Who is Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei?
So, who is Ali Khamenei, one of the most powerful and polarising figures in the Middle East?
Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this
form . More about MEE can be found
here .
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Middle East Eye
22 minutes ago
- Middle East Eye
Palestinians left 'without shelter and water' as settlers empty West Bank village
On Thursday evening, Israeli settlers erected a tent just metres away from a Palestinian Bedouin village in the Al-Mu'arrajat area in the occupied West Bank's Jordan Valley. Al-Mu'arrajat East, which occupies a small patch of land on a rocky hillside, had endured years of escalating attacks from the nearby Israeli Movot Yorihu settlement. Thirty families had already been forced to abandon their homes. The last 20 had clung on until now, but this would be the village's death knell. That night, the settlers moved from home to home forcing families out at gun point. Resident Aliya Mlihat immediately rang the police, who were slow to respond. When border police and three military jeeps arrived on the scene, they did nothing to stop the onslaught, even facilitating the raids on people's homes. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters "Their numbers kept increasing until there were approximately 50 settlers, ranging in age from 18 to 50, all speaking fluent Arabic," she told Middle East Eye. Mlihat recalled that "the expressions on the soldiers' faces revealed satisfaction - even joy - as if they were endorsing the settlers' actions". In one photo taken by Mlihat, settlers can be seen lounging in chairs and grinning alongside soldiers in fatigues. Mlihat tried to document the raid on her phone, but was verbally abused and threatened by the settlers, which included teenage boys, who she said attempted to beat her. The attack was led by sanctioned Israeli settler Zohar Sabah, who had set up the new outpost. According to Mlihat, Sabah stormed the area armed with an M16 rifle, shouting at residents to "flee to Jordan". 'What is happening cannot be explained as the actions of a few extremist groups - it is part of an official state policy aimed at full control over our land' - Aliya Mlihat, Al-Mu'arrajat East resident About an hour into the attack, the settlers were at Mlihat's door. "They began searching for anything they could take, shouting: 'Leave now!' I responded firmly: 'We will not leave!' But they continued yelling and hurling insults at me, my mother and my siblings," Mlihat recalled. Mlihat and her family left at gun point, along with the remaining families who dismantled their homes and loaded their belongings onto trucks. "We had no option but to grab what was left of our memories, dreams, kitchen tools, schoolbooks and my sister's high school exam papers - and go," Mlihat said. The community are now scattered across different areas including the nearby villages of Al-'Awsaj and Al-Auja. Mlihat and her family ended up on the outskirts of a refugee camp, "without shelter, without water, without even air to breathe", she said. "We are exposed to the scorching sun, in temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius," she told MEE. She said her sister, who is still in school, is in a "very poor mental state", forced to study for her exams in the blistering heat with no access to water. "She used to be a top student, but she broke down in tears due to everything she has endured. No officials from the Ministry of Education have reached out to her," Mlihat said. Her father, who was struck in the chest during the attack, is having difficulty breathing, while her mother has not stopped crying since the night of the attack. An impossible choice Mlihat was born and raised in Al-Mu'arrajat East, where her family had lived for four decades. She said that since October 2020, the community had seen a steady rise in settler violence, beginning with the theft of their livestock and restrictions on their use of grazing land. At one point, settlers poisoned their sheep. But since the onset of Israel's war on Gaza, the violence had escalated, with settlers emboldened by a far-right government determined to consolidate its control over the occupied West Bank. In October, settlers including Sabah raided the local school armed with clubs, assaulting teachers and students and tying up the principal, who was subsequently hospitalised. Following the raid, they placed dolls splattered with red paint to resemble blood at the school's entrance. The same dolls were again used in a settler attack on 23 January to adorn mock child graves outside the school. In February, they burned the village mosque to the ground. UK-sanctioned Israeli settler Zohar Sabah relaxes with soldiers hours before the raid on Al-Mu'arrajat East (Aliya Mlihat) Mlihat said that the attacks occurred "in an organised manner", with numbers of settlers swelling significantly. Shaina Low, the Norwegian Refugee Council's Communication Advisor, said the violence may amount to a forcible transfer, prohibited under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a war crime under international law. "They faced an impossible choice, reaching a breaking point. This is not a voluntary departure," she said. The attacks on Mu'arrajat are part of a surge of settler violence across the occupied West Bank intended to clear Palestinians off large swathes of Area C - an area which makes up 60 percent of the West Bank and is under Israeli control. Settlers often act under military protection and are emboldened by the Israeli government, who approved 22 new settlements in May. "What is happening in terms of attacks and systematic displacement cannot be explained as merely the actions of a few extremist groups - it is, in fact, part of an official state policy aimed at full control over our land," Mlihat said. Al-Mu'arrajat's forced displacement follows that of the residents of a nearby Bedouin community, Mughayir ad-Deir, in late May. Israeli rights group Stop the Wall reported that settlers pitched a tent in the middle of the village, hooking it up to running water from a nearby outpost. They then proceeded to expand the outpost, forcing the 125 residents to flee to the industrial zone of Beitunia, where they do not have access to water or electricity. Sabah was also involved in this campaign, along with another sanctioned settler, Ben Pazi. Both participated in the attack after being placed on the UK sanctions list. The nearby community of Ras Ein al-Auja, home to 130 residents, is expected to be next after a new settler outpost was established in the centre of the village in June. "We've seen this pattern, that now the settlers have realised they can duplicate," Low told MEE. "It involves just a couple of people setting up an outpost, herding their own flocks on the community's traditional grazing land, taking over access to water resources, stealing sheep, intimidating the community and preventing them from having access to all the natural resources around them. "And then we'll see this escalation of violent attacks, often at night. This is what we're seeing now, just copy-paste, replicated all across the area east of Ramallah." Low said the impacts on the communities are "devastating", as land and access to water sources is growing scarce in the West Bank, leaving displaced people scant options for relocation and forcing them into debt. "They're running into so much debt that they're selling their flocks, losing their main source of income," Low said. Palestinian Bedouins dismantle a house before fleeing, while settler violence surges, near Jericho in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, 4 July 2025 (REUTERS/Ammar Awad) "What we're seeing is the erasure of Palestinian communities in the West Bank - in this case, in Area C - but we're also seeing communities being displaced in parts of Area B, and even settler violence and attacks happening in Area A as well," Low said. Area A, which covers 21 percent of the West Bank, is under full administrative control of the Palestinian Authority (PA), while Area B constitutes 18 percent and is under partial PA control. "If the Palestinian communities are removed from these areas, it means that Israel will be able to expand their settlement project, and build settlements connecting the settlements among each other," Low explained. "It means that the two-state solution that the international community purports to support will no longer be viable, or is not viable if there's no Palestinian presence in large parts of the West Bank." Low emphasised that despite frequent visits by diplomats to imperilled Palestinian villages in the West Bank, the international community is doing little to prevent their displacement. "They visited these communities. They've spoken out against the displacement, but they aren't doing enough to prevent the displacement from happening in the first place," she said.
Middle East Eye
2 hours ago
- Middle East Eye
UK re-establishes relations with Syria after 14 years
The UK has fully re-established relations with Syria 14 years after severing ties with the former government of Bashar al-Assad. Foreign Secretary David Lammy was photographed shaking hands with the country's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus. "The UK is re-establishing diplomatic relations because it is in our interests to support the new government to deliver their commitment to build a stable, more secure and prosperous future for all Syrians," Lammy said in a statement. Photos released by Sharaa's office also showed Lammy meeting Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani. The presidency said they discussed "bilateral ties... and ways of strengthening cooperation, as well as regional and international developments". New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Lammy said the UK wanted to back a stable Syria as a means of "reducing the risk of irregular migration, ensuring the destruction of chemical weapons" and "tackling the threat of terrorism". The British Foreign Office said the UK had also committed an extra $129m to provide "urgent humanitarian aid" and support Syria's reconstruction and countries hosting Syrian refugees. In December, after a brutal 14-year civil war, Sharaa's rebel forces, who had been in control of Idlib, toppled Damascus, ending the Assad dynasty. Assad fled with his family to Moscow. Sharaa was previously head of Syria's al-Qaeda affiliate and its successor organisation Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). HTS remains listed on the UK's proscribed organisations list as an "alternative name" for al-Qaeda, though the group was officially dissolved in January.
Gulf Today
4 hours ago
- Gulf Today
Get off your hobby-horses, face reality
Iran has suspended its relationship with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It said that the visit of an IAEA team to inspect Iran's nuclear sites will have to get a nod from Iran's Supreme National Security Council. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi wrote on X: 'Our cooperation with the IAEA will be channelled through Iran's Supreme National Security Council for obvious safety and security reasons.' President Masoud Pezeshkian signed into law legislation passed by the Iranian parliament. IAEA said, 'We are aware of these reports.' Iran blames IAEA for playing a partisan role. It was the vote of the UN agency's board of governors declaring Tehran to have violated the NPT clauses that led to Israel's attack on Iran on June 12. Iran said that the IAEA had been siding with the Western powers. When the German foreign office said that Iran should get back to the IAEA, Iran hit back at Germany saying that it had been supporting Israel. Araqchi accused Germany of 'explicit support for Israel's unlawful attack on Iran, including safeguarded nuclear sites.' There is not much doubt that the IAEA is not the neutral UN body it is meant to be. It yields to pressure from Western powers, and especially so from the United States. The IAEA had said in its report that the grade of uranium was more than that needed for producing electricity, and that the enrichment was nearer the weapons grade target. This has been the case on several earlier occasions too, where the enrichment of uranium was more than the limits needed for generating electricity. But the personal equation between the IAEA inspectors and the Iranian officials is a key aspect of the process. The issue is that Iran has not enriched uranium to weapons grade, even according to the IAEA team. So Iran cannot be said to have breached the NPT. There is also the fact that Iran's denunciation of Zionism and the declaration that it considers Israel to be the enemy has more bark than bite in it. So, Israel can use the pretext of Iran's rhetoric that Tehran wants to destroy Israel is good enough for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to launch an attack on Israel's nuclear facilities. Of course, Netanyahu was responding to the political crisis he was facing on the home front,. There is growing anger among the Israelites about Netanyahu's failure to get all the hostages of the October 7, 2023 attack back. Israel claims to have other motives to attack Iran. It was Iran's support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran's declared support for Hamas in Gaza. And then there was the Iranian support for the Houthis in Yemen. Iran then is perceived in the Israeli security establishment as a threat to Israel. Netanyahu of course indulges in exaggeration when he says that Iran poses an existential threat to Israel. The 12-day clash between Israel and Iran has proved that Israel does not have the military wherewithal to decisively attack Iran. It needed American intervention. The reports now say that the American bombing of the nuclear centres in Iran has only pushed back Iran's bomb plan by two years. So, the Americans too failed to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities and capabilities. The need of the hour is that Iran, Israel and the United States must stop making these rhetorical statements which are so much hot air and nothing more. They should get down to sober diplomatic dialogue. It will be a slow process. There will be no quick fixes. The three countries have to get off their hobby-horses and look reality in the face.
