Blast in residential block blast near Iran's Qom injures seven
"Four residential units were damaged in the blast. Initial assessments show that the cause of the incident was a gas leak, and follow-ups are continuing in this regard," the director of Qom's fire department told Fars.
The agency said the residents of the building were ordinary citizens.
Also read | Israel has failed to solve the Persian puzzle
Iran's regional arch-rival Israel has a record of assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists, whom it considers part of a programme that directly threatens Israel. Tehran maintains its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful purposes.
Since the end of a 12-day air war last month between Iran and Israel, in which Israel and the United States attacked Iran's nuclear facilities, several explosions have occurred in Iran, but authorities have not blamed Israel.
"People should not worry about rumours [of Israeli attacks]. If a hostile action occurs in the country, the news will immediately reach the people and alarm bells will simultaneously be activated in the Occupied Territories," Fars quoted an unnamed Iranian source as saying following the blast in Qom.
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India Today
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The Hindu
2 hours ago
- The Hindu
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The Hindu
2 hours ago
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Britain's media regulator said Monday (July 14, 2025) it will investigate a BBC documentary about children's lives in Gaza, after a review concluded that the narrator's father has Hamas links and the programme therefore breached editorial guidelines on accuracy. The broadcaster removed the programme, 'Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone,' from its streaming service in February after it emerged that the 13-year-old narrator, Abdullah, is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas's deputy minister of agriculture. Ofcom, the media regulator, said that it was launching an investigation under rules that state factual programmes must not materially mislead the audience. That came after a review by the broadcaster found that the independent production company that made the programme didn't share the background information regarding the narrator's father with the BBC. It said that the production company, Hoyo Films, bears most responsibility for the failure, though it didn't 'intentionally' mislead the BBC. The review, conducted by the corporation's director of editorial complaints, found no other breaches of editorial guidelines, including impartiality. There was no evidence of 'outside interests' impacting on the programme, it said. Earlier this year, U.K. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy questioned why no one at the BBC had lost their job over the programme's airing. The broadcaster's Director-General Tim Davie had told lawmakers that the BBC received hundreds of complaints alleging that the documentary was biased against Israel — as well as hundreds more criticising the programme's removal from its streaming service. Directors Ken Loach and Mike Leigh and actor Riz Ahmed were among 500 media figures who signed a letter published by Artists for Palestine U.K. saying a 'political' campaign to discredit the program risked dehumanizing Palestinian voices in the media. Davie said that the report identified 'a significant failing' in relation to accuracy in the documentary. Hoyo Films apologized for the mistake. Both firms said they would prevent similar errors in the future. Separately, more than 100 BBC journalists wrote a letter to Davie earlier this month criticizing its decision not to air another documentary, 'Gaza: Medics Under Fire." They expressed concerns that the broadcaster wasn't reporting ''without fear or favour' when it comes to Israel." The decision suggested that the BBC was an 'organization that is crippled by the fear of being perceived as critical of the Israeli government,' that letter said. The BBC has been under intense scrutiny for its coverage touching on the war in Gaza. Last month, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and others condemned the broadcaster for livestreaming a performance by rap punk duo Bob Vylan, who led crowds at Glastonbury Festival in chanting 'death' to the Israeli military. The Israel-Hamas war started after the militant group led an attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage. Most of the hostages have been released in earlier ceasefires. Israel's offensive in Gaza has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The ministry, under Gaza's Hamas-run government, doesn't differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count. The UN and other international organisations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.
