US strike against Iran halted at last minute following message from Iranian foreign minister

A message sent by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, was one of the factors that halted an American military action against Iran, according to a report published this Sunday night by The Washington Post.

After receiving Araghchi’s text message last Wednesday, Witkoff informed Trump that Iran had canceled a planned execution of approximately 800 people. The report said the message was sent after Tehran realized that the United States was moving military assets and preparing for a strike.

According to a person close to the U.S. administration, the message helped calm the situation to some extent. Shortly after Trump learned of it, he told reporters that he had been informed that the killing in Iran would stop.

In addition, according to The Washington Post, Trump’s decision to suspend the strike was made following a combination of factors: a phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, mediation efforts and pressure from diplomats from Gulf states, and concern for the safety of some 30,000 American troops deployed in the region.

The report also cited a source close to the White House who said that in a conversation Netanyahu held with Trump on Wednesday, the prime minister asked the U.S. president not to carry out an attack because Israel was not yet ready to defend itself. Another American official said the two discussed the issue twice.

However, the article noted that a strike on Iran has not been taken off the table. U.S. Central Command has been instructed to remain on high alert over the coming month, as American assets continue to move into the region. Officials told the newspaper that President Trump would have another opportunity to authorize strikes against Iran in the coming weeks, once U.S. military assets arrive in the area.

Iranian medical institutions estimate: At least 16,500 protesters killed

A report written by medical institutions in Iran and obtained by The Sunday Times estimates that at least 16,500 people were killed in the suppression of protests in Iran. The report further estimates that 330,000 protesters were wounded.

According to the assessments on which the report is based, most of the victims were under the age of 30. It also states that tens of thousands of Iranians do not know what happened to loved ones who went out to protest. The doctors who authored the report communicated via Starlink with an Iranian exile, who said the doctors were shocked by the scenes they witnessed. One of them described the events as “a genocide under the cover of a digital blackout.”

One of the testimonies cited in the article is that of a couple from Isfahan who searched for days for their daughter after she failed to return home from the protests. When they learned she had been killed, they traveled five hours only to discover that her body had been dumped in an old grave. An officer at the scene told them they had “ten minutes to cry,” and they were required to pay a sum equivalent to about NIS 540 ($172).