Mossad chief David Barnea has recommended that Israel's political echelon attack Iran instead of Yemen's Houthis in response to the Tehran-backed rebels' missile launches at Israel, Ynet News reported.
"We have to go for the head, for Iran," Barnea said in discussions on the issue in recent days, according to the Sunday report.
The outgoing Biden administration is briefing President-elect Donald Trump's team on the growing risk of Tehran pursuing the development of a nuclear weapon, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Sunday.
There is now a "real risk" that Iran will revise its position that "we're not going for a nuke," Sullivan told CNN.
"It's a risk we are trying to be vigilant about now. It's a risk that I'm personally briefing the incoming team on," Sullivan added.
Since May, top Iranian officials including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's adviser, Kamal Kharrazi, have warned that if Iran's nuclear installations are attacked, the Islamic Republic will shift its nuclear doctrine. So far, Tehran has been insisting that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, in spite of having exceeded international limits on uranium enrichment and accelerating its nuclear program.
In October, 39 lawmakers called for changing the nuclear doctrine without mentioning an attack on nuclear facilities but citing tensions with Israel.
The calls for the pursuit of nuclear weapons have grown in Iran following the Israeli airstrikes destroying the Islamic Republic's air defense batteries.
"It's no wonder there are voices (in Iran) saying 'Hey, maybe we need to go for a nuclear weapon right now... Maybe we have to revisit our nuclear doctrine'," Sullivan told CNN, referring to the decrease in Tehran's "conventional capabilities" following Israeli air raids.
"The Israeli military believes that Iran — isolated after the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime and the weakening of its main proxy group Hezbollah in Lebanon — may push ahead further with its nuclear program and develop a bomb as it scrambles to replace its deterrence," The Times of Israel reported earlier this month citing military officials.
Following the weakening of Iran's proxy groups in the Middle East and the dramatic fall of the Assad government in Syria, the IDF believes there is an opportunity to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, and the Israeli Air Force has therefore continued to increase its readiness and preparations for such potential strikes in Iran, the report said.
Israel's prime minister says his country will take forceful action against Yemen's Houthi rebels just as it did to other militant groups backed by Iran.
"As we acted with force against the terrorist arms of Iran's axis of evil, so we will act against the Houthis," Benjamin Netanyahu said during a meeting of the Security Cabinet in the northern Command of the army on Sunday.
"Only in this case, we are not acting alone. The United States, as well as other countries, see the Houthis as a threat not only to international shipping, but to the international order. Therefore, we will act with force, determination, and sophistication," the Israeli prime minister added. "I tell you, even if it takes time, the result will be the same result – as with the other terrorist groups."
The United States launched airstrikes against Houthi positions in the Yemeni capital Sana'a on Saturday, hours after the Tehran-aligned rebels fired a missile hitting a civilian area in Israel.
The Iran-backed Houthis, who control much of Yemen, launched a blockade of the Red Sea in November last year on the orders of Iran's Supreme Leader, following the outbreak of the Gaza war, in allegiance with Hamas.
While they originally set out to target Israeli-linked vessels in a bid to force a ceasefire, it has since spanned global commercial shipping, with multiple vessels hit in strikes and dozens of international seamen taken hostage.
Iran received a message from US President-elect Donald Trump through Oman proposing high-level talks on issues including the nuclear file, the Iraqi newspaper Baghdad Alyoum reported Sunday, citing a source close to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s administration.
“Trump’s message expressed his readiness to negotiate with Tehran and the possibility of reaching a new nuclear agreement, different from the one reached in 2015, which he withdrew from in 2018,” the source was quoted as saying.
The Iranian source added that "Trump will not wait more than a few months to receive a response from Iranian officials regarding their willingness to negotiate on a range of issues, with the nuclear file being the most prominent."
Earlier, Iranian diplomat Seyyed Hossein Mousavian in an article in Iran Newspaper, said that Trump is expected to propose direct and high-level talks with Iran shortly after taking office.
In the article, Mousavian added that while an agreement might be possible if negotiations begin, there are no guarantees that the US would adhere to it, even if successful.
New research from Iran's Ministry of Health revealed that one quarter of Iranians have experienced at least one type of mental disorder over the past year.
“In Iran, there is no law that considers and addresses issues related to psychiatric disorders,” said Vahid Shariat, the President of the Iranian Psychiatric Association in an interview with ILNA news agency.
The latest data was gathered from a nationwide study conducted over the past three years by the Ministry of Health. Shariat said Iran lacks basic provisions for mental illness.
He criticized policymakers, the Ministry of Health, and the Welfare Organization for their neglect, saying, the limited and poorly implemented mental health support package offers only a handful of medications and psychiatric services.
“There is no political will to find solutions, and there is no receptive ear to listen to the problems of individuals with severe mental illness,” he said.
Currently, the system only allows up to 54 hospitalization days per year for psychiatric care. If patients require additional care, they must bear the financial burden themselves, making long-term treatment inaccessible for many as one third of Iranians now live below the poverty line.
In November, Alireza Zali, President of Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Tehran said that mental illness ranks second only to musculoskeletal disorders as the most common health issue in the country.
The latest research supports figures published in 2021 in the Iranian Journal of Psychology. It also cited one in four Iranians suffered with mental disorders.
"The Iranian Mental Health Survey (IranMHS) indicated that almost 1 in 4 people had one or more psychiatric disorders (23.6%); however, two-thirds of patients did not benefit from health interventions, many provided services were inadequate and imposed a high burden on Iranian families," researchers wrote, calling for intervention.
A 2019 study in The Lancet found that depressive and anxiety disorders are among the country's top 10 causes of death and disability, according to the study called 'Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study'.
Tehran was found to have the highest incidences with almost 37.1% of residents suffering mental health problems (45.0% of women and 28.0% of men).
The research found the greatest incidence of mental health disorders was seen in the 25–34 and over 75 age groups.
The most common mental health disorders were depression (43%) and anxiety (40%), followed by somatization (30%) and social dysfunction (8.1%). Mental health disorders were more frequent in the southeast regions of the city, researchers said.
Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met with Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of Syria’s opposition group Hayat al-Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), in Damascus on Sunday, according to photographs shared by the Turkish foreign ministry.
Earlier on Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Fidan would travel to Damascus to engage in talks regarding the new political structure in Syria.
