The fire was “one of the worst tragedies that our country has experienced,” Swiss President Guy Parmelin told reporters.

Local people gathered to pay tribute to the dead and injured at a vigil at Montana Station Church on Thursday evening, and floral tributes were laid near the scene of the fire.

Crans-Montana is a luxury ski resort, famous in the 1980s for hosting the World Cup skiing.

Le Constellation, which has been around for decades, has an upstairs with TV screens where people go and watch football matches, and a large bar downstairs for drinking and dancing.

The UK Foreign Office said its “thoughts are with all those injured and killed in the terrible tragedy” and consular staff were on standby to provide support to any British nationals affected.

King Charles said he and his wife Queen Camilla were “greatly saddened” to learn of the fire, and that it was “utterly heartbreaking that a night of celebration for young people and families instead turned to such nightmarish tragedy”.

French President Emmanuel Macron said France was welcoming the injured from Crans-Montana to its hospitals.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU was working with Swiss authorities to get medical help to victims through the EU’s civil protection mechanism.

In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of the UK, France, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland said the forced closure of INGO operations would “have a severe impact on access to essential services including healthcare”.

They added that the humanitarian situation in Gaza remained “catastrophic” and called on Israel’s government to ensure INGOs were able to operate “in a sustained and predictable way”.

Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, which is in charge of registration applications, said the new measures would not impact the flow of humanitarian assistance to Gaza.

It added that aid continued to be delivered through “approved and vetted channels”, including UN agencies, bilateral partners, and humanitarian organisations.

It said the primary reason aid groups were having their licences revoked was “the refusal to provide complete and verifiable information regarding their employees,” which it said was critical to preventing “the infiltration of terrorist operatives into humanitarian structures”.

Earlier this month, UN-backed experts said there had been improvements in nutrition and food supplies in Gaza since a ceasefire was brokered between Israel and Hamas in October, but 100,000 people still experienced “catastrophic conditions” the following month.

Israeli military body Cogat, which controls Gaza’s crossings, said the organisations that will be suspended “did not bring aid into Gaza throughout the current ceasefire”.

It added that “even in the past their combined contribution amounted to only about 1% of the total aid volume”.

The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs said that fewer than 15% of organisations providing humanitarian assistance to Gaza were found to be in violation of the new regulatory framework.

That framework includes several grounds for rejection, including:

• Denying the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state

• Denying the Holocaust or the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023

• Supporting an armed struggle against Israel by an enemy state or terrorist organisation

• Promoting “delegitimisation campaigns” against Israel

• Calling for a boycott of Israel or committing to participate in one

• Supporting the prosecution of Israeli security forces in foreign or international courts

The Humanitarian Country Team of the Occupied Palestinian Territory – a forum that brings together UN agencies and more than 200 local and international organisations – previously warned that the new registration system “fundamentally jeopardises” the operations of INGOs in Gaza and the West Bank.

“The system relies on vague, arbitrary, and highly politicised criteria and imposes requirements that humanitarian organisations cannot meet without violating international legal obligations or compromising core humanitarian principles,” it said.

It added: “While some INGOs have been registered under the new system, these INGOs represent only a fraction of the response in Gaza and are nowhere near the number required just to meet immediate and basic needs.”

According to the Humanitarian Country Team, INGOs currently run or support most of Gaza’s field hospitals and primary healthcare centres, emergency shelter responses, water and sanitation services, nutrition stabilisation centres for children with acute malnutrition, and critical mine action activities.

In a statement, Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, Amichai Chikli, said: “The message is clear: humanitarian assistance is welcome — the exploitation of humanitarian frameworks for terrorism is not.”

Other organisations to be suspended include CARE, Medico International and Medical Aid for Palestinians.

[BBC]

President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X late on Monday that he had instructed the interior minister to hold talks with what he described as “representatives” of the protesters so that measures could be taken “to resolve the problems and act responsibly”.

He also accepted the resignation of Iran’s central bank governor, Mohammadreza Farzin, and named former economy and finance minister Abdolnasser Hemmati to replace him.

University students have also joined the protests, chanting anti-government slogans including “Death to the dictator” – a reference to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who holds ultimate power in Iran.

Some protesters were also heard chanting slogans in support of the son of the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, including “Long live the Shah”.

In response, Reza Pahlavi, who lives in exile in the United States, wrote on X: “I am with you. Victory is ours because our cause is just and because we are united.”

“As long as this regime remains in power, the country’s economic situation will continue to deteriorate,” he added.

The US state department’s Persian-language account on X also expressed support for the protests.

It said the US “praises their courage” and stands with those seeking “dignity and a better future” after years of failed policies and economic mismanagement.

Iran was reportedly high on the agenda of a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Florida on Monday,

At a joint news conference afterwards, Trump declined to say whether he supported regime change in Iran, but said: “They’ve got a lot of problems: tremendous inflation, their economy is bust, their economy is no good, and I know people aren’t so happy.”

The president also said he might back another round of Israeli air strikes on Iran if the country rebuilt its ballistic missile or nuclear programmes.

During a 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June, the US carried out air strikes on key Iranian uranium enrichment sites. Iran insists its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.

President Pezeshkian vowed on Tuesday that Iran’s response to “any oppressive act of aggression” would be “severe and regret-inducing”.

Iran’s supreme leader has repeatedly said that Israel’s government hoped mass protests would erupt in Iran during the war and topple the regime.

“They wanted to create sedition on the streets… But people were absolutely not influenced by what the enemy wanted,” Khamenei said in September.