong person to be the National Security minister. Tibi thinks it’s ridiculous that Netanyahu selected this person for this job. This man, who has been declared guilty by the Israeli court for being a criminal and a terrorist, is currently in charge of the police force. He is fighting against the police, and they are fighting back, but unfortunately, both sides are not succeeding. And if we fail, it will result in a large amount of violence on our streets within our community.
The Israel Police, who have been doing many important operations to prevent crime in the Arab community, said no to CNN’s request to talk.
Ben Gvir said that the increase in crime is because the government has not paid attention to the problem for a long time and has ignored the signs that it was getting worse. He wants the Shin Bet, a security agency that deals with terrorism, to help solve these crimes. He said his idea for a new “national guard” would also be beneficial.
Last month, Ben Gvir said that there are criminal groups in the Arab sector who have armed militias with many soldiers and weapons. They are dangerous groups that cause harm and fear. When they use violence on the street, they will attack Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu created a team of ministers to help tackle crime in Arab communities.
He said that the increase in crime is a big problem for Israel. He said this during a meeting on Thursday.
On Thursday, the committee said they have plans to give police more advanced technology and tools to help them do their job. They also want to increase the amount of money that criminals have to pay if they are caught. The group also suggested that the police and Shin Bet should work together more closely. Netanyahu has also mentioned this idea in the past.
“We will do whatever it takes, including using the Shin Bet and the police, to stop this crime,” Netanyahu said last month when the director general of a mostly Arab city called Tira was killed. We have stopped criminal activities by groups of people in the Jewish community in Israel, and we will do the same for criminal activities in the Arab community in Israel. Every person in Israel should feel safe and not worried about terrorism inside the country.
This has caused some disagreement, including from Ronen Bar, who leads the Shin Bet, since their main job is to investigate terrorism. However, it is reported that he recently met with the leaders of Arab cities.
According to Israeli media, Bar said that if a country starts to consistently involve the Shin Bet in every difficult situation, it will become a completely different country.
No matter how they try to stop this increase in crime, Arab citizens in Israel believe it won’t be long before this problem affects their Jewish neighbors.
“Today, there is pain in the Arab society, just like there was 20 years ago in the Jewish society, and it will come back to the Jewish society,” Khnifes explains. “And I don’t want that. ”
Habib Chaab, a dual citizen of Sweden and Iran who was found guilty of leading an Arab separatist group accused of attacking, was put to death. In order to voice its opposition to this, Sweden has summoned Iran’s acting ambassador.
The Swedish Foreign Ministry stated in a statement on Saturday that “the death penalty is an inhuman and irreversible punishment and Sweden, along with the rest of the EU, condemns its use under any circumstances.”
Chaab was executed early on Saturday due to his alleged membership in the Harakat al-Nidal rebel organisation, according to the state-run media agency Mizan.
Iran considers Harakat al-Nidal to be a terrorist group.
Mizan claimed Chaab was the leader of Harakat al-Nidal and the suspected mastermind behind the shooting attack on a military parade in Iran’s southwestern city of Ahvaz in 2018 in which 29 people died.
Executions have risen in Iran following a nationwide uprising sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini last September, according to reports released by rights groups.
According to a joint report issued by the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and the France-based Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) groups revealed at least 500 executions were carried out last year – a 75% increase from the previous year.
The increase was Tehran’s way of trying to frighten protesters and prevent dissent, groups said.
Addressing the 2018 incident, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei accused Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates of financing the perpetrators of the attack and threatened to “harshly punish” the masterminds.
UAE Minister of State For Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said the accusations were “baseless” and “official incitement against the UAE in Iran” was “unfortunate.”
