Iran could shut the Strait of Hormuz as a way of hitting back against its enemies, a senior lawmaker said, though a second member of parliament said this would only happen if Tehran’s vital interests were endangered.

“Iran has numerous options to respond to its enemies and uses such options based on what the situation is,” the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted Behnam Saeedi, a member of the parliament’s National Security Committee, as saying.

“Closing the Strait of Hormuz is one of the potential options for Iran,” he said.

Mehr later quoted another lawmaker, Ali Yazdikhah, as saying Iran would continue to allow free shipping in the Strait and in the Gulf so long as its vital national interests were not at risk.

Mohammad Hassan anxiously returned to Pakistan from neighbouring Iran this week after witnessing drones, missiles, and explosions tear through Tehran’s sky during what he called long, “horrifying nights”.

The 35-year-old University of Tehran student is one of about 3,000 Pakistanis who, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have returned home since Israel launched its aerial war against its long-time enemy last week.

Governments around the world are scrambling to evacuate their nationals caught up in the rapidly spiralling conflict as Israel and Iran trade missile and drone strikes.

“I was in the city centre where most of the strikes took place and even one of the student dormitories was attacked and luckily no one was dead, but students were injured,” Hassan said.

There are more than 500 Pakistani students at his university alone, he said, all of them on their way “back home”.

“Those days and nights were very horrifying… hearing sirens, the wailing, the danger of being hit by missiles. As one peeped out the window in the night, you could see drones, missiles with fire tails,” he told AFP.

– Ghost town –

Pakistan and Iran have a shaky diplomatic relationship. They bombed each other’s territory little more than a year ago, both claiming to target rebels using their neighbour’s land to launch attacks.

Yet they have never suspended trade, tourism and academic ties.

Iranian consulates across Pakistan have stepped up efforts to promote their universities.

Between 25 million and 35 million Pakistani Shiite Muslims also hope to make at least one pilgrimage in their lifetime to holy sites in Iran, foremost among them the sacred city of Qom.

Mohammad Khalil, a 41-year-old petroleum engineer, left Tehran three days ago, the capital of the Islamic Republic looking like a ghost town as residents sheltered indoors and families fled.

“In the last two days, I saw people moving out of the city in different vehicles with necessary commodities,” Khalil said.

Abdul Ghani Khan sells medical equipment in his hometown of Peshawar in northwest Pakistan and travels to Iran regularly for supplies.

He had been in Tehran for a week when the first Israeli missiles fell on Friday. Iran and Israel have traded heavy missile fire in the days since, raising fears of a wider regional conflict.

Pakistan is in a difficult position as the only Muslim-majority country with nuclear weapons. It, like Iran, does not recognise Israel but is also a major ally of the United States.

Khan had to make the journey home by road because the airspace is now closed. Pakistan has also shut its border crossings with Iran to all except Pakistanis wanting to return home.

“We saw drones, red lights of anti-aircraft guns and I spotted one building catch fire,” Khan said.

– ‘Offering prayer’ –

Mohammad Asif, a lawyer from Lahore in Pakistan’s east, heard about the air strikes while on a pilgrimage in Qom.

He wasn’t initially afraid and continued his pilgrimage to Mashhad in Iran’s northeast, home to the golden-domed Imam Reza shrine.

That was until Israeli strikes hit the airport in Mashhad, nearly 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from the Pakistani border.

Samreen Ali was also in Mashhad but, like Asif, cut her trip short and returned with her husband and 15-year-old son.

She was praying in a mosque in Mashhad when Israel struck the city.

Ali said she had visited Iran nine times before on pilgrimages and never imagined witnessing war there.

“I was offering prayer when I heard two explosions,” she told AFP.

She then noticed she wasn’t receiving messages on her phone and assumed that “communication was being restricted… because of the war”.

Syed Saqib, 46, was in Qom and had to travel 500 kilometres (310 miles) by bus southeast to Yazd.

“We had to take alternative routes, spend an entire night waiting at a bus terminal,” Saqib said.

They then boarded buses to Zahedan, a city near the border with Pakistan’s Balochistan province. A relieved Saqib recalled making the border crossing at Taftan, surrounded by families carrying heavy luggage.

Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Thursday strongly condemned Israeli attacks on Iran in a phone call and stressed the need for a diplomatic solution, Moscow and Beijing said.

Israel has launched an unprecedented wave of strikes at Iran that prompted Tehran to respond with its own attacks with missiles and drones. Putin and Xi “strongly condemn Israel’s actions”, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters after the call. He added that Moscow and Beijing believed the end to the hostilities “should be achieved exclusively by political and diplomatic means”.

Xi told Putin that a ceasefire was the “top priority” and urged Israel to halt its attacks, Chinese state media reported. “Promoting a ceasefire and cessation of hostilities is the top priority. Armed force is not the correct way to resolve international disputes,” Xi said, according to China’s state news agency Xinhua.

“Parties to the conflict, especially Israel, should cease hostilities as soon as possible to prevent a cyclical escalation and resolutely avoid the spillover of the war,” he added.

Putin is pitching himself as a mediator between the warring sides. Russia is close to Iran, having boosted military ties amid its offensive on Ukraine, but also strives for good relations with Israel.

Last week, Putin held phone calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, offering himself as a peacemaker. The Kremlin said that Xi had spoken “in favour of such mediation, since he believes that it could serve to de-escalate the current situation”, Ushakov said.

But Western leaders, including US President Donald Trump and France’s Emmanuel Macron have pushed back against the idea of Putin trying to mediate the conflict amid his own Ukraine offensive. “He actually offered to help mediate, I said: ‘do me a favour, mediate your own’,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday about Putin’s efforts.

“Let’s mediate Russia first, okay? I said, Vladimir, let’s mediate Russia first, you can worry about this later.”

Two million Syrians returned home since Assad’s fall: UN

GENEVA

Over two million Syrians who had fled their homes during their country’s war have returned since the ouster of Bashar al-Assad, U.N. refugee agency chief Filippo Grandi said Thursday, ahead of a visit to Syria.

The Syrian civil war, which erupted in 2011 with Assad’s brutal repression of anti-government protests, displaced half of the population internally or abroad.

But Assad’s December 8 ouster at the hands of Islamist forces sparked hopes of return.

“Over two million Syrian refugees and displaced have returned home since December,” Grandi wrote on X during a visit to neighbouring Lebanon, which hosts about 1.5 million Syrian refugees, according to official estimates.

It is “a sign of hope amid rising regional tensions,” he said.

“This proves that we need political solutions — not another wave of instability and displacement.”

After 14 years of war, many returnees face the reality of finding their homes and property badly damaged or destroyed.

But with the recent lifting of Western sanctions on Syria, new authorities hope for international support to launch reconstruction, which the UN estimates could cost more than $400 billion.

Earlier this month, UNHCR estimated that up to 1.5 million Syrians from abroad and two million internally displaced persons may return by the end of 2025.