Gaza live: 'No flour, no food, no water' - Palestinians still waiting for aid

'No flour, no food, no water': Gaza still waiting for aid
"There is no flour, no food, no water," Sabah Warsh Agha, a 67-year-old woman from the northern Gazan town of Beit Lahiya, has said.
"We used to get water from the pump, now the pump has stopped working. There is no diesel or gas."
Palestinians in the enclave are still waiting for the promised arrival of food, despite mounting international and domestic pressure on Israel to allow more aid across the border.
Fewer than 100 aid trucks have entered Gaza, according to Israel's latest figures, since Monday, when Benjamin Netanyahu's government agreed to lift an 11-week aid blockade.
And with air strikes continuing to pound the enclave, local bakers and transport operators said they had yet to see fresh supplies of flour and other essentials.
Abdel-Nasser Al-Ajramy, the head of the bakery owners' society, said at least 25 bakeries that were told they would receive flour from the World Food Programme had seen nothing.
UK sending £4m aid package to Gaza
The UK has announced £4m of new humanitarian support for Gaza.
The government says the package will cover essential medicines and medical supplies for up to 32,000 people, safe drinking water for up to 60,000 people and food parcels for up to 14,000 people.
The money is to be given to the British Red Cross to deliver humanitarian relief in Gaza through its partner, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society.
It comes after David Lammy yesterday announced new sanctions hitting violent West Bank settlers, paused free trade agreement negotiations with Israel and called Israel's actions "egregious" and "intolerable".
Announcing the package, Jenny Chapman, development minister, said: "The UK is clear - Israel will not achieve security through prolonging the suffering of the Palestinian people."
Merz 'very concerned' about Gaza situation
Friedrich Merz is "very concerned" about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, his spokesperson says.
The German chancellor is in close contact with other European nations to convey his worries to the Israeli government, Stefan Kornelius added.
"It is always important for the German government to keep its lines of communication open with the Israeli government and to be able to make its points directly," he said at a government news conference.
In pictures: Gazans queue for food as aid supplies stuck
Here are the latest images from Gaza City, where Palestinians desperately wait to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen.
As we've been reporting, humanitarian aid trucks have slowly entered Gaza in the past two days but the UN says supplies are yet to reach civilians due to new "long, complex" Israeli security protocols.
IDF says it 'fired warning shots' after diplomats 'deviated from approved route' in West Bank
The Israeli army has confirmed its troops "fired warning shots" after a diplomatic delegation in the West Bank "deviated" from an approved route.
The Palestinian Authority said earlier that a group of regional, European and Western diplomats had gathered to assess the humanitarian situation in Jenin.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said the delegation went into "an area where it was prohibited from staying".
It said troops "fired warning shots", and that there was no damage or casualties reported.
The IDF's statement says officers from the unit "will soon hold personal conversations with the diplomats" and update them on the findings of the investigation looking into the matter.
It says the IDF "regrets the inconvenience caused".
Israel says 115 'terror targets' struck across Gaza in 24 hours
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) says its air force struck 115 "terror targets" throughout Gaza over the past day.
"The targets included launchers, military structures, tunnels, terrorist cells, and additional terrorist infrastructure site," it said.
The IDF also says it killed a Hamas militant that it says was part of the 7 October 2023 attack.
Israel's aid announcement is a 'smokescreen', MSF says
The MSF medical aid group, also known as Doctors Without Borders, says Israel's decision to allow a limited amount of aid back into Gaza is "merely a smokescreen to pretend the siege is over".
It calls on Israel to stop the "deliberate asphyxiation of Gaza and the annihilation of its healthcare system".
Pascale Coissard, MSF's emergency coordinator in Khan Younis, said the "inadequate" amount of aid going into the enclave shows Israel wants "to avoid the accusation of starving people in Gaza, while in fact keeping them barely surviving".
Watch: 24 hours of UK political reaction to Gaza
The UK has suspended trade talks with Israel over what the foreign secretary David Lammy described as "intolerable" attacks in Gaza - but how has Westminster reacted to Israel's aggression?
Sky's political correspondent Tamara Cohen explains the past 24 hours in British politics' reaction to Gaza.
UAE says it's reached deal with Israel to provide aid for Gaza
The United Arab Emirates has confirmed it's reached an agreement with Israel to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
It said Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE's foreign minister, and his Israeli counterpart, Gideon Sa'ar, spoke on the phone last night to finalise the deal.
Abu Dhabi says the food will address the needs of approximately 15,000 civilians as part of its "initial phase".
It says the aid includes "essential supplies" to support the operation of Gazan bakeries "as well as critical items for infant care".
Israel is yet to comment on the agreement.
How much aid has entered Gaza - and where is it going?
By Ben van der Merwe, digital investigations journalist
The first aid trucks have begun entering Gaza after 78 days of Israeli blockade.
The United Nations said nine trucks were given permission to enter on Monday, of which five were actually able to cross into the Gaza Strip.
Yesterday, the UN said it had received approval for "around 100" more trucks to go into Gaza.
That is still well below the 500 trucks per day that the UN says crossed into the Palestinian territory before the war started in October 2023, and are necessary to meet its needs.
The five trucks that entered on Monday remained near the Kerem Shalom crossing overnight, according to the spokesperson for the UN's aid coordination office OCHA, Jens Laerke.
It is not clear whether they subsequently departed for distribution centres within Gaza, or if more trucks have since entered Gaza.

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Telegraph

14 minutes ago

• Telegraph

The Corbynista activist behind the militant pro-Palestinian group that targeted an RAF base

In 2016, Huda Ammori experienced a political awakening. She'd had a call from her mother, urging her to join the Labour Party. 'Coming from my Iraqi mother, this was quite confusing given that Tony Blair, under the Labour government, led the invasion and destruction of Iraq.' But for pro-Palestine activists, change was in the air on the left. 'The renewal of hope was alive, with Jeremy Corbyn, a committed anti-imperialist activist and politician, elected as leader of the Labour Party,' she wrote in The New Arab, a London-based Arab news outlet, in 2022. Corbyn's Labour presented an opportunity as 'the most promising and frankly the only avenue of implementing an embargo [on Israel] through political parties'. Now was the time to get a bigger platform for their message via the opposition benches. 'Many of us fought long and hard for [an arms embargo] by passing motions, speaking at Labour meetings, lobbying several MPs, and in 2018 the Labour conference voted to sanction and freeze all arms sales to and from Israel.' Then came Corbyn's defenestration after the 2019 election, and with it an end to their direct line to Westminster. 'The options for implementing social and environmental justice through the political system were non-existent,' she said. Left out in the cold while the embers of Corbyn's Labour were snuffed out, she co-founded a new movement, an activist group modelled on Extinction Rebellion, called Palestine Action. 'From the black hole of politics, a new light through direct action and grassroots mobilisation took its place', she wrote. It was time to stop 'asking and begging' the government, she said. Instead, they'd use 'our own bodies'. 'For me, the option is clear, my only regret is not seeing it sooner.' And so, as Jeremy Corbyn's vision for Britain's left died, a new militant movement was born. In the five years since, the group has gone from ram-raiding factories and vandalising buildings to last night causing a major security breach when two of its members broke into RAF Brize Norton and damaged two military planes. Video footage shows two people on electric scooters shooting over the runway towards a Voyager – a so-called 'petrol station in the sky' used to refuel midair and to transport prime ministers and members of the Royal family. In an attack that has raised serious questions about the security at Britain's largest RAF station, the group seem to have managed to escape undetected after attacking two planes with crowbars and repurposed fire extinguishers. In the video, you can hear the splutter of spray paint as they fire red paint into the plane's engines. On Friday, it emerged that counter-terror police were leading the investigation into the incident. Shortly afterwards, the BBC reported that Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, was preparing to proscribe Palestine Action, which would make membership of the group illegal. It comes after the group – whose militant actions have already seen several of its members arrested or jailed – warned it would be escalating its activities. Palestine Action was co-founded in 2020 by Ammori, now 31, a former campaigner at the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and Richard Barnard, 51, a former member of Extinction Rebellion. Ammori, from Bolton, was born to a Palestinian father, a surgeon, and Iraqi mother and studied international business and finance at the University of Manchester. Her great-grandfather was, according to an interview the pair gave with the magazine Prospect last year, involved in the 1936 uprising and killed by British soldiers. Barnard was raised Catholic and once belonged to a Christian anarchist group called the Catholic Worker. He has almost 30 tattoos, the magazine reports, including Benedictine mottos, Buddhist chants, an Irish Republican slogan, 'freedom' in Arabic, 77 in Roman numerals and 'all cops are bastards'. S ince 2020, the group has claimed responsibility for more than 300 incidents at universities, government buildings, British-based defence and engineering firms, banks and insurance companies. Among the group's members are artists, musicians and dancers. Its website bears profiles of the people (most of them young) who have been imprisoned on behalf of Palestine Action. One of the group's most prolific activists is Audrey Xiarui Corno, 22, a dancer who studies at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in Belsize Park, north London. Corno teamed up with Youth Demand, an organisation consisting of different pro-Palestinian and environmentalist groups, to spray red paint over the Ministry of Defence headquarters in Whitehall in April 2024. She and other protesters were also arrested after occupying GRiD Defence Systems, a firm near High Wycombe which they claimed supplies arms to Israel, in June last year. Corno, whose Instagram account is filled with rainbow emojis and personal pronouns, was released from prison earlier this month after being on remand for two months for the GRiD incident. A recent post on her account's story showed a group of her friends, many wearing keffiyehs, outside Aylesbury Crown Court holding up their middle fingers towards the building. The group has hardly been discreet about its intentions. Amid the protests that followed the October 7 attacks, it emerged that Palestine Action had published an 'Underground Manual', a start-to-finish guide for their followers on how to conduct 'an action', on its website. The pamphlet was still on their website last year, and much of the advice would, it seems, have been useful to the pair who managed to get into Brize Norton. The first step, the manual says, is to 'create a cell'. Next, you are to 'pick a target'. 'Head to our website to find a list of secondary and primary targets who enable and profit from the Israeli weapons industry in Britain. Making your job to pick one a slightly easier process!' comes the cheerful instruction. Then you are to 'prepare for action'. Recces of the site you plan to hit are 'vital'. You should assess the security, the CCTV, the surroundings, any police patrols. Then it's a case of working out how to arrive and leave undetected, all while 'documenting your action'. When the manual was uncovered, the then policing minister Chris Philp (now shadow home secretary) warned the group was encouraging activists to 'smash up businesses with sledgehammers' and said he would personally report the group to the authorities. Lord Walney, then the Government's independent adviser on political violence and disruption, said the manual would become an important 'test case' of the police's willingness to take action against 'pernicious militants'. In 2022, the Jewish Chronicle went undercover at a Palestine Action meeting where activists discussed an attack that had taken place on a property in Oldham used by the Israel-based defence firm Elbit Systems, the group's main target. At the meeting, the paper reported, 'they set out their secret plans for a nationwide wave of mayhem and destruction'. 'Sporting an Arabic tattoo across his neck, Mr Barnard explained what was coming,' the paper reported. 'A sustained, intense series of 'direct actions' against Elbit offices was the objective. And as for tactics, think extreme. 'Activists could lock themselves under vans and break into factories to cause 'high-level damage' to machinery.' Advice, the paper said, was offered on how to cope with being arrested, including an instruction to wear old shoes. 'A person standing at the front backed this up by saying that the worst part about being arrested at a previous action had been the confiscation of their vegan leather Doc Martens.' After the Oct 7 2023 attacks, Barnard urged activists to 'smash Israeli weapons factories'. He appeared in court in September last year on charges of encouraging criminal damage and expressing support for Hamas at two pro-Palestinian rallies in October 2023. He claims that the case 'is part of a wider intimidation campaign against Palestine Action, and a crackdown of the wider movement.' A fundraising page for his case, set up last year, states: 'My trial is scheduled to last one week from April 14th at Manchester Crown Court ... Pushing back against the state intimidation campaign at every opportunity is crucial to defending free speech on Palestine.' In April, Palestine Action said his trial had been delayed until March 2026. Analysis by The Sunday Times showed the number of incidents for which Palestine Action was responsible increased from 17 in 2020 to 170 in 2024. In the past year, the group has pledged to escalate action. In November, activists stole the wrong statue in a raid on Manchester University, mistaking a bust of a professor for that of Chaim Weizmann, the first president of Israel. Meanwhile, their rhetoric seems to have grown increasingly aggressive. Ammori was filmed speaking at a concert alongside the rapper Lowkey, a staunch Palestine Action supporter, in November. The rapper was criticised by Sir William Shawcross, whose independent review of the Prevent counterterrorism scheme alleged that his lyrics promoted 'what I regard to be an antisemitic conspiracy theory about the 'Zionist lobby''. At the concert, Ammori told a riled up crowd: 'We drive vans through their gates. We drive vans through their front doors. We occupy their rooms. We break inside and we destroy every single weapon.' Lowkey is one of the most foul racist extremists of all. Of late, his top cause is "Palestine Action", the nasty racist vandals. See him warmly welcome Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori at a wild hatred rally. "Intifada!" Artists who line up with him are a disgrace. — habibi (@habibi_uk) November 15, 2024 She continued: 'Let me tell you, anyone who works at Elbit Systems they are also a target.' The group has denounced Sir Keir Starmer, but its connection to Corbynista MPs persisted. In 2021, Ian Byrne, the 2019-intake Labour MP for Liverpool West Derby, spoke at the same event as Ammori. Later in 2021, John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor, spoke at a protest alongside Ammori in Liverpool. In December 2024, McDonnell used a debate in Parliament to state: 'The last Government even came forward with proposals and discussions about proscribing Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. I hope this Government are not going anywhere near that.' He said that Palestine Action activists who had been arrested were 'young people, a lot of them young women—some of them just starting out at university. They exercised their influence and power because we failed to exercise ours.' Kim Johnson, the MP for Liverpool Riverside, also attended a protest alongside Ammori, against an electronic arms fair in her constituency. Today, the group's abiding message is to keep going at all costs. In an interview with the journal New Left Review in April, Ammori spoke of destabilising 'the Zionist project itself'. 'By being security-conscious and working in small groups, we can make it difficult for the authorities to respond to individual actions by targeting the movement as a whole – such that Palestine Action can continue to grow, even in hostile conditions.' In a statement emailed to The Telegraph, the group said: 'Under Section 1 of the Genocide Convention, Britain is obliged to prevent and punish the crime of genocide ... When our government fails to uphold their moral and legal obligations, it is the responsibility of ordinary citizens to take direct action. The terrorists are the ones committing a genocide, not those who break the tools used to commit it.' The Campaign Against Antisemitism expressed concern about the escalation of the group's activities in Britain. Like politicians such as Robert Jenrick and Nigel Farage, they think the time has come to proscribe it as a terror organisation. 'Palestine Action has escalated from vandalising corporate property to targeting Jewish businesses and charities, and now sabotaging RAF aircraft,' said a spokesperson for the Campaign Against Antisemitism. 'They've even staged grotesque mock beheadings and destroyed works of art. This is a group fuelled by hatred and driven by destruction. 'They deliberately spread fear, disrupt public life and attack the very institutions that keep this country safe. Their actions aren't just intimidatory – they're a direct assault on British values and democracy. 'The Home Secretary must act now and proscribe this dangerous organisation before it can harm or sabotage further. We have provided her with the relevant background and legal case for a ban. There is no time to lose.'

Daily Mail​

20 minutes ago

• Daily Mail​

BBC scraps plans to show documentary about medics in Gaza after new bias concerns

The BBC has decided to scrap plans to show a documentary about medics in Gaza over concerns it 'risked creating a perception of partiality' of its coverage of the conflict. Gaza: Doctors Under Attack was commissioned by the corporation more than a year ago from an independent production company called Basement Films. However, its production was paused in April after an investigation was launched into the making of another controversial documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone. That programme was taken off the iPlayer earlier this year, and the corporation was forced to apologise after it was revealed that the documentary featured a 13-year-old narrator who is the son of a Hamas government minister and grandson of one of Hamas' s founding members. In the latest controversy over the BBC's coverage of the war, the broadcaster has confirmed discussions over the documentary showing the plight of medics in Gaza had 'reached the end of the road'. The corporation will now transfer ownership of the project to the independent production company that produced it. 'We wanted the doctors' voices to be heard,' the BBC said in a statement. 'Our aim was to find a way to air some of the material in our news programmes, in line with our impartiality standards, before the review was published. 'For some weeks, the BBC has been working with Basement Films to find a way to tell the stories of these doctors on our platforms.' But, the corporation added: 'Yesterday it became apparent that we have reached the end of the road with these discussions. 'We have come to the conclusion that broadcasting this material risked creating a perception of partiality that would not meet the high standards that the public rightly expect of the BBC. 'Impartiality is a core principle of BBC News. It is one of the reasons that we are the world's most trusted broadcaster. 'Therefore, we are transferring ownership of the film material to Basement Films.' It went on to say that since the pause in production of Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, 'it has not undergone the BBC's final pre-broadcast sign-off processes' and 'any film broadcast will not be a BBC film'. Critics were also enraged by the Beeb's failure to disclose who the film's narrator was, leading former director of BBC Television Danny Cohen to say: 'The BBC appears to have given an hour of prime-time coverage to the son of a senior member of the Hamas terrorist group. 'Either they were not aware of the terrorist links because they did not carry out the most basic journalistic checks or the BBC did know and misled audiences about the family's deep involvement with terrorism.' The BBC documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, was broadcast on BBC Two with the aim of showing a 'vivid and unflinching view of life' in the enclave Since the allegations were made, the BBC has apologised and added new text to the film which explains who Abdullah and his father are. In an email exchange via the BBC, Abdullah reportedly said he wanted to be part of the documentary, which was made by Hoyo Films, 'to explain the suffering that people here in Gaza witness with the language that the world understands, English.' He is said to have asked to be involved to help viewers learn about the situation on the ground without being 'blurred by misinformation'. The BBC documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, was broadcast on February 17 on BBC Two with the aim of showing a 'vivid and unflinching view of life' in the strip. It was made by two producers based in London who remotely directed two cameramen on the ground over nine months. Independent investigative journalist David Collier claimed one of the child narrators, Abdullah, is the son of a Hamas government minister and grandson of one of Hamas's founding members. Using Facebook and publicly available data online, Mr Collier claimed the show's young star is the son of Gaza's deputy minister of agriculture Dr Ayman Al-Yazouri. This would mean his grandfather would be the Hamas founder Ibrahim al-Yazouri, who has previously been jailed by Egypt and Israel for involvement in proscribed groups. The Daily Mail has not been able to independently verify Mr Collier's claims. The BBC apologised for the inclusion of the documentary's young star, with a spokesperson for the corporation saying: 'Since the transmission of our documentary on Gaza, the BBC has become aware of the family connections of the film's narrator, a child called Abdullah. 'We've promised our audiences the highest standards of transparency, so it is only right that as a result of this new information, we add some more detail to the film before its retransmission. We apologise for the omission of that detail from the original film.' The BBC said the new text attached to the film: 'The narrator of this film is 13 year old Abdullah. His father has worked as a deputy agriculture minister for the Hamas-run government in Gaza. The production team had full editorial control of filming with Abdullah.' 'We followed all of our usual compliance procedures in the making of this film, but we had not been informed of this information by the independent producers when we complied and then broadcast the finished film,' the statement added. 'The film remains a powerful child's eye view of the devastating consequences of the war in Gaza which we believe is an invaluable testament to their experiences, and we must meet our commitment to transparency.'

Telegraph

28 minutes ago

• Telegraph

This is the ‘beginning of the end' for Iran's supreme leader. But what comes next?

In his many years as Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei has gained a reputation for political caution; deep conservatism; and absolute ruthlessness. But above all, he is stubborn. Faced with the killing of numerous members of his military high command, the destruction of swathes of the Islamic Republic's treasured nuclear program and with enemy jets operating freely over his capital, he responded to Donald Trump's demand for surrender this week by declaring: 'The Iranian nation will stand firmly against any imposed war, just as it always has.' 'The Iranian nation also firmly stands against any imposed peace. The Iranian nation will not capitulate to anyone in the face of coercion,' the 86-year-old cleric went on. It is fighting talk. But many believe it is at odds with reality. 'It is becoming clearer every day that this is the beginning of the end of the regime in Tehran,' says Lina Khatib, visiting scholar with the Harvard Kennedy School's Middle East Initiative. 'My crystal ball does not tell me how long it will take. But I do not see how the Islamic Republic – as it has been [for] over more than five decades – can survive this war.' 'The $10 billion question' Of course, it is not inevitable that Khamenei will fall. But the decisive moment may come sooner rather than later. Trump on Thursday gave Khamenei a two-week deadline to make a deal to end its nuclear programme and defuse the crisis. At the end of the fortnight, the US president will make a decision about 'whether or not to go' – in other words, to send American bombers to join the Israeli assault. Any such move would tip the scales of the conflict even more dramatically against Iran. But what would happen next? Could American bombs provide the shock to ignite a revolution, led by ordinary Iranians fed up with the corruption, mismanagement and repression that has marked the rule of the Ayatollahs? Or could the supreme leader face an internal coup by insiders determined to hold on to power? Might he even fall victim to the strongmen of his own Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), who control the bulk of the military and much of the economy? Would his downfall be followed by democracy, military dictatorship, or anarchy? Or might Iranians rally to the flag, unexpectedly giving the Islamic Republic a new lease of legitimacy? 'That is the $10 billion question, and it's clearly at the forefront of everybody's minds,' says Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House. 'Unless the Israelis are going to put boots on the ground in Iran, a country that has 90 million people and is geographically huge, what will likely ensue is changes within the system at a faster pace, and I think that's what they're trying to push for.' 'They know very well that they cannot engage in regime change, but they're trying to unscrew the bolts and see how the dominoes fall.' Assassination It has been reported that Trump vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Khamenei on the first night of the war. The US president has since said he knows exactly where the supreme leader is – and in a less than subtle threat to reconsider the Israeli assassination plan, said he was safe 'for now.' On Thursday, Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, said Khamenei 'can no longer be allowed to exist' after an Iranian attack struck a hospital in Beersheba, injuring dozens of people. Israeli officials seem to believe the supreme leader's removal might spark an uprising that would bring down the entire Islamic Republic, effectively unwinding the 1979 revolution that brought it to power. Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly called on Iranian citizens to do just that. 'We are also clearing the path for you to achieve your objective – which is freedom', he said in an address (in English) addressed to Iranians after the first wave of strikes killed top leaders. 'Now is the opportunity for you to stand up,' he added. Revolution That did not go down well even among most opposition-minded Iranians, many of whom have expressed fury at the Israeli bombing of central Tehran. That said, should Khameini be killed, people may well take to the streets, says Maryam Mazrooei, an exiled artist and photojournalist. 'But one of the main problems for the opposition is that there is no leader. The Islamic Republic has got rid of whoever could be leader now – everybody,' Mazrooei says. The regime tolerates a reformist wing. But over the past decade and a half, regime authorities have systematically jailed, exiled, or killed critics demanding fundamental changes to the Islamic Republic. And now, the disgruntled Iranians, who a revolution would rely on, are currently literally running for their lives. Many have fled Tehran for the relative safety of family homes in the provinces following a series of airstrikes on residential parts of the capital – and Israeli warnings that more are to come. And even if revolutionaries take to the streets, the uprising would likely meet stern and bloody resistance. The apparatus of repression that the government has used to suppress previous uprisings remains in place. The IRGC, police, and Basij militia have spent the past few years preparing to crush what they anticipate will be an enormous anti-regime uprising when Khamenei eventually dies. Their raison d'etre is to provide regime continuity. To imagine they would simply vanish or lose their power with Khamenei's assassination is a dangerous simplification. That is not to say a revolution can be ruled out, or that the security services might not split or melt away, as often happens in such moments. But it would almost certainly be violent, and the chance of success is slim. No leaders And as Mazrooei notes, there is no Iranian Nelson Mandela or Alexei Navalny behind whom an opposition movement might rally. Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the self-proclaimed National Council of Resistance of Iran, is almost universally despised inside the country. Reza Pahlavi Shah, the exiled crown prince, enjoys the support of a small but fanatical monarchist movement and has offered to act as a figurehead for a democratic some non-monarchists have begun to think of him as the best figurehead on offer. But he is not the most adept politician. He infuriated many this week with an interview appearing to defend the Israeli bombing campaign rather than condemning strikes on Iranian civilians. 'He will emerge bruised and battered by supporting Israel's attack on Iran,' says Dr Vakil. 'The fact that he is calling on Iranians to rise up at a time of a war is tone deaf, and the fact that he is not looking out for Iranians, for civilians, considering the trauma of this experience for the people that are living through it, is reflective of the daylight between his potential leadership and the facts on the ground in Iran.' 'If the Israelis kill the supreme leader, the system will evolve, either constitutionally or through change from within. They're not going to be flying in their leader of choice from the diaspora,' she adds. Smooth succession The Iranian regime is already geared up for a transition of power. Ali Khamenei is elderly and ill. The question of succession already dominates Iranian politics, and several prominent figures are thought to see themselves as candidates to replace him. Before the war, the most likely successor was thought to be Mojtaba Khamenei, the supreme leader's 55 year old son. Like his father, he studied theology in the Holy City of Qom, so he meets the constitutional requirement for clerical training. He is a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, giving him revolutionary credibility. And most importantly, he has close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, meaning he has the backing of the men with guns. One IRGC member told The Telegraph last year that the corps 'top commanders are speaking very highly of him'. Another said plans had already been made to crush any opposition to his succession. Assuming he is still alive, that the Islamic Republic's constitutional mechanism continues to work, and that enough of his allies in the IRGC have escaped Israeli bombs, he is probably still best placed to succeed his father. The coup Others might take the opportunity for a less constitutional route to power. The Israelis have achieved deep intelligence penetration of the Iranian command structures. Rumours are already flying around Iranian internet users about generals supposedly working for Mossad, or being spirited into Israel just before the bombs hit. But it does not take an Israeli conspiracy to make a coup. It is possible to imagine a delegation of senior Army or IRGC officers, fed up with the old man's intransigence and desperate to make peace, paying a visit to Khamenei and telling him gently that his time is up. 'This has been my prognosis for a while: that either when Khamenei dies or before he dies, some group of people will effectively do some sort of a coup inside the Islamic Republic and come to power,' says Arash Azizi, an Iranian historian. Runners and riders One key candidate was Ali Shamkhani, a key security advisor to Mr Khamenei who was reported killed in the first wave of Israeli strikes, but who was then revealed to have survived the bomb sent for him. His unlikely resurrection is already fuelling the rumour mill. 'He is the head of a really financial, political, military empire. He is really one of those people who has actual power with his person and his network, which is not the case with a lot of others,' says Azizi. 'I think he's in hospital and I think his leg has been amputated. So he is probably not in a very good condition to lead a coup, but you know, he is, he is the kind of guy who could do it.' Like most power brokers in Iran, Shamkhani has close ties to the IRGC – he was an admiral in its naval wing for many years. He also runs his own media empire. Another potential player is Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of parliament, former mayor of Tehran, and one-time IRGC air force commander who has made no secret of his presidential ambitions. 'He is very bad at hiding his ambitions to be a sort of strong man,' says Azizi. He has, however, failed in several bids for the presidency. Shamkhani and Ghalibaf represent a class of cynical, ambitious, and wealthy officials who Azizi believes are likely to shape Iran's future. They are defined by immense wealth, ties to the security services, and a pragmatic approach to ideology that reflects the general public's disillusionment with the Islamic Republic's revolutionary creed. But neither of those men are qualified to be a supreme leader – that role is reserved for Islamic scholars – so to seize power they might have to upend the Islamic Republic's Constitution. The IRGC The exact result – a puppet supreme leader, a formal military dictatorship led by the IRGC, or something else – makes little difference to the bottom line. The IRGC – or at least the factions of the sprawling organisation closest to the winning strong man – would retain and tighten its grip on economic, political, and military power. In the interests of regime survival and personal enrichment, they might give up the nuclear program and usher in a period of relative liberalisation, just as Nikita Khrushchev did away with the worst repressions of Stalin. That would suit Israel – but not the millions of Iranians yearning to see the back of the corrupt and violent gang who have ruled them for so long. And of course, there is no guarantee they would change course. There are plenty of people who believe Khamanei's mistake was not to rush to a bomb earlier. A national unity government That said, rumours are now swirling about a kind of national-unity government with a more reformist bent. That theory centres on Hassan Rouhani, a former president and security advisor who is the nearest thing the regime has to a centrist. Mohammad Javad Zarif, the former foreign minister who negotiated the landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran, the US and a number of other world powers, and Ali Larijani, a former speaker of parliament, have also been mentioned. That is a lineup that might conceivably end the nuclear program, give up on militarisation and the forever war with Israel, and institute some domestic reform. 'Rouhani is the leader of what you can call a centrist, pragmatic camp. He's Iran's Deng Xiaoping,' says Azizi. 'The problem is, of course, he is a mullah, not a guy with guns. He's not an IRGC guy. The question is, can he, as a political leader, put together enough of a coalition that includes some of the people with the money and guns?' Failed state There is of course, another, much darker possibility. If Khamenei falls, but no faction can secure the succession, the country could fall into a period of anarchy – possibly even civil war. Pummelled by Israeli airstrikes, crippled by enduring sanctions, and riven by ethnic, religious, and regional divisions (Persians make up roughly half of the country's population, with about a quarter Azeri or Turkic people, including Khamenei, and the remainder comprised of Balochs, Kurds, Arabs, Jews Assyrians, and Armenians), Iran would effectively be crippled. That might suit Netanyahu perfectly well. A failed state cannot, after all, run an ambitious national project such as a nuclear weapons program. Nor would it be able to continue to project influence across the Middle East by other means. But for those who call Iran home, that would be the worst possible outcome. The truth, say both Dr Khatib and Dr Vakil, is that all bets are off. Iran is facing a moment of incredible volatility. The most likely successor may be someone no one has heard of, and the most likely course of events is one that no one can predict. Those wild cards include the ranks of political prisoners held in Tehran's infamous Evin prison, who would no doubt welcome Khamenei's fall. Even, they appear gloomy about what might follow, however. 'I know that some segments of the people are happy with the [Israeli] attacks, because they see it as the only way to change the failed clerical government,' Mostafa Tajzadeh, a former deputy interior minister and vocal critic of Khamenei, wrote on his Telegram channel from behind bars this week. 'But even assuming that the war leads to such an outcome, Iran will be left in ruins, where, most likely, statelessness and chaos will prevail – if the country is not torn apart.'