On Thursday, 13 non-governmental organizations called on French representatives to pass a draft law banning products from Israeli settlements established in the occupied West Bank.
The text, which has the support of more than a hundred representatives belonging to eight parliamentary blocs, and was approved by the relevant committee, will be discussed in a plenary session scheduled for November 19.
The text specifically notes the ban on importing, buying or selling products originating from Israeli settlements established in the West Bank.
In their statement, the organizations, including the French branch of Amnesty International, Oxfam France and the League for Human Rights, called on the government to explicitly support the text, following statements made by Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot two months ago in which he confirmed that France intends to ban such commercial dealings.
Oxfam France Director General Cécile Duflo said: “Trade with settlements hides a humanitarian reality that cannot be ignored, which is the lives of Palestinians, which are gradually being strangled by occupation and settlement.”
For her part, the head of the Human Rights League said: “The representatives face an easy choice: either with international law or against it.”
The non-governmental organizations call on the executive authority to give directions to the parliamentary majority to vote in favor of the text, expressing their regret that diplomatic recognition of the State of Palestine has not been accompanied by any concrete measures.
With the exception of East Jerusalem, about three million Palestinians live in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, in addition to more than 500,000 Israelis residing in settlements that are illegal in the eyes of international law.
Violence escalated in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967, coinciding with the war in the Gaza Strip that broke out on October 7, 2023. Settler violence against Palestinians has also witnessed an escalation in recent months, after its perpetrators remained largely immune from legal prosecution by the Israeli authorities for years.
At least 1,116 Palestinians in the West Bank, including a number of militants, have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers since the outbreak of the Gaza war, according to Palestinian Authority data.
On the other hand, official Israeli data show that at least 51 Israelis, both civilians and soldiers, were killed in attacks carried out by Palestinians or during confrontations with Israeli forces.
The escalation of violence led to several countries announcing in September, including France, their intention to impose sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements.
On Monday, a French parliamentary committee adopted a draft law aimed at banning the import of Israeli settlement products and services that contribute to their construction.
Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, announced on Thursday that the Revolutionary Guards are ready to cause “new surprises” in any confrontation with the United States and Israel, while Iranian military leaders have expanded the scope of their threats to bases and targets outside the region.
Indications of concluding an agreement to end the war that broke out last February 28 with American-Israeli strikes that led, on its first day, to the killing of former guide Ali Khamenei and a number of senior officials, declined.
Rezaei said that the missile unit in the Revolutionary Guards placed the instructions of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei at the top of its priorities, and strengthened its readiness to implement a strategy based on “an immediate, effective and proportionate response to any threat, at any point, and without geographical restrictions.”
He added that the unit is “ready to sacrifice and create new surprises on the battlefield with the American-Zionist enemy,” considering that the unveiling of a new missile city reflects this readiness.
On Thursday, the government Mehr Agency published a video clip of the Tehran sky, and said that the armed forces had conducted tests on “new missiles.”
The agency did not provide information on the types of missiles, their range, or test results, and it was not possible to independently verify the nature of the activity depicted.
This coincided with a series of threats from senior military leaders regarding expanding the scope of Iranian strikes if the war was renewed, and warnings against targeting sites used by the United States and Israel to launch attacks on Iran.
Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Keumarth Heydari, said that all the enemy’s military interests and bases are within range of Iranian missiles and drones, and that the confrontation with the United States has turned into a regional war.
Heidari explained, in statements broadcast on state television on Wednesday, that canceling geographical restrictions means allowing the targeting of military sites in any country from which planes or missiles are launched to attack Iran.
He added: “If a plane takes off from any country and bombs a site in Iran, the armed forces are authorized to target a similar site in the country from which it took off.”
Heydari pointed out that the bank of military targets has been updated to include locations outside the scope of previous operations, saying that the list is now ready for the Chief of Staff’s signature and to be communicated to the leadership of the Army and the Revolutionary Guard, awaiting the orders of the Iranian Leader.
Lift range restrictions
For his part, Muhammad Mokhber, advisor and assistant to the Iranian leader, said on Thursday that Khamenei’s instructions not to adhere to geographical limits in responding to attacks mean, indirectly, lifting the restrictions imposed on the range of Iranian missiles.
He added, in statements reported by the Iranian Students News Agency, that “there is no doubt that war will occur again,” considering that prolonging the confrontation enhances Tehran’s chances of victory.
An informant said that the Americans will sink deeper into the “quagmire they created themselves” as the war continues, stressing his confidence in Iran’s victory.
In separate statements on Thursday, the head of the Basij, the mobilization arm of the Revolutionary Guard, Hussein Taeb, warned that any new attack would face a response “more severe than the 40-day war,” stressing Tehran’s adherence to its seven conditions before resuming negotiations with Washington.
Taeb said that Iran will not discuss the method of negotiation or its agenda until after the United States accepts all the conditions, adding that the length of time required to end the war does not change this position.
Taeb revealed Russian mediation contacts, saying that a representative of US President Donald Trump visited Russian President Vladimir Putin before the US elections, and that a Russian envoy subsequently conveyed a written message to the Iranian leader. He did not provide details about the content of the message, or the date of its delivery.
Rezaei visited Moscow and held consultations with Putin behind closed doors last week. He said on Wednesday that Iran and the United States are not currently conducting any negotiations, and threatened to target distant American bases if attacks on his country resume.
“Rocket City”
Military threats have escalated since Wednesday, when Chief of the General Staff Ali Abdullah warned in a letter to the commander of the missile unit in the Revolutionary Guard, Majeed Mousavi, that any new “error in calculations” would be met with strikes “far more deadly” than previous attacks.
On Tuesday, Abdullah and Mousavi inspected a new underground missile site, scenes from which state television broadcast, coinciding with the commemoration of the fifteenth anniversary of the killing of the founder of the Iranian missile program, Hassan Tehrani Moghadam.
Keumarth Heydari said that, if a new war breaks out, the world will witness “the capabilities and surprises hidden in the new missile city,” without providing technical details about the weapons systems present in it.
On Wednesday, Iranian military spokesman Abolfazl Shekarchi announced that the armed forces had become “more prepared than before,” threatening that the force of response to any new American attack would be “ten times stronger.”
In turn, Iranian Army Commander Amir Hatami said, during an inspection of an exhibition of drone and missile debris, that the air defense systems had acquired new capabilities, and that any other attack would inflict greater losses on the attackers.
He added that the displayed equipment, which he said was dropped by Iranian defenses, proves that American and Israeli weapons can be targeted, and that the military superiority declared by Washington does not mean it is impossible to inflict losses on them.
US accounts
In parallel with the military threats, the Iranian newspaper “Khorasan”, which is close to Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqir Qalibaf, warned that the victory of the Democrats in the US midterm elections may lead to an exacerbation of political differences within Iran regarding dealing with Washington.
The newspaper wrote that the Democrats, despite their opposition to the war, prefer to continue the sanctions and the economic blockade, as two less costly means of putting pressure on Tehran.
She warned against some Iranian circles relying on changing the balance of power within the United States to reach a settlement, considering that the American difference relates to means of pressure more than goals.
On Thursday, Trump announced that the United States “no longer needs an agreement with Iran,” saying that Washington controls Iranian funds and the Strait of Hormuz, after he spoke during the previous days about the possibility of resuming negotiations.
Nuclear pressure
The military escalation coincided with the demand of the Leadership Council of Experts, on Wednesday, to study Iran’s withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and review the country’s defense doctrine.
The Council said, in a statement, that the repeated threats to the nuclear program demonstrated the impossibility of relying on international institutions, and that reviewing nuclear commitments had become “an inevitable necessity and a public and national demand.”
Rezaei had said, on Saturday, that changing the nuclear doctrine was now up for discussion within the regime, without an official decision being taken, while Foreign Ministry spokesman Ismail Baghaei announced, on Monday, Tehran’s continued commitment to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
In the latest parliamentary positions, MP Hamid Yazdian said that Iran needs uranium enriched to a rate exceeding 60 percent to develop small power plants and industries related to submarines, claiming that its use is not limited to the manufacture of nuclear weapons. He added that he had not reached any agreement on diluting enriched uranium, and that negotiating the nuclear file in the current circumstances is considered one of Iran's red lines.
On Wednesday, Rezaei refused to take “even a single atom” of enriched uranium out of the country, stressing that Tehran intends to keep its stock and use it locally, despite previous proposals to transfer it to Russia as part of a possible agreement.
The International Atomic Energy Agency says that it has been unable to verify the status of the Iranian stockpile since the strikes on the nuclear facilities, after it had estimated the amount of uranium enriched by 60 percent at about 440.9 kilograms before the attacks in June 2025.
Diplomatic moves
On Thursday, Iranian media circulated news of the arrival of a Qatari delegation to Tehran, after talks held by Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani with Trump in Washington over the weekend.
A member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee in the Iranian Parliament, Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardistani, suggested that the delegation’s message was related to reaching an understanding regarding the Lebanon file, a file in which Tehran places stopping the fighting among its seven conditions.
In Turkey, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Thursday that “right is with Iran, and the enemy will be forced to kneel,” on the sidelines of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, where he held talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
On Wednesday, Pezeshkian called for the establishment of international mechanisms to document, evaluate, and compensate for the environmental damage resulting from American and Israeli strikes.
He said that targeting energy facilities and fuel depots in Iran caused emissions and widespread environmental pollution, calling for linking responsibility for damage resulting from wars to international climate-related obligations.
On Wednesday, Zashkian met with Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who called for dialogue and restraint to ease regional tension.
Sharif said that the Pakistani Prime Minister expressed his concern about the continuation of the conflict, and stressed the need to build on the temporary understanding reached by Washington and Tehran in June.
Pezeshkian praised Pakistan's diplomatic role, and the two sides agreed to continue coordination on regional security.
Sharif said, on Thursday, after his meeting with Erdogan, that the countries participating in the “Mecca Agreement” will continue efforts to reduce escalation and dialogue, praising Turkish support for the negotiations that led to the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding.
