DUBAI: A moderate lawmaker will face Iran supreme leader’s protege in a run-off presidential election on July 5 after the country’s interior ministry said on Saturday that no candidate secured enough votes in the first round of voting.
Friday’s vote to replace Ebrahim Raisi after his death in a helicopter crash came down to a tight race between a low-profile lawmaker Massoud Pezeshkian, the sole moderate in a field of four candidates, and former Revolutionary Guards member Saeed Jalili.
The interior ministry said neither secured the 50 percent plus one vote of over 25 million ballots cast required to win outright, with Pezeshkian leading with over 10 million votes ahead of Jalili with over 9.4 million votes.
Power in Iran ultimately lies with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, so the result will not herald any major policy shift on Iran’s nuclear program or its support for militia groups across the Middle East.
But the president runs the government day-to-day and can influence the tone of Iran’s policy.
The clerical establishment hoped for a high turnout as it faces a legitimacy crisis fueled by public discontent over economic hardship and curbs on political and social freedom. However, turnout in Friday’s vote hit a historic low of about 40 percent, based on interior ministry count released on Saturday.
The election comes at a time of escalating regional tension due to the war between Israel and Iranian allies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as increased Western pressure on Iran over its fast-advancing nuclear program.
With Iran’s supreme leader now 85, it is likely that the next president will be closely involved in the process of choosing a successor to Khamenei, who seeks a fiercely loyal president who can ensure a smooth eventual succession to his own position, insiders and analysts say.
Anti-Western views of Jalili, Iran’s former uncompromising nuclear negotiator, offer a contrast to those of Pezeshkian. Analysts said Jalili’s win would signal the possibility of an even more antagonistic turn in the Islamic Republic’s foreign and domestic policy.
But a victory for mild-mannered lawmaker Pezeshkian might help ease tensions with the West, improve chances of economic reform, social liberalization and political pluralism.
Pezeshkian, faithful to Iran’s theocratic rule, is backed by the reformist faction that has largely been sidelined in Iran in recent years.
“We will respect the hijab law, but there should never be any intrusive or inhumane behavior toward women,” Pezeshkian said after casting his vote.
He was referring to the death of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman, in 2022 while in morality police custody for allegedly violating the mandatory Islamic dress code.
The unrest sparked by Amini’s death spiralled into the biggest show of opposition to Iran’s clerical rulers in years.
Khamenei protege, sole moderate to battle in Iran’s presidential run-off
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Khamenei protege, sole moderate to battle in Iran’s presidential run-off

- Iran to hold presidential run-off on July 5
- Moderate Pezeshkian leads Khamenei protege
- Turnout of around 40 percent at historic lows-ministry figures
Gaza civil defense says 20 killed in Israeli air strikes

- Gaza’s civil defense said the first strike hit a tent housing displaced people in Khan Yunis in the south, and the second struck a camp in the north
- The bombings came as Netanyahu met Trump in Washington and discussed the ongoing campaign to defeat Hamas i
GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defense agency on Wednesday said that 20 people, including at least six children, were killed in two Israeli air strikes overnight in the Palestinian territory.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP the first hit a tent housing displaced people in Khan Yunis in the south shortly after midnight local time (2100 GMT Tuesday) and the second struck a camp in the north soon afterwards.
The Israeli military said it was looking into the report when contacted by AFP.
The bombings came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met US President Donald Trump in Washington and discussed the ongoing campaign to defeat Hamas in Gaza.
Afterwards, he restated Israel’s aims to secure the release of all hostages taken during the Palestinian militants’ October 7, 2023 attack, and “the elimination” of its “military and governing capabilities.”
Gaza’s civil defense agency said 29 people were killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza on Tuesday, with victims also including people displaced by 21 months of conflict.
Bassal said the first strike on Wednesday killed 10 members of the same family sheltering in the Al-Mawasi area of Khan Yunis while the second, on the Al-Shati camp near Gaza City, also left more than 30 wounded.
The victims were from two families, he added.
“The explosion was massive, like an earthquake,” said Zuhair Judeh, 40, who saw the Al-Shati air strike.
“It destroyed the house and several nearby homes. The bodies and remains of the martyrs were scattered,” he added, calling it “a horrific massacre.”
Several people remained missing, presumed trapped under the rubble, he said.
Abeer Al-Sharbasi, 36, described the air strike as “terrifying” and said it happened as she and her family were asleep in a nearby tent.
“You can’t predict when or why they’ll bomb you. We have nothing left but to surrender ourselves to God.”
Due to restrictions imposed on media in the Gaza Strip and difficulties accessing the area, AFP is unable to independently verify the death tolls and details shared by the parties involved.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Of 251 hostages seized during attack, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 57,575 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN considers the figures reliable.
Greek ship sinks off Yemen after Houthi attack, crew being rescued, sources say

- Some of the crew were in lifejackets in the water and at least five people have been rescued so far
ATHENS: The Liberia-flagged, Greek-operated bulk carrier Eternity C has sunk after a Houthi attack off Yemen, four maritime security sources told Reuters on Wednesday, and efforts to rescue the crew were under way.
Some of the crew were in lifejackets in the water and at least five people have been rescued so far, two of the sources said.
Jailed PKK leader Ocalan says armed struggle with Turkiye over

- Ocalan urged Turkiye’s parliament to set up a commission to oversee disarmament and manage a broader peace process
Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), appeared in a rare online video on Wednesday to say the group’s armed struggle against Turkiye has ended, and he called for a full shift to democratic politics.
In the recording, dated June and released by Firat News Agency, which is close to the PKK, Ocalan urged Turkiye’s parliament to set up a commission to oversee disarmament and manage a broader peace process.
The PKK, which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state for 40 years and is labelled a terrorist organization by Turkiye, the United States and the EU, decided in May to disband after an initial written appeal from Ocalan in February.
“The phase of armed struggle has ended. This is not a loss, but a historic gain,” he said in the video, the first time since he was jailed in 1999 that either footage of him or a recording of his voice has been released.
“The armed struggle stage must now be voluntarily replaced by a phase of democratic politics and law.”
Ocalan, seated in a beige polo shirt with a glass of water on the table in front of him, appeared to read from a transcript in the seven-minute video. He was surrounded by six other jailed PKK members all looking straight at the camera.
He said the PKK had ended its separatist agenda.
“The main objective has been achieved – existence has been acknowledged,” he said. “What remains would be excessive repetition and a dead end.”
Ocalan added that Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish DEM Party, the third largest in parliament in Ankara, should work alongside other political parties.
South Sudan says US deportees under government care

- The South Sudanese foreign ministry released a statement on the migrants saying: “They are currently in Juba under the care of the relevant authorities, who are screening them and ensuring their safety and well-being”
JUBA: War-torn South Sudan has said it is looking after a group of eight criminal migrants controversially deported from the United States.
Only one of them is from South Sudan. The administration of US President Donald Trump is trying to move unwanted migrants to third countries as some nations refuse to accept returnees.
The rest comprise two people from Myanmar, two from Cuba, and one each from Vietnam, Laos and Mexico.
The decision has been fought in American courts.
“They are currently in Juba under the care of the relevant authorities, who are screening them and ensuring their safety and well-being,” the South Sudanese foreign ministry statement said late Tuesday.
It did not give details, but said the “careful and well-studied decision” was part of “ongoing bilateral engagement.”
“South Sudan responded positively to a request from the US authorities as a gesture of goodwill, humanitarian cooperation, and commitment to mutual interests,” it added.
United Nations experts, appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but who do not speak on behalf of the UN, have criticized the move.
“International law is clear that no one shall be sent anywhere where there are substantial grounds for believing that the person would be in danger of being subjected to ... torture, enforced disappearance or arbitrary deprivation of life,” 11 independent UN rights experts said in a statement.
The deportees left the United States for South Sudan in May but their flight ended up in Djibouti when a US district court imposed a stay on third-country deportations. That ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court earlier this month.
The group arrived in South Sudan on June 5 with an official, speaking on condition of anonymity, saying they had been returned by US Marines.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Apuk Ayuel Mayen said Juba maintains a strong commitment to its people, including “its nationals returning under any circumstances” and “persons with recognized links to South Sudan.”
Simmering rivalry between South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and his vice president Riek Machar boiled over into open hostilities in March.
The tensions have raised fears of a return to full-scale war in the world’s youngest country, where a civil war killed some 400,000 people in 2013-2018.
Ghost camp: Israeli operations in West Bank push wave of Palestinians from their homes

- Israeli operations are pushing tens of thousands of West Bank Palestinians out of their homes
- Around 40,000 residents from the Tulkarm, Nur Shams and Jenin refugee camps have been displaced by the military operation this year
TULKARM: Malik Lutfi contemplated which of his family’s belongings to salvage in the few moments he was given while Israeli troops carried out home demolitions in the Tulkarm refugee camp where he grew up in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Now 51, the father of six has rented a small room in the nearby city of Tulkarm, but without access to his electronic repair shop in the cordoned-off camp, he has no income to meet the rent, sparking anxiety about his family’s future.
With bulldozers roaring outside, he said: “They kicked us out six months ago and we are still out. When you go back you try to bring anything you can, but in two hours with only our hands, you cannot bring many things.”
He said he knew many families in a worse situation even than his, pushed to living in crowded schools or on patches of farmland.
“We are waiting for help,” he said.
Israeli operations are pushing tens of thousands of West Bank Palestinians like Lutfi out of their homes, says B’Tselem, the independent Israeli human rights information center for the occupied territories.
Around 40,000 residents from the Tulkarm, Nur Shams and Jenin refugee camps have been displaced by the military operation this year, B’Tselem said.
Israel says it is acting against flashpoints of militancy, including the northern cities of Tulkarm and Jenin.
“This requires the demolition of buildings, allowing the forces to operate freely and move unhindered within the area,” an Israeli military spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The decision to demolish these structures is based on operational necessity and was made only after considering alternative options,” the statement said.
Israeli demolitions have drawn widespread international criticism and coincide with heightened fears among Palestinians of an organized effort by Israel to formally annex the West Bank, the area seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
Reuters witnesses this week saw bulldozers plowing through buildings and wide, new roads lined by rubble that bulldozers had carved out by demolishing concrete homes. Residents piled chairs, blankets and cooking equipment onto trucks.
Tulkarm’s governor Abdullah Kamil said in recent weeks the destruction had intensified, with 106 homes and 104 other buildings in the nearby Tulkarm and Nur Shams camps destroyed.
“What is happening in Tulkarm is an Israeli political decision, the issue has nothing to do with security,” Kamil, the Palestinian governor, said. “There is nothing left in the camp, it has become a ghost camp.”
Israel’s northern West Bank operation which began in January has been one of the biggest since the Second Intifada uprising by Palestinians more than 20 years ago, involving several brigades of troops earlier this year backed by drones, helicopters and, for the first time in decades, heavy battle tanks.
SIMMERING SITUATION
As efforts ramp up in Washington and Qatar to secure a Gaza ceasefire deal, some international officials and rights groups say they are also worried about the simmering situation for Palestinians in the West Bank.
“In the northern West Bank, Israel has begun replicating tactics and combat doctrines honed in its current offensive on Gaza,” said Shai Parnes, public outreach director at B’Tselem.
“This includes increased ... widespread and deliberate destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure, and forced displacement of civilians from areas designated by the military as combat zones.”
Israeli hard-liners inside and outside the government have called repeatedly for Israel to annex the West Bank, a kidney-shaped area around 100 kilometers (62 miles) long that Palestinians see as the core of a future independent state, along with Gaza and with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Israeli government ministers deny that the West Bank operation has any wider purpose than battling militant groups. The Israeli military in its statement said it was following international law and targeting militancy.
Kamil, the Palestinian governor, said displacement was putting pressure on a community already reeling economically, with thousands sheltering in mosques, schools and overcrowded homes with relatives.
Returning for the first time in six months, Lutfi said he was shocked at the scale of damage.
“Most people when they come back to look at their homes, they find them destroyed, the destruction that meets them is enormous: wide streets, destroyed infrastructure and electricity,” he said. “If we want to rebuild, it will take a long time.”