more than 100 people have been killed and scores of others injured in two explosions in south eastern iran, near the grave of a top revolutionary guards commander. state television says the blasts occurred in quick succession in the city of kerman, during a ceremony to mark the anniversary of the killing of qasem soleimani. he was iran s most powerful military commander and was killed in 2020 by a us air strike in iraq. local officials say two bags containing explosives were detonated by remote control at the entrance to the burial site. bbc persian s parham gobadi earlier told me further details of the blast. as you mentioned, this is one of the deadliest attacks in iran in the past a0 years. it has been unprecedented, the number of the death toll is rising every every few minutes, so far. they say that some of those who were injured are in critical conditions and we know at least one medic was among the casualties who was killed, two others, at least, are in critical condit
Of all of this, is that the people who suffer are the ordinary civilians. you know, the peaceful citizens of israel who were slaughtered in southern israel on october 7th, the thousands of palestinians men, women, children who are nothing to do with hamas who have paid with their lives for this war. and those who survive are in dire conditions. un and other aid agencies are daily calling out for more aid to get in and for a ceasefire because it is one thing to get the aid in, that is only half the problem. if you have air strikes and drone strikes happening every single day on parts, in some cases, of gaza which they have been told are safe and are clearly not because there will be explosions in buildings, you are getting more getting more and more casualties and the hospitals, especially, are in a really dire state. analysis there from our security correspondent, frank gardner.
Thinking, generally speaking. and we l have heard hamas has reportedly told egyptian and qatari mediator is that it is suspending any talks on hostage negotiations. let me start by asking you about that. where does this leave any possible talks that may have been in the pipeline? that is something may have been in the pipeline? twat is something quite expected. they have to do something, they cannot just continue to negotiate just one day after their number two was killed by the israelis, arguably, in beirut. at the same time, the discussions are quite difficult, independently from this killing. they are difficult because it is. it is difficult for them to both, hamas to find some agreement, whatever deal they can have on the opening stages and hostages, the weapons fire, the conditions, what will happen to the gaza strip later on? so it is not directly because of that that the discussions are ending and becoming increasingly disfigured. and becoming increasingly disfiuured. ., ~ .,
We had to this so far? so, iran has considered this as a terrorist act against iran and they said that they would definitely retaliate to whoever is responsible for this. no group has claimed responsibility for this. iranian media has also rejected the claims by israeli media that a top, iran s revolutionary guard commander was killed. they say no commander was killed during these attacks. the un peacekeeping force in lebanon says it is deeply concerned about a potential escalation of violence, following the killing in beirut of a top hamas leader. a spokesperson for unifil, kandice ardiel, said a wider conflict would have devastating consequences for both israel and lebanon, and urged all parties to show restraint. israel said its forces were in a very high state of readiness for any retaliation following the killing of saleh al arouri.
It s not admitted or denied the attack, but hamas has accused it of being responsible. a spokesman for the group promised retaliation, and said hamas could not negotiate with israel while they committed with israel while they committed what he called crimes . hezbollah, an iranian backed politically influential islamist group which controls the most powerful armed force in lebanon, has been exchanging fire with israel along the israel lebanon border since the war in gaza began in october. hassan nasrallah, the leader of the group, is due to give a news conference in the next hour. he has previously said there would be a severe reaction to any israeli killing on lebanese soil. the head of the international chamber of shipping has told the bbc that consumers were likely to see a rise in the price of goods within weeks because of the cost of re routing vessels away from the red sea, due to ongoing tensions in the middle east. guy platten said about 20% of the container fleet was being