Tehran commentariat cry betrayal over Russia’s silence in Israel clash

UK foreign office minister Hamish Falconer told parliament on Monday that the British embassy has reopened and a chargé d'affaires is now in place.

“We will continue to play our full role to ensure the safety of British nationals in Iran,” he said.

The Swiss Embassy, which represents US interests in Iran, also reopened on Sunday after nearly two weeks of closure. Services remain limited to consular visits, with visa-related services still suspended, the embassy announced.

Swiss intelligence warns of growing Iranian espionage threat

The reopening comes as Swiss authorities raise security concerns over Iranian espionage. On Wednesday, Switzerland’s Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) warned that Iran poses a growing intelligence threat to Swiss diplomats.

In its annual "Security Switzerland 2025" assessment, the agency said Switzerland’s role as Washington’s protecting power in Tehran increases the visibility of Swiss personnel to hostile intelligence services.

The warning followed a joint SRF and RTS investigation aired Tuesday, in which a former IRGC officer said Swiss diplomat Sylvie Brunner was pushed from her Tehran balcony in May 2021 after a failed surveillance operation. Iran ruled it a suicide but has not shared full case files with Swiss authorities.

Brunner’s brother believes she was murdered. A Swiss forensic report found key organs missing, making toxicology tests incomplete. It said suicide was plausible but could not rule out foul play.

Her death was the first of four suspicious cases involving Swiss nationals in Iran. Others include the 2023 death of a defense attaché, the stabbing of a local embassy employee, and the 2025 death of a Swiss tourist in prison.

Swiss officials say they are pressing for full transparency in each case but have no jurisdiction to conduct investigations on Iranian soil. Without access to evidence or cooperation from Iranian authorities, their ability to determine what happened remains limited.

In a statement Monday, the military said that the cell was arrested in the Tel Kudna area of southern Syria, though it did not give further details.

“For the second time in the past week, the division’s troops completed a targeted overnight operation and apprehended several operatives who posed a threat in the area,” the statement said.

The Wall Street Journal reported in January that following the fall of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, most Iranian forces and their allies had withdrawn from Syria.

On Monday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that multiple operations from Israeli forces had happened Sunday, with convoys searching homes across several villages before making arrests.

“The number of people arrested by Israeli forces in the Quneitra countryside rose to six people, including two children, following an incursion carried out by the forces in the villages of Suwaysa and the vicinity of the town of Nab' al-Sakhr in the central Quneitra countryside,” a statement said.

It comes as the Israeli military carried out overnight attacks on Iran’s Yemeni allies, the Houthis, which continue to carry out regular missile attacks against the Jewish state in its campaign in allegiance with Iran-aligned Hamas in Gaza.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said on X that Houthi infrastructure was targeted.

“The fate of Yemen is the same as the fate of Tehran," he said, referring to a recent Israeli campaign targeting Iran.

"As part of Operation Black Flag, the IDF has now forcefully struck terror targets of the Houthi terror regime in the ports of Hodeidah, Al-Salif, and Ras Isa, the Ras Katib power station, and the ship Galaxy Leader, which was hijacked by the Houthis about two years ago and is currently used for terror activities in the Red Sea.”

The Israeli military said that approximately 20 fighter jets used over 50 munitions in the operation.

A statement from the Houthis’ Telegram channel said the group had repelled the attack.

“Our air defense succeeded in confronting the Zionist aggression against our country and thwarting its plan to target a number of Yemeni cities. This was achieved by forcing a number of combat formations participating in the aggression to leave the airspace, preventing them from launching raids,” the statement said.

The Israeli military said two missiles were launched by the Houthis in the early hours of Monday morning in response, though it had not confirmed an interception.

The Houthi statement said the operation used 11 missiles and drones targeting Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, Ashdod Port, Ashkelon power station and the port of Eilat on Israel’s Red Sea coast.

“It’s a worrying disappearance, and we are in contact with the family,” Minister Laurent Saint-Martin, who oversees French nationals overseas, told RTL radio.

Saint-Martin stopped short of confirming whether the Iranian authorities were involved in the disappearance, but added: “It is worrying because Iran has a deliberate policy of taking Western hostages.”

The man, who also holds German nationality, has not been identified publicly.

French media reported on Sunday that he was an 18-year-old who had been on a solo cycling trip in the region and went missing a few days after Israeli airstrikes targeted Iranian sites in mid-June.

AFP reported that the French man has not contacted his family since June 16, citing a French diplomatic source.“We are in contact with the family about this,” the source was quoted as saying.

The source described the case as “worrying," and advised French nationals against travelling to Iran due to Tehran’s “deliberate policy of taking Westerners hostage.”

The missing person alert was first posted on social media by friends seeking help with locating the tourist.

While French authorities have not named the individual, the French daily Le Figaro identified the missing person as Lennart Monterlos, 18, citing a missing person alert posted on Instagram.

According to Le Figaro, Monterlos describes himself on Instagram as passionate about climbing and cycling. In June 2024, he announced plans for “a one-year cycling trip across Eurasia,” calling it a “dream” he hoped to fulfill before starting university.

His planned route spanned “400 days, 35,000 km,” across “35 countries.”

His last public location update, posted on the travel app Polarsteps, showed him in Shiraz, Iran, on June 3, with a planned stop in Kashan. The account has not been updated since.

Monterlos's disappearance follows recent developments in the case of Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, two French citizens arrested in Iran in 2022, who were recently notified of charges punishable by death—including espionage for Israel— after which they were moved to an undisclosed location.

Earlier on Sunday, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported a phone call between French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot and his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi, during which they discussed consular affairs and regional developments.

IRNA’s report did not specify whether the two diplomats discussed the cases of Lennart Monterlos, Cécile Kohler, or Jacques Paris. However, the term "consular affairs" usually refers to the cases of citizens detained in the two countries.

“This threat will not make us accept surrender,” Qassem said in a video message for the occasion of Ashura, a major Shia Muslim religious commemoration, amid a fragile ceasefire brokered in November by the US and France.

“The resistance will continue even if the whole world stands against it.”

Washington has called for Hezbollah to disarm completely. Lebanese authorities are expected to deliver a response to US envoy Thomas Barrack's June proposal when he arrives in Beirut on Monday, according to Reuters.

A Lebanese official speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity said authorities have already begun dismantling parts of Hezbollah’s military infrastructure in southern Lebanon, near the Israeli border.

But Qassem, who took over leadership of the Lebanese group following the killing of Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike last year, made clear on Sunday that Hezbollah does not intend to relinquish its core weapons or strategic capability.

“The ceasefire was supposed to stop aggression, but violations have continued,” Qassem said. “No one can ask the resistance to drop its arms while the aggression is ongoing.”

Both Hezbollah and Israel continue to cite continuous violations of the ceasefire.

Qassem added that Hezbollah’s defensive posture was essential for Lebanon’s sovereignty. “Without the resistance, Israel would have overrun our villages,” he said, adding that disarmament would be akin to legitimizing occupation.

In a message to US and Israeli officials, he said: “We reject normalization, which is humiliating and degrading. The American-Israeli formula—‘either you surrender or we kill you’—is laughable and outdated.”

Hezbollah has faced mounting pressure in recent months following its war with Israel, which destroyed large parts of Beirut’s southern suburbs and southern Lebanon and left tens of thousands displaced.

The group is also grappling with financial strain and the loss of its long-time Syrian ally after the fall of former president, Bashar al-Assad, in December.

While sources close to Hezbollah told Reuters that internal discussions have taken place about scaling back its armed presence, Qassem’s speech signaled that any compromise would not include full disarmament. He insisted that Hezbollah’s arsenal is a red line.

He also reaffirmed Hezbollah’s alignment with Iran, offering praise to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Iranian people for their support. “They have stood firm and prevented Israel from achieving its objectives,” he said.

Hezbollah’s position remains at odds with the stance of Lebanon’s government, which has pushed for a monopoly on arms and full implementation of the ceasefire.

Last week, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said that his government is intensifying its efforts to confine weapons solely to state institutions and to extend its authority across the country as part of a broader push to advance the implementation of a ceasefire.

The data, provided by a research group at Oregon State University, suggest that six Iranian missiles hit military targets across northern, central, and southern Israel, including what the report describes as a major air base, an intelligence facility, and a logistics center.

“The radar signatures we analyzed show definitive blast patterns at five separate military sites,” Corey Scher, a researcher with the Oregon State team, told The Telegraph. “These are consistent with missile strikes that likely occurred during the height of the conflict.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) declined to confirm or deny the reported damage. “What we can say is that all relevant units maintained functional continuity throughout the operation,” a military spokesman told The Telegraph.

The Telegraph reported that the missile strikes described in the radar data appear to be separate from the 36 previously reported impacts on residential and industrial areas, which caused widespread damage.

Iranian missile penetration increased during conflict, report says

According to The Telegraph, the proportion of Iranian missiles that penetrated Israeli air defenses increased during the war, rising from about 2 percent early in the conflict to roughly 16 percent by day seven.

The report did not offer definitive reasons for the increase, but cited expert suggestions that the causes “may include the rationing of a limited stock of interceptor missiles on the Israeli side and improved firing tactics and the possible use of more sophisticated missiles by Iran.”

Iranian officials told The Telegraph that the use of simultaneous drone and missile attacks was intended to confuse Israeli defense systems. “Many [drones] don’t even get through—but they still cause confusion,” one unnamed Iranian official said.

The Israeli media on Friday quoted a military official as saying that Iran began the conflict with around 400 missile launchers and that “we destroyed more than 200 of them, which caused a bottleneck in their missile operations.”

The same official estimated that Iran started the war with 2,000 to 2,500 ballistic missiles and is pursuing mass production that could dramatically expand its arsenal.

A more comprehensive analysis of the damage to both Israeli and Iranian infrastructure is expected from the Oregon State research group within two weeks, according to the report.

The group uses radar-based methods that detect changes in the built environment, but it acknowledged that full confirmation of military site hits would require either on-the-ground access or high-resolution satellite imagery.