Türkiye announces the death of a soldier in a shooting on the border with Iran

The Turkish Ministry of Defense announced on Thursday that a soldier was killed on the border with Iran on October 31 as a result of gunfire from the Iranian side, and that Tehran had opened a judicial and administrative investigation into the incident, according to Reuters.

The ministry added in a weekly press briefing that the soldier was killed while trying to intervene to prevent an illegal crossing of the border.

She stated that officials from Türkiye and Iran met at the scene of the incident on Tuesday, and that Ankara was working in coordination with the Iranian authorities to uncover all the circumstances of the incident.

Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei stated that the change of parties in the United States “will not change the hostility” of this country towards Iran. Khamenei said yesterday, commenting on the results of the US midterm elections, that those who hope that “partisan changes” will change US hostility towards Iran are “deeply mistaken.” He warned that the confrontation “will take on much broader dimensions if the attacks are repeated.” He spoke about the “unity of the resistance arenas” from Palestine and Lebanon to Iraq and Yemen.

Senior officials in Iran welcomed the results of the midterm elections, and considered them an American rejection of the war and a defeat for Trump, while Tehran remains on high alert in anticipation of renewed war.

Parliament Speaker Muhammad Baqir Qalibaf said that the Americans said “no to war.”

Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that “there are serious suspicions” of foreign interference in the elections, after the results became official, and President Isaac Herzog began his consultations to assign a candidate to form a government.

Netanyahu added, in a video clip in which he appeared in front of an Israeli flag and the “Prime Minister’s Office” logo, that “there are serious suspicions that foreign countries spent huge sums of money to influence the election results in Israel,” according to what was reported by Agence France-Presse.

The Israeli Elections Commission announced on Wednesday that its audit of the vote conducted last week did not show any violations affecting the integrity of the vote, despite pressure from Netanyahu’s team.

The committee said in a statement: “The audit has been completed. We reviewed all the complaints submitted by the political forces, and we found no indication of any violation of the integrity of the elections.”

In recent days, Netanyahu and his Likud party have repeatedly accused Arab parties in Israel of fraud, after they won a record number of seats in the October 27 vote, which contributed to depriving the prime minister of a majority.

These pressures prompted the Israeli government's judicial advisor, Gali Beharav-Meara, to intervene, on Tuesday evening, in an unusual step, as she demanded the head of the Internal Security Service (Shin Bet), David Zinni, who is close to Netanyahu, to provide any evidence he has to support the forgery accusations.

The Israeli Elections Commission explained, in a statement, that it studied all the appeals submitted by parties or individuals, and examined more than 9,000 ballot boxes, which is an “unprecedented number.”

Thus, the committee announced the conclusion of its audit ahead of consultations conducted by President Herzog to choose the candidate he deems most capable of forming the next government.

It is expected that the consultations will be long and difficult, as neither bloc obtained an absolute majority of 61 seats in the Knesset. Netanyahu's team won 53 seats, while the main opposition bloc, led by centrist politician Gadi Eisenkot, won 48 seats.