Iranian Doctor Says Security Forces 'Shooting Inside' Hospitals
A doctor inside Iran has told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda that security forces have stormed hospitals and executed wounded protesters amid a brutal state crackdown on nationwide antiestablishment protests.
The doctor, who said she works in a hospital in southern Iran, said members of Iran’s security forces had “finished off” protesters who had been admitted to hospital for treatment.
“They killed many [demonstrators], arrested many, and many are on the run,” said the doctor, who spoke to Radio Farda on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “The situation is very bad.”
RFE/RL could not independently verify the doctor’s claims.
The authorities have shut down the Internet and blocked phone lines, but eyewitness accounts have emerged that suggest the state is waging one of its deadliest-ever crackdowns on street protesters.
At least 648 people, mostly protesters, have been killed since protests erupted on December 28, according to human rights groups, which fear the real death toll could be in the thousands.
Iranian security forces have used brute force, including firing live ammunition at protesters, according to videos verified by RFE/RL and testimony from eyewitnesses.
'They're Killing Everyone'
Hospitals across Iran have been flooded with the dead and wounded, according to doctors and nurses inside the country of some 92 million people.
“It's a horrible situation, almost everywhere is closed,” a nurse living in the capital, Tehran, told Radio Farda. “There are many people with eye injuries. People say they don't want this establishment. They're killing everyone."
Human rights organizations have documented the use of metal pellets fired from shotguns, with security forces deliberately targeting the eyes and heads of protesters.
The doctor in southern Iran said the protests have “died down” after the authorities launched a large-scale crackdown in major cities, including in Tehran, on January 8 and 9.
The protests were sparked by spiraling inflation and a freefall of the national currency but have since snowballed into the biggest threat to Iran’s clerical rulers since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
A man in the city of Karaj, near Tehran, said he witnessed security forces directly firing at protesters.
“I saw everyone who was [running], they were falling on the ground, [security forces] were shooting,” said the man, who spoke to Radio Farda on condition of anonymity. “I don’t know what kind of ammunition they were using but it sounded like live ammunition.”
He said security forces piled dead protesters in trucks and drove away.
“They didn’t care who these people were,” he added. “I came home and my wife asked me if I was crying because of tear gas. I told her that I was crying because of the young people [killed].”
Iranian Soccer Federation Officials Turn Back After Arrival In Canada Over 'Insult'
Iranian soccer federation officials -- including a former member of Iran's hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) -- said they turned around at Toronto's main airport this week and left the country, claiming "inappropriate behavior" by Canadian immigration officials.
The officials were scheduled to participate in a pre-World Cup FIFA gathering in Vancouver.
Canadian Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said he could not discuss specific cases due to privacy laws but added that IRGC members were not welcome in Canada.
Iran’s Tasnim News Agency reported that the delegation, including federation President Taj and Secretary-General Hedayat Mombeni, refused to enter the country upon arrival despite holding valid visas because of what they said was "inappropriate behavior of immigration officials."
The delegation was to travel on to Vancouver for the April 30 FIFA Congress that was scheduled to bring together representatives of all 211 member associations ahead of the 2026 World Cup, which is being co-hosted by Canada, the United States, and Mexico.
The Iranian soccer federation said the delegation returned to Turkey on the first available flight because of the behavior of immigration officials at the airport "and the insult to one of the most honorable organs of the Iranian nation's armed forces," likely referring to the IRGC.
Iran's participation in the World Cup -- the most-watched sporting event in the world -- has been in question since the outbreak of the US-Israeli war with Iran. The Iranian team's first three matches are scheduled for US sites.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week said Iran's soccer players would be welcome, but he warned that the US would bar entry to members of the Iranian delegation it judged to have ties to the IRGC, which is designated a terrorist organization by the US several other governments.
With reporting by Reuters and AFP
Trump Tells Netanyahu To Avoid Full Resumption Of War In Lebanon
US President Donald Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel should only conduct "surgically" designed military strikes in Lebanon and avoid a full resumption of the war, the president told Axios in an interview.
"I told Netanyahu he has got to do it more surgically. Not knock down buildings. He can't do it. It is too terrible and makes Israel look bad," Trump told Axios in the interview published on April 29.
Trump said that he likes the leadership of Lebanon and believes the troubled Middle East nation can "make a comeback."
"Iran ruined Lebanon. Their proxy [Hezbollah] ruined Lebanon. When Iran gets taken out, Hezbollah automatically gets taken out," Trump added.
A militant group and political party that controls much of southern Lebanon, Hezbollah is considered a terrorist organization by the US, while the European Union has blacklisted its armed wing but not its political branch.
Israel has launched devastating air strikes against believed Hezbollah sites, mainly in southern Lebanon and near Beirut. Hezbollah has fired rockets and drones into Israel.
The fighting is ongoing despite a cease-fire agreed to by the Lebanese and Israeli leaders and announced by Trump.
Trump Tells Putin To Focus On Ending Ukraine War After Russian President Offers Help On Iran's Uranium
US President Donald Trump said Russian leader Vladimir Putin made proposals regarding Iran's enriched uranium -- a key issue to any US-Iran peace deal -- but Trump said he would prefer that the Kremlin focus first on ending its war with Ukraine.
"I said, 'I'd much rather have you be involved with ending the war with Ukraine,'" Trump related, summing up details from his April 29 phone call with Putin.
"I said, before you help me, I want to end your war," Trump added.
Trump did not provide the details of Putin's offer to help on Iran, but the Kremlin has previously proposed that it could take enriched uranium out of Iran to be safeguarded, s suggestion most Western leaders have flatly rejected.
Trump has demanded that Tehran give up its nuclear program and hand over any already enriched uranium -- which could be used in an atomic bomb -- as prerequisites to a peace deal.
Iran has insisted its nuclear program is strictly for civilian purposes and has rejected handing over its enriched uranium supply, which reportedly is buried in sites deep underground.
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said Putin in the call "highlighted the inevitable and extremely damaging consequences not only for Iran and its neighbors, but also for the entire international community, should the US and Israel resort to military action once again.
Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump reiterated his demand that Tehran give up any plans for a nuclear bomb.
“At this point, there will never be a deal unless Iran says it will never have nuclear weapons.”
Trump also repeated his assertion that the US military has destroyed Iran’s navy and air force and devastated the country’s economy.
The US president said he was not ready to send negotiators to meet the Iranian team in Islamabad for Pakistani-mediated peace talks because, in his words, flying 18 hours to be handed a piece of paper with demands you know you will not accept makes no sense.
“We are doing talks telephonically,” he added. He went on to say that Iran “has gone a long way” already negotiating a peace deal with the US, but “we’ll have to see if they will go far enough.”
Trump made the comments during a ceremony honoring the Artemis II astronauts, who earlier in the month circled the moon and returned safely to Earth.
Hegseth Defends War With Iran, Lashes Out At Democrats
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth defended the war with Iran in a fiery speech to Congress on April 29, insisting it had "not turned into a quagmire."
He also took a swipe at Democratic lawmakers for criticizing the conflict.
"You call it a swamp, when you're giving propaganda fodder to our enemies? You should be ashamed of yourself for saying that," he said at a hearing of the US House Armed Services Committee.
Hegseth went on to describe congressional Democrats as "irresponsible, ineffective, and defeatist."
On April 22, the US Senate rejected Democrats' attempt to limit President Donald Trump's authority to use military force against Iran by a vote of 51 to 46.
It was the fifth such effort by Democrats since the start of the eight-week war. The proposal, led by Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin, would have called for the withdrawal of American forces from the conflict with Iran without congressional authorization.
Democrats say they will continue to push for a vote on war powers.
Pentagon: US War With Iran Has Cost $25 Billion
A senior US Defense Department official announced that the cost of the country's war with Iran has reached $25 billion so far, a figure that is considered the first official estimate of the costs of the conflict.
Jules W Hurst, who currently serves as the Pentagon's chief financial officer, told lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee on April 29 that the bulk of the spending was on ammunition.
The United States began its attacks on Iran on February 28, and the two sides are currently maintaining a fragile cease-fire.
'Endgame' For Iran's Oil Sector? How US Blockade May Impact Tehran's Calculus
Weeks of US and Israeli air strikes, sanctions, and restrictions have hit Iran hard, but it could be geology that eventually pushes it into making concessions in its ongoing standoff with the United States.
As the US naval blockade of Iran approaches the end of its third week, data from shipping and industry monitors suggests that tankers have been unable to move Iranian crude through the Strait of Hormuz toward markets in Asia.
This means that Iranian oil storage capacity is rapidly filling, and the clock is ticking before Iran will need to cease production. That's the problem for Tehran, analysts say, as it tries to withstand US pressure to negotiate a peace agreement.
To read the full news analysis by Ray Furlong, Hannah Kaviani, and RFE/RL's Radio Farda, click here.
Iran's Conservative Camp Split Over US Talks To End War
- By Kian Sharifi
In the face of a devastating US-Israeli bombing campaign, Iran's rival political factions cast aside their differences to unite behind the country's decision-makers.
But since a cease-fire with the United States came into force on April 8, deep-rooted political differences in the Islamic republic have spilled out into the open.
The public rupture over Tehran's attempts to negotiate an end to the two-month-long war has pitted Iran's small but vocal faction of ultraconservatives against more moderate conservatives, a confrontation that has been laid bare in the halls of parliament and on the front pages of state-affiliated media.
To read the full report, click here.
Russia Yet To Decide On Returning Employees To Iran's Bushehr Plant
The situation around Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant is calming, but Russia has yet to decide on the return of its employees to the plant after they were taken out of the country because of the war.
Aleksei Likhachev, CEO of Rosatom -- Russia's state nuclear energy company -- announced on April 29 that the situation at Bushehr is "becoming slightly clearer," and that about 1,000 Iranian employees have returned to their workplace.
"We are receiving invitations from the Iranian nuclear industry management to return the [Russian specialists] as soon as possible, but no such decision has been made yet," he told reporters.
Rosatom, which manages and oversees the Bushehr nuclear power plant, evacuated more than 300 of its employees to Russia.
Iran has said the area around the plant was targeted by air strikes four times during the war. Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said one bomb landed "75 meters" from the plant and called for a halt to attacks anywhere near it.
China's Energy Giant Announces Earnings Boost As Iran War Ripples Through Chinese Economy
Sinopec, China’s state-owned oil and natural gas giant, announced stronger-than-projected first-quarter earnings buoyed by a surge in energy prices from the war in Iran.
During an earnings briefing on April 29, Sinopec said its net profits rose by 28 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, while shares in the company rose 2.4 percent in the Hong Kong stock market.
Shares in other major Chinese oil companies PetroChina and China National Overseas Oil Corporation (CNOOC) rose 2.7 and 1.4 percent, respectively. Sinopec also expects chemical exports to rise 26 percent in 2026.
The eight-week blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and fighting in Iran have tightened global supply for oil, gas, and petrochemicals, raising prices and lifting profit margins for energy companies.
The announcement comes as economic fallout from the war begins to take hold across China's manufacturing-dependent economy. China has withstood the worst of the energy shocks from the war, but the war has also begun to impede natural gas imports. Sinopec reported a loss of 830 million yuan ($121.4 million) from reduced supplies, as well as a 7.6 percent reduction in the usage of its refineries.
At a meeting on April 28, Beijing pledged to strengthen the economy by prioritizing energy security and technology self-sufficiency. The Politburo, China's top decision-making body, said it would "systemically respond" to external challenges, as the extended blockade of Hormuz begins to take effect on the country's economy.
Labor Activist: 750,000 People Registered As Unemployed Since Start Of War
Hassan Sadeghi, head of Iran's Union of Veteran Workers, said that since the start of the US-Israeli war with Iran, around 750,000 people have newly registered as unemployed.
The Unemployment Insurance Fund, which before the war had supported around 180,000 people, has now grown to nearly 1 million beneficiaries, according to Sadeghi. He said the surge in applications was placing an extreme burden on available resources.
Large-scale job losses among workers have been reported due to strikes on Iran's petrochemical and steel industries.
Although no precise figures have been released on how many people have lost their jobs due to strikes and the shutdown of production facilities, reports indicate that tens of thousands of employees lost their jobs in connection with the steel sector alone, given the scale of strikes on major plants such as the Mobarakeh Steel Company in Isfahan.
According to preliminary estimates by Iran’s Labor Ministry, the 40-day war resulted in the loss of more than 1 million jobs, with 2 million people directly or indirectly affected by unemployment.