Ceuta mayor calls for migrant detention amid mass influx crisis

Ceuta’s leader has demanded the detention and expulsion of thousands of asylum seekers and undocumented migrants roaming the streets in the Spanish North African territory after last month’s mass crossing from Morocco.

“A space that acts as an internment centre for foreigners must be set up, where these people can be held and remain confined,” Ceuta’s Mayor-President Juan Jesus Vivas of the conservative Popular Party told reporters.

He said the measure “must be achieved urgently” so that the migrants “are not in our streets and that expulsion proceedings can be handled with greater speed and ease”.

Mass border breach

A surge of asylum seekers and migrants swam or used inflatable rafts to cross from Morocco to Ceuta at the end of July, sparking a debate about the external borders of the European Union and controversy between Spain and other EU members.

Spanish authorities on Monday updated the estimated number of irregular migrants who made the journey to 80,000.

The Spanish government says 70,000 migrants and asylum seekers returned to Morocco within two days.

But the thousands who remained, including hundreds of unaccompanied children who cannot be summarily deported under Spanish law, are struggling to access food, water, shelter and sanitation, putting a strain on Ceuta’s resources.

Their future has sparked a political battle between Spain’s leftist central government and regions governed by the main conservative Popular Party and far-right Vox, which oppose taking in unaccompanied children under existing legal provisions.

Ceuta Mayor Vivas estimates that between 8,000 and 11,000 migrants are still in the Spanish territory and says the situation is “unsustainable”. He disputes the government’s statistics that only 2,500 asylum seekers and undocumented migrants remain.

Police said that 5,000 Ceuta residents gathered to protest on Sunday over the handling of the migration crisis that they say has left the enclave unsafe.

The Spanish government minister responsible for relations with the regions, Angel Victor Torres, assured Ceuta’s population that police and troop numbers had been ramped up, including 40 percent more civil guards.

Europe braces for another heatwave after record-breaking temperatures

Many parts of Europe are bracing for another heatwave after record-breaking temperatures in June and July sparked wildfires, dried out rivers and contributed to thousands of deaths.

Parts of Britain and France on Monday were already under extreme heat warnings with forecasts of temperatures around the mid-30 degrees Celsius (mid-90 degrees Fahrenheit).

“We know the hot and dry weather is taking a real toll on farming and there will be long-lasting impacts on our environment,” said the British Environment Agency’s Director of Sustainable Business and Development Tony Grayling.

The British government has imposed irrigation restrictions on farmers and introduced a hosepipe ban in some regions, with more than 27 million people living under water-use restrictions as Britain prepares for its fifth consecutive heatwave this year.

Meanwhile in France, water-use restrictions have been applied on 70 percent of the country as drought conditions worsen amid successive heatwaves, the government said Monday.

Restrictions apply to activities such as watering gardens and green spaces, filling swimming pools, washing cars and irrigating crops.

Spain’s national weather agency AEMET said on Monday Spain recorded the joint-hottest July since records began in 1961, after scorching temperatures fuelled the country’s biggest wildfire in recent history.

Last month was also mainland Spain’s driest July on record as 4.3 millimetres of rain fell, which represented just 26 percent of the normal precipitation for the time of year.

The parched conditions are fuelling wildfires in Greece and Spain, including in Andalusia where firefighters are struggling to put out blazes.

Andalusia’s emergencies chief, Antonio Sanz, told reporters that extinguishing fires around the medieval town of Niebla was akin to a “long-distance obstacle race” and was expected to last several days.

Sanz said nearly 500 people have been evacuated from the area.

Meanwhile, the BDB association, an inland shipping group, warned that vessels will soon not be able to navigate parts of the Rhine river in Germany as water levels drop further due to soaring summer temperatures and low rainfall.

“With water levels this low, commercial shipping will no longer be able to transport goods in the region,” the group’s managing director Jens Schwanen told the Rheinische Post newspaper.

“In principle, this means the Rhine is no longer continuously navigable and thus divided in two.”

Europe is the fastest-warming continent on the planet due to climate change.Soaring temperatures are also forecast in Switzerland, Austria and Hungary.

Wildfires burn across Indonesia as officials cite El Nino as a cause

Close to 50,000 firefighters and disaster personnel, backed by dozens of helicopters, are battling wildfires in several parts of Indonesia after an unusually dry season in the sprawling archipelago.

Increased El Nino conditions have raised the risk of more forest and land fires during the peak dry season, said Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs, Djamari Chaniago, on Monday.

Authorities in East Java say the largest blaze is in Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park, where about 743 hectares (1,836 acres) of land have been scorched. The park is closed to visitors until further notice.

“This closure is a crucial step to ⁠⁠maintain the safety of visitors, staff and ⁠⁠people in the surrounding areas,” the park’s operator said on its Instagram page.

The fire has burned large areas of dry grassland, vegetation and protected Edelweiss flowers. Flames have spread to the Penanjakan area, a popular viewpoint for tourists visiting the volcanic landscape of Mount Bromo, one of Indonesia’s best-known attractions. No injuries or building evacuations have been reported.

Almost 6,000 firefighters have been deployed to battle wildfires in Jambi province. Officials said deep peat soil, limited water supplies, difficult access and strong winds have complicated efforts, even with help from three firefighting helicopters.

El Nino increases fire risk

Dry weather and strengthening El Nino conditions have raised the risk of fires during the peak dry season, according to Indonesia’s forestry ministry. Indonesia’s BMKG weather agency has warned that the 2026 dry season will be more intense and prolonged than usual, with a higher risk of wildfires and drought due in part to El Nino.

The naturally occurring climate phenomenon brings worldwide changes in winds, air pressure and rainfall patterns and typically causes drier conditions in India and Southeast Asia. The last El Nino helped make 2023 and 2024 the two hottest years on record globally.

Indonesia’s forestry ministry says more than 107,000 hectares of land caught fire nationwide between January and June this year – double the area burned in all of 2023. Indonesia’s meteorological agency warned that August and September are expected to be the most critical months for fire risk.

Weather-modification, or cloud-seeding, operations are considered one of the most effective ways to help firefighters combat wildfires by inducing rainfall through the dispersal of salt particles into suitable clouds.

However, the effort would be difficult to carry out because scientific monitoring “found no rain-bearing clouds suitable for weather-modification operations,” government minister Chaniago said.

With cloud-seeding ruled out because of unfavourable weather conditions, “we are relying solely on water bombing and ground firefighting teams,” said Forestry Minister, Raja Juli Antoni, while visiting Mount Bromo on Sunday. He urged the public to avoid activities that could spark new blazes, including discarding cigarette butts and clearing land by burning.

Wildfires have been reported in several of Indonesia’s most fire-prone regions, including 48,890 hectares of peatland ablaze in the provinces of Riau, Jambi and South Sumatra on Sumatra island, as well as Central Kalimantan and South Kalimantan on Borneo island. The emergency has forced regional authorities to deploy over 48,000 firefighters and disaster personnel, the National Disaster Management Agency said.

Turkiye approves pardon-like bill for thousands of PKK fighters

Turkish lawmakers have approved legislation offering a conditional pardon for thousands of members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a major step towards ending decades of deadly violence.

The text – which passed on Monday with a vote of 468 in favour and 88 against, with six abstentions – envisages a return to civilian life for some of the PKK fighters who lay down their weapons without granting a total amnesty.

The law is Turkiye‘s first legislative step towards ending the conflict and comes 18 months after Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK’s jailed founder, urged his followers to disarm.

The PKK, designated a “terrorist” organisation by Turkiye, the United States and the European Union, launched its rebellion in 1984. The conflict has killed more than 40,000 people, imposed a heavy economic burden on mainly Kurdish southeast Turkiye, and fuelled decades of political and social division.

Backed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the pro-Kurdish DEM Party, the bill suspends prosecutions and prison sentences for some offences for between five and 10 years.

The move is expected to involve the release of around 3,500 PKK-linked detainees in an initial phase, lawmakers said – around a third of the number held in Turkish prisons.

Trump says relationship is good even as Netanyahu rejects Gaza peace plan

United States President Donald Trump has briefly commented on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s outright rejection of the 15-point peace plan for Gaza drafted by the US-led Board of Peace.

Trump insisted on Monday that his relationship with Netanyahu is “very good” despite Netanyahu’s dismissal.

“The relationship is very good,” Trump said in response to a shouted question from a journalist at the end of an Oval Office event at the White House in Washington.

After more than a week of gradually escalating criticism, Netanyahu explicitly stated on Sunday that he opposed the Gaza plan, which called for Israel to begin pulling back forces in tandem with disarmament by Hamas.

Polls show that the Gaza plan is unpopular with Netanyahu’s right-wing base, and far-right members of his cabinet had urged him to kill it.

Trump late last month announced a breakthrough in the US-led ceasefire framework, saying that Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza had accepted a phased plan under which they would surrender their weapons to a new Palestinian governing body, and Israel would begin pulling out troops in tandem with disarmament to end the Israel-Palestine conflict that began in October 2023.

When the blueprint was first released by the Board of Peace on July 31, Netanyahu kept quiet for days, only later acknowledging that the Trump administration had “sent us a draft”, and that he did not agree with it. But Sunday was the first time that the Israeli prime minister formally asserted his refusal to endorse it.

The Israeli army “will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is genuinely disarmed … and will continue to thwart threats against our forces and our citizens”, Netanyahu said on Sunday, adding that Israel is “talking to the Americans about this issue”, further vowing that “no Palestinian state will arise as long as I am prime minister”.

Netanyahu’s comments signal a growing public policy rift between the US and Israel over Tel Aviv’s hard-power strategy. Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane said that Netanyahu is playing a “very dangerous game” with Trump. Israel is growing increasingly unpopular in the US, with the Democratic Party “very much sliding towards the Palestinian cause”, said Culhane.

On Monday, a Board of Peace official said the Gaza plan is still operative.

“The process is based on implementation and verification on the ground,” the official told Reuters. “Discussions with Israel are continuing, and the framework is designed so that each stage only moves forward once the required commitments have been met. The roadmap is between the Board of Peace and Hamas and discussions with Israel are continuing. Israel is not being asked to rely on trust or to make irreversible moves before verified steps are taken on the ground.”

Al Jazeera reached out to the White House and US Department of State for comment on Netanyahu’s remarks, but has received no response at the time of this writing.

US appeals court says social media addiction lawsuits can proceed

A federal appeals court in the United States has permitted thousands of lawsuits to move forward against Meta, Google, TikTok, Snapchat and other social media companies for allegedly designing addictive products that harm children, rejecting the companies’ initial bids to stop litigation before trial.

The San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the appeal came too early – most appeals are only filed after a case concludes with a ruling or verdict. The companies had argued that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which generally shields online platforms from liability over user-generated and user-posted content, also protected them from claims that they failed to warn the public about the addictive design of their platforms.

The court disagreed, finding that Section 230 offers a defence to liability rather than blanket immunity from being sued, rendering the appeal premature.

The panel also denied Meta’s request to delay the trial set to begin on Wednesday, brought by 29 state attorneys general who allege the company illegally collected and used children’s data, and engineered its platforms to keep young users hooked, ultimately misleading the public about their safety.

The ruling comes as several countries are penalising social media platforms’ allegedly harmful design that can directly impact children’s and teenagers’ health, including self-harm and eating disorders, according to The Guardian. France plans to ban under-15s from social media sites and prohibit mobile phones in high schools from next month. Australia has also imposed a ban and Britain plans one next year.

The legal moves reflect rising public concern over online harms to minors. President Emmanuel Macron has pointed to social media as a factor in youth violence and has signalled he wants France to follow Australia’s world-first ban on social media for children under 16. The law obliges major social media platforms to block under-16s, with companies that fail to comply facing penalties of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars ($35 million).

In late May, Britain’s then Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, vowed to take “decisive” action to tackle the impact of social media on British youngsters. That was after families, who insist their children died as a result of social media, and campaigners rallied outside Downing Street to hold tech giants accountable.

The US lawsuits, filed by states, municipalities, school districts and individual families, allege that the companies knowingly built addictive products that have fuelled the surge in depression, anxiety and broader youth mental health crises. The cases are centralised before US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, where plaintiffs are seeking damages, penalties and restitution.

A jury in Los Angeles has already found Meta and Google negligent in the first such case to reach trial, awarding $6m to a 20-year-old woman who said she became addicted to Instagram and YouTube as a child, according to Reuters.

Meta separately lost both phases of a New Mexico lawsuit, with a jury ordering $375m in damages over misleading safety claims and a judge later imposing an additional $567m penalty after finding the company had created a public nuisance.

Meta and Google have denied wrongdoing and said they plan to appeal.

Russia bars only party opposing war in Ukraine from parliamentary vote

Russia‘s Supreme Court has barred the only officially registered party opposing Moscow’s war in Ukraine from running in next month’s parliamentary elections.

The court upheld a suit on Monday brought by the small pro-Kremlin nationalist party Rodina to annul the registration of Yabloko, stripping voters of the chance to express their discontent with the four-and-a-half-year conflict at the ballot box.

Last month, the Central Election Commission had initially allowed Yabloko on the ballot along with 10 other parties.

“The claims seeking to annul the registration of the federal list of candidates for the State Duma of the ninth convocation, nominated by the Yabloko political party, were granted,” Judge Vyacheslav Kirillov said.

Rodina alleged that Yabloko had received undeclared campaign support, including from Western sources, among other accusations.

During a day-long hearing, Yabloko leader Nikolai Rybakov said there was no evidence to support the allegations and described the case as an unconstitutional attack on freedom of thought by political opponents seeking to clear the field of rivals.

About 100 supporters, mostly young people, gathered outside the courthouse as police stood by, chanting “Shame! Shame!” after the ruling was delivered. Some carried apples to display their affiliation with Yabloko, which means “apple” in Russian.

Addressing them after the hearing, Rybakov said the party would appeal the decision.

“We have a long way ahead, and we have a big and important task: to stop deaths and bring the peace back,” he said. “Everything we do should be dedicated to that.”

With most of President Vladimir Putin’s opponents jailed, exiled or dead, Yabloko is the only liberal party still operating in Russia.

The party has received the backing of several exiled opposition figures, including Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of the late opposition leader Alexey Navalny. Both are listed as “extremists” in Russia.

A poll conducted earlier this year showed Yabloko at just three percent support – short of the five-percent threshold needed to enter Russia’s lower house.

With the Kremlin tightening its control over elections, Yabloko has failed to win seats in the State Duma since 2003.

Since then, every parliamentary vote has been won by the ruling United Russia party, which backs Putin.

Efforts to end the Ukraine war through diplomacy have so far failed, with Putin pushing hardline territorial demands to end the fighting and ruling out talks with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Independent polls show most Russians favour peace negotiations with Kyiv.


Trump administration has revoked over 175,000 visas: US State Department

The US State Department has revoked more than 175,000 visas from foreign nationals under President Donald Trump, as it continues a sweeping immigration crackdown that has stripped travel and immigration privileges from tens of thousands more people.

Most of the visa revocations stemmed from law-enforcement encounters involving criminal activity, alongside visa violations, fraud, calls for violence and other threats to national security, according to a fact sheet released by the department on Monday.

The extent of the revocations reflects the broad immigration crackdown initiated when Trump returned to the White House last year, deporting an unprecedented number of migrants including some who held valid visas.

“The revocations come as a result of the State Department’s continuous vetting operations, which ensure that visa recipients abide by the terms of their visa and do not endanger Americans,” the department said.

Assault, driving under the influence, theft and drug offences were among the leading reasons for the cancellations.


Specific cases cited by the department included a person charged with felony rape and sexual battery, another charged with kidnapping and human trafficking, and a person facing more than a dozen counts of possessing child sexual abuse material.

A US embassy in North Africa revoked more than 100 visas from “birth tourist” parents who allegedly came to the United States primarily to give birth so their children would receive US citizenship, it said.

Some of the revocations involved “foreign nationals who celebrated the assassination of Charlie Kirk, including one who stated ‘when fascists die, democrats don’t complain’ and another who said he ‘died too late’,” the statement said. Kirk was a popular conservative activist who was assassinated last year.

The department said the Trump administration would continue identifying and investigating foreign nationals who it believes threaten US safety or national security.

“A US visa is a privilege, not a right,” the State Department said, adding that it would continue using available authorities to revoke visas from people who abuse that privilege.

In January, the department said it had revoked more than 100,000 visas, a record at the time.

The administration has also adopted a stricter policy on granting visas, with tightened social media vetting and expanded screening.

Rights advocates and human rights experts have condemned the Trump administration’s social media screening efforts, which they say threaten free speech and are akin to surveillance and singling out of immigrants.


Lebanon ‘files new lawsuit against’ ex-central bank chief Riad Salameh

Lebanon has indicted ⁠former central bank Governor Riad Salameh and a former commercial banker over accusations of financial crimes, including embezzlement and illicit enrichment.

A judge accused Salameh and Samir Hanna, the former head of Lebanon’s Bank Audi, of embezzling tens of millions in funds ‌from the Banque du Liban or Lebanese central bank, the Reuters and AFP news agencies reported on Monday, citing judicial sources.

Salameh, who headed the central bank for three decades, has already been indicted and arrested in Lebanon over other alleged financial crimes committed during his tenure. He has denied any wrongdoing, insisting he is being made a “scapegoat” for the country’s economic crisis.

This is the first time a commercial banker has been indicted in a financial crimes case related to Salameh, showing that Lebanese investigations into the former governor are expanding to the private sector, the source told Reuters.

The source added that the file includes accusations that Hanna bribed Salameh while he was central bank governor.


Salameh, 76, headed the central bank from 1993 to July 2023. He was placed in custody last month after missing a hearing over the case, ⁠but is currently under medical supervision at a government hospital outside Lebanon’s capital, Beirut.

Hanna, 88, paid a $1m bail and is not in custody as financial investigations continue, according to the reports.

In January, Lebanon’s current central ⁠bank governor Karim Souaid told reporters that the central bank had filed a criminal complaint against an unnamed former official of the central bank, ⁠a former banker and a lawyer over alleged illicit enrichment ⁠through misuse of public funds. He said the operations were carried out through four offshore shell companies in the Cayman Islands that he did not name.

Salameh was detained for about 13 months over alleged ‌financial crimes ‌committed during his tenure, but was released in September after paying a record bail of more than $14m.

He also faces investigations abroad, including in France, Switzerland and Germany.

Iran hierarchy consolidation as IRGC veteran tapped for key security role

Tehran, Iran – The office of Iran’s ⁠⁠Supreme ⁠⁠Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has announced a series of new appointments in key positions, including the naming of a former wartime commander and longtime political insider to helm the country’s top security body.

Mohsen Rezaee, who was commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for 16 years, including during years of war with Iraq in the 1980s, was named secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and Khamenei’s representative in the top decision-making body on Sunday.

Six new military positions were also officially filled on Monday, with Ali Abdollahi, head of Iran’s joint war command, appointed as the new chief of staff of the armed forces and Ali Ozmaei named as the head of the IRGC Navy. Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi was also confirmed as commander-in-chief of the IRGC “with the rank of major general”, officially succeeding Mohammad Pakpour, who was killed during the opening salvo of the US-Israel war on Iran in late Feburary.

Sina Azodi, assistant professor of Middle East Politics at the George Washington University, said the appointments signalled no softening in negotiations with the United States.

“There is little question that Khamenei, Vahidi and the IRGC leadership all share the view that continued resistance to the US is strategically necessary,” Azodi told Al Jazeera.

He said Rezaee brings deep institutional experience and considerable authority among both senior IRGC commanders and the rank-and-file. “His appointment therefore appears intended to strengthen internal cohesion, reinforce the leadership’s control over the organisation, and draw on the experience of a figure who helped shape the IRGC into the military and political institution it is today,” added Azodi.


Rezaee used to be the secretary of the Expediency Council, another top state arbitration body, as he increasingly turned to politics and macroeconomics after the end of the grinding Iraq war that left hundreds of thousands killed.

The 71-year-old also helped develop a long-term national development plan and was given high-level economic coordination authorities during the Ebrahim Raisi presidency between 2021 and 2024. But he has never held elected office, having run for president unsuccessfully four times.

Rezaee made a comeback in military uniform during the ongoing conflict, becoming military adviser to the supreme leader just over a week after Mojtaba Khamenei replaced his assassinated father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on the first day of the war. Since then, he has projected a message of defiance and resilience to the US, Israel and regional actors during interviews with media and posts online.

Rezaee also expressed opposition to the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with the US in June, which temporarily lifted a naval blockade and suspended oil sanctions to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. He argued that his position was closer to that of Mojtaba Khamenei, who ended up approving the MoU despite stated reservations.

“I ask friends who are against negotiations to wait, the Americans will destroy it themselves and won’t let it lead to any results,” he said in early July, shortly before the agreement ended up being suspended following the resumption of attacks.

Last week, he said the US must change its behaviour, or face serious risks and casualties to its forces. Iran “will never permit the opening of a second corridor in the Strait of Hormuz”, he said.

State-linked outlets said 12 out of 13 voting members of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council were in favour of the MoU, with ultraconservative Saeed Jalili standing as the only opposing member. But a number of hardline MPs, media and supporters of the Islamic Republic blasted the agreement as they believe the strait should not have been allowed to reopen until the US gives more concessions.


The SNSC brings together Iran’s presidency, foreign ministry, armed forces and security and intelligence organisations, and also coordinates communication with the office of the supreme leader, which has to give final approval on decisions.

Local media had reported in recent days that Rezaee might soon be assuming the top security position, with some saying President Masoud Pezeshkian was resisting the appointment by initially rejecting a resignation from former security chief Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr.

Zolghadr – himself among the IRGC old guard and a relatively hardline but pragmatic figure, although with less seniority and political connections compared to Rezaee – was eventually replaced. But he was immediately appointed as political adviser to Khamenei, who has himself not been seen or heard from publicly since the start of the war.

An official with the IRGC’s Basij paramilitary organisation said this week that state media will soon release new pictures from the supreme leader taken after the war to disprove claims by the US and Israel that he may have been badly wounded in the same February 28 strikes that killed his father and other top commanders.

The state-linked Mehr news service this week recirculated old and undated video from Khamenei, showing him speaking to a handful of clerics and followers during a meeting.

Pezeshkian also said on Monday that he recently had a seven-hour meeting with Khamenei when the supreme leader emphasised “unity”.

Change with ‘strategic’ implications

According to an editorial by Nournews, an outlet affiliated with the national security council, Rezaee’s appointment signalled the beginning of a broader “strategic restructuring” suited to Iran’s new wartime circumstances.

It rejected the notion that Zolghadr was removed for failure or dissatisfaction or that the government opposed the appointment, adding that Rezaee could better integrate military, diplomatic, economic and energy policy to overcome “siloed management”.

“The central issue is not one secretary’s departure and another’s arrival, but how consequential the steps taken by the SNSC secretariat in this new phase will be,” Nournews said.


Analysts have noted that Zolghadr was close to Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker and chief negotiator in talks with the US, so his replacement could also be an attempt to tame Ghalibaf’s growing influence.

But Ghalibaf was among senior officials who released congratulatory messages on Monday for Rezaee – as did Vahidi and newly reappointed judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei.

Vahidi, among the most powerful people in Iran at the moment, said Rezaee’s presence in the council can “advance a strategic coordination between the field of battle and diplomacy, as well as economic and political security with an approach of resistance and hope-inducing governance”.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also congratulated Rezaee but said it was important to note the significance of institutions in the Islamic Republic.

“The whole world has clearly seen over the past year-and-a-half that our country is a country of institutions, not individuals. This was exactly the secret of the longevity and victory of the Islamic Republic in these challenging conditions,” spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told reporters during a news conference on Monday.

Reactions to the appointment

Israel reacted harshly to the appointment, pointing out that Rezaee – along with Vahidi – is subject to an Interpol Red Notice for his alleged role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish centre in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people.

“The Iranian regime worships terror, rewards its architects and promotes them to the highest levels of power,” Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

After the appointment, some Iranian users online remembered a number of Rezaee’s controversial comments that made headlines over the years.

In one such comment in July 2015, months before Iran signed a landmark accord with world powers that lifted sanctions in exchange for nuclear curbs, Rezaee suggested readiness for a US ground assault on Iranian soil.

“If the Americans want to look at Iran with ill intent or think about a military attack, they can be sure that in the very first week we will capture at least 1,000 Americans as prisoners,” he told state television. “Then, to free each of them, they will have to pay a few billion dollars, which could resolve many of our economic problems.”

Shortly after the announcement of the appointment, state television aired a historical segment accompanied with footage from Rezaee during the Iraq war, which described him as a commander with a “strong military logic”.

A number of hardliners in Tehran also appeared pleased with the change at the security council as a hardline figure, unafraid of military confrontation, was taking charge, with some using it to attack Pezeshkian’s pro-deal government.

“After it emerged that the supreme leader selected Mohsen Rezaee as his representative in the council, the other thing that became clear was that Pezeshkian had for long been standing up to the leader on changing Zolghadr with Rezaee,” said hardline MP Amirhossein Sabeti, affiliated with Jalili’s Paydari Front.