Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.

They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.

Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.

State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.

Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.

Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.

Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.

i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.

Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.

“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.

“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.

“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”

The United States said on Friday it would not allow Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to travel to New York next month for a United Nations gathering of world leaders, where several US allies are set to recognize Palestine as a state.

A State Department official said Abbas and about 80 other Palestinians would be affected by the decision to deny and revoke visas from members of the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.

Abbas had planned to attend the annual high-level U.N. General Assembly in Manhattan. He was also set to attend a summit there, where Britain, France, Australia and Canada have pledged to formally recognize a Palestinian state.

Abbas’ office said it was astonished by the visa decision and said it violated the U.N. “headquarters agreement.”

Under a 1947 U.N. “headquarters agreement”, the US is generally required to allow access for foreign diplomats to the U.N. in New York. However, Washington has said it can deny visas for security, extremism and foreign policy reasons.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesperson for Abbas, called on Saturday for Washington to reconsider its decision.

“We call on the US administration to reverse this decision, which contradicts international law, specifically the Headquarters Agreement between the United Nations and the United States, which prohibits preventing any delegation from access,” he told Reuters.

Several European foreign ministers arriving at a European Union meeting in Copenhagen on Saturday criticized the US decision.

A UN General Assembly “cannot be subject to any restrictions on access,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told reporters. Irish Foreign Minister Simon Harris said the EU should protest the decision “in the strongest possible terms.”

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in a statement on Saturday that he had spoken with Abbas to express Madrid’s support and he called the visa decision “unjust.”

“Palestine has the right to make its voice heard at the United Nations and in all international forums,” he said on X.

The State Department justified its decision by reiterating longstanding US and Israeli allegations that the PA and PLO had failed to repudiate extremism while pushing for “unilateral recognition” of a Palestinian state.

Palestinian officials reject such allegations and say decades of US-mediated talks have failed to end Israeli occupation and secure an independent state of Palestine.

“(It) is in our national security interests to hold the PLO and PA accountable for not complying with their commitments, and for undermining the prospects for peace,” the department said.

The State Department said the Palestinian Authority’s mission to the U.N., comprising officials who are permanently based there, would not be included in the restrictions.

RECOGNITION

U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the U.N. would discuss the visa issue with the State Department.

In 1988, the US refused to issue a visa to PLO leader Yasser Arafat. The U.N. General Assembly held a meeting that year in Geneva instead of New York so he could address it.

The State Department said it demands that the PA and PLO “consistently repudiate terrorism,” including the deadly October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.

In June, Abbas wrote a letter to France’s president in which he condemned the Hamas attack and called on hostages taken by the militant group to be released.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar welcomed the State Department’s decision.

Israel and the US are upset with several Western allies who have pledged to recognize a Palestinian state at the U.N. next month.

At least 147 of the 193 U.N. member states already recognize a Palestinian state. The Palestinians have observer status at the U.N., the same as the Holy See (Vatican).