TEHRAN: Iranian authorities have arrested a prominent lawyer and human rights defender as she attended the funeral of a teenage girl who died after a disputed metro incident, her husband said Monday.
The arrest of 60-year-old Nasrin Sotoudeh took place Sunday in Tehran during the funeral of 17-year-old Armita Garawand, who died a day earlier after nearly a month in intensive care.
Sotoudeh, who was awarded the European Parliament’s 2012 Sakharov prize for her human rights work, has been arrested several times in recent years.

IRBIL, IRAQI KURDISTAN: With its coffers swelled by high oil prices and its politicians laying enmities aside, Iraq looked all set to enjoy a period of stability not seen in decades. However, the Israel-Hamas war that erupted in early October could undo this modest progress, especially if it inflames the sensitive regional situation and escalates into a wider conflict.

GAZA CITY: Gaza medical chiefs are turning to volunteers to help run an emergency service buckling under Israel’s offensive as ambulances struggle to reach bomb sites past rubble-strewn roads and with ever-depleting supplies of fuel.

Medical and emergency staff have worked with little rest and are deployed in the most dangerous areas, witnessing the horror of violent death, terrible injuries, and grief.

GAZA CITY: A breakdown in civil order has put four UN aid distribution centers and a storage facility out of action in Gaza as people search desperately for food and water, a UN Palestinian refugee agency official said on Monday.

Tom White, director of UNWRA Affairs in Gaza, also said that a logistics base at the Rafah border crossing vital to aid distribution had become increasingly difficult because 8,000 people were sheltering at it.

JEDDAH: Tanks rumbled into Gaza City on Monday for the first time since Israel launched its bombardment of the besieged Palestinian enclave more than three weeks ago.