JERUSALEM (AP) — Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday called on leaders of Muslim countries to stand together against Israel and the United States, imploring them to “know your real enemy.”
The U.S. news network NBC said a team of its journalists was attacked by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, while a British activist was set to appear in an Israeli court after Israeli settlers seized him and turned him over to police.
Here’s a look at the latest
developments in the Iran war and the wider Middle East. Full coverage can be found here.
Iran's new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, issued a plea for Muslim cooperation and unity in a letter to religious leaders from Islamic countries attending a conference in Tehran, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported, urging cooperation and unity between them.
He called the U.S. and Israel enemies of all Islamic nations.
“My enduring and repeating advice to rulers of Islamic nations,” he wrote, “is to know your real enemy, understand its plans and confront it.”
Khamenei still has not been seen publicly since his father and other senior leaders were killed in the war’s opening strikes on Feb. 28, when the U.S. and Israel attacked.
He has routinely opposed U.S. military presence in neighboring nations. The war has exposed deep divisions in the Muslim world after Iran struck targets in neighboring Gulf Arab countries during the fighting and restricted movement through the Strait of Hormuz.
Settlers attacked an NBC crew in the central West Bank Saturday, as they were interviewing a Palestinian woman who said she’d been driven out of her house by settlers, the network said.
NBC’s American correspondent Matt Bradley, two other crew members and the woman they were interviewing were all treated for injuries sustained during the attack, NBC said. There were no further details on their injuries.
The assault was caught on video and shared by NBC, with footage showing masked settlers approaching the crew with sticks and beating the crew’s vehicles.
Israel’s military said it was “aware of reports of Palestinian injuries, including a Palestinian woman who sustained non-life-threatening injuries and was evacuated by the Red Crescent for medical treatment.” It did not comment on the attack on the NBC crew.
It was the latest in a growing wave of violence by West Bank settlers. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a rare condemnation of the violence on Saturday. The Israeli leader has come under heavy U.S. criticism for the settler attacks.
Israeli settlers seized a British activist from a Palestinian village in the West Bank and locked him in a shed before turning him over to police, his lawyer said Sunday.
The lawyer, Inbar Shaked Vardi, said settlers held her client, Finn Joughin, for half an hour Saturday before turning him over to Israeli police. Joughin was set to appear before a Jerusalem court later Sunday, she said.
Video showed two settlers, one armed, restraining Joughin and marching him away from the village.
It was not immediately clear what led to his capture. Settlers say he assaulted a child, accusations Vardi vehemently denied.
Settlers point to a video where the activist uses his body in an apparent attempt to block a settler boy from passing through a fence. Vardi said the video shows he was trying to protect the village.
Police said they were investigating and holding Joughin in custody on suspicion of committing an indecent act against a minor.
