Opposition Figure Mousavi In Iran Hospitalized For Influenza

In their letter, published on Friday, the physicians living in North America and Europe wrote that young Iranian girls need the help of international assistance in the face of serial chemical attacks on their schools.

“As physicians, we view this crisis in Iran as a potential mass casualty scenario requiring urgent intervention by international disaster management organizations. We further consider these poisonings as premeditated attacks on Iran’s youth using substances that are applied in chemical warfare,” reads the letter signed by the 18 physicians.

Hundreds of female students in dozens of schools in many cities across Iran have been poisoned in the last three months by intentional gas attacks, which were not taken seriously by the government.

In all the cases, the students and their families attributed the poisoning to the inhalation of a poisonous gases.

Last week, a member of Iranian parliament said about 1,200 female students have been the target of attacks in three months.

After the MP’s remarks, several other cases of similar attacks reported on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday in several cities simultaneously. On Wednesday, according to some reports, 50 schools were attacked.

Videos published on social media show that dozens of students from schools were taken to hospitals in serious condition; some of them almost unconscious.

In one case the security forces attacked a concerned mother, severely beating her and pulling her hair.

The "1500 Images" Twitter account reported that “Last night [Friday], a mother and father with two young children were traveling in a car when a truck belonging to the special unit swiveled in front of them. The driver of the car (a family friend) thought the truck driver was sleepy, so he decided to go around the truck. But the special forces opened fire at them and killed the child by shooting him in the head.”

"Bazaar Civil Protest" Telegram channel identified the child as Amirali Musa-Kazemi, adding that he was killed as his family and several friends were on a recreational trip to Esfahan.

According to the report, the special unit's vehicle was a "truck unlike police cars" and the forces in it fired at the car without warning them to pull over.

It remains unclear why the special police unit opened fire at a car carrying ordinary citizens and children.

It is stated in the report that Amir-Ali's body was not handed over to his family under the pretext of handing it over to them in Tehran. The cause of death was registered as "unintentional murder".

Police officials are yet to react to the report.

This is not the first time children are killed by regime forces’ direct fire in private cars.

In the most controversial case, Kian Pirfalak, a 9-year-old child from Izeh in the south, was killed by the direct fire of government forces during nationwide protests on November 16.

Milley made the previously unannounced visit ahead of a trip to Israel by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that will also include neighboring Egypt and Jordan - US-aligned Arab states that have influence on Israeli-Palestinian affairs.

"Ongoing cooperation is required in order to prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon," Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant's office quoted him as telling Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Milley made no public remarks in Israel. His spokesperson said Milley discussed regional security issues and "coordination to defend against threats posed by Iran" in his talks with Chief of the Israeli General Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi.

Amid its long-stalled negotiations with world powers on renewing a 2015 nuclear deal, Iran has made advances with technologies that could potentially yield it a bomb. Tehran denies having any such plan.

In January, the United States and Israel held what one US official described as the allies' most significant joint military exercise to date, involving thousands of forces, a dozen ships and 142 aircraft, including nuclear-capable bombers.

Milley's trip also comes amid spiraling violence in the West Bank, with stepped-up Israeli military raids following a spate of Palestinian attacks. Fears of escalation ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the Jewish Passover festival have prompted the United States, Jordan and Egypt to appeal for calm.

In a press conference, State Department spokesman, Ned Price, simply said the US engages regularly with its Israeli partners. "We have traveled to the region; our Israeli partners have traveled here. I expect that will continue in the coming days, weeks, and months."

However, on Israeli news site Axios, reports claim that Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer and national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi, are expected to visit Washington early next week for meetings with senior Biden administration officials that will focus on Iran.

The visit comes in the wake of news from a top US defense official, Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, that Iran will need only 12 days to enrich enough weapons-grade uranium to build one nuclear bomb.

In public, the US has said it does not believe Iran has made the decision to resume its weaponization program but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have stressed in recent weeks the need for a credible military threat against Iran.

On Tuesday, Kahl said that since the Trump administration withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, Tehran's nuclear progress has been "remarkable."

He added that before the Trump administration left the nuclear agreement, Iran needed a year to break out and get enough 90% enriched uranium for one nuclear bomb.

Both Dermer and Hanegbi are at the helm of Israel's Iran policy and are expected to meet White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Tony Blinken and other senior US officials, according to Axios.

The visit takes place amidst growing domestic tensions in Israel in the wake of the new right-wing government, and tensions growing across the West Bank.

The outspoken cleric said in his Friday prayer sermons that inaction by authorities in not identifying the perpetrators is a form of revenge and repression against young people who support antigovernment protests of ‘Women, life, and freedom.’ 

Referring to the reports that blame “an unknown group” for the attacks, he said, "What is this group that has not been identified yet? Who believes that security and military officials do not know what happened? When even a small and trivial problem is quickly dealt with, how can incidents of this magnitude remain unresolved?”

"Many are of the opinion -- and this assumption is close to the truth -- that these poisonings are a form of suppression of protests; both by the group that targets the girls and those who are aware of the circumstances of these incidents but do not stop them," Abdolhamid noted. 

Some prominent Shiite clerics have also spoken out about the mysteries surrounding the attacks, which have left around 1,000 girls sick or hospitalized since November.

On Friday, reformist politician and jurist Rasoul Montajabnia said that those behind such attacks believe that literacy for girls is “dangerous,” adding that some religious fanatics resort to such actions in the name of zeal and defending hijab. He also rejected the idea that the country’s intelligence agencies are incapable of identifying the attackers. Similar remarks were made by senior clerics, including Hossein Noori-Hamedani and Abdollah Javadi Amoli.