He taught 'self-respect': Fadnavis lauds Bal Thackeray amid fight with Sena

Jerusalem: Israel and India will continue to deepen their bilateral ties and lead to greater prosperity, Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday.

Katz was responding to India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s message on the occasion of Israel’s 76th Independence Day.

“Thank you for the warm wishes, FM @DrSJaishankar. In celebration of our Independence Day, Israel and India will continue to deepen our ties and lead to greater prosperity,” Katz said in a post on X.

Earlier in the morning, Jaishankar posted on X a 2:03-minute video showcasing the India-Israel relationship through photos of various bilateral meetings between Prime Minister Narendra Modi, himself, and other Indian ministers with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other ministers.

“Congratulate FM @Israel_katz and the people of Israel on the occasion of the 76th anniversary of Israel’s Independence. Mazel Tov!,” Jaishankar posted along with the video and repeated the same message in another post in Hebrew.

Meanwhile, President Droupadi Murmu wished her Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog as she said on X, “I join the people of India in conveying our best wishes to President @Isaac_Herzog, and the people of Israel on the 76th anniversary of Israel’s independence.”

Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla too took to X to post his greetings to his counterpart Amir Ohana, the Speaker of The Knesset: “On the occasion of Israel’s 76th anniversary of independence, I congratulate Speaker of the Knesset @AmirOhana and the people of Israel.”

Both Murmu and Birla also included greetings in Hebrew.

“Thank you, my dear friend @ombirlakota. May the friendship between our nations grow stronger,” Ohana replied to Birla and also added a line in Devnagari script in Hindi, loosely translated as, “Thank you my dear friend Om Birla. May the friendship between our countries be stronger.”

A senior UN official says around 800,000 people have been "forced to flee" Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip since the Israeli regime began carrying out ground incursions into the refugee-packed city from various axes.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, made the remarks in a post on X, former Twitter, on Saturday.

"Nearly half of the population of Rafah or 800,000 people are on the road having been forced to flee since the Israeli forces started the military operation in the area on May 6," he said.

The invasion of the city came amid a genocidal war against Gaza by the regime that has so far claimed the lives of more than 35,300 Palestinians.

Around 1.5 million Palestinians had taken refuge in Rafah prior to the incursions, having fled there from the ravages of the war that began following a retaliatory operation against the occupied territories by Gaza’s resistance groups.

The Gazans, who have now left the city, have fled to "the middle areas and [the southern Gaza city of] Khan Younis, including to destroyed buildings," Lazzarini said.

Al-Mawasi, a 14-square-kilometer town on the coast, as well as the central city of Deir el-Balah, were "crammed" with recently displaced people, he added.

"Every time, they are forced to leave behind the few belongings they have ....Every time, they have to start from scratch, all over again."

The Israeli military has, meanwhile, seized the Rafah crossing in southern Gaza, which borders Egypt and serves as the main point of entry for aid supplies, including fuel, into Palestinian territory.

The move came as part of an all-out siege that the regime has been enforcing against the entire Gaza simultaneously with the war.

State media in Iran have confirmed the death of President Ebrahim Raisi and companions after the helicopter he was travelling in crashed in poor weather in an eastern province.

With Raisi were Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, East Azarbaijan Gov. Malek Rahmati, East Azarbaijan Imam of Friday Prayer Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem, and a few other leaders and bodyguards. 

The reports came after rescuers from the Iranian Red Crescent said they had found the wreckage of the helicopter, which was also carrying the country’s foreign minister and other officials, and that there was “no sign of life”.

Rescue teams fought through dense fog, blizzards and mountainous terrain to reach the wreckage in East Azerbaijan province early on Monday, but state television gave no immediate cause for the crash. 

“President Raisi’s helicopter was completely burned in the crash … unfortunately, all passengers are feared dead,” the Reuters news agency reported, citing an unnamed Iranian official.

Raisi, 63, was elected president on his second attempt in 2021, and since taking office, has overseen a tightening of morality laws, a bloody crackdown on antigovernment protests triggered by the death in custody of 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini, and taken a tougher approach to nuclear talks with world powers.

Last month, he ordered an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel, following an alleged Israeli strike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus which killed 13 people including a top commander and his deputy.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who holds ultimate power in Iran, had earlier sought to reassure Iranians, some of whom turned out to pray for Raisi’s wellbeing, saying there would be no disruption to state affairs.

‘We found it’

Raisi was travelling home to Tehran when state television said his helicopter made a “hard landing” near Jolfa, a city on the border with Azerbaijan, some 600km (375 miles) northwest of the Iranian capital. Later, state media put the crash location farther east near the village of Uzi, but details remained contradictory.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian was also on the flight, as well as the governor of Iran’s East Azerbaijan province and other officials and bodyguards, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.

Earlier on Monday, Turkish authorities released what they described as drone footage showing what appeared to be a fire in the wilderness that they “suspected to be [the] wreckage of [a] helicopter”. The coordinates listed in the footage put the fire some 20km (12 miles) south of the Azerbaijan-Iranian border on the side of a steep mountain.

Footage released by the IRNA showed what the agency described as the crash site, across a steep valley in a green mountain range. Soldiers speaking in the local Azeri language said: “There it is, we found it.”

Shortly after, state TV in an on-screen scrolling text, said: “There is no sign of life from people on board.” It did not elaborate, but the semiofficial Tasnim news agency showed rescuers using a small drone to fly over the site, with them speaking among themselves saying the same thing. The footage showed the tail of the helicopter and burnt debris all around it.

Under the Iranian Constitution, if a president is confirmed dead, Iran’s vice first president takes over and a new presidential election would be called within 50 days.

First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber already had begun receiving calls from officials and foreign governments in Raisi’s absence, state media reported.