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‘The Girl in the Red Jacket’: A Testimony From Inside Iran
Cars burn in a street during a protest over the collapse of the currency’s value, in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 8, 2026. Photo: Stringer/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
I am Maddie, a millennial woman from Iran and an eyewitness to a bitter reality impossible to unsee.
I woke up on the morning of January 7, 2026, and checked my phone, scrolling through clips of my favorite shows. I walked into the living room with my phone still in my hand, when I realized that protests had broken out in the capital, Tehran.
At first, I ignored it. I had seen this before. In the 2019 “Bloody November” protests (Aban-i-Khoonin), the streets did not just protest; they bled. What started as fury over oil prices became a desperate fight for survival and freedom. The only thing more deafening than the gunfire was the chilling realization that this regime would rather rule a graveyard than lose its throne.
In 2022, the death of Mahsa Jina Amini in police custody sparked a new wave of demonstrations, and headscarves were burned. Streets filled again. Bullets tore through the chants; the shadow of the gallows grew longer every passing day. For every burned scarf, a life was taken.
Every time the streets stir, that old terror returns. The memory of what happens to empty hands never really fades. Our only weapon is our voices, but voices don’t stop bullets. You can’t save your loved one with chants; the memory of the consequences of rising against a totalitarian regime is etched in the pavements of this land in the form of stains.
This time, I knew the protests would be suppressed as they always are, and people would be forced back into silence. I put on my hoodie and left to buy eggs and dog food. I hadn’t been to the market for over a week. At the counter, I handed my card to the shopkeeper. The card machine beeped and showed an insufficient funds error. I knew I had money; I was certain of it. I asked the shopkeeper why the payment was being declined. He looked at me and said I didn’t have enough.
That was when I realized what had happened. Prices had tripled in less than two weeks. The US dollar had surged past 150,000 toman. At that moment, something broke inside me. I was not just shocked. I was angry, frustrated, and humiliated. Standing there, unable to pay for basic necessities, I understood that the crisis was no longer something happening on screens in Tehran. It had reached my hands, my wallet, and my life.
I spent the day reading, watching videos, and playing with my dogs. By the afternoon, I had to go to work. I went, finished my shift, and came back home. When I returned, I asked my uncle whether there had been any protests where we live. He said there were none.
“This is a small city,” he said. “Everyone knows everyone, you can’t just disappear in a crowd, so even if there are protests, you are not going anywhere.”
I nodded and went out to see my friends. We talked about ordinary things while the news played in the background, the way people do when fear has become a routine. Injustice lingered in the air like a toxin, impossible to escape. Near the main street, I noticed two men and a few young boys and girls standing together in silence. A police van parked in front of them, close enough to silence them without a word. Chanting wasn’t allowed. No banners, no organization — this alone was dangerous.
I went home with a pounding heart. I took off my shoes, then put on a black mask and wrapped a black shawl around my head and neck. In my rush, I forgot to change my red jacket. I found myself already moving before I had fully decided.
Uncle called out, “Where are you going?”
“I am just going to see, not going to do anything!”
“It is dangerous, they will find out, this is a small town,” he warned me about the consequences.
“Ten minutes? I will keep my distance,” I pleaded.
“Only ten minutes! Don’t do anything stupid.”
This is how we negotiate with fear, through time limits and promises that no one believes.
I put my shoes on in a hurry and stepped outside, overwhelmed by adrenaline, moving fast, almost without thinking.
Every step felt like calculating a potential death sentence. Every corner felt like a risk that couldn’t be undone. Here, opposition is not met with dialogue; it is met with batons, bullets, prison, and execution without trial. We grow up knowing the names of the dead even when their stories are erased. We know that a protest is never just a protest; it is a gamble with your future, your freedom, and your life.
As I turned the corner, I saw a few protesters standing apart from one another, careful not to form a crowd. I stopped at a distance. My legs were shaking. My hands would not stay still. I leaned against a wall, trying to steady my breathing. It was my first time standing this close to a protest. I noticed that everyone was wearing black jackets and black masks, as if color itself could be used against us.
I glanced down at my own red jacket and thought of the girl in the red coat in Schindler’s List, a symbol of how innocence and visibility offer no safety when violence is systematic. I stood there for less than a minute, fully aware that in this country, a minute is more than enough to change everything.
Before I could think any further, one of the girls stepped out from the group and walked towards me. I didn’t recognize her at first.
“Maddie, come,” she said.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to. My feet moved even as my mind resisted. When I reached the group, I recognized a few of my friends not by their faces, but by their eyes. That was visible.
One of them whispered. “Why are you wearing red? Are you crazy?”
“I didn’t think about it,” I said. I’ll wear black tomorrow.”
We stood there without speaking. One by one, others joined us. Ten people in total. No chants. No movement. Only bodies assembling quietly under constant watch in a small town crowded with the Revolutionary Guard and Basij.
I came home.
Uncle asked. “How did it go?”
“It was fine, I won’t wear a red jacket tomorrow,”
“Tomorrow?” He was quiet. He didn’t say another word.
All night, I kept turning from side to side, consumed by the consequences of having joined a protest. In my family, repression is not an abstract idea. Many of our relatives were killed in the 1970s. We never supported what was called a revolution; what actually took place was a coup d’état. The memories came back uninvited.
During the “Bloody November 2019-2020,” one of my family members was arrested and tortured in a detention center. He spent months as a political prisoner before being released on bail. Those months were filled with a familiar terror: not knowing where your loved ones had been taken, waiting weeks and months without answers, imagining every possible outcome just to survive the silence.
To quiet my thoughts, I downloaded an audiobook from YouTube, The Song of Achilles, my favorite book of all time. In the middle of fear, it offered a strange kind of warmth.
The next evening, at 8 PM, I put on a black jacket and a black mask and returned to the protest with two of my friends, Zahra and Melena. This time it was larger. The ground itself seemed to tremble under the weight of so many feet. Men, women, and children stood together, all dressed in black. The children I was used to seeing run freely through the streets now looked serious, alert.
“Why didn’t you bring your dogs?” one of them asked. They recognized me.
“They might bite you,” I said, and they laughed.
I noticed Snow — a white stray dog — near the sidewalk, looking for me. He finds me wherever I go. I ran home, brought him food, and returned. Dogs are considered filthy and forbidden under Islamic Sharia rules. I have faced constant opposition and mockery simply for feeding and caring for them. That story alone could fill pages.
Snow ate his food and stayed close. When we began walking towards the avenue, he followed along the sidewalk, frightened by the crowd. As we moved, more people joined us.
Then the chants began.
“Death to Khamenei!”
“Death to the dictator!”
“This land will not be free until the clerics are dead.”
The silence was gone, replaced by the brave people who enveloped the town whole.
Those who could not walk with us showed up with their cars, driving slowly in front of and behind the crowd. Their continuous honking, clapping through open windows, and making their presence known gave me the courage to keep walking and chanting even as my heart pounded and I felt certain I could be shot at any moment.
At that moment, Zahra grabbed my arm and shouted at the top of her lungs, “You know what I feel, Maddie?”
“What?” I shouted back.
“I feel free, I feel free to scream, for once in my life I am feeling that my voice is liberated, I have the right to shout.”
I looked at her — the only thing I found was the glistening eyes behind that mask, which was supposed to be a barrier between us and death itself. I nodded, and we held each other’s hands firmly.
That night, I returned home to find the Internet completely cut off. The blackout had begun. I didn’t care; I threw my phone onto the bed, and slept. In the morning, I realized it wasn’t just the Internet. Phone calls didn’t go through. Messages wouldn’t send. I couldn’t reach friends in other cities. Desperate for information, I watched television, scanning for any mention of what was happening elsewhere.
Reports emerged that a hospital in Ilam had been attacked and besieged by police. In Marvdasht, in Fars province, residents had taken up weapons against security forces. The situation was escalating. Authorities brought in forces from other provinces to regain control.
On the third night, again at 8 PM, we went out again; this time the crowd was even larger. Soon after, security forces opened fire on protesters in a nearby town. The crackdown intensified. Families were harassed. Homes were raided. Tear gas, metal pellets, and live ammunition were used. People were shot in the head and in the back, killed or permanently paralyzed.
A 16-year-old boy I knew was murdered. His name was Mehdi. The IRGC and Basij abducted him and his friend from the protest, beat them with rifle butts, sexually assaulted them, and then shot them. One died on the spot, the other remains in a coma.
This is not an exception; this is the life we have been living for decades. The following day, Iranian Intelligence began calling families of the protesters one by one, threatening them, ordering them to turn themselves in, and to stop protesting. Homes were raided. My friends and family were targeted.
Families were told their lives would be destroyed. In some cases, relatives of those killed were forced to sign documents falsely stating their loved ones had been killed by the “Mossad agents and terrorists.”
My uncle received a call. “Tell your family to stay home, or there will be consequences.”
We did not stop, but I began to lose strength when I could no longer reach my friends in other cities.
Eleven days after the massacre began, I briefly regained Internet access. The first thing I did was message friends in larger cities. One of them, from eastern Tehran, I won’t mention his name, told me that the regime had shot everyone who came out; the streets were flooded with blood. Security forces executed wounded protesters by shooting them in the head while they were receiving medical care. Families were forced to pay a ransom to retrieve the bodies of their children.
There is credible evidence that Iraqi, Afghan, and Pakistani militia, many of whom fought in Syria for Bashar al-Assad, were deployed to suppress protesters.
Another friend from Tehran sent me videos he recorded himself. In it, bodies were tagged and placed into bags. These were not anonymous images pulled from social media; they were scenes witnessed firsthand by people I know. The dead were not statistics; they were protesters who had stepped into the streets just like me, and never returned. Every name was a story. A dream.
What Iranians are suffering is not unrest. It is a calculated campaign of terror. The Islamic regime has turned public spaces into a killing ground, medical centers into execution sites, and mourning families into targets of extortion and intimidation. Violence is applied methodically, meant not only to crush protests, but to teach an entire nation what dissent costs.
This is not a momentary crisis. It is the continuation of a system that has perfected repression over decades, one that survives by bloodshed, silence, and the deliberate erasure of human dignity.
Many Islamic countries remain silent. Their narrative is a lie painted over a massacre. While our streets ran red, the leaders of the Muslim countries looked the other way. Seeing them shake hands with the very men who ordered our slaughter is a sickening sight.
My request is direct and urgent.
World leaders, the UN, and international human rights organizations! The Islamic Republic does not recognize international law. It violates it openly and repeatedly. Human rights abuses are central to its survival. Repression is not a policy failure. It is the policy.
The regime promised it would not execute protesters. From early January up till now, it carried out multiple executions. These were acts of intimidation, intended to terrorize a population into submission. Many political prisoners are at risk of execution.
The world must stop treating this regime as a legitimate governing authority and begin treating it as what it is: a system sustained by violence, fear, and the systematic destruction of human life. Silence, neutrality, and delay are not neutral positions. They are choices with consequences measured in blood.
This is not a warning.
It is a record.
It is an appeal to action, before more victims are added to the documented toll of the Islamic regime’s state violence.
Long live Iran.
پاینده باد ایران
Maddie Ali is a teacher and philosophy student based in Iran. In addition to her academic work, she has been involved in civic activity in her hometown, including participating in and helping organize local protests alongside friends and family. Her name has been changed to protect her identity.
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Congress removes deadline for Holocaust-looted art claims, setting stage for more restitution battles
(JTA) — A new U.S. law removing a deadline for laying claim to art looted during the Holocaust has gone into effect after President Donald Trump signed it on Monday.
The 2025 Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act, or HEAR Act, expands on a 2016 law, signed by President Barack Obama, that permits victims and descendants of victims of the Holocaust to lay legal claim to works of art looted by the Nazis or sold to the Nazis under false pretenses.
That law included a controversial “sunset clause” that required all claims of artwork looted by the Nazis to be filed by the end of this year. That clause has been removed, and the revised act permits families to file a lawsuit within six years of the discovery of looted artwork.
The law also further protects those seeking to retrieve their family’s looted property by preventing the current holders from using certain legal tactics unrelated to the subject matter — such as requesting to switch courts — during proceedings.
“For years, the sunset clause cast a shadow over every survivor and family whose stolen art is still missing,” Joel Greenberg, president of Art Ashes, a nonprofit that helps families recover their looted art, said in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Now they can seek due process without the pressure of time and deadlines.”
Hundreds of thousands of pieces of fine art were looted from their Jewish owners by the Nazis, often by forced sales in the early years of the Nazi regime. Efforts to reunite the works with their owners or their descendants have been guided by an array of laws governed by an international compact including nearly two dozen countries. Restitution claims frequently ignite extensive legal battles.
The family of the cabaret artist Fritz Grünbaum, who was murdered in the Holocaust, for example, was able to recover works by Viennese Expressionist artist Egon Schiele that were in Grünbaum’s vast personal collection in 2018 after decades of efforts. The family has since continued to file legal action to reclaim Grünbaum’s works under the HEAR Act.
Watchdogs say the sunset clause may have caused those owning looted works to obscure them from public view.
“It was extremely important that Congress eliminated the sunset clause because it incentivized museums and others holding looted art to keep those works under wraps until the sunset period ended,” Greenberg said. “Now, that change and the other provisions ensure claims will be heard and decided on the merits and means that the commitment Congress made to survivors ten years ago when they first passed the HEAR Act is finally being honored.”
Both the original law and the new revision received bipartisan support. But the Republican Jewish Coalition credited Trump with its enactment, saying in a statement, “President Trump has consistently proven to be the best friend of the Jewish people ever to occupy the Oval Office, and his signature today ratifies the truth: the passage of time can never diminish the injustice of crimes committed by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust.”
The revision goes into effect just days after one of the most significant recent rulings in the restitution space. Last week, a judge ruled after a decade-long legal battle that a painting by Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, once valued at around $25 million, must be returned to the descendants of its original owner, who was forced to sell the painting to the Nazis. The painting had been in the possession of a prominent New York-based real estate and art dealer family since 1996.
The post Congress removes deadline for Holocaust-looted art claims, setting stage for more restitution battles appeared first on The Forward.
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Holocaust Remembrance Day Marked in Poland, Germany Amid Nazi Displays, Rising Antisemitism
Participants with Israeli flags look at the landmark Birkenau extermination camp gate in Auschwitz Museum – former Nazi German Concentration Camp during the International March of the Living (MOTL) in Oswiencim, Poland on April 14, 2026. Photo by Dominika Zarzycka/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Eighty-one years after the Holocaust, antisemitism remains rampant in the heart of the former Third Reich, with incidents in both Poland and Germany underscoring a disturbing resurgence of Nazi-linked provocation and hatred across Europe — even as Jews and Israelis around the world marked Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day on Tuesday.
Polish far-right lawmaker Konrad Berkowicz sparked outrage in Warsaw after displaying a modified Israeli flag during a parliamentary debate, replacing the Star of David with a Nazi swastika.
Berkowicz’s act was widely condemned as a deeply troubling distortion of Holocaust memory and a provocative example of “Holocaust inversion,” weaponizing Nazi imagery to target Israel in a manner that promotes hateful rhetoric.
The European Jewish Congress (EJC) strongly condemned the incident, calling on government officials to take swift and decisive action to address the matter, deter similar acts, and uphold public accountability.
“This act constitutes a clear example of Holocaust inversion, distorting the memory of the Shoah, and trivializing its victims,” EJC wrote in a post on X, using the Hebrew word for referring to the Holocaust.
“The use of Nazi symbols in this context is not only offensive, but represents a serious form of antisemitic provocation, particularly on a day dedicated to remembrance,” the statement read. “Preserving the integrity of Holocaust remembrance and ensuring that antisemitism is not tolerated in public institutions is essential.”
Polish MP Konrad Berkowicz displayed an Israeli flag bearing a swastika during a parliamentary debate in Warsaw on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
This act constitutes a clear example of Holocaust inversion, distorting the memory of the Shoah and trivialising its victims.
The use of… pic.twitter.com/zeyRN5yG6T
— European Jewish Congress (@eurojewcong) April 14, 2026
The latest antisemitic incident came as Holocaust survivors from around the world joined thousands of participants in the 38th March of the Living, held at the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp in remembrance of the 6 million Jews murdered by Nazi Germany during World War II. The annual march goes from Auschwitz I to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the Nazis’ largest death camp where 1 million Jews were killed.
During a ceremony, Revital Yakin Krakovsky, deputy chief executive of the International March of the Living organization, warned that antisemitism continues to endure today despite the lessons of the Holocaust, stressing that its warning signs are once again becoming impossible to ignore.
“Since Oct. 7, antisemitism has surged and is spreading everywhere,” Krakovsky said, referring to the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. “The scale and normalization of this hatred echoes the dark times we have seen before and, today of all days, we know how it ended.”
Like most countries across Europe and the broader Western world, Poland has seen a rise in antisemitic incidents over the last two years, in the wake of the Oct. 7 atrocities.
Germany has also experienced a marked surge in antisemitism, with Jewish communities and Israelis facing an increasingly hostile climate and a growing number of disturbing public provocations.
On Tuesday, workers at the Eggenfelden tax office in Bavaria, southern Germany, discovered a structure over a meter high on the premises, allegedly designed to resemble a crematorium and adorned with a swastika and SS runes. The structure also had the inscription “Zyklon B,” the pesticide used by the Nazis to carry out the mass murder of Jews in gas chambers at Auschwitz.
This latest incident coame just three weeks after a replica of the Auschwitz concentration camp gate, also covered in swastikas, was placed in front of the same tax office.
Eggenfelden’s mayor, Martin Biber, strongly condemned the incident, calling it a deeply disturbing provocation that has shocked the community.
“This shocks me. It’s also a huge disappointment that someone here is so cowardly. Quite apart from the fact that an object that is presumably meant to resemble a crematorium represents a horrific act,” Biber told the German newspaper BILD.
Local law enforcement has launched an investigation into the incident, treating it as a serious suspected extremist provocation.
The incident coincided with a commemoration held by the Israeli Embassy in Germany for the six million Jewish victims of the Nazis at the Sachsenhausen Memorial in Oranienburg, in eastern Germany.
During the ceremony, Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor called for the resolute protection of Jewish life, warning that “antisemitism is not a relic of the past but remains visible and on the rise.”
He also emphasized that confronting the spread of terror by Iran is not solely Israel’s responsibility, warning of its expanding global reach and ideological influence.
“The mullahs are already part of the war in Europe. Their drones are falling in Ukraine. Their networks operate across continents – and their deadly ideology is spreading faster than any missile,” the Israeli diplomat said.
“Once again, Israel is on the front line. But the free world, especially Germany and Europe, has not only the responsibility, but the duty to confront this deadly ideology that threatens Europe from within,” he continued.
Andreas Büttner, the Brandenburg commissioner against Antisemitism, was also in attendance at the ceremony, where he reaffirmed the urgent need to confront and counter rising antisemitism.
“Antisemitism is not a shadow of the past. It is an open fire burning among us. And this fire is being stoked from various sides – by the extreme right, by the extreme left, and by those who disguise their hatred of Israel as moral concern,” the German official said.
According to newly released figures, the number of antisemitic offenses in the country reached a record high in 2025, totaling 2,267 incidents, including violence, incitement, property damage, and propaganda offenses.
By comparison, officially recorded antisemitic crimes were significantly lower at 1,825 in 2024, 900 in 2023, and fewer than 500 in 2022, prior to the Oct. 7 atrocities.
Officials warn that the real number of antisemitic crimes is likely much higher, as many incidents go unreported.
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Mossad Chief Says Iran Campaign ‘Will Only Be Complete When This Extremist Regime Is Replaced’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, with Mossad chief David Barnea in July 2025. Photo: Israeli Government Press Office (GPO)
The head of Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad declared on Tuesday that the Israeli military campaign against Iran will end only with the collapse of the Islamist regime in Tehran.
David Barnea’s comments during a speech at a Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony came as a fragile ceasefire teetered on the brink of collapse and prospects for renewed negotiations remained uncertain.
Israel secured “significant achievements” after 40 days of intense fighting against “those who have made the destruction of the Jewish state their guiding principle,” said Barnea, who noted that the campaign had reshaped the regional security landscape.
“The Iranian threat grew stronger before our eyes, before the eyes of the world, almost without interruption,” he continued. “We repeatedly warned of the nuclear danger as an existential threat, and time and again we warned about the quantities of ballistic missiles that threaten Israeli citizens across the country, as well as the danger posed to us by the Iranian regime.”
Barnea said that Israel and its close ally the US took matters into their own hands for the good of the entire world and warned that, at least for Jerusalem, the mission isn’t done until the Iranian regime collapses.
“Finally, we took our fate into our own hands and entered two wars out of necessity. Alongside us, in firm alliance and historic cooperation with the world’s most powerful nation, we fought together for the values of justice and freedom,” the Israeli official continued. “Our commitment will only be complete when this extremist regime is replaced.”
Since Feb. 28, when the US and Israel launched joint strikes, Israeli officials have repeatedly said that, in addition to degrading Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, they aim to “create the conditions” for the regime in Iran to collapse, weakening the government to the point that the Iranian people can revolt.
US officials have not publicly adopted regime change as a declared war goal. However, President Donald Trump has at times suggested that Iranians should rise up once the airstrike campaign ends.
During Tuesday’s ceremony, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also delivered a speech, saying that the US and Israel had “defined the removal of enriched material from Iran as a threshold condition for ending the campaign.”
“Iran’s regional proxies — from the collapsed Syrian regime to Hezbollah and Hamas — have been dealt heavy blows and have lost their capacity to pose a strategic threat to Israel,” Katz said. “There remains the task of confronting the rest of their power, and we are doing so — and will continue to do so — with full commitment and full force.”
On Monday, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir approved plans to escalate the military campaign against Iran and advance expanded operational planning across multiple arenas in the region if the ceasefire ends, signaling continued pressure on Tehran’s military and strategic infrastructure.
“We are facing a multi-theater campaign unprecedented in the history of our people and of nations — against both immediate enemies on our borders and distant adversaries seeking our destruction,” Zamir said. “We are striking Iran and its proxies, inflicting heavy blows and significantly degrading their military capabilities.”
With the ceasefire deadline approaching in a week and regional tensions escalating, Trump said the White House has received a request from “the appropriate parties” to resume talks, adding that the Iranian regime is seeking to renew negotiations and reach an agreement.
“Iran will not have nuclear weapons. We agreed on a lot of things, but they did not agree to that. And I think they will agree to that. I am sure of it. If they do not agree – there will be no agreement,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
According to The New York Times, US officials have proposed a 20-year halt to Iranian uranium enrichment, which Iranian negotiators countered with a five-year suspension that Washington rejected, while also reportedly insisting that Iran dismantle major enrichment sites and surrender more than 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium.
Meanwhile, Pakistan has offered to host another round of US–Iran negotiations in Islamabad in the coming days before the ceasefire expires, as diplomatic efforts intensify to prevent a renewed escalation.
The Trump administration has also stepped up pressure on Tehran to accept its demands by imposing a naval blockade on vessels entering or leaving Iranian ports through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global shipping chokepoint for energy supplies.
Since the start of the war, Iran has used control over the Strait of Hormuz as a major source of leverage, militarizing the waterway and sharply restricting maritime traffic through one of the world’s most critical shipping corridors.
Iranian officials warned they would retaliate against any US naval blockade targeting their ports, calling the move illegal and warning that Gulf shipping routes would no longer remain secure if Iranian access were restricted.
Responding to Iranian threats in a post on Truth Social, Trump said, “If one of these boats approaches the blockade, it will be eliminated immediately, using the same elimination method that we use against drug smugglers at sea. It will be fast and brutal.”
Iran has also signaled it intends to maintain control over the Strait of Hormuz even after the war ends, potentially imposing transit fees framed as compensation for wartime damage.
Following the latest escalation at sea, Israel had instructed its forces to maintain a high level of alert and prepare for the possibility of an immediate collapse of the ceasefire agreement, remaining on heightened readiness in case the truce breaks down and talks do not resume.
Israeli officials have said they do not rule out that Iran may be using the ceasefire to rebuild damaged air defense systems and restore military capabilities, while also attempting to bring weapons and sensitive technologies back into the country through overland smuggling routes.
Meanwhile, Iran appears to still be targeting Gulf states despite the ceasefire, with Bahrain intercepting seven Iranian drones in the past 24 hours in what officials described as a clear breach of the agreement.