A string of coordinated shooting incidents in central Israel has left one civilian dead and five others injured, triggering a large-scale manhunt, military deployments across the occupied West Bank, and sharp political rhetoric from both Israeli and Palestinian factions, official sources confirmed Sunday. The violence unfolded across three separate locations close to the West Bank city of Qalqilya, according to initial reports from Israeli law enforcement and emergency response teams. The fatality was identified as a 35-year-old Israeli national, while the wounded include multiple civilians with injuries ranging from moderate to life-threatening. One man in his 40s was rushed to a nearby hospital in critical condition, medical officials confirmed. Two additional victims were treated at a gas station adjacent to the Israeli town of Kochav Yair, with one suffering serious harm, while a fifth and sixth casualty were recorded near Tzur Yitzhak, another central Israeli settlement. In an official statement released shortly after the attacks began, Israeli police noted that large security detachments remained deployed across the incident sites, with active searches ongoing, and issued a public appeal for residents to maintain heightened vigilance amid ongoing uncertainty. Early official accounts from the Israeli military indicated that forces had killed one suspect – a Palestinian citizen of Israel from the central Israeli city of Tayibe – while a second possible attacker was wounded and escaped the initial dragnet. However, police later revised this account, confirming that only a single shooter was involved in the attacks, and that the gunman was shot dead by security forces after a widespread manhunt. Investigators have since recovered the weapon used in the assault: a makeshift “Carlo” submachine gun, a commonly improvised variant of the Carl Gustav that is frequently used by Palestinian armed groups. In the wake of the violence, Israeli military chief of staff Eyal Zamir issued new operational directives for expanded activities across the occupied West Bank. Israeli military forces subsequently moved to surround multiple Palestinian villages and sealed off a key nearby West Bank border crossing, tightening restrictions on movement in the area. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that he had convened a top-level security assessment meeting and was closely monitoring developments related to what he described as the “deadly shooting attack.” Far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir drew immediate controversy with a hardline public statement posted to the social platform X, calling for the execution of any attacker taken alive. “If the terrorist is caught alive he will be executed. This is the law and we will demand its implementation,” Ben Gvir wrote. “Jewish blood is not in vain. Whoever murders a Jew will see the hanging rope.” The armed Palestinian group Hamas quickly claimed the attacks as a legitimate response to ongoing Israeli actions in the region, framing the violence as a reaction to Israeli aggression against Gaza, what the group described as ongoing “crimes of Judaisation,” extrajudicial killings of Palestinians, Israeli settlement expansion, military raids, and daily attacks against Palestinian communities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. “The occupation – no matter how far it goes in its oppression and crimes – will not succeed in stopping the rise of resistance in the valiant West Bank,” the group said in an official public statement. A second major Palestinian armed faction, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, echoed this framing, describing the shooting as a “natural consequence of the criminal policies pursued by the war criminal government of the Zionist entity.” The attack comes amid a months-long surge in violence across Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, stoking widespread concerns of further escalation ahead.
作者： admin
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Eriksen conscious after collapsing in Denmark game
In a shocking incident that has sent ripples through the global football community, Danish midfielder Christian Eriksen collapsed during a friendly international match against Ukraine, before quickly regaining consciousness and leaving the pitch under his own power, Denmark’s Football Association has confirmed.
The 34-year-old experienced the medical event in the 65th minute of the contest, forcing officials to pause play before ultimately calling off the match entirely. This is not the first high-profile cardiac scare for Eriksen, who suffered a life-threatening cardiac arrest on the pitch during Denmark’s Euro 2020 group stage match against Finland in 2021. Following that incident, Eriksen was fitted with an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD), a small pacemaker-like device designed to correct life-threatening abnormal heart rhythms.
Speaking after the incident, Morten Boesen, the Danish national team’s chief doctor, reassured fans that Eriksen is in stable condition. “Christian is doing well and walked off the pitch by himself,” Boesen stated. “As I see it, the pacemaker responded exactly as it was supposed to. He was briefly unconscious, but regained consciousness very quickly, and we were quickly able to communicate with him. He will now undergo further examinations at the hospital to identify what triggered this latest episode.”
The ICD implantation allowed Eriksen to make a widely celebrated “miracle” return to professional football in 2022, eight months after his 2021 cardiac arrest. He signed with Brentford to restart his club career, before spending three seasons with Manchester United. Last summer, Eriksen made the move to German Bundesliga side Wolfsburg, where he turned out 34 times for the club through the 2025-26 season. Wednesday’s incident came during what was supposed to be his 151st appearance for the Danish national team.
Boesen added that team officials remain in constant contact with Eriksen and the hospital team overseeing his care, and that the midfielder has already reached out to reassure his teammates. “But Christian is doing well, and he asked me to send his regards to all the players and tell them that he was OK,” Boesen said. Further updates on Eriksen’s condition are expected as more information from his hospital assessments becomes available.
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Zverev ends wait for Grand Slam title with French Open triumph
After years of crushing near-misses and heartbreaking defeats on tennis’ biggest stages, 29-year-old Alexander Zverev has written the final chapter of his long-running Grand Slam drought, claiming his first ever major title at the 2025 French Open following a tense four-hour-and-16-minute five-set final against Italy’s Flavio Cobolli on Sunday.
The world No. 3 and tournament second seed sealed a 6-1, 4-6, 6-4, 6-7 (5/7), 6-1 victory to become the first German man to lift a Grand Slam trophy since Boris Becker claimed the 1996 Australian Open, a milestone that capped a remarkable personal journey for Zverev on the clay of Court Philippe Chatrier. For the German, Roland Garros has been a ground of both triumph and agony: he suffered a career-threatening season-ending ankle injury here during a 2022 semi-final clash against Rafael Nadal, and fell in another brutal five-set defeat to defending champion Carlos Alcaraz in last year’s final. This year, the Paris clay finally gave him the happy ending he chased for nearly a decade.
“This court is so special to me in so many ways… but now finally, it’s a happy end,” Zverev shared during his trophy acceptance speech. Addressing his support team, he added, “We’ve been through losses, we’ve been losers at times as well in the most important moments. But at the end of the day, we’re Grand Slam champions now, and that’s what counts.”
Zverev entered this final as the experienced campaigner, marking his fourth appearance in a Grand Slam title match after 10 previous defeats in Slam quarter-finals and semi-finals, plus three prior final losses. His most devastating near-miss came at the 2020 US Open, where he held a two-set lead and a championship point against Dominic Thiem, only to collapse in a reverse that haunted him for six years. In a poignant full-circle moment, the now-retired Thiem watched from the stands as Zverev finally put that memory to rest.
For his 24-year-old opponent Cobolli, the tournament already marked a career breakthrough. Ranked 10th in the tournament, the Italian was bidding to become the first Italian man to claim the French Open title since Adriano Panatta 50 years prior, and had never even advanced to a Grand Slam semi-final before this week. His path to the final opened up after semi-final opponent Matteo Arnaldi withdrew due to illness, and despite falling short of the title, his run guarantees he will break into the world’s top 10 for the first time next week.
“It’s not easy for me to talk right now,” Cobolli said after receiving his runner-up trophy from Panatta. “I’m happy for you, but I’m also sad because I was close and I feel it. So now you’ve achieved your dream, let me win the next time.”
The match played out exactly as the contrast in experience suggested, with Cobolli succumbing to early nerves in the opening set. The Italian piled up 16 unforced errors in just 39 minutes, dropping the first set 6-1 as he struggled to cope with the pressure of his first ever major final. He found his rhythm in the second set, though, reeling off three consecutive holds of serve before stealing a break from Zverev in the seventh game. Zverev, who had been untroubled on serve up to that point, dropped the set with a series of scrappy mistakes including two double faults, evening the match at one set apiece and sending the crowd into a frenzy.
The high-stakes third set saw Cobolli give up a 30-0 lead in the 10th game, dropping four straight points to cede the set to Zverev. Refusing to fold, Cobolli broke Zverev immediately in the opening game of the fourth set, and though he couldn’t close out the set when serving for it at 5-4, he rallied to win a tight tie-break 7-5 to force a deciding fifth set.
After a short delay when Cobolli left the court before the final set, Zverev struck early, breaking the Italian’s serve in the very first game. When Cobolli missed a break-back chance and dropped his serve again to fall 3-0 behind, the match was all but decided. Zverev fended off three late break chances in the fourth game before closing out the win, falling to the clay in celebration after Cobolli shanked an overhead on Zverev’s second championship point.
The path to the title was made easier by the absence of several top contenders: defending champion Alcaraz withdrew due to injury, while Novak Djokovic and Jannik Sinner both made shock early exits from the tournament. Though Zverev notched 54 unforced errors across the match, his experience and mental fortitude shone through when it mattered most, finally shedding the unwanted label of one of the best male players to never win a Grand Slam.
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Zverev beats Cobolli in tense Paris final for first Grand Slam
After three heartbreaks in major finals and years of near-misses, 29-year-old Alexander Zverev has fulfilled a lifetime of expectation, capturing his maiden Grand Slam singles title at the 2025 French Open with a tense 6-1 4-6 6-4 6-7(5-7) 6-1 victory over first-time finalist Flavio Cobolli on Parisian clay. The landmark win makes Zverev the first German man to lift a Grand Slam singles trophy since Boris Becker claimed the 1996 Australian Open, and ends a two-year streak of major titles being split exclusively between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.
Entering the final as the overwhelming betting favorite following Sinner’s shocking second-round exit and Alcaraz’s injury-related withdrawal, Zverev carried the heavy weight of expectation into his fourth major championship match. The German got off to a blistering start, dropping just one game in the opening 35 minutes as his powerful baseline groundstrokes exploited a nervous Cobolli, who had never advanced past the French Open third round before this breakout tournament. When Cobolli settled into the match and snatched the second set with a late break of serve, Zverev quickly regained control, breaking the Italian in the tenth game of the third set to move two sets to one.
The match’s dramatic turning point came in a chaotic fourth set that tested Zverev’s mental and physical stamina to breaking point. The second seed twice dropped his serve, coughed up a string of costly double faults, and required medical attention to treat cramping with electrolyte injections, forcing him to dig deep to stay in the contest. Serving for the set at 5-4, Cobolli failed to close out the win, then wasted his first set point on the tiebreak with a messy forehand volley error before bouncing back to force a deciding fifth set.
Both players struggled with nerves in the decider, with the match swinging between thrilling baseline exchanges and tense, error-prone exchanges that left spectators on the edge of their seats. Zverev managed to limit his unforced errors just enough to grab an early double break, jumping out to a 3-0 lead as the 24-year-old Cobolli, playing in the biggest match of his career by far, ran out of competitive gas. When Cobolli sent a closing smash long on Zverev’s second match point, the German collapsed backwards onto the red clay, burying his face in his hands to release years of pent-up emotion after three previous final losses.
Zverev’s path to tennis stardom was written nearly from birth. Born into a family of professional tennis players, he grew up touring alongside his older brother Mischa, a 2017 Australian Open quarterfinalist, and caught the attention of all-time great Roger Federer as a precocious teen talent. He has ranked consistently inside the world top 10 for nearly a decade, collecting dozens of top ATP Tour titles, but a Grand Slam win always eluded him: early in his career, he was blocked by the enduring dominance of the Big Three of Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic, before the emergence of Sinner and Alcaraz created a new barrier to major glory. Technical flaws in his second serve and a tendency to play passively against top competition also derailed his previous runs, leaving many analysts questioning whether he would ever break through for his first major.
For Cobolli, a former Roma football academy prospect who switched full-time to tennis as a youngster, the run to the French Open final marks a stunning breakthrough that few predicted. Despite the tough final loss, the 10th seed framed his run as just the opening chapter of his career, saying, “I started playing when I was young and I never expected this kind of result. Now that I’m here, I just want to make something special possible. For me, it’s not done, it’s only the start.” With a powerful baseline game, deft touch at the net, and elite athleticism, the Italian has already proven he can compete with the best of the men’s game, and his breakout performance in Paris signals the arrival of a new contender in men’s tennis.
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Mexico City attempts record-breaking wave
As soccer fever builds across the globe ahead of the upcoming FIFA World Cup, one of Latin America’s most populous urban centers is stepping into the global spotlight with an ambitious, crowd-powered challenge. Mexico City has launched an attempt to claim the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest human wave, tying the lighthearted, community-focused event directly to the ongoing countdown to the sport’s biggest international tournament.
Organizers of the attempt have said the event is designed to harness the excitement and collective energy of Mexican soccer fans ahead of the World Cup, turning a simple stadium tradition into a celebration of national pride and global sporting unity. While details on the exact number of participants required to break the existing record have not been fully disclosed in early announcements, the attempt is expected to draw thousands of participants from across the capital city, uniting casual fans, local communities, and passionate soccer supporters in one coordinated, massive movement.
The human wave, a staple of spectator culture in stadiums around the world, involves successive groups of spectators raising their arms in sequence to create a rolling wave of movement that travels across the crowd. Breaking the existing record will require precise coordination and a massive turnout, but organizers and participants alike have expressed confidence that Mexico City’s passionate fan base will deliver a performance strong enough to top the current global mark, adding a memorable milestone to the pre-World Cup celebrations.
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Australia women and South Africa men win rugby sevens world series
The final leg of the World Rugby Sevens Series delivered a weekend of dramatic upsets, standout individual performances and historic triumphs at Stade Atlantique in Bordeaux, France, over the weekend.
In the women’s overall title decider, Australia produced a last-gasp turnaround to secure the crown, outlasting the season-long leading New Zealand Black Ferns 26-19 in a high-stakes final. Australian star winger Maddison Levi, who only returned to the pitch for the semifinals after sustaining a left knee injury the previous week in Valladolid, emerged as the match-winner. Levi crossed for two tries to push her season-leading try tally to 64, and delivered two game-changing try-saving tackles from behind on New Zealand’s Katelyn Vaha’akolo to defuse late Black Ferns momentum.
Levi’s opening first-half try gave Australia a 14-7 halftime advantage. After Vaha’akolo cut Australia’s lead to just two points, tries from Faith Nathan and Levi sealed the victory for Australia, securing the side its fifth women’s World Rugby Sevens Series title across the 13 editions of the competition. New Zealand had dominated the entire regular season, but Australia won the final two legs of the three-stage championship decider to edge out the Black Ferns by four points in the overall standings.
“It’s been our most consistent season,” Levi said after the match. “We’ve been in every single final. Even win or lose, we’re building as a program, we’re creating depth and trust. Going out there and beating a pretty amazing New Zealand side, they’re always tough, so it’s pretty awesome to help the girls.”
In the men’s competition, South Africa’s Blitzboks retained their overall men’s World Rugby Sevens Series crown by reaching the semifinal stage, even though they failed to progress to the Bordeaux tournament final after falling to host nation France. France capitalized on their home advantage to make history, claiming their first home World Rugby Sevens tournament title in 21 years with a 14-5 final victory over New Zealand.
The French side had fallen 21-26 to New Zealand in the pool stage two days earlier, but pulled off a stunning upset in front of a home crowd, with Celian Pouzelgues scoring the match-winning try with just 31 seconds left on the clock. Rayan Rebbadj kicked the conversion after France’s opening try, and the match remained tight through the second half: after Pouzelgues was sin-binned for a high tackle, New Zealand’s Jayden Keelan scored to pull the Kiwis ahead 7-5. A second Pouzelgues try was ruled out early in the second half, but France kept pressing, and when New Zealand playmaker Akuila Rokolisoa was yellow-carded for deliberately kicking the ball away after the final whistle, the host side broke through, with Pouzelgues slipping a tackle near the posts to score the decisive try.
In the overall men’s standings, South Africa finished first, with New Zealand in second and Spain clinching a best-ever third place finish. Host France ended the tournament seventh overall. To cap off the weekend, World Rugby named South Africa’s Tristan Leyds the men’s World Rugby Sevens Player of the Year, while New Zealand’s Jorja Miller claimed the women’s award for the second consecutive season.
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Israel strikes south Beirut after intercepting Hezbollah launches
Fresh cross-border violence has sent tensions soaring between Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, after Israel carried out targeted airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs Sunday, responding to what it says were rocket launches by Hezbollah targeting Israeli civilian areas.
Sunday’s strikes marked only the third time that southern Beirut—an area long considered a core Hezbollah stronghold—has been hit by Israeli attacks since mid-April, a zone that had remained relatively quiet amid months of routine cross-border fire exchanges between the two sides. In an official confirmation of the operation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office stated the military had just targeted a Hezbollah militant command center in Beirut’s Dahiyeh district, launching the assault in direct response to Hezbollah fire directed at Israeli territory.
A separate statement from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) elaborated on the operation, noting that after Hezbollah fired projectiles toward civilian communities inside Israel, the IDF executed a “precise strike” against a key Hezbollah command post. The military added that it had taken multiple proactive steps to minimize civilian harm before the attack, including the use of precision-guided munitions and advanced aerial surveillance to reduce unintended civilian casualties. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) confirmed the strikes hit two residential apartments located in separate multi-story buildings. An Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer on the ground documented visible damage to two apartments in one residential building on a narrow Beirut side street, while widespread traffic gridlock formed as panicked local residents attempted to evacuate the suburb, and Lebanese military units deployed to secure the affected area.
Earlier on Sunday, air raid sirens triggered across northern Israel, and the IDF confirmed it had successfully intercepted two projectiles that had crossed the border from Lebanese territory. Hezbollah has not issued an immediate public response to the Beirut strikes, though the group did confirm separate offensive operations targeting Israeli military personnel along the Lebanese border earlier the same day.
This latest escalation comes just days after indirect negotiations in Washington, where Lebanese and Israeli diplomatic representatives presented a conditional ceasefire proposal that would have required Hezbollah to halt all cross-border fire and withdraw its fighters from positions near the Israeli-Lebanese border. The proposal collapsed after Hezbollah rejected the terms, demanding that Israel fully withdraw from all contested Lebanese territory before any ceasefire can take effect. Even before Sunday’s strike, Israeli officials had explicitly warned they would target southern Beirut if Hezbollah resumed attacks on northern Israel.
The current unrest in Lebanon grew out of the broader Middle East conflict, when Hezbollah opened the border front on March 2, launching rockets at Israel in a show of support for its regional patron Iran. Tehran has since maintained that any comprehensive agreement to end the wider regional conflict—currently paused by a separate ceasefire reached in April—must also include an end to hostilities along the Israel-Lebanon border.
Iranian officials have already issued sharp threats of retaliation over Sunday’s strikes. Iranian parliamentary speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf accused the United States of giving Israel a “green light” to carry out the Beirut attack, warning that “our armed forces, as always, are free to act” in response. Ebrahim Rezaei, spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s national security commission, echoed the threat, promising a “decisive and painful response” to the Israeli operation.
Iran’s position tying the Lebanon conflict to the broader regional war has significantly complicated diplomatic efforts led by the United States to de-escalate tensions. In an interview aired Sunday on U.S. network NBC’s *Meet the Press*, recorded one day before the strike, U.S. President Donald Trump called on Israel to adopt more targeted military tactics. “I’d like to see a more surgical attack on Hezbollah,” he said. “I’d like to see Lebanon have a better life.”
Sunday’s violence extended far beyond the capital, with the NNA reporting a wave of additional Israeli strikes across multiple locations in southern Lebanon. The attacks come one day after Lebanese authorities confirmed at least five people, including a Lebanese army general, were killed in separate Israeli strikes across the region.
On Sunday, the IDF also issued a mandatory evacuation warning for most of the coastal city of Tyre and its surrounding outskirts. The city currently shelters thousands of internally displaced people who fled earlier fighting near the border, and it has faced heavy sustained bombardment since hostilities began. An AFP correspondent on the ground reported that Lebanese civil defense teams evacuated roughly 500 families from school buildings that had been repurposed as emergency shelters, moving them to the city’s Christian quarter, which was not included in the evacuation order.
Further north near the coastal city of Sidon, public funerals were held Sunday for four people killed in an Israeli airstrike a day prior: three members of one extended family and a local rescue worker. Lebanon’s ministry of health reports that at least 131 rescue workers have been killed by Israeli strikes since the conflict began. “We do not carry rockets, our only weapon is the bread we deliver to people,” Qassem Foani, a fellow rescuer, told AFP. “They went and gave the family bread, but as they were leaving, a drone struck them.”
According to updated counts from Lebanon’s health ministry, Israel’s wide-ranging air campaign and ground invasion of southern Lebanon have killed more than 3,600 people in the country since hostilities escalated earlier this year.
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Last-minute visas and moving training camp: Iran’s road to the World Cup
When Iran secured its spot in the 2026 FIFA World Cup back in March 2025, few could have predicted the unprecedented set of obstacles that would confront the national squad ahead of the tournament. More than 12 months on, Iran’s participation has emerged as one of the most politically charged and complex narratives of this year’s competition, coming amid ongoing conflict triggered by joint US-Israeli military strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader. Against this backdrop of active regional war, the Iranian team has navigated a cascade of crises, from securing entry to tournament host territory to finalizing a safe training base ahead of their opening group-stage fixture.
After weeks of diplomatic delay, US authorities finally approved travel visas for all Iranian players this past Friday. However, multiple senior members of the team’s support staff, including Mehdi Taj, the head of the Iranian Football Federation, have been denied entry clearance. The US State Department confirmed to the BBC that visas had been issued for all players and essential non-playing personnel required to compete, but added that the country would not permit Iran to “abuse this system to sneak terrorists into the United States under false pretences.”
Complicating logistics further, Iranian ambassador to Mexico Abolfazl Pasandideh confirmed that the visa terms imposed on players require them to enter and exit US territory on the same day as each of their matches. In response to these restrictions and the escalating regional conflict, FIFA approved a request from Iran to relocate its pre-tournament base camp from the originally planned site in Tucson, Arizona to Tijuana, Mexico. The Iranian squad’s plane touched down at Tijuana International Airport on June 7, marking the team’s official arrival in North America for the competition. All three of Iran’s group-stage matches are still scheduled to take place across the US: fixtures against New Zealand and Belgium will be held in Los Angeles, while their matchup against Egypt is set for Seattle.
The current strained dynamic between Iran and the US is rooted in more than 40 years of hostile relations, dating back to the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran and the subsequent hostage crisis that ended formal diplomatic ties between the two nations. For decades, elite football has stood as one of the only rare platforms for direct, public engagement between the two countries. The most iconic of these encounters came at the 1998 World Cup in France, where Iran claimed a historic 2-1 victory over the US in a match loaded with global political symbolism. Dubbed the “Mother of All Games” by observers due to the charged geopolitical backdrop, the fixture drew worldwide attention and remains one of the most memorable matches in World Cup history. Before kickoff, Iranian players presented their US counterparts with white roses as a gesture of peace, a moment widely celebrated as a rare instance of sport transcending bitter political division. The two sides met again at the 2022 Qatar World Cup, where the US secured a 1-0 win to advance to the knockout round. This year, the expanded 48-team tournament format has left open the possibility of a third matchup between the two nations in the knockout stage, a prospect that would carry stakes far beyond athletic competition amid the ongoing conflict.
Beyond external diplomatic and logistical hurdles, the Iranian squad also faces unprecedented internal division back home, with national consensus around the team fractured in a way unseen at previous tournaments. Historically, the national side has been one of the only unifying national institutions, capable of drawing widespread support across Iran’s deep political and social divides. During the 2014 and 2018 World Cups, the team enjoyed broad backing from Iranians of all political leanings, both inside the country and in the global diaspora. That dynamic shifted dramatically ahead of the 2022 Qatar World Cup, held in the wake of the death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody and the nationwide anti-government protests that followed, met with a violent crackdown by Iranian authorities. The team found itself caught in the middle of intense domestic political debate: many Iranians expected players to publicly express solidarity with protesters, while others argued that football should remain separate from political conflict.
The 2026 tournament comes just six months after another widespread crackdown on anti-government protests, where human rights organizations estimate thousands of demonstrators were killed by state forces. Today, public opinion toward the team remains deeply split: some Iranian supporters still view the squad as a unifying symbol of national pride that stands apart from political division, while an increasing number of critics argue that the team is too closely aligned with the ruling political establishment to be separated from state power. Even so, support for Team Melli has by no means disappeared. Football remains overwhelmingly the most popular sport in Iran, and millions of Iranians both at home and abroad are expected to follow the team’s progress throughout the tournament.
On the pitch, Iran is chasing an unprecedented milestone in this 2026 World Cup. The squad has qualified for seven men’s World Cups throughout its history, but has never advanced past the group stage. With the tournament’s new expanded format creating more pathways to knockout stage progression, Iranian players and fans believe this could finally be the year they break their historic duck. The big question hanging over the team’s campaign, however, is whether football will remain the central focus. World Cups have always mirrored the geopolitical realities of their era, but it is hard to recall any other national side arriving at a major tournament facing such a toxic convergence of diplomatic isolation, active cross-border military conflict, persistent visa uncertainty, and deep domestic political division among its own fanbase.
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Zelensky meets allies in UK after strike hits Ukraine nuclear site
On a high-stakes diplomatic trip Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky touched down in London to hold urgent defense-focused talks with top leaders from the United Kingdom, France and Germany, just hours after a new wave of Russian cross-border strikes left five civilians dead and damaged a nuclear storage facility at the Chernobyl disaster site.
In a social media statement confirming his arrival, Zelensky outlined two core priorities for the talks: securing accelerated shipments of additional ammunition for Ukraine’s frontline air defense systems, which are strained by daily Russian bombardment across Ukrainian territory, and coordinating new, stronger collective pressure measures against Moscow to force an end to the full-scale invasion that launched more than three years ago.
Hours ahead of Zelensky’s London arrival, Russian forces launched a multi-wave assault combining drones and other long-range munitions across Ukraine. According to Ukrainian nuclear officials, one Russian munition struck a spent nuclear fuel storage facility located within the exclusion zone surrounding the long-decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the 1986 catastrophic nuclear disaster. Ukraine’s state-run nuclear energy operator Energoatom confirmed the strike partially destroyed the facility’s fuel reception building, but added that radiation monitoring readings remained well within safe, normal limits following the attack.
Zelensky, who early confirmed the strike was carried out by an Iranian-designed Shahed drone supplied to Russia, noted that while radiation levels have not spiked, the attack demonstrates a dangerous escalation in Moscow’s willingness to target critical nuclear infrastructure. “There is certainly an increase in Russia’s brazenness, which long ago went off the charts,” he said in a social media post.
The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), responded quickly to the incident, saying it was deploying an expert inspection team to Chernobyl to assess the full extent of the damage and verify safety conditions. The agency called the strike on the facility “deeply concerning.” The storage facility, located roughly 12 kilometers from the original 1986 disaster site in a remote, unpopulated forested area, is purpose-built to hold spent nuclear fuel from Ukraine’s three operating commercial nuclear power plants.
The Sunday strikes extended beyond the Chernobyl exclusion zone, with deadly attacks on civilian areas across multiple Ukrainian regions. In southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, Russian shelling hit a public transport stop, killing at least two civilians, while a separate drone strike in the area killed a 56-year-old minibus driver. In central Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, two more civilian men were killed in additional Russian attacks, regional governor Oleksandr Ganzha confirmed via Telegram.
Ukrainian forces also launched a reciprocal drone strike on Russian territory, killing a civilian woman and injuring her husband in a car attack in Russia’s border Belgorod region, local Russian authorities confirmed. The tit-for-tat strikes mark an escalation in the mutual cross-border drone campaign that has intensified over recent months, amid a broader stalemate in peace negotiations.
More than three years into the war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to end the conflict remain stalled, with international focus largely diverted by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly rejected direct peace negotiations proposed by Zelensky, and Russian forces currently hold roughly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimean Peninsula annexed in 2014, most of the eastern Donbas regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and large swathes of southern Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. The war has left hundreds of thousands dead and forced millions of Ukrainians to flee their homes.
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DR Congo friendly to be played behind closed doors
As the 2026 FIFA World Cup approaches, DR Congo’s final pre-tournament warm-up fixture against Chile has undergone a last-minute reshuffle, shifting to a closed-door setup in the French city of Orleans following widespread public health concerns tied to an ongoing Ebola outbreak in the central African nation. The match, set to kick off at 16:00 BST this Tuesday, was originally slated to be held in La Linea de la Concepcion, a Spanish border town. However, local authorities ultimately blocked the match from proceeding at that venue, with the mayor issuing an official decree framing the cancellation as a necessary precautionary measure to protect public health.
The 2026 World Cup, co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, has put in place strict entry requirements for all delegates coming from DR Congo: all squad members and team officials must complete a 21-day stay outside the country and remain completely free of Ebola symptoms before they are granted entry to the U.S. for the tournament. According to reporting from BBC Sport, none of DR Congo’s senior players – every one of whom currently plies their trade for club teams outside of DR Congo – have traveled back to their home country in recent weeks. However, a number of the national team’s non-playing support staff and traveling fan contingent have made the journey from DR Congo to join the squad ahead of the World Cup, which has triggered the ongoing public health precautions.
Currently, the DR Congo squad is wrapping up their final preparations at a training base in Marbella, Spain. This follows a 10-day pre-camp in Belgium, where the side earned a credible 0-0 draw in a friendly test against Denmark ahead of their first World Cup appearance in half a century. This tournament marks a historic milestone for DR Congo: it is the first time the nation has qualified for the World Cup since 1974, when it competed under the former name Zaire and finished at the bottom of its group after three opening-round losses to Scotland, Brazil and Yugoslavia.
For the 2026 tournament, DR Congo has based its pre-tournament operations in Houston, Texas, where it will kick off its Group K campaign against Portugal on June 17. After the opening match, the team will travel to Guadalajara, Mexico, for their second group-stage fixture against Colombia, before returning to U.S. soil to play their final group game against Uzbekistan in Atlanta.
The Ebola outbreak that has sparked these precautions is centered in eastern DR Congo, and is caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus. As of the latest public health updates, no licensed vaccine currently exists for this specific Ebola variant, and the World Health Organization has confirmed that it could take as long as nine months to develop and approve an effective vaccine for public use.