Commanders and members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps meet with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, Iran, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Australia has listed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a state sponsor of terrorism, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Thursday, following an intelligence assessment that it had orchestrated attacks against Australia‘s Jewish Community.

Australia in August accused Iran of directing two antisemitic arson attacks in the cities of Sydney and Melbourne and gave Tehran’s ambassador seven days to leave the country, its first such expulsion since World War II.

Pope Leo XIV and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan shake hands as they meet at the Presidential Palace, during the pope’s first apostolic journey, in Ankara, Turkey, Nov. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan praised Pope Leo’s stance on the Palestinian issue after meeting him in Ankara on Thursday, and said he hoped his first overseas visit as Catholic leader will benefit humanity at a time of tension and uncertainty.

“We commend [Pope Leo’s] astute stance on the Palestinian issue,” Erdogan said in an address to the pope and political and religious leaders at the presidential library in the Turkish capital Ankara.

“Our debt to the Palestinian people is justice, and the foundation of this is to immediately implement the vision of a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. Similarly, preserving the historic status of Jerusalem is crucial,” Erdogan said.

Pope Leo’s calls for peace and diplomacy regarding the war in Ukraine are also very meaningful, Erdogan said.

In September, Leo met at the Vatican with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and raised the “tragic situation” in Gaza with him.

Turkey has emerged as among the harshest critics of Israel’s military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.

Palestinians walk among piles of rubble and damaged buildings in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Nov. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

As the US-backed Gaza peace plan falters amid mutual accusations of ceasefire violations, Hamas continues to refuse to disarm in accordance with the agreement, insisting that any decisions about the terrorist group’s weapons should be resolved through “internal Palestinian dialogue.”

In an interview published Wednesday with Saudi media outlet Al-Arabiya, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said that any move toward disarmament “is connected to internal consensus, and is also tied to a real political process that leads to an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”

The senior terrorist figure also said Hamas has “fully committed to everything required in the first stage in order to open the way for transitioning to the second stage, which Israel continues to obstruct.”

Last week, the United Nations Security Council formally backed US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan — which went into effect last month — calling for an interim technocratic Palestinian government in the war-torn enclave, overseen by an international “board of peace” and supported by an International Stabilization Force (ISF) for at least two years.

Under Trump’s plan, the ISF — comprising troops from multiple participating countries — will oversee the Gaza ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, train local security forces, secure Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt, and protect civilians while maintaining humanitarian corridors.

In addition, the ISF would seemingly be expected to take on the responsibility of disarming Hamas — a key component of Trump’s peace plan to end the war in Gaza which the Palestinian terrorist group has repeatedly rejected.

Earlier this week, Hamas leader and chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya said that the group’s disarmament remains under discussion, emphasizing that the issue “is tied to the end of the Israeli occupation.”

Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups have not only consistently refused to give up their weapons but also rejected key elements of Trump’s plan — including the ISF, which they have threatened to treat as a “foreign occupying force” and actively fight it.

Hamas officials rejected any “foreign guardianship” over Gaza and vowed to oppose any attempts to disarm “the Palestinian resistance.”

“Assigning the international force tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality and turns it into a party to the conflict in favor of the occupation,” the terrorist group said in a statement.

In his Wednesday interview, Qassem emphasized that Hamas’s senior delegation visit to Cairo this week reflects the group’s seriousness, signaling its intent to move forward and lay the groundwork for the next stage.

According to Qassem, Hamas has been meeting with Qatari, Turkish, and Egyptian mediators, as well as with Palestinian factions, “to consult and engage in dialogue, and to reach agreed-upon national political understandings.”

Turkey and Qatar, both longtime backers of Hamas, have been trying to expand their roles in Gaza’s reconstruction and post-war efforts, which experts have warned could potentially strengthen Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure.

Israeli officials have repeatedly rejected any Turkish or Qatari involvement in post-war Gaza.

Under phase one of Trump’s peace plan, Hamas released the remaining 20 living hostages still held in Gaza, along with the remains of most of the 28 others who died in captivity, while Israel freed 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including several hundred convicted terrorists.

Two deceased hostages – an Israeli and a Thai national – still remain in Gaza who were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.