Bagheri is scheduled to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Foreign Minister Faisal al-Mekdad during his stay in Syria.
The Iranian foreign minister embarked on his regional tour on Monday with Lebanon as his first destination.
He held talks with high-ranking Lebanese officials, including the country’s prime minister, foreign minister, speaker of the parliament and officials with the axis of resistance.
Iran’s Interior Minister announced the end of the registration period for the candidates, adding 80 hopefuls have registered.
Ahamd Vahidi told reporters on Monday evening that during the five-day registration period, individuals who met the initial four criteria regarding age, educational qualifications, executive experience, and a certificate of no criminal record, registered to run for the election.
The Interior Minister said the finally approved candidates, to be qualified by the Guardian Council, will campaign for 15 days before the election on June 28.
According to the head of the Election Headquarters, the names of the approved candidates will be announced on June 11.
The election has been scheduled for June 28 through which voters will choose the next president of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Many former and current officials have registered to run for the vote including former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and former parliament speaker Ali Larijani.
On the last day of candidate registration, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the current Parliament Speaker, and Es’haq Jahangiri, the former First Vice President, were among those who registered.
The analysis showed more than 137,000 buildings affected, UNOSAT, the United Nations satellite analysis agency, said on X, formerly Twitter.
The estimate is based on a satellite image taken on May 3, and compared with images taken in May a year earlier, last September, and on October 15 — just over a week after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that sparked the war in the besieged enclave.
The fresh satellite image was also compared to images taken during several dates in November, then again during the first months of this year, UNOSAT added.
“According to satellite imagery analysis, UNOSAT identified 36,591 destroyed structures,” the agency announced in a statement.
In addition, it said it had seen “16,513 severely damaged structures, 47,368 moderately damaged structures, and 36,825 possibly damaged structures for a total of 137,297 structures”.
“These correspond to around 55 percent of the total structures in the Gaza Strip and a total of 135,142 estimated damaged housing units,” it added.
UNOSAT noted the image comparisons showed the governorates of Deir Al-Balah, in the centre, and Gaza, in the north, had suffered the worst damage between April 1 and May 3.
Comparing satellite images on those dates indicated that an additional 2,613 structures had been damaged in Deir Al-Balah, while another 2,368 had been damaged in Gaza governorate in just over a month.
Within Deir Al-Balah, the Nuseirat municipality suffered the greatest number of newly damaged structures during that period, at 1,216, UNOSAT said.
The agency stressed that the findings were still part of a preliminary analysis, which had yet to be validated in the field.
Israel’s bombardments and ground offensive in the blockaded territory have killed at least 36,400 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.
The survey, conducted by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a private right-wing Israeli think tank, was carried out between May 9 and 11 and included 511 American Jews, according to a statement by the center.
“Approximately one-third of respondents agreed with the accusation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, while about half disagreed,” it said.
The poll found that 17.4% of respondents strongly agreed and 12.5% agreed with the accusations, whereas 24.8% disagreed and 26.6% strongly disagreed. Additionally, 18.5% neither agreed nor disagreed.
Israel has launched a brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip since last Oct. 7 following a Hamas attack, killing more than 36,400 Palestinians, the vast majority being women and children, and injuring over 82,600 others.
Nearly eight months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which in its latest ruling has ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.
The results showed that over 51% of American Jews support President Joe Biden’s decision to withhold arms shipments to Israel amid its ground offensive in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
According to the poll, 22.5% of respondents strongly supported Biden’s decision, while 29.9% backed it, 11.7% opposed and 10.5% strongly opposed it. Another 25.2% neither supported nor opposed the decision.
Since Israel started its war on the Gaza Strip, the US has provided strong military, intelligence, and diplomatic support to Tel Aviv.
The survey found that 34.4% of American Jews viewed protests in universities as anti-war and pro-peace, while 28.3% saw them as “purely” anti-Israel. Additionally, 25.3% considered the protests both anti-war and anti-Israel and 11.9% said they were neither.
Since April, universities in several countries, including the US, the UK, France, and Spain, have seen protests against the Israeli war on Gaza amid calls for university administrations to end their cooperation with Israeli institutions.
When asked about their support for Israel after the protests, 33% said their support increased, 43% said it remained the same, and 23.4% said it decreased.
As for a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, 60% of respondents considered a two-state solution as “the best way to peace, with varying conditions related to demilitarization and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state”.
Negotiations for peace have been stalled since 2014, largely due to Israel’s ongoing settlement activities in the occupied West Bank and its refusal to establish a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
The poll found that 11.5% supported an unconditional independent Palestinian state, while 24% backed it with the condition that it recognizes Israel as a “Jewish state”.
Additionally, 16.8% supported a confederation between Israel and a Palestinian state with security arrangements, 4.8% supported the idea of Palestinian “tribal” emirates, and 3.1% supported integrating Palestinians as citizens of Israel.
Only 5.8% opposed the establishment of a Palestinian state altogether, and 8.8% had no opinion.
Jahangiri spoke to journalists at the Interior Ministry after showing up to register om Monday.
He said Iran is not feeling well and no change is possible unless this bitter reality is acknowledged.
The former vice-president said, “I believe that I can work with all those who care about Iran, even if they think differently”.
Jahangiri also said he wants to garner the votes of citizens who seek a better life.
He added that he is running for president to prevent an escalation or crisis.
The election has been slated for June 28. Many former and current officials have registered to run for the vote including former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and former parliament speaker Ali Larijani. All hopefuls ultimately must be approved by Iran’s 12-member Guardian Council to contest the election.
Khan, 71, was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a lower court on charges of making public a classified cable sent to Islamabad by Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington in 2022.
Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who was Khan’s foreign minister during his tenure from 2018-2022, was also acquitted of the charges.
“Thank God, the sentence is overturned,” a spokesman for legal affairs from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, Naeem Panjutha, said in a post on the X social media platform.
Despite the acquittal, Khan will remain in prison, having also been convicted in another case relating to his marriage to his third wife, Bushra Khan, contravening Islamic traditions.
“This recognition is an important acknowledgment of the rights of the Palestinian people and their struggles and suffering towards freedom and independence,” the experts said in a statement on Monday.
They stressed that Palestine must be able to enjoy full self-determination, including the “ability to exist, determine its destiny, and develop freely as a people with safety and security”.
“This is a pre-condition for lasting peace in Palestine and the entire Middle East,” they stressed, adding that it begins with an immediate declaration of a cease-fire in Gaza and no further military incursions into Rafah.
The experts welcomed recent recognitions of Palestinian statehood by Norway, Ireland, and Spain.
“Even though the prospect of lasting peace and an end to occupation has remained elusive since the Oslo Accords more than 30 years ago, a political solution should not be considered foregone,” they said.
“A two-state solution remains the only internationally agreed path to peace and security for both Palestine and Israel and a way out of generational cycles of violence and resentment,” the experts added.
They also urged states to “refrain from threats and attacks against the ICC (International Criminal Court) and the ICJ (International Court of Justice)”, emphasizing that these courts must operate without foreign interference to uphold global justice and accountability for all victims of the conflict.
The children, who are under five years of age, suffer from acute malnutrition and are exposed to infectious diseases, the office said in a statement on Monday.
It added that the Israeli blockade on aid has led to a shortages of food, milk, nutritional supplements and vaccinations.
Meanwhile, Save the Children’s Alexandra Saieh stated aid organisations fear the situation in Gaza may worsen.
“Gaza is witnessing the worst of the worst levels of malnutrition, especially child malnutrition, and it’s entirely man-made,” Saieh told Al Jazeera.
“Children in Gaza are being starved, they are being deprived of clean water and they are being deprived of adequate medical assistance. And this is all being fuelled by the systematic obstruction of humanitarian aid and the ongoing hostility. A medical point in Tal as-Sultan [Rafah], which was addressing malnutrition, had to close this past week due to [Israeli] attacks in the area.”
Of the 36,000 Palestinians killed by Israel since October 7, 15,000 are children.
Saieh added there might be “an acceleration of deaths due to malnutrition, starvation, disease and dehydration, possibly even higher than what we are already seeing, which is just the tip of the iceberg”.
“We actually fear that the situation is much worse. Back in March, the UN warned of a famine, and we have not as humanitarian organisations been given the access to stave off that famine.”
Meantime, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has warned that far too little aid is reaching Palestinians in Gaza to the extent that children are now starving, urging Israel to respect international law regarding the safe passage of lifesaving relief in the war-battered territory.
“I would say they are certainly not getting the amount that they desperately need to prevent a famine, to prevent all kinds of horrors that we see. It’s very, very little that is going around at the moment,” OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke stated.
He reiterated that the Israeli authorities are obligated under international humanitarian law to facilitate the delivery of aid to the besieged Gaza Strip.
Such a duty “does not stop at the border. It does not stop when you drop off just a few meters across the border and then drive away and then leave it to humanitarians to drive through active combat zones – which they cannot do – to pick it up. So, to answer your question, no, the aid that is getting in, is not getting to the people”, the OCHA spokesperson said when responding to questions about aid access obstacles.
Laerke also noted that land crossings for aid convoys into Gaza remain “the only way to get (aid) in at scale and at speed…We need more of these land crossings and we need them open and we need them safe for use to pick up the aid when it’s dropped off.”
The remarks come as a 13-year-old Palestinian has lost his life due to starvation in the central Gaza Strip following the Israeli closure of the Rafah border crossing to humanitarian aid.
Israel waged the atrocious onslaught against the Gaza Strip, targeting hospitals, residences, and houses of worship after Palestinian resistance movements launched a surprise attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, against the usurping regime on October 7.
Nearly 36,500 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children, and another 82,600 individuals have sustained injuries.
John Kirby was speaking days after the White House confirmed that Biden had granted Kiev permission to use US-supplied weapons for strikes deep inside Russia.
Ukraine had requested an easing of restrictions on the use of foreign arms after Russian troops launched a new offensive in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkov Region last month, capturing several border villages.
“We’ve been concerned about escalation since the very beginning of this war. And those concerns remain valid,” Kirby told ABC News on Sunday.
“The president has said he does not want to be responsible for starting World War III. We’re not looking for a conflict with Russia, another nuclear power.”
Kirby added Biden “had understood all of the ramifications” of allowing Kiev to use American weapons “for counter-fire purposes”. He reiterated that Ukrainians were only permitted to target bases, artillery positions and other military sites “that Russians were using to create some sort of buffer zones.”
The White House previously clarified that the ban on the use of the “ATACMS [missiles] or long-range strikes inside of Russia has not changed”. Russia, however, announced that Kiev had already been using ATACMS and other long-range weapons to hit targets in Crimea, the Donbass, as well as the regions of Zaporozhye and Kherson. Kiev and its Western backers continue to view these recently incorporated Russian territories as Ukrainian land.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the operation in Kharkov Region is aimed at stopping frequent Ukrainian cross-border mortar and missile attacks on Belgorod and other Russian cities. Moscow has no plans to seize the city of Kharkov itself, he told reporters during his trip to China last month.
Moscow has repeatedly warned that deliveries of heavy weapons to Ukraine from the West will not deter the Russian forces, while stressing that such aid risks a dangerous escalation.
In an interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson in February, Putin stated it is unthinkable for anyone to drag the world into a new “global war”, which would “put the whole of humanity on the brink of survival”.
The UN humanitarian mission in the Gaza Strip announced the Israeli assault on Rafah has forced nearly 2 million refugees to flee once again.
“Thousands of families have been forced to flee due to Israeli military operations,” the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said in a statement.
“An estimated 1.7 million people have been displaced to Khan Younis and central areas of the Gaza Strip.”
UNRWA added that all 36 shelters in Rafah where people sought refuge are now empty.
The Israeli military has forcibly displaced over one million Palestinians from Rafah after expanding its aerial and ground attacks there last month, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
In a post on social media platform X, UNRWA said thousands of families are now taking shelter in damaged and destroyed facilities in Khan Younis, a city north of Rafah that was heavily bombed between January and April.
“Conditions are unspeakable,” UNRWA added.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini also stressed that the agency has had to suspend medical and other essential services in Rafah due to the ongoing hostilities.
The agency noted that the humanitarian space “continues to shrink”.
Earlier, Lazzarini stated Israel was delegitimizing the UN agency and threatening the work of its staff.
Eight months into the war, women and girls continue to struggle to meet their basic health needs, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
Pushed into overcrowded shelters, some 690,000 of them lack menstrual hygiene kits, clean water, and privacy, the agency said, adding without access to sanitary pads, women and girls are forced to use makeshift arrangements that put them at risk of infections.
More than 36,400 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel began its onslaught nearly eight months ago. The majority of those killed have been women and children, with over 82,600 others injured, according to local health authorities.
Vast tracts of Gaza lay in ruins amid Israel’s crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine.
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