Iran protests: Wanted leader in hiding from regime says ‘people have become more daring’
Kawa adjusts his baseball cap and sips some hot tea.
He is a slight, softly spoken young man with few distinguishing features.
His friends roar with laughter when he asks us not to show his ears on camera. It’s a moment of levity, but Kawa is deadly serious.
As one of Iran’s protest leaders, he is a wanted man, and the threat of imprisonment and torture hangs over him.
“At night, I’m always ready to flee if they raid our house. I have prepared everything.”
We are in a safe house over the border in northern Iraq. He’s briefly left Iran but is still taking no risks – Iranian agents operate here.
“You sense the fear and terror in society,” he admits, but adds “morale is very high”.
“We are waiting and looking for a window to come back to the street. Anything small that happens would bring people back to the street.”
More than 500 people are estimated to have been killed since nationwide protests broke out in September, over the death of a young woman in police custody who was arrested for wearing her hijab “incorrectly”.
Kawa thinks Iranian society is hardening against the regime. He tells me a story about one night when the feared Basij paramilitary forces fired on a mosque as they were readying bodies for burial.
The Basij fire on a mosque in Iran
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“People had gone to the hospitals so the corpses would not be taken by the regime. They [the protesters] brought a body to wash it and bury it,” he says.
“At that moment the regime fired on the mosque.
“People gathered in the mosque and the regime fired from the roof and several people were wounded. They fired on people with AK47s, firing round after round.
“There were women and children with us, and I did not see anyone with us wearing military fatigues. The way they shot at us was like they were attacking an armed group, but we were civilians.”
‘More violence ahead’
Kawa also believes there will be more violence in the coming months as the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution approaches.
Sky News has been sent footage of protesters peppered with hundreds of pellets embedded in their skin. It is proof that the Iranian regime is using shotguns against the demonstrators.
We also have video of doctors working to save these patients in secret makeshift clinics in private apartments – if the protesters go for treatment in hospital they will immediately identify themselves to the regime.
The doctors are taking huge risks too, smuggling medicine and supplies out of hospitals to help the protesters.
Protests in Tehran in September last year
It’s proof of an extensive underground network – the anti-government feeling is deeper than street level.
“The doctors’ help… is of critical importance to the wounded protesters,” an activist inside Iran told Sky News.
“If these secret medical teams were not available, most of the wounded would most likely die because infections would spread to their bodies from their injuries.
“Some, whose medical situations were not good, had to have their hands or arms amputated.”
‘People have become more daring’
Kawa will go back to Iran to continue organising the uprising. I ask him how he feels at that prospect.
“I feel it is my responsibility to go back and resume my activity until my people are free,” he says.
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“I see victory in the fact that people have become united, they have one objective and they are closer to each other.
“People have become more daring and towards the end of the Islamic republic.
“I want the Islamic republic to disappear and for our people to be freed.”
Israel will call up 60,000 reservists as it prepares to launch an expanded military operation in Gaza City.
The military said the country’s defence minister Israel Katz has approved plans to begin a new phase of operations in some of the most densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces will operate in areas of Gaza City where they have not yet operated and where it believes Hamas is still active, a military official said.
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Israel must have ‘security control’ to end Gaza war, Netanyahu says
The city is the main military and governing stronghold of Hamas and Israeli troops will target the group’s vast underground network, the official added.
Although Israel has targeted and killed much of Hamas’ senior leadership, parts of the group are actively regrouping and carrying out attacks, including launching rockets towards Israel, the official said.
It remains unclear when the operation will begin, but it could be a matter of days.
Palestinians at the site of a house struck by Israel in Gaza City. Pic: Reuters
The official said 60,000 reservists will be called up in the coming month and the service of an additional 20,000 reservists currently serving will be lengthened.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the objectives of the war are to secure the release of the remaining hostages and destroy Hamas.
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Gaza hospitals ‘overwhelmed with malnutrition cases’
International criticism of Israel increased after the planned offensive was announced earlier this month amid fears of another mass displacement of Palestinians.
The families of the hostages and former army and intelligence chiefs oppose an expanded operation in Gaza City, with most of the families of hostages wanting an immediate ceasefire.
They worry an expanded assault could threaten prospects of bringing the 50 remaining hostages home. Israel believes 20 of those are still alive.
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Parachutes drop aid supplies in Gaza. Pic: AP
Palestinians rush to collect airdropped humanitarian aid packages. Pic: AP
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people and abducting 251.
Many of the hostages have been released in ceasefires and other deals, with Hamas saying it will only free the remainder in exchange of a lasting ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal.
More than 62,000 people have been killed during Israel’s 22-month counteroffensive, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says women and children make up around half of those killed.
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Earlier this week, the ministry said 154 adults had died of malnutrition-related causes since the ministry began counting such deaths in late June, and 112 children have died of malnutrition-related causes since the war began.
Thousands have fled parts of Gaza City in recent days amid airstrikes and advancing Israeli troops, new satellite imagery shows.
Israel’s advance comes as it prepares to mount a full-scale invasion of the city, where the UN says around one million Palestinians are sheltering.
Satellite imagery shows that entire tent camps in southeast Gaza City were emptied between 9 and 17 August as families fled the renewed attacks.
The video below shows the moment of an airstrike in southeastern Gaza City on 13 August. Sky News geolocated the footage to a building less than 200 metres from a major tent camp.
Another video, taken on 15 August, shows a strike on a building right next to the camp.
By the following day, almost all the camp’s residents had fled, along with people sheltering at 30 other locations in the area.
Fresh vehicle tracks in the area indicate extensive troop movements on the ground.
The satellite image below, taken on 17 August, shows at least nine military vehicles in the streets surrounding one former tent camp.
Sky News counted 58 military vehicles in the area on 17 August, including 17 bulldozers.
The image below shows four IDF vehicles, including a bulldozer, parked next to the remains of one tent camp. Several nearby buildings had been levelled in the days beforehand.
Between 9 and 17 August, at least 132 buildings were destroyed in less than one square kilometre of the city.
It’s unclear how much of the destruction was carried out by IDF bulldozers and how much was a result of airstrikes.
On Monday, eyewitnesses reported that Israeli tanks had made further advances into eastern Gaza City.
The advances came as Hamas said it had approved a ceasefire deal presented by mediators Egypt and Qatar. Israel has yet to respond to the proposal.
Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed his country’s military to prepare for a full-scale invasion and occupation of the city in order to “free Gaza from Hamas”.
The UN has said that the invasion risks “catastrophic consequences” for the estimated one million Palestinians sheltering in the city, while UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the plan would “only bring more bloodshed”.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
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