Reports emerging from Gaza indicate that a high-ranking Hamas official was killed on Sunday in an attack on western Gaza City that claimed four lives in total.

The deceased was identified as Ihab Ghussein, who Reuters news agency reported held the position of deputy labor minister and was considered a key figure in the Hamas-led administration in Gaza.

Ghussein previously served as the spokesman for the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry in Gaza. A prominent figure in the coastal enclave, Ghussein was born in 1979 and held various positions within the Interior Ministry and the internal security apparatus of Hamas during the government led by Ismail Haniyeh.

In 2012, Ghussein was appointed director of the Communications Ministry, a role he maintained until 2020. He was also educated at Gaza City's university, where he earned an engineering degree. Palestinian sources report that Ghussein's wife and daughter were killed several weeks ago in a separate attack within the Gaza Strip.

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Iran's presidential election has ended in a runoff, with voter turnout plummeting to a record-low 40%, signaling growing disillusionment with the Islamic Republic's political system. As the country prepares for a second round of voting, Western hopes for a reformist victory appear increasingly illusory while the regime continues to consolidate power both domestically and regionally.

The inconclusive first round marks another blow to the regime's legitimacy. Voter participation fell to just 40%, down from 48% in 2021 and 73% in 2017. No candidate secured a majority, forcing a runoff.

The Iranian public's disenchantment is palpable. All candidates answer to the de facto ruler, with three hailing from the reform-averse conservative faction. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's political theater, which truly dictates foreign and security policies, has lost its veneer of authenticity. Social media even joked that Khamenei cast his vote for his son Mojtaba, his presumed successor.

Yet despite waning enthusiasm, the turnout suggests that while the republic's internal legitimacy falters, the government's grip remains firm. A significant base still accepts the status quo. This is bolstered by the Revolutionary Guards, 150,000 to 200,000 strong, alongside the Basij, a civilian auxiliary force millions strong, tasked with quashing dissent.

Western powers, however, cling to electoral hopes. Many policymakers root for reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian, seen as potentially amenable to a new nuclear deal. The US and EU persist in seeking "peace in our time" with a regime known for its brutality and corruption. Western diplomats might tout a postponed nuclear threat as a victory, even as Tehran advances its conventional military capabilities.

Pezeshkian could play the perfect role in an Iranian charm offensive. The physician-turned-politician advocates for Western engagement to boost Iran's economy – music to Washington and Brussels' ears. For Khamenei, presenting a palatable political figure is strategically convenient, especially after April's brazen attack on Israel. A veneer of moderation could soothe both international tensions and domestic unrest.

This development underscores the election's limited impact. The July 5 runoff won't determine Iran's true leader. In reality, the victor will simply become Khamenei's highest-ranking official, as the Supreme Leader retains ultimate control.

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Iraq and Iran are reportedly ramping up efforts to train hundreds of fighters for pro-Iranian militias, particularly the Hezbollah Brigades in Iraq. This development, as reported by the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, suggests preparations for a potential regional conflict, especially in light of recent clashes between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

According to a report published Friday in Al-Akhbar, hundreds of fighters are being trained in Iraq to join pro-Iranian militias, with a focus on the Hezbollah Brigades in Iraq.

Sources told the newspaper that the training is taking place both within Iraq and outside its borders, under the supervision of Iranian experts. They confirmed that these exercises are being conducted against the backdrop of a potential all-out war in the region, especially following the recent escalation between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The sources noted that while training fighters from Iraqi factions is not new, there has been an increased focus on this effort since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. The report states that advanced weapons, rockets, and drones have arrived in Iraq from Iran and Russia, necessitating specialized training for the fighters.

The newspaper, known for its pro-Iranian stance, further claimed, that there are more than ten training camps in various Iraqi cities, working on two missions: the first is training regular fighters, and the second is training individuals under the supervision of military experts from Iran. These individuals are trained to the level of Iranian Revolutionary Guards or Hezbollah members.

According to the sources, there are groups currently receiving training in Iran, and they are about to complete their training and return to Iraq. These groups include members of Hashd al-Shaabi, Hezbollah Brigades in Iraq, and the Al-Nujaba Movement all pro-Iranian militias. The training is not only military but also prepares individuals capable of conducting recruitment from an ideological and jihadist perspective.

Firas Al-Yasser, a member of the political bureau of the Al-Nujaba Movement, told Al-Akhbar, "The resistance continues to prepare, as there are calculations that the war might expand. Therefore, there are many preparations currently underway. There is training of combat forces in military centers." He added that the militias have their own calculations. Al-Yasser mentioned that "there are American bases scattered in the region, and if aggression begins against Lebanon, I expect there will be strategic attacks against these bases."

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Yemen's Houthi rebels said they attacked a Saudi oil facility in the port city of Jiddah on Thursday amid their campaign of drone and missile attacks on the kingdom, though satellite pictures later analyzed by The Associated Press showed no new apparent damage at the site.

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Saudi Arabia's state-owned media did not acknowledge any incident in Jiddah. But overnight, a military coalition led by the Saudis announced that the Houthis launched two explosives-laden drones toward Khamis Mushait, a southwestern city home to the King Khalid Air Base, and later two ballistic missiles toward the southern province of Jizan. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Brig. Gen. Yehia Sarie, a Houthi military spokesman, tweeted that the rebels fired a new Quds-2 cruise missile at the facility. He posted a satellite image online that matched Aramco's North Jiddah Bulk Plant, where oil products are stored in tanks. The Iran-backed rebels claimed they hit the same facility last November, an attack the Saudi-led coalition later acknowledged had ignited a fire at the plant.

While such attacks rarely cause damage or casualties, strikes on major oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, have shaken energy markets and the world economy.

The Jiddah plant serves as a temporary storage facility for gasoline, diesel and other petrochemicals before distribution. The facility sits just southeast of the city's King Abdulaziz International Airport, a major airfield that handles Muslim pilgrims heading to Mecca.

Flights coming into the airport diverted or otherwise flew in circles early Thursday morning without explanation, according to tracking data from website FlightRadar24.com.

An Associated Press journalist at the scene did not see any smoke immediately rising from the installation Thursday morning. On Friday, the AP analyzed satellite photos of the area taken by Planet Labs Inc. The images Thursday showed char marks on a tank struck in the November attack that had been present in previous days' images, but no other signs of a disruption or damage at the facility.

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Saudi Aramco, the kingdom's oil giant that now has a sliver of its worth traded publicly on the stock market, did not respond to a request for comment. Its stock traded slightly up Thursday on Riyadh's Tadawul stock exchange as the international crude benchmark, Brent, rose to more than $64 a barrel.

US diplomats in Saudi Arabia issued warnings to Americans citing the claimed attack on the Aramco facility, among other reported drone strikes on the kingdom's south. It said it wasn't aware of any casualties and urged Americans to "review immediate precautions to take in the event of an attack."

"These attacks have occurred with little or no warning, impacting airports, energy infrastructure and other civilian facilities," American diplomats said in a new warning early Friday. "Violence associated with Iran-supported groups represents a significant threat. US citizens living and working near military bases and critical civilian infrastructure, including airports, are at heightened risk of missile and drone attack."

Since 2015, the Houthis battling the Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen have targeted international airports, along with military installations and critical oil infrastructure, within Saudi Arabia. In recent months the rebels have escalated their attacks, repeatedly crashing drones and missiles into the kingdom's Patriot missile batteries. Earlier this week, a ballistic missile reached as far as the capital, Riyadh, where it was intercepted and exploded in the sky, scattering shrapnel debris over the city.

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The statement from the Canadian government cited the ongoing volatile security situation, the regional threat of "terrorism" and the risk of arbitrary detention.

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"Canadians, particularly dual Canadian-Iranian citizens, are at risk of being arbitrarily questioned, arrested and detained," the warning reads.

Canada also asked its citizens to "avoid all travel" to the area within 10 kilometers (six miles) of Iran's border with Iraq.

Iran's attack came in retaliation for a US drone strike on former commander of Iran's elite Quds Force Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, whose killing has raised fears of a war in the Middle East.

The Canadian travel warning was issued hours after 63 Canadian citizens died aboard a Ukrainian passenger aircraft that crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran early Wednesday morning.

• Read the full text of the travel warning here

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His administration is trying to decide whether to risk stoking international tensions even more by ending one of the last remaining components of the 2015 nuclear deal. The US faces a Thursday deadline to decide whether to extend or cancel sanctions waivers to foreign companies working on Iran's civilian nuclear program as permitted under the deal.

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Ending the waivers would be the next logical step in the campaign and it's a move favored by Trump's allies in Congress who endorse a tough approach to Iran. But it also would escalate tensions with Iran and with some European allies, and two officials say a divided administration is likely to keep the waivers afloat with temporary extensions. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The mere fact that the administration is divided on the issue – it's already postponed an announcement twice, according to the officials – is the latest in a series of confusing signals that Trump has sent over Iran, causing confusion among supporters and critics of the president about just what he hopes to achieve in the standoff with the Islamic Republic.

Some fear the mixed messages could trigger open conflict amid a buildup of US military forces in the Persian Gulf region.

"It's always a problem when you don't have a coherent policy because you are vulnerable to manipulation and the mixed messages have created the environment for dangerous miscalculation," said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"Trump has simultaneously provoked an escalatory cycle with Iran while also making clear to Iran that he is averse to conflict."

The public face of the pressure campaign is US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and he rejects suggestions the strategy is less than clear cut.

"America has a strategy which we are convinced will work," he said this past week. "We will deny Iran the wealth to foment terror around the world and build out their nuclear program."

Yet the administration's recent actions – which included an unusual mediation effort by Kentucky's anti-interventionist Sen. Rand Paul – have frustrated some of Trump's closest allies on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Those actions also have led to unease in Europe and Asia, where the administration's attempt to rally support for a coalition to protect ships transiting the Gulf has drawn only lukewarm responses.

Trump withdrew last year from the 2015 deal that Iran signed with the US, France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China. The agreement lifted punishing economic sanctions in exchange for limits on the Iranian nuclear program. Critics in the United States believed it didn't do enough to thwart Iranian efforts to develop nuclear weapons and enabled Iran to rebuild its economy and continue funding terrorists throughout the Middle East.

Trump, who called it "the worst deal in history," began reinstating sanctions, and they have hobbled an already weak Iranian economy.

Iran responded by blowing through limits on its low-enriched uranium stockpiles and announcing plans to enrich uranium beyond levels permitted under the deal. Iran has taken increasingly provocative actions against ships in the Gulf, including the seizure of a British vessel, and the downing of a US drone.

Sometime before Thursday, the administration will have to either cancel or extend waivers that allow European, Russian and Chinese companies to work in Iran's civilian nuclear facilities. The officials familiar with the "civil nuclear cooperation waivers" say a decision in principle has been made to let them expire but that they are likely to be extended for 90 more days to allow companies time to wind down their operations.

At the same time, Trump gave his blessing to Paul to meet last week with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was in New York to attend a UN meeting. Officials familiar with the development said Paul raised the idea with Trump at a golf outing and the president nodded his assent.

Deal critics, including Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, say the waivers should be revoked because they give Iran access to technology that could be used for weapons. In particular, they have targeted a waiver that allows conversion work at the once-secret Fordow site. The other facilities are the Bushehr nuclear power station, the Arak heavy water plant and the Tehran Research Reactor.

Deal supporters say the waivers give international experts a valuable window into Iran's atomic program that might otherwise not exist. They also say some of the work, particularly on nuclear isotopes that can be used in medicine at the Tehran reactor, is humanitarian in nature.

Trump has been coy about his plans. He said this past week that "it could go either way very easily. Very easily. And I'm OK either way it goes."

That vacillation has left administration hawks such as Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton in a quandary.

Bolton has long advocated military action against Iran with the goal of changing the Tehran government and, while Pompeo may agree, he is more sensitive to Trump's reluctance to military intervention, according to the officials.

"Pompeo is trying to reconcile contradictory impulses by focusing on the means rather than ends, which is sanctions," said Sadjadpour. "But rather than bringing clarity, Trump has brought further confusion by promoting the idea of Rand Paul as an envoy."

This has given Iran an opening that it is trying to exploit, he said.

"For years, the US has tried to create fissures between hard-liners and moderates in Tehran and now Iran is trying to do the exact same thing in Washington."

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The most recent provocations began late last week, when Iran announced that it had seized a British tanker. Following the seizure, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani offered a deal to swap the British tanker for its own tanker being held in Gibraltar, which was seized by the United Kingdom on suspicion that it was delivering oil to Syria in violation of current sanctions.

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In response to Iran's continued threat in the Gulf, both American and Britain announced potentially significant moves to counter the threat.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on other nations to join a maritime force to guard oil tankers sailing through the Strait of Hormuz.

"I am confident that we will all form a collective defense," he told conservative radio host Ben Shapiro. "The United States is calling it our maritime security initiative, and we have asked countries from all across the world to participate in that to assist in the defense of the waterways through the Gulf and through the Straits of Hormuz."

The Strait of Hormuz lies between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

At the same time, the UK Royal Navy announced that it will now accompany British oil tankers in the region. Newly appointed US Defense Secretary Mark Esper has already said that the United States will escort American-flagged ships.

Efraim Inbar, president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, told JNS that Iran's strategy here is "practicing brinkmanship, threatening to stop the energy flow from the Gulf."

Adding to this, Iran also recently breached the 2015 nuclear deal (officially Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) a second time and brought its low-enriched uranium limit over the agreed thresholdת from 3.7% to about 4.5%.

Iran is trying to "free itself from the limits imposed by the JCPOA," said Inbar, adding that the Europeans "are unlikely to say or do something. It is Trump who must react."

He warned that if Trump focuses only on the economic arena, the world "will end up with an Iran very close to the bomb."

And if it reaches that dangerous point, Inbar said it is then that Israel "will have to decide what to do."

'A Message to the Europeans'

Emily Landau, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, told JNS that she views Iran's provocations in the Gulf in past several months and its violations of the nuclear deal "as a message to the Europeans."

She said that while Iran's steps so far have been "measured," it's a message meant to jolt the Europeans, as well as an effort to get sanctions off Iran's back. "This is Iran's main goal," she said.

"The European response is very important here, and unfortunately, what we've heard so far from the Europeans—despite the fact there was initially harsher rhetoric regarding the consequences if Iran breached the JCPOA—once Iran actually did breach it, the reaction was not significant," explained Landau.

In political terms, Iran's moves are indeed significant, as are Europe's reactions.

Landau agreed with Inbar that the Europeans "mainly want to play this down and not make a big deal about it."

Nevertheless, Tehran sees its strategy is working, and as such, will most likely take it another step further. Europe needs to stand together with the Americans with the understanding that Iran is not going to negotiate a better deal unless it is pressured into doing so.

Landau pointed out that that the Obama administration was under the illusion that after the JCPOA was achieved, talk could move to other issues, such as ballistic missiles.

"This was nonsense," she said. "There was no basis for thinking Iran would ever do that if there was no longer any pressure."

She insisted that "Iran cannot get the message that these [provocative] steps are acceptable."

Pointing to the subterfuge and deceitful games Iran is playing, Landau warned that America must stand firm and "not relent." She said the Trump administration needs to understand "how the Iranians play this game, how they twist things, making it seem there are concessions when there are absolutely no concessions at all."

Landau warned that "this is the kind of bargaining stance that the US cannot accept; it cannot fall for the kinds of games that the Iranians are playing," and it must think of strategies to effectively counter them.

"Overall", Landau said, "things are moving in a non-linear, messy way to the negotiations, but it is going to be a really tough bargain, and I hope the Americans are up to it."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The Swedish operator of a British-flagged oil tanker seized by Iran in the Gulf last week said it had been able to speak to crew members and all 23 of them were safe.

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"We had direct contact with the crew on board the vessel last night by telephone and they're all okay and in good health and they're getting good cooperation with the Iranians on board," Stena Bulk spokesman Pat Adamson said.

The company said it had no evidence that the ship had been involved in a collision, one of the reasons Iran has cited for sending commandos to capture it last Friday.

Video: Reuters

The tough remarks by Khamenei's aide, Hossein Dehghan, a senior commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards whose views are seen as reflecting those of Khamenei, appeared to take a firm line in response to Western proposals to beef up security in the Strait of Hormuz in the wake of the seizure of the ship.

Dehghan said Iran would take action if the status of the strait were altered, and that no country would be allowed to ship oil through it unless all countries can.

His remarks were reported by Al Jazeera television which did not supply direct quotes of an interview with him. He singled out the United Arab Emirates for criticism, saying it had become a base for attacks on Iran, and repeated earlier Iranian threats to attack all US targets in the region in the event of war.

Dehghan's remarks appear to shift the Iranian position on talks with the United States. In the past Tehran has said talks are possible although Washington must lift all sanctions first and return to the nuclear deal it abandoned last year.

The Trump administration says the purpose of its sanctions is to force Iran to the negotiating table, and it is open to talks, but Iran must make the first move.

Earlier on Wednesday, Iran's pragmatist president, Hassan Rouhani, who has drawn fire from hardline clerical leaders for reaching the nuclear pact with world powers in 2015, said Iran was ready for "just negotiations" but not if they mean surrender.

Britain has called for a European-led naval mission to ensure safe shipping through the world's most important oil artery after Iran seized the Stena Impero last week. The United States is trying to rally support for a global coalition to secure Gulf waters, although allies have been reluctant to join a US-led mission for fear of escalating confrontation.

France, Italy and Denmark gave initial support to the British plan. A German Foreign Ministry spokesman said Berlin was talking to Britain and France about the idea.

The Trump administration abandoned the nuclear deal last year arguing that it was too weak because it did not cover non-nuclear issues such as Iran's missile program and its regional behavior. Dehghan repeated Iranian assertions that its missile program is non-negotiable.

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