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A long-running legal dispute over a vast collection of historical documents from late former Chinese Communist Party cadre Li Rui has concluded with a California court ruling that Stanford University’s Hoover Institution is the rightful owner of the materials. The collection, which includes decades of personal diaries, official correspondence, meeting minutes, work notes, creative writing, and personal photographs spanning from 1938 to Li Rui’s death in 2019, is widely regarded as an irreplaceable firsthand historical record of modern Chinese history and the CCP’s period of governance.

Li Rui, a once-prominent party figure who held reformist political views and became known for vocal criticism of CCP leadership in his later years, had long intended to preserve his materials outside of China to avoid censorship, according to court findings. When Li was still alive, his daughter Li Nanyang began transferring the documents to Stanford’s Hoover Institution in 2014, a step she says was taken in direct alignment with her father’s explicit wishes. Following Li Rui’s death in 2019, however, his widow Zhang Yuzhen launched a parallel legal claim in Beijing, arguing that Li had granted her authority to decide which documents would be made public, and that the transfer to Stanford was unlawful. A Beijing court ruled in Zhang’s favor, ordering the materials be returned to China.

Stanford subsequently initiated its own legal proceedings in the U.S. to confirm its ownership of the collection, arguing that the transfer aligned with Li’s wishes and that the documents would face censorship, redaction, or even destruction if returned to China, framing the case as a defense of academic freedom and open access to historical records. In its ruling, the California court noted key irregularities in the Chinese legal proceedings: it found that the Beijing lawsuit was likely not initiated by Zhang of her own free will, but was instead backed and financed by the CCP, with Zhang herself having previously stated she had no personal desire to sue her stepdaughter. Zhang passed away during the course of the U.S. trial proceedings.

The court’s final judgment confirmed that the original donation to the Hoover Institution was lawful and fully consistent with Li Rui’s documented intentions. It further ruled that the Beijing court’s order had no enforceable standing in the United States. The court specifically highlighted Li Rui’s own stated belief that his papers would be suppressed or destroyed if kept within China, and that his explicit goal in transferring the materials was to make them openly accessible to researchers and the public globally.

Condoleezza Rice, current director of the Hoover Institution and former U.S. Secretary of State, praised the ruling in a public statement, noting that the decision guarantees that one of the most valuable firsthand accounts of modern Chinese history will remain freely available for academic study. Stanford’s legal team echoed this sentiment, saying the university was pleased that Li Rui’s final wishes would be honored, and that the materials would remain open to any interested researchers. The BBC has reached out to Zhang’s former U.S. legal representation for comment on the ruling, with no response reported as of yet.

As the armed conflict in the Middle East stretches into its second month, global energy markets have been thrown into chaos, with oil prices surging to multi-month highs amid disrupted supply chains. In this tense geopolitical landscape, China has emerged as an unexpected peace broker, joining Pakistan to table a five-point peace initiative aimed at securing an immediate ceasefire and reopening the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which roughly a fifth of the world’s daily oil supplies pass.

The move comes as former U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested that direct American military action against Iran could wrap up within two to three weeks, though no clear timeline or post-conflict plan has been laid out to date. Pakistan, a long-time U.S. ally that has positioned itself as an unlikely intermediary in the U.S.-Israel led campaign against Iran, has reportedly already gained Trump’s ear for its mediation efforts. China’s entry into the fray comes just weeks ahead of high-stakes trade talks between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Trump, placing Beijing directly in a role as a diplomatic counterweight to Washington in the region.

Zhu Yongbiao, director of the Centre for Afghanistan Studies at Lanzhou University and a leading Chinese expert on Middle East affairs, described Chinese backing for the initiative as “very important.” He noted that “Morally, politically and diplomatically, China is providing comprehensive support with the hope that Pakistan can play a more distinctive role” in de-escalating the conflict. This marks a notable shift for Beijing, which had maintained a relatively muted public response to the war since it began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in late February.

The joint peace plan took shape after Pakistan’s foreign minister traveled to Beijing to formally request Chinese backing for Pakistan’s negotiation efforts. Following the meeting, Chinese Foreign Ministry officials confirmed that the two countries were making “new efforts towards advocating for peace,” releasing a joint statement that reaffirmed dialogue and diplomacy as “the only viable option to resolve conflicts” and called for the protection of global key waterways including the blockaded Strait of Hormuz.

While energy security is a core consideration for Beijing, analysts note that the world’s largest crude importer currently holds enough strategic stockpiles to cover its domestic needs for the next several months. Instead, China’s decision to step into the mediation role is rooted in its broader pursuit of global economic stability, a priority that is closely tied to Beijing’s efforts to reboot its post-recovery sluggish domestic economy. A prolonged energy shock triggered by the conflict would drag down global growth, which would in turn hit Chinese factories and export-dependent sectors that are central to the country’s economic rebound.

Matt Pottinger, chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracy’s China Program, explained that “If the rest of the world begins to slow down economically because of an energy shock, that’s going to be tough for China’s factories and exporters. That’s why I think when I see China’s foreign minister just this week advising Iran that we need to find a way to end this war, I think there’s some sincerity there. I think that Beijing is a little bit worried about where this could lead if it turns into a real energy shock that is protracted.”

A prolonged crisis would send ripples through China’s sprawling industrial supply chain, from raw material inputs for plastic goods and synthetic textiles to critical components for consumer electronics, electric vehicles and semiconductors – sectors that are foundational to China’s export economy. In recent years, the Middle East has become one of China’s fastest growing export markets, with Chinese sales to the region growing nearly twice as fast as exports to the rest of the world in the last year. The region is the world’s fastest growing market for electric vehicles, and China is the largest foreign investor in regional desalination projects, with major Chinese state-owned energy and infrastructure firms operating across Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Iraq.

This deepening economic engagement has allowed China to build balanced diplomatic ties across the region, maintaining strong relationships with both U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia and geopolitical rivals of Washington such as Iran. China and Iran have maintained a close partnership spanning decades, with China serving as Iran’s largest trade partner and purchasing roughly 80% of Iran’s total oil exports.

This is not the first time Beijing has sought to play the role of peace broker in the Middle East, though previous efforts have yielded mixed results. In 2023, China famously brokered a landmark deal to restore diplomatic relations between longtime regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, a breakthrough that reduced the risk of open conflict between the two powers. A year later, Beijing hosted leaders from 14 competing Palestinian factions, including Fatah and Hamas, resulting in an agreement to form a national unity government for the Palestinian territories. While the agreement was largely an expression of intent rather than a binding final settlement, it further cemented China’s growing diplomatic profile in the region.

Unlike the United States, which maintains a heavy military presence across the Gulf region, China’s global engagement does not come with formal security guarantees or military alliances. For Beijing, economic development remains the top domestic and foreign policy priority, and Chinese leaders have long avoided direct entanglement in Middle East great power conflicts. This cautious approach also reflects practical limitations: China’s only overseas military logistics facility in the broader region is a small anti-piracy hub in Djibouti, opened in 2017, and it lacks the power projection capabilities that the U.S. maintains across the Gulf. During the 2025 Israel-Iran war, Beijing maintained a largely hands-off approach, highlighting the inherent limits of its regional influence.

To date, neither Washington nor Tehran has issued an official response to the new five-point peace plan. Analysts note that the initiative nonetheless allows Xi to position himself as a neutral broker and voice for de-escalation, a stark contrast to the Trump administration’s approach of military pressure. Still, Beijing’s credibility as a neutral global actor faces ongoing questions: its close strategic alignment with Russia has sparked widespread skepticism about its commitment to neutrality in regional conflicts, while its authoritarian governance model and expansionist territorial claims have drawn global criticism.

Despite these caveats, China remains a powerful global actor with clear strategic interests in regional stability, and it has already demonstrated that it can wield meaningful diplomatic influence in the Middle East. For Beijing, the current mediation effort marks another step in its long-term push to expand its geopolitical leverage across the region in the years ahead.

More than seven years after hundreds of thousands of Rohingya ethnic minorities fled genocidal violence at the hands of Myanmar’s military, the vulnerable refugee community trapped in overcrowded Bangladeshi camps faces a new crisis: reduced food assistance that aid leaders and residents warn will deepen hunger and push desperate people toward deadly risks.

Starting Wednesday, the United Nations World Food Program rolled out a new tiered assistance model for the 1.2 million Rohingya residing in the squalid Cox’s Bazar refugee settlements. Under the revised framework, monthly food aid allocations will be adjusted based on assessed household vulnerability. While one-third of the population classified as “extremely food insecure” — including child-headed households — will retain the current $12 per person monthly allocation, roughly 17% of refugees will see their aid cut to just $7 per month, with the remaining population receiving reductions between these two amounts, meaning two-thirds of the entire community will face smaller food assistance stipends.

For decades, the Rohingya, a stateless Muslim minority group in majority-Buddhist Myanmar, faced systemic discrimination. A 2017 widescale military crackdown that the United States has formally recognized as genocide pushed more than 700,000 additional Rohingya across the border into Bangladesh, where they are legally barred from holding formal employment. With no path to safe repatriation following the 2021 military coup that kept the same leadership responsible for the 2017 violence in power, the entire community remains almost entirely dependent on international humanitarian aid to meet basic needs. Even before the cuts, refugees repeatedly warned the existing $12 monthly stipend was barely enough to avoid hunger.

“It is very difficult to understand how we will survive now with only $7. Our children will suffer the most,” said Mohammed Rahim, a camp resident and father of three who was already struggling to feed his family before the reduction. “I am deeply concerned that people may face severe hunger and some may even die due to lack of food.”

The WFP has publicly linked the risk of aid reductions to sweeping 2024 funding cuts from the U.S. and other major donor nations that stripped the agency of one-third of its core budget. However, WFP spokesperson Kun Li rejected characterizing the new policy as a general “ration cut,” arguing the term only applies when assistance falls below the 2,100 daily calories per person that is the global emergency food aid minimum. The agency claims even refugees receiving the $7 monthly stipend will still meet this calorie threshold, framing the tiered model as a step to improve fairness, transparency, and equity by targeting more support to the most vulnerable.

That framing is rejected by Bangladeshi officials overseeing the refugee response. “But a ration cut is precisely what the change means for the Rohingya,” said Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, Bangladesh’s Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner. Rahman warned the cuts will push already desperate refugees to flee the camps in search of food and work, threatening to unravel law and order in the surrounding region. This is not an idle concern: past aid cuts have already driven a surge in harmful coping strategies, including child marriage, child labor, and kidnapping, as desperate families struggle to get by.

Funding shortfalls have plagued Rohingya support programs for years. In 2025, core Rohingya assistance programs were only half funded, and so far in 2026, just 19% of required funding has been secured. The WFP was already forced to slash rations to $8 per month in 2023 due to donation shortfalls. By November that year, the agency confirmed 90% of camp residents could not afford a nutritionally adequate diet, and 15% of children suffered from acute malnutrition — the highest rate ever recorded in the settlements. Rations were only restored to $12 per month in 2024.

Already, the cuts have sparked widespread outcry among the refugee community. Dozens of Rohingya held peaceful protests across the camps on Tuesday, demanding the reversal of the new policy and restoration of full rations. Many carried signs reading “Food is a right, not a choice” and warning that widespread starvation will follow the cuts.

For Rahim, the new $7 allocation brings impossible risks. The 40-year-old father lives with a chronic illness, and he cannot safely send his children outside the camps to work due to soaring rates of kidnapping, violence, and human trafficking. He said dozens of refugees he knows are already weighing deadly options that they would have otherwise rejected: returning to Myanmar to face persecution and violence, or undertaking dangerous, irregular sea journeys to Malaysia in overcrowded, unseaworthy fishing vessels. Hundreds of Rohingya die or disappear on these risky voyages every year.

“Ration cuts are pushing people toward life-threatening risks, leaving them with no safe choices,” Rahim said. “I am very worried about the future of our children.”

Against the backdrop of a escalating regional conflict that has roiled global energy markets since it began in late February 2025, China and Pakistan have jointly put forward a landmark five-point framework aimed at de-escalating tensions and bringing an end to the US-Israeli war on Iran. The proposal was made public this Tuesday, following high-level bilateral talks between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Pakistani counterpart Ishaq Dar in Beijing.

During the meeting, the two senior diplomats reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening strategic communication and coordinated action on the Iran crisis, pledging to continue pushing for a diplomatic resolution to the ongoing violence. This proposal marks the first time a major global power has laid out a clear, formal pathway to end the conflict that has upended stability across the Middle East.

China, the world’s second-largest economy, holds significant stakes in regional stability: it is the top importer of crude oil from both Iran and Saudi Arabia, and maintains deep strategic, military and diplomatic ties with Pakistan, which has long served as an informal mediator between Washington and Tehran. As regional intelligence outlet Middle East Eye first exclusively reported, China has supplied military support to Iran following the US-Israeli offensive launched in June 2025. In exchange for oil, Iran has replenished its air defense systems with Chinese-made missile batteries, and MENA region officials confirm Tehran has also acquired small quantities of offensive weaponry and unmanned aerial vehicles from China. One senior Arab diplomat told Middle East Eye that Tehran views Beijing as a critical guarantor for any future peace agreement reached with the United States.

The five-point proposal opens with a clear call for an immediate cessation of all hostilities across the Middle East, and the launch of inclusive peace negotiations without unnecessary delay. The joint statement stresses that China and Pakistan back all relevant parties entering talks with a commitment to resolving disputes through peaceful means, and obligate all sides to rule out the use or threat of force throughout the negotiation process.

The plan also demands an immediate halt to all attacks targeting civilian populations and non-military infrastructure, explicitly naming energy facilities, desalination plants, power grids, and peaceful nuclear infrastructure including operating nuclear power plants as sites that must be protected. To date, Israeli forces have carried out repeated strikes on Iranian gas fields, energy production facilities and industrial manufacturing hubs. US President Donald Trump has openly threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s entire energy grid in retaliation for Tehran’s seizure of control over the Strait of Hormuz, a threat that widely violates international norms, as large-scale attacks on an adversary’s critical energy infrastructure are generally recognized as war crimes. For its part, Iran has responded to Israeli strikes by launching thousands of missiles and drones against energy installations and civilian infrastructure across Israel and Arab Gulf states.

The widespread targeting of energy production infrastructure has already sent global oil and natural gas prices soaring to multi-year highs, while Iran’s new control over the Strait of Hormuz — one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints — has emerged as the central flashpoint of the conflict. Maritime sources who spoke to Middle East Eye confirm Iran has established a fully functional independent transit system for commercial vessels passing through the waterway, and Lloyd’s List, a leading global maritime intelligence publication, records that Iran has collected as much as $2 million in transit fees from commercial vessels in individual cases. On Tuesday, Iranian state media reported that the Iranian parliament formally approved legislation to formalize the collection of tolls from all commercial ships transiting the Strait.

Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), coastal states are prohibited from charging transit fees for foreign vessels passing through their territorial waters, though neither the United States nor Iran is a contracting party to the convention. Notably, China and Pakistan’s joint proposal explicitly rejects Iran’s push to monetize access to the strait. The joint statement emphasizes that “the Strait of Hormuz, together with its adjacent waters, is an important global shipping route for goods and energy,” and calls for the immediate restoration of unimpeded normal passage through the strategic waterway.

The final pillar of the five-point plan calls for the establishment of a comprehensive regional peace framework rooted in multilateral cooperation and upholding the primacy of the UN Charter in international relations. This proposal marks a significant step forward in international efforts to end the conflict that threatens to expand into a wider regional war and trigger a sustained global energy crisis.

A confidential draft report compiled by a United Nations panel of experts, obtained exclusively by Middle East Eye ahead of its official publication, has pulled back the curtain on extensive illicit activities linking the powerful Haftar family to transnational smuggling networks operating out of eastern Libya. The 288-page investigative document, set for public release on 9 April, connects senior leadership of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF) – led by veteran eastern commander Khalifa Haftar and his son Saddam Haftar – to a sprawling web of illegal activity, including unauthorized oil exports, unreported fuel smuggling, large-scale capital flight, coordinated criminal financial networks, and unauthorized arms transfers to Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Consistent with prior reporting from Middle East Eye, the report documents that Subul al-Salam, a Libyan militia formally aligned with Haftar’s LAAF, has acted as a key intermediary to move weapons and other contraband to the RSF. The Sudanese paramilitary group, which receives backing from the United Arab Emirates, faces widespread international accusations of perpetrating genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan amid the country’s ongoing civil conflict.

Beyond arms trafficking, the investigation uncovered a marked expansion of illicit fuel smuggling operations originating from the eastern Libyan port of Benghazi, with new smuggling infrastructure built out across both Benghazi and the major oil export hub of Ras Lanuf to facilitate the illegal trade. The report also details a surprising level of coordinated illicit business between the Haftar-aligned eastern Libyan administration and its main political rival, the internationally recognized Government of National Unity based in Tripoli, particularly in the country’s critical oil sector.

Libya’s economy is almost entirely reliant on hydrocarbon exports, with oil and gas revenue accounting for more than 90% of all state income. UN investigators found that armed factions connected to Saddam Haftar and Ibrahim Dbeibah – the national security adviser to Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who is also Dbeibah’s nephew – have systematically infiltrated and taken control of decision-making at every level of Libya’s state-run National Oil Corporation (NOC). The panel’s findings confirm that the NOC’s official budget has been misused as a front to divert public funds to networks tied to these armed groups, severely eroding the state oil firm’s institutional independence.

The report calculates that total recorded oil revenue for Libya in 2025 hit $18.78 billion – nearly $10 billion lower than the projected revenue that should have entered state coffers, with the missing sum largely traced to unreported and diverted illicit exports.

One of the report’s most damning findings centers on Arkenu, Libya’s first private oil company, which the UN panel concludes is indirectly controlled by Saddam Haftar through a network of proxies, most notably Rafat al-Abbar, a former deputy oil minister in the internationally recognized Tripoli-based government. Between October 2024 and February 2026, the investigation found Arkenu diverted more than $3 billion in earned oil revenue to offshore bank accounts outside Libyan state control. Just months after its founding in 2023, Arkenu exported roughly 7.6 million barrels of crude oil between May and December 2024, valued at an estimated $600 million, with a large share of that revenue never transferred to Libya’s Central Bank as required by law.

The UN panel emphasizes that the contractual agreement between Arkenu and the NOC violates core Libyan national laws: Arkenu failed to pay required taxes to the state and never fulfilled key contractual obligations. The report names both Abbar and Belqacem Shengeer, a former member of the NOC’s board of directors, as key operatives advancing Saddam Haftar’s interests in the oil sector. Abbar is described as playing an instrumental role in placing political pressure on NOC leadership at critical institutional levels to prioritize the financial interests of Saddam Haftar and his inner circle. The former deputy minister built a parallel shadow decision-making structure within the NOC by leveraging his close alliance with Haftar, who in turn relies heavily on Abbar to extend his influence and capture profits across the sector. Shengeer, for his part, is identified as the technical mastermind behind Arkenu’s creation; though he formally holds a position with the Tripoli-based NOC, he resides in Benghazi, the seat of Haftar’s eastern administration. To move its illicit crude exports, Arkenu has leveraged subsidiaries of major established energy traders including the United Arab Emirates’ BGN Energy, according to the report.

In addition to smuggling and corruption in the energy sector, the UN investigation documents other controversial international ties to the LAAF: the force has conducted formal military training exercises in Belarus, Pakistan’s chief of army staff personally presented advanced Eyes weapons systems to both Khalifa and Saddam Haftar, and a well-established permanent air bridge connects the UAE to territories under Haftar family control. The report explicitly confirms that the LAAF as an institution has been directly involved in coordinating cross-border overland fuel smuggling operations, using ports and logistics networks that fall under its full territorial control.

For Iranians, the nationwide anti-government protests that shook the country in January 2026 already feel like a distant, traumatic memory. What began as popular unrest has since been overshadowed by weeks of relentless cross-border strikes from the United States and Israel, and the growing threat of a full-scale ground invasion. But for many Iranians who witnessed the demonstrations firsthand, bizarre, unaccountable incidents that unfolded during the uprising continue to nag at their collective memory.

The protests first erupted at the turn of the year, sparked by soaring inflation that pushed already strained household budgets to breaking point. What started as localized anger over rising prices at Tehran’s Grand Bazaar quickly ballooned into a nationwide movement channeling broad public discontent with the Islamic Republic’s decades of rule. As the demonstrations gained momentum, senior foreign figures made extraordinary claims about their involvement: former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo openly noted that Mossad agents were marching alongside protesters, while Israel’s Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu publicly confirmed Israeli operatives were active on the ground inside Iran. In late March, The New York Times further revealed that Mossad’s director had briefed senior Israeli and U.S. officials ahead of the regional outbreak of war, asserting that his agents embedded within Iran were capable of triggering a new uprising and toppling the government from within.

Middle East Eye, the outlet reporting this investigation, has not been able to independently verify these claims. But a review of eyewitness testimony, official statements, and established patterns of Israeli covert activity inside Iran points to the strong possibility of some form of external meddling during the unrest. Mossad has maintained a network of operatives inside Iran for years, carrying out high-profile sabotage operations and targeted assassinations of nuclear scientists, military commanders, and even senior Palestinian political leaders including Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh. During the 12-day Israeli war on Iran in June 2026, Israeli intelligence also demonstrated its ability to infiltrate the highest ranks of Iran’s armed forces, with multiple agents operating openly on the ground. Since the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran launched on February 28, Iranian authorities say they have arrested at least 45 people across multiple cities, charging all detainees with espionage and collaboration with hostile foreign states.

After days of escalating unrest, Iranian security forces moved to crush the demonstrations with brute force on January 8. Official government figures put the total death toll at 3,117, including protesters, security personnel, and innocent bystanders. But opposition groups say the real number of fatalities is far higher: the U.S.-based human rights monitor HRANA estimates that at least 7,015 people were killed during the crackdown. Iran’s police, security services, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Basij paramilitary have a well-documented history of responding to popular protests with deadly violence, most infamously during the 2022 Mahsa Amini-led uprising. Even by that brutal standard, the death toll from January’s unrest is exceptionally high.

Iran’s ruling establishment has directly blamed Mossad-linked operatives for many of the civilian deaths that occurred during the unrest. Mehdi Kharatian, an unofficial security advisor closely aligned with Iran’s central leadership, drew a parallel to Israel’s widely condemned 2024 pager attack in Lebanon, when Israeli intelligence remotely detonated thousands of Hezbollah communication devices, killing 37 people and wounding more than 2,900. That coordinated attack served as the opening salvo of a devastating bombing and ground campaign against the Lebanese armed movement. Kharatian argued a similar strategic provocation was at play in Iran: “A shock had to come to Iran, like the Lebanese pager attack. Blood had to be shed in Iran to influence world public opinion and prepare the ground for a military attack.”

Multiple protest participants who spoke to MEE described incidents that had no precedent in past Iranian uprisings or government crackdowns. One eyewitness on the outskirts of Tehran reported encountering a group of non-local protesters blocking a major highway. The organizer of the blockade could not even give directions to a nearby residential side street, confirming he had no ties to the local area. Another protester who attended a January 8 demonstration in east Tehran described a small, coordinated group of masked protesters dressed all in black who led the crowd in chants—an organized “black bloc” tactic common in Western protests but virtually unknown in Iran. “They moved together, and when clashes with security forces began, they disappeared immediately,” the source recalled.

Witnesses also shared multiple accounts of unclaimed attacks on bystanders far from protest zones, carried out by unknown assailants using weapons not standard for Iranian security forces. One eyewitness, watching unrest from their rooftop in a northern Iranian city near the Caspian Sea, described seeing a street sweeper draw a concealed revolver and shoot two young girls who were walking through a residential alley far from the center of protests. A separate account from an IRGC source in Qazvin, 150 kilometers west of Tehran, documented the killing of a mother and her young son on a quiet street with no protest activity, shot with a weapon that did not match any issued to Iranian security, intelligence, or Basij units.

While there is no definitive confirmation of why foreign operatives would target random civilians, multiple public statements confirm that foreign powers openly signaled their on-the-ground presence before and during the protests. A Persian-language X account widely believed to be linked to Mossad posted on December 29: “Let us come out to the streets together. The time has come. We are with you. Not just from afar and in words. We are with you in the field as well.” Eliyahu echoed this days later, telling reporters, “I can assure you that our people are working there right now.” Pompeo went even further, posting on X: “Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them…”

Despite Iranian officials’ repeated claims of Mossad involvement in the violence, most protesters who spoke to MEE rejected these assertions. A veteran Tehran-based political science professor, who requested anonymity for his own safety, explained that deep public distrust of the ruling regime means even credible claims of foreign meddling fall on deaf ears. “We’re dealing with a society carrying a deep and painful wound of the protests and now the war,” he said. “The regime has taken the cycle of violence so far that even if such incidents were true, people wouldn’t believe it. At this point, anything the government says is automatically dismissed as a lie by a population that has been suppressed for too long.”

Having lived through every major wave of anti-establishment protest since 1999, the professor noted that the level of violence during the January crackdown is unlike anything the country has seen before. “When I was a student during the 1999 movement, we were calling for reform. But every wave of protest since then has been crushed with greater violence. We’ve reached a point where you can’t talk logic with young people who want nothing short of revenge.”